short story: benita cruickshank
Jennifer and Frances
Jennifer first met the phenomenon of leadership at the age of six. Up until that time she hadn’t met anybody much. To be pitchforked into a gang relationship was unfair of life. She was ill-prepared for it.
A lonely child, she idled about the communal gardens. She’d had one friend, a boy rather older than herself, David Brown. Her mother had impressed on her that boys were horrid but he’d been nice to her. She had only her mother’s word to go on but he held her hand and answered her questions and smiled at her and she didn’t think that was horrid at all. She mourned the loss of his friendship silently, unable to understand why moving house meant she couldn’t see him any more.
She’d never met girls before. She’d thought girls were delicate and fairy-like, little princesses like in the pantomimes her grandparents had taken her to. These girls were big and ebullient, London girls with chubby limbs and the bones of boys.
‘Where did you come from?’
The biggest girl was a well-spoken red head who walked fearlessly up to her, hands on hips. She stared down at Jennifer, skinny, fair curly haired and solemn. The only red-headed person Jennifer had ever seen before was her own father, a sky-blocking man who scared her. She had thought him unique. There was something oddly masculine about this girl, an old thirteen, practically grown up.
Jennifer knew nothing about puberty or sexuality. When her parents were in bed together she thought they played a game – her father always laughed a lot and her mother cried out as if he was hurting her – sometimes Jennifer protested.
‘I moved here,’ Jennifer replied to her interrogator, ‘with my mother and father.’
‘What does your father do?’ Frances’ odd hair framed her strong face like a lion’s ruff.
‘I don’t know.’ Jennifer wasn’t sure what she was being asked by this imperious princess.
‘Well, does he stay at home all day with your Mummy?’
Some of the girls sniggered.
‘He goes away a lot. He’s an actor.’
‘Oh!’ Frances stepped back a pace. The atmosphere became less oppressive.
‘What’s yours?’ Jennifer screwed up her eyes against the sun and stared up at the Amazon girl.
‘He’s a banker. We’re rich,’ Frances swanked. ‘My brothers are all away at school. My Mummy goes shopping. We have champagne every day.’
‘What’s champagne?’ Jennifer asked.
Frances laughed, triumphant, and Jennifer realised she’d been lured into some sort of trap.
‘You’re only little,’ Frances added contemptuously.
‘I’m seven,’ Jennifer lied, squaring her shoulders. But she couldn’t make herself any taller.
‘If you want to belong to my gang you have to do a dare,’ Frances told her, turning her back and sauntering away.
The others stood around. All ages and sizes. Some sisters, though Frances seemed to be alone. Clearly she was their acknowledged leader. She was considerably bigger than any of them. What had they had to do? Jennifer wondered warily.
‘You have to find a boy and take your knickers down in front of him.’
Jennifer didn’t understand. ‘Why?’
‘It’s a dare, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know any boys here,’ Jennifer’s eyes skimmed around the communal gardens. The others weren’t looking at her. Had they done this dare or some other less demanding thing? She had a feeling that membership of the gang had to go up in value each time to keep their interest and loyalty.
‘Oh, well,’ Frances shrugged, ‘If you don’t want to do it…’
For some reason Jennifer felt compelled to belong. If she didn’t join she would be alone. She forgot she’d been alone all her life. She never questioned her inexplicable reaction.
‘No. I’ll do something but that’s silly, and I don’t want to,’ she added feebly.
‘You’re scared,’ Frances challenged.
Jennifer stared at her. ‘It could take ages to find a boy,’ she reasoned.
Frances sauntered around, thinking it over. ‘Oh, all right.’
One of the gang, Susan, did back flips to alleviate the boredom. ‘I go to dancing school,’ she said as she balanced on her hands.
Jennifer was impressed. ‘Just dancing?’
‘No, singing too.’
‘Don’t you do reading and writing?’ Jennifer had been to school when she was living with her grandparents but not since her parents had moved her to London. Her mother was ‘looking’.
‘Yes, we have to,’ Susan began to tap dance on a nearby wall.
Frances eyed the glass roof beyond it. It hid the underground car park below the gardens. ‘I know what,’ she announced. ‘Let’s walk across that roof.’
Jennifer frowned. ‘It’s glass. It’s dangerous.’
‘That’s the dare,’ said Frances triumphantly, jumping up onto the low wall beside Susan and setting her feet on the edge of the glass.
One or two of the little ones swarmed across the glass to the wooden spine in the centre. Frances followed them, arms outstretched like a tight-rope walker. She beckoned. ‘Come on,’ she insisted. ‘Or you’re a coward.’
It was bad to be a coward.
Sitting on the wall Jennifer put her feet on the glass. She stood up. As she did so she realised the roof was trembling. She looked about her. There were too many people on the glass.
‘Don’t move,’ she said, but in the excitement few heard her. The fall was too fast. The pain was too quick. Cries were far away above her.
She woke in another, white world. it was silent and smelled of clean sheets. Her eyes opened. There were no children.
Her parents were furious with anxiety, hardly able to sit still by her hospital bed. Her father sprang up and paced about, his fingers angrily jingling the coins in his pockets. Her mother leaned over her, smoothing things out. She leaned away, ‘Don’t do that,’ she said.
‘Do what?’
‘Jingle your money like that. You know how it irritates me.’ She turned back to her daughter. ‘Jennifer, you are never to play with those girls again.’
Her father shook a finger down at them both. ‘What the hell were you doing on that roof?’ he demanded.
She couldn’t answer. Tears started to well from her eyes. Joining the gang had been a door to life. Her parents would never let her play again. She wept for what she would miss.
Fifty years later Jennifer met Frances in a Mayfair hairdressers. Jennifer had married a handsome man who reminded her of David Brown and then abandoned him and his protection and their loving life for a dangerous career in photography, her specialisation being volcanoes. Frances, it turned out, was the owner of the business. It was easy to recognise her with her red hair and strong features. For a moment Jennifer had all the old feelings, the child she had once been. Frances had forgotten. Or so she said. Jennifer found that odd.
about the writer: benita cruickshank
After five years in marketing, a couple more as a restaurant owner, I started travelling. This turned into thirty years as an international teacher trainer, discovering such wonders as Easter Island, Xi’an, Komodo dragons and Galapagos marine life. A published non-fiction co-author, I am now London-based, writing satisfying crime about a lady sleuth. You can read more here: https://www.benitacruickshank.com/
[Also she is one of my personal heroes. sv]
