'You're in the R.A.F.' I say. Right two three, left two three.

  'For my sins,' he says. 'I should have been demobbed months ago but they're dragging their feet.'

  'Why?' Set and turn single.

  'I'm in the met office,' he explains. 'They've got to get civilians to replace us when they let us go and there aren't enough of them.'

  That sounds very unfair.

  'It is,' he says. 'I've been writing letters about it.'

  'Who to?'

  'Air Ministry. My M.P.'

  He's a fighter. I might have known it from the strength of that face. And a talker. I do like a man who can talk. And, as it's suddenly occurred to me, he's also Norma Kingston’s brother. Must be. The one she's been telling me about as we've walked home from school. I ask him and he is. Maybe he saw St Joan. So I ask him that. 'Did you see our school play?'

  'Afraid not,' he laughs. 'The R.A.F. had other plans for me. What was it?'

  I tell him and he's impressed, saying, 'That was ambitious.'

  'It was very good,' I say. 'I was Dunois.' And I tell him all about it.

  He's a good listener and follows what I tell him by talking about Shaw. 'Have you read 'The Doctor's Dilemma?' he says. 'I saw it in the West End just before I was called up. It's very good.' But before I can answer him there's a rush and a squeal and Pat's friends run out into the hall and start putting on their coats and hats and scarves. The evening's session has come to an end.

  'Well come on then,' Olive says, standing swathed and bulky in front of us.

  'In a minute,' he says. 'We haven't finished what we were saying.'

  'If you're going to talk,' she says. 'I'm going home.' And she leaves with all the others, giggling and chatting down the path.

  'Where were we?' he says.

  There's no music now but I dance on, needing the movement to keep me warm as we talk. And how we talk. About plays and politics, books and films, and what's going on in the world. I say I think the new Labour government's being very slow and he defends them, saying they've got a huge job on their hands, and telling me that the B.M.A. are opposing the health service every inch of the way which is why it's taking such a long time. I didn't know that and I'm impressed to think he's so well informed.

  I watch him as we talk, taking him in feature by feature. He’s got two quite different profiles, tough on one side where his nose is broken and handsome on the other where his nose is straight, And such eyes, Air Force blue, exactly the same colour as his jersey. I‘ll bet he looks really handsome when he’s in full uniform.

  Eventually he says he really ought to be going or they'll be sending out a search party. So we say goodnight and I go back into our chilly drawing room to put away the records. There's still dust in the air and a strong smell of happy sweat. I wonder whether he'll come and collect her again next Thursday.

  Better than that. He turns up on Saturday morning with a book in his hand. It's Shaw's 'Plays Unpleasant'. He thought I'd like to borrow it because 'The Doctor's Dilemma' is one of the plays in it.

  I take it and thank him. 'I'll send it back to you via Norma,' I say.

  ‘Keep it as long as you like,’ he says. ‘There’s no rush.’

  Then, as a bitter north-easter is blowing, I ask him in.

  'This is where we were dancing the other evening,' I say, leading him into the drawing room.

  He's intrigued by all the musical instruments. 'Who plays all these?' he asks.

  'I play the piano and the fiddle,' I say, happily showing off, 'and the organ's just another piano really - with stops. I'll show you if you like.' It wheezes horribly but I manage to squeeze a tune out of it.

  'It doesn't like the cold,' he says, smiling at me.

  'Nor do I,' I say, shivering.

  'I can't really complain about it this time,' he says. 'I wouldn't have had this leave if it hadn't been for the snow.'

  'How's that?'

  'They had to close the station down because the supply lorries couldn't get up the hill. It's a cold weather bonus.'

  Dad comes drifting in on his way upstairs with Grandma Edwards' coal scuttle. I introduce them. 'My father - Roy Kingston, Pat's friend Olive's brother. He's brought me a book.'

  'Ah yes,' Dad says. 'What weather!'

  They make small talk for a little while and Dad asks Roy if he ever goes to the cycling. Roy says he used to before the war. He went to Herne Hill with his father. Dad is delighted to hear it because he used to go to Herne Hill too. He says it's a small world and returns to his scuttle duty smiling broadly.

  Roy and I go back to our conversation when he's gone, and he tells me about the three plays in the book. But we don't talk quite so long this time because there's a meal looming and I can hear Mum complaining in the kitchen. As he leaves he says I must keep the book as long as I like and he hopes I enjoy it. Then he walks down the garden path between the piles of dirty slush for the second time. When he reaches the gate he turns and waves. I feel suddenly and unreasonably sorry to see him go.

  There's an inordinate fuss going on in our house - squeals of pleasure, rapturous hugs and kisses, fulsome congratulations, bragging phone calls. Not because the thaw has started, which it has, nor because the coal stocks have been replenished or the rations are back to normal. No. It's because dear little Pat has passed the 11+. They purr and preen about it all day long and they've promised her a watch as a reward for being so clever.

  It's no good me saying anything about it, good or bad. They'll only tell me I’m showing my jealous nature, which I am. But Mum's determined to rub my nose in it however much I try to keep out of the way. She catches me as I'm coming downstairs. 'Isn't she clever?' she says to me.

  The expression on her face puts my hackles up. She looks sly and smug as though she knows she's annoying me and she's ready to enjoy it. I say, 'She got a state scholarship then did she?'

  That puzzles her. 'What are you talking about?'

  'She got a state scholarship to Christ's Hospital. Like I did.'

  She denies it instantly. 'You didn't get a scholarship to Christ's Hospital.'

  We're toe to toe in a sudden outburst of anger. She's calling me a liar. How dare she call me a liar! 'Yes,' I say angrily. 'I did. And you know I did. You wouldn't let me take it.'

  'Don't start making things up,' she says. 'Just because you're jealous of your sister. If you'd won it we'd have let you take it.'

  'I did win it and you didn't let me.'

  'That's right! Show your nasty jealous nature,' she shouts at me. 'Oh I know what this is about and don't think I don't. You just can't bear your sister to be as clever as you, can you. No. We've all got to pretend she hasn't passed is that it? Would that satisfy you?'

  'No,' I yell. 'No. I don't care if she's clever or not.' I'm being outmanoeuvred and I can't bear it. She twists everything I say. I feel as if she's tying my legs together.

  'No, you don't care,' she says sounding satisfied as if she's proved a point. 'You're just a nasty jealous little thing. Riddled with it.'

  'That's not fair!' I yell at her. 'You're putting words in my mouth. I never said I didn't want her to pass. I'm glad she's passed. I just want you to tell the truth for once.'

  'That's right,' she yells back.' Shout at me. I should. Show how spiteful you are. You're exactly like your father.'

  It's always the same when we have a slanging match. She wins by twisting. She could argue black was white. I'm suddenly and miserably weary. It's pointless to go on. She can beat me every time. 'Have it your own way,' I say. 'I'm off to school.'

  'Best place for you,' she says, 'if you're going to be so nasty jealous.'

  It is the best place for me. At school, in the safe world of books, where misery happens to other people and is over and done with by the time you read it, where problems are solved and don't go on and on picking holes in your guts. I've finished reading 'Plays Unpleasant'. I've actually read 'The Doctor's Dilemma' three times because it gives you a lot to think about. Now I'm taking the book to school to give it back to Norma. I spend most of my studies in the hall these days, working on my own, and she's bound to pass through sooner or later.

  Which she does. I beckon her over. 'Can you give this to your brother?' I whisper. 'He lent it to me.'

  'I'll put it back with the others,' she whispers back.

  'He's not been demobbed then.'

  She makes a grimace. 'Any day now. He hopes.'

  Now that she's standing beside me, I can see how alike they are - same dark wavy hair, same blue eyes, same straight white teeth, even the grimace is similar, only she's got a very feminine face and his is decidedly masculine.

  Heads are being raised. We're being warned for whispering. So she walks on and I return to my Geography.

  There's a lot of work to do as the exams get closer. I've brought it on myself by taking nine subjects instead of the usual six or seven, so I can't complain. At least the weather’s improving. It's hot enough to study out in the garden now and at school they open the windows to give us more air and leave the door of the vestibule open to allow a cooling draught into the hall.

  I'm sitting here enjoying it as the hall fills with juniors en route from one study to the next, when Norma Kingston comes up to my table. She's got a little folded letter in her hand. 'From Roy,' she says.

  'He's demobbed then.'

  'Yes,' she says. 'He's waiting to go to college to train as a teacher.'

  It's quite a long letter, thanking me for the return of the book and asking if I would like to go to an exhibition in Wandsworth Town Hall. 'It's to show what they've achieved since the local elections and to outline their future plans. I thought you might be interested.'

  It sounds pretty boring to me but I'd like to see him again, and it would make a break from all this studying, so I write back to say yes.

  It is pretty boring. Lots of statistics and solemn information about local worthies, pictured looking pompous, and news of events I've already heard about. But it is nice to see him again and he's warm with enthusiasm for it all. The only problem is that it isn't a date, as I'd rather hoped it would be. We're part of a group from the local Young Socialists, which he seems to be organising, and for a lot of the time he's escorting other people and talking to them, so I feel a bit out of it. The one he talks to most is a girl from school called Hazel Hanson. They're deep in conversation now. I should think he's her boyfriend. It would make sense because she's very left wing. I remember her from the school election. I wonder how long we're supposed to stay here. Maybe I'll cut off and catch the trolley bus home.

  But no. Apparently he's going to escort me back. He's just come up to ask me when I want to leave. A gentleman, obviously.

  So we go home together and on the way I tell him how hard I'm working and what exams I'm taking and he tells me he's teaching at a primary school in Wandsworth, called All Saints. 'Uncertificated because I'm still waiting to go to college.'

  'I know,' I say. 'Norma told me.'

  'Shouldn't be too long now. I've had the medical and the interviews. It's just a matter of waiting to be informed.'

  I tell him he's always waiting for something and he gives that wry grimace of his and then smiles. He's got such a nice smile. I wish he wasn't attached to Hazel Hanson. I wonder why he didn't take her home. He should have done really.

  No time to think it out. The exams are rushing down on me pushing everything else out of the way, except the heat. It's a very hot summer, the hottest since records began. But the fates are being kind to me. The first exam, which was English Language, was a peach. Really easy. And the gym was cooler than I expected it to be. Now it's simply a matter of pressing on and doing the best I can, as the days and the papers arrive - R.E. Maths, Geography, General Science, English Literature, French, Latin, Art, none of them too difficult. Roll on the summer holiday. Just a few more papers and a few more weeks and I can be swimming in the sea.

  Miss Davies has put up a special notice. Now that the School Certificate is over, she says she proposes to take a group of fifth formers to a progressive health centre in Peckham. She says it would be of particular interest to girls intending to teach or join the medical profession. So as that fits me on both counts, I've put my name down. I've nothing much else to do and, besides, this is Miss Davies' last term at school because she's retiring in July, so it'll be good to spend some time with her.

  Peckham is even shabbier and more run-down than Tooting and that's saying something. The shop fronts look as if they haven't been painted since they were built and some of the houses are decidedly slummy with rubbish in the front gardens, rotting window frames, chipped window sills, filthy steps and great sections of tiling missing from the roofs.

  But the health centre is a palace. The front is built in a series of curved bays, all of them full of long windows that gleam in the sunlight as if they've just been cleaned, and inside, right in the middle of the place, there's a swimming pool that catches the sunlight too and casts wonderful rippling patterns across the surrounding walls. Fancy having a swimming pool in a health centre. I wonder what they use it for. At the moment it's full of ordinary swimmers but I expect they do exercises in it. One of the centre staff is waiting to greet us and show us round so, when I get a chance, I'll ask her.

  She shows us the cafeteria, and the kitchens, and a room full of sewing machines where the mums can sew clothes, and a long corridor where people are sitting talking. 'This is a very useful space,' she says. 'We can use it for dancing or roller-skating and it's excellent for conversation, as you see. The walls are built in curves so that the natural way to sit here is in a half circle, which gives everyone a chance to join in.'

  It sounds more like a club than a health centre and somebody says so.

  'That's right,' she says. 'It is. That's what it was designed to be. A club for families. We don't treat individual patients here, we treat families. And we try to give them some of the things they need for healthy living.'

  The questions are coming fast now. 'Like what?'

  'Like good food, hence the kitchens and the cafeteria, and pretty clothes, hence the sewing room, and some fun in their lives and a sense of belonging and being valued.'

  'But don't you just catch diseases?'

  'Yes,' she says, 'you do. But you catch them when your body's at a low ebb, when it's out of balance. We try to restore the equilibrium.'

  It's an extraordinary idea. Do we really make our own health by the way we live?

  'Come and see our nursery,' she says, 'and I'll explain things to you as we go along.'

  There are lots of infants in the nursery and they all seem to be busy, pushing little wooden carts about - and occasionally pushing one another although nobody seems to mind - playing with bricks, climbing on an odd set of steps. I watch the steps with interest because they're obviously a great attraction. There's a small flight up to a small platform and, alongside the steps, a small slide down. They climb the steps with great concentration, because they're only toddlers and it can't be easy, then crawl or stagger along the platform and tumble down the slide, squealing happily.

  As I watch, one of the smaller boys falls off the steps. I jump forward at once to pick him up, poor little thing. But the nurse is beside me in an instant with a hand on my arm holding me back.

  'No, no,' she says. 'Leave him be. He'll manage.'

  'But he's crying.'

  'He won't cry long. He's learning. You watch.'

  So I watch and sure enough he stops crying, pulls himself to his feet and toddles back to the steps. This time he struggles to the top and bounces along on his bottom towards the slide. The expression on his face as he comes squealing down is pure triumph.

  'Amazing,' I say.

  'Not really,' the nurse tells me, 'not when you know what's going on. That's the way we learn. By trial and error. From our mistakes. If you interfere you stop the learning process.'

  'But he was crying.'

  'He'd bumped his bottom. He soon got over it. Learning's more important than a bump on the bottom. And the bump on the bottom is part of the process. Next time he'll manage the stairs better.'

  Obviously true, because he's doing it as we speak, but still amazing. As are the cots. They're not the high-sided contraptions I'm used to but simply mattresses on the floor with a tiny headboard at one end. 'When they're tired,' the nurse tells us, 'we put them in there for a sleep. Sometimes they put themselves there. Babies are very sensible.'

  'But what happens when they wake up? Won't they just get out?'

  'Of course. Like I told you, babies are very sensible.'

  This is beginning to make my head spin. I've never heard of a baby being allowed to get out of its cot when it wants. But then I've never seen a baby being allowed to climb up steps either.

  The afternoon is one surprise after another. Somebody asks whether babies are born bad.

  Our guide takes the question very seriously, as I do. 'Are you talking about original sin?'

  'Yes.'

  'Being naughty?' our guide prompts. 'Crying? Is that it?'

  'Yes.'

  'The evidence is against it. Babies are born with needs and limited capabilities. The only way they can make their mothers aware of what they need is to cry. So if they're hungry, they cry, or if their bottoms are sore, or if they're lonely. The best way to stop them is to attend to them.'

  'But don't you have to leave them to cry?' I ask. 'To strengthen their lungs? That's what people say, isn't it?' I've heard my mother say it often enough. 'If you pick them up, don't you spoil them?'

  'We don't think so,' our guide says. 'We think you spoil a child if you let it cry and don't attend to it. That way it learns that the world is against it. Pick it up and love it and feed it and it learns to be happy in its skin.'

  Truly amazing. If they're right about this, it means that no one is born evil or rotten, and certainly not rotten to the core. I can't wait to get home and tell my mother.

  She listens - perfunctorily - but she isn't impressed.

  I must make another effort because I want her to understand. 'If what they say is true,' I tell her, 'there's no such thing as being born with 'bad blood' or being born rotten or anything like that. Babies aren't naughty if they cry, they're normal. Isn't that amazing?'

 

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