The Banker's Niece 20: Leaving home

1972

‘Are you sure you won’t regret it?’ said Ollie.

    ‘God no,’ said Jane. ‘I can’t stand the thought of any more academic work. I want to get away. Live a bit. Be free.’

    ‘I suppose you could always go to university later,’ said Ollie.

    ‘Maybe,’ said Jane without enthusiasm.

    Jane and her younger brother were out walking, following a path that wound around the edge of the Downs. Jane had finished her A levels the day before and Ollie was home from school for the weekend. It was late June and baking hot.

    Jane wore the denim shorts with the frayed hem that she’d made herself by ripping the bottoms off a pair of jeans. On top she wore an old white shirt of her father’s with the sleeves rolled up, and on her feet her school plimsolls, now rather grubby. She was pretty pleased with the outfit.  Luckily she’d managed to get out of the house before her mother saw her and said something that made her crumple.

   ‘But you’re only sixteen,’ said Ollie. ‘How will you manage on your own in London?’

    For a moment she wavered but then she realised that being young was the reason for her plan.

    She’d been young for her class throughout her school career. It had started when she arrived at junior school already able to read and they’d immediately moved her up a year. She could read because she loved books, not – in her opinion - because she was clever. But once labelled clever, the teachers complained whenever she turned in a poor piece of work. She ‘wasn’t doing herself justice’, she was ‘resting on her laurels’. (She had to ask her mother what that meant.) She’d felt like she was always treading water. She could never float. She remembered waking up one morning and thinking, every day there’s something to dread.

    And now she’d had enough.

    ‘Seventeen next week,’ she retorted, ‘and I’ve arranged to rent a room in a house with four other people.’

    ‘That’s clever,’ said Ollie.

    Jane was pleased with herself too, even if the house belonged to friends of her parents, who’d bought it for their daughter Fiona when she moved to London to study physiotherapy. Jane hadn’t met Fiona yet but they’d spoken on the phone and she sounded all right – as far as someone related to friends of her parents could be.

    She was glad Ollie approved of the house at least. He’d always been the sensible one of the two of them. Even though he cried at the end of each holiday, he’d never complained about being sent away to boarding school. He’d always known that he wanted to be a doctor and was already gearing his school subject choices to that end. Sometimes she wished she could be more like him.

    ‘And what will you do?’ asked Ollie.

    ‘Oh anything,’ said Jane. ‘Secretarial work probably. A friend told me about a course that only takes six weeks so I might do that.’

    She hadn’t fancied any of the careers suggested by the school – teaching, the Civil Service, the Law. They all sounded like an extension of school or inundated with men like her father – which was the last thing she needed.

    How could she be expected to know what she wanted at this stage anyway? She had no experience of the world. It would be enough to earn some money.

    Jane wiped the sweat from her face with a sleeve. The morning sun blazed from a cloudless blue sky. There was no shade on the path and the ground, so black and squelchy in winter, was cooked to a hard pale-grey. Flinty stones poked out and dug into her feet through the soles of her plimsolls.

    To their left the slope fell away to fields and the village where they lived. Seeing it all so small made her realise just how much of the world there was to find out about and how impatient she was to do so.
    To their right the slope rose through grass nibbled flat by sheep and then through bushes and small trees to the tall silent beechwoods. These stretched for miles and were full of little footpaths only a fraction of which she and Ollie had explored. Jane had heard of plans to build a motorway through the woods, part of a ring around London. That didn’t seem right, somehow.

    ‘Phew,’ said Ollie. ‘It’s hot.’

    Jane shot him a glance. He did look a bit strange. She could see damp strips in his light-brown hair and his black eyes glittered like they did when he had a temperature. According to family lore, he’d been very ill as a baby (with what, she couldn’t remember) and he still came down with something every time he overdid things. Her mother called him ‘delicate’.

    ‘Shall we go in the woods?’ she said. ‘It might be cooler there.’

    ‘Good idea,’ said Ollie.

    They started climbing a path through the scrub and Ollie whistled to let Bunty know where they were.

    Bunty, the gardener’s plump sandy dog, always came with them on their walks. She’d vanished into the undergrowth soon after they reached the start of the Downs but they knew where she was because of her woofles and whimpers as she raced after small animals. She raised her head now from a clump of brambles, noted their presence and vanished again.

    Jane knew how the dog felt. She loved the scrub too. It was untidy and wild and full of life. In the autumn, berries festooned it like Christmas decorations. Now, in midsummer, it hummed with bees and everywhere Jane looked she could see wildflowers. Why grown-ups bothered with gardens she couldn't imagine.

    Since her Wildflower Diary, a project in the first year at senior school, she knew all their names. That had been one of her best summers ever. She’d been out every day walking the Downs with Bunty, looking for plants. She pretended she was one of those mad Victorian traveller-women in the big hats. She'd never wanted to come home. Each year since, the flowers have returned and each year she has greeted them like old friends. 
    The orchids in particular thrilled her as she knew how rare they were and how particular to the Downs. As she looked now she could see that the ground around the path was thickly dotted with the plump bright-pink blooms of pyramidal orchid. She hoped that when they reached the edge of the woods she would find the mysterious bee orchids again.

    Ollie was striding ahead, scrambling up the slope in front of her, so he couldn’t have been feeling too bad. These days his legs were almost as long as hers. She hurried to catch up with him. She could have a proper wildflower-spot another time.

    'What does the school think of your plans?' he asked.
    'Oh, they just think I'm taking a year out because of my age. After all some universities won't take you until you're eighteen.'
    Ollie nodded. ‘And what about Mum and Dad?’

    About two years ago they’d decided between them – well, Jane had come up with the idea and Ollie had agreed – that they were too old to carry on calling their parents ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daddy’. Their parents didn’t seem to have noticed the change however and still used the old names when talking about each other to Jane and Ollie. It was slightly annoying but better, she supposed, than the usual disparaging remarks they made about things she said.

    ‘Oh you know,’ laughed Jane. ‘Dad said something like “I never went to university and it never did me any harm” and Mum said “I’m sure you’ll meet just as many nice people in London as you would at university”.’

    Ollie gave an unconvincing laugh and she wondered if he understood what she meant or whether he had any idea what it had been like for her left at home alone for five years with their parents. On the other hand, she’d never heard him say anything critical about anyone so maybe he thought she was being too harsh.

    Jane lifted her hair to let some air on to her scalp and neck.

    Little did any of them know, Ollie included, that her main aim in leaving home and heading for London was to find lots of ‘not-nice’ people, especially boys. She may have kept up with her older classmates on the academic front but on the social side she was way behind.

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