Christmas Wishes (15 page)

Edward was in the year above the twins at school and knew them by sight so now the difference between the two girls, who had been identical, was immediately obvious. He had watched the pair of them surreptitiously during the Easter holidays as they practised the walk to school, and had felt truly sorry for Joy, for he had never realised before what a big part expression plays in one’s looks. Gillian’s face showed complete confidence and command, whereas now Joy always wore a worried frown. He knew of course that this was because she was concentrating fiercely upon following her sister’s instructions; once or twice he had been close enough to the pair of them to hear Gillian’s voice as she warned her sister of some upcoming obstacle, but now he thought it a dreadful thing that Joy had lost not only her sight but her pretty looks as well. However, perhaps as time went on she would regain some of her old carefree attitude, along with her delightful smile.

So when his father had told him that Alex Lawrence wanted someone responsible to accompany Joy to and from school he had agreed to do it, though with some secret reservations. But Edward liked Alex – everyone did – and besides, the sub-officer’s recommendation would stand him in good stead if he applied for a job with the fire service; he trusted that by the time he was an adult he would no longer need his spectacles, for bad eyesight could spell disaster to any chance of becoming a fireman.

At this point in his musing, Edward reached the front door of No. 77. For a moment he hesitated, suddenly reluctant. What should he say when Joy came to the door? Before the accident the twins had never even noticed him; the fat boy who was bad at games, couldn’t swim, excelled at nothing save schoolwork, which only interested the teachers. He had always been a loner, though not necessarily from choice, whereas the twins, compared to him, appeared popular with most of their fellow pupils. However, he was not going to stand here looking an idiot, with his hand raised to knock …

He knocked too softly, then too loudly, and was just wondering whether she had given him up or gone with someone else when the door shot open and Joy appeared in the doorway. ‘Yes?’ she said sharply. ‘Who is it?’

It was weird, because although she was wearing darkened spectacles she appeared to be looking straight at him, yet he knew this could not be so. He felt his face grow hot. Oh, dammit, this was worse than his worst imaginings! He cleared his throat and his voice, when he spoke, did not sound as it should. ‘It’s me, Edward Williams, what’s come to walk to school wi’ you.’ In his agitation his accent had thickened. ‘Didn’t no one tell you I were comin’?’

‘Course they did; I’ve been waiting for your knock,’ Joy said briefly and he saw she was already wearing her coat and carrying her white stick. ‘But I thought you’d come to the back door because of the steps.’ Edward began to apologise, but she interrupted. ‘It don’t matter; I know these perishin’ steps by heart,’ she told him. ‘You’d best come to the front door every day – every school day, I mean.’

She locked the door as she spoke, and posted the key, on its length of stout twine, back through the letter box. Then she descended the steps, tapping the edge of each one with the stick, and hesitated at the bottom. ‘If you don’t speak, I don’t know where the devil you are,’ she said rather gruffly. ‘I always know with Gillian, of course, ’cos it’s different for twins, but you’ll have to tell me when a kerb’s coming up, or when there’s an obstacle on the pavement.’

‘You could hold my arm,’ Edward offered.

‘No I couldn’t; the whole point of your calling for me is so that I can get more independent. Anyway, what a fool I’d look, hanging on to the arm of some feller I don’t know from Adam. There’ll be no need for you to touch me, thank you very much! Just you walk alongside me and throw out the odd word now and then, and we’ll manage … or I hope we will, at any rate.’

‘If that’s what you want,’ Edward said, rather huffily. ‘But what I want to know is, if you don’t want to hang on to my arm because I’m a feller, why didn’t your dad ask a girl to call for you? Oh, and slow down, there’s a side street coming up.’

Joy obediently slowed and, turning to her unseen companion, gave him a cheeky grin. It was the first time her expression had changed from one of mixed anxiety and annoyance since she had greeted him in the doorway of her house, and he grinned back, remembering too late that she would not have known had he put out his tongue and crossed his eyes. He spoke hastily. ‘Well? Why didn’t Mr Lawrence pick a girl?’

‘There isn’t a girl living near enough who Dad would trust to be able to pick me up if I fell, or stop me whacking someone with my white stick,’ she explained. ‘Besides, your dad’s a member of the fire brigade; my dad always says the firemen are like a family and he wouldn’t want to ask a favour of someone he didn’t know well. So that’s why you got the job. I s’pose he is paying you?’

Edward grabbed her arm, too annoyed to remember that she had forbidden him to touch her. ‘No, of
course
no one’s paying me,’ he said angrily. ‘It ain’t as though I have to go out of my way, because I pass your house every day, and we’re heading for the same school. And stop wrigglin’ and tryin’ to throw me off, because this here kerb is the high one and I’ve watched you and your sister taking it real slow and careful, so I reckon we’ve got to do likewise.’

He had indeed watched the Lawrence twins negotiating this particular kerb and had seen how carefully Gillian guided her sister and how they worked as a team, for there was a grid to be avoided as well as the steep kerb itself. ‘Oh, we’re there, are we? I didn’t realise we’d reached it because you kept gabbling on,’ Joy said disagreeably. ‘Where’s that bleedin’ grid? I don’t want to get my stick stuck down it, ’cos if you’ve watched me and Gillian, you’ll know it’s stick first, then I come down sort of sideways … and I have to trust you to tell me that there’s no traffic coming before I start me darin’ descent.’ She had spoken quite pleasantly, and Edward was so surprised by her Scouse accent and the sudden change of tone that he turned to stare at her and was annoyed with himself when her frown descended once more. ‘I may not be able to see you but I can tell you’re gawpin’ at me as though I were some sort of freak,’ she said crossly. She raised her voice to something perilously akin to a shout. ‘Where’s that bleedin’ grid, you – you
boy
, you!’

Edward began to giggle, and then to laugh, and to his astonishment his companion began to laugh as well. For a moment, they stood on the edge of the kerb, almost doubled up with mirth, and then a passer-by stopped to offer help and Edward, mopping his streaming eyes, thanked the woman but said they could manage, and then turned to Joy. ‘The grid’s right in front of you,’ he said. ‘And I weren’t gawping, honest to God I weren’t. There’s nothing coming, so turn sideways and pat with your stick like I’ve seen you do, then lower yourself on to the road and we’ll be across in two ticks.’

Joy obeyed, and having negotiated the worst part of their walk they became, if not friendly, at least more at ease with one another. When they reached the school Edward accompanied her through the big wrought-iron gates and across the yard to the doorway marked
Girls
, where he had to leave her. All around them, other children took no notice of either Joy or Edward, but continued to laugh and play games. Edward knew they were waiting for the bell to ring, whereupon they would line up in classes and enter the building in a sedate fashion when given permission to do so.

It appeared that Joy, however, was an exception to this rule. When they reached the doorway, she stopped for a moment and turned to her escort. ‘Daddy’s arranged for me to be allowed to go in as soon as I arrive, because there’s always a scrum in the cloakroom and he’s afraid I might get knocked about,’ she informed him. ‘When school’s over, I’ll meet you by the gate five minutes after the bell. But if you’re kept in for rowdy behaviour, you’ll have to get someone to pass a message to me.’

Once again, Edward heard the jibe in her tone, but no longer resented it. ‘You think because your father trusted me to take you to and from school I can’t even know the meaning of the word rowdy,’ he said. ‘Well, you’re right; I want to be a fireman one day, so I have to keep on the good side of the teachers and that means I have to study hard; I can’t afford to play the fool. So I’ll be at the school gate almost as soon as I hear the bell for going home time.’

‘Right,’ Joy said briskly, and, turning, disappeared into the building. Edward waited for a moment, listening for the tap of her stick, but the only sound was that of her receding footsteps as she made her way, he presumed unerringly, into the girls’ cloakroom. Of course, she must have learned that much before her accident, he reminded himself. He kept forgetting that the twins had come back from Devonshire last October, and had attended Bold Street school for several weeks. So though Joy had not visited it since her accident she must, he assumed, have some idea of the layout of the place, and indeed some recollection of her classmates, which would be a help.

Turning away and going back across the playground towards the boys’ entrance, Edward reflected that it had not been nearly as bad as he had feared. To be sure, Joy had had a couple of goes at him, and it would have been nice had she said thank you, or even goodbye, before marching off into the school, but he could understand why she had been a little stiff. He imagined himself having to ask a fellow pupil to accompany him to school and knew that he, too, would have resented being so dependent upon another person. There had been a couple of occasions when he had thought he could see the old, happy-go-lucky Joy struggling to get out from the hard shell which blindness had erected around her. He was sure that as time went on she would become more at ease with him, and less critical.

When the bell sounded and his line was formed, he entered the school without a single comment from anyone on his new job. They don’t notice me at all, or care who I walk to school with, he told himself rather sadly. He wished he was popular, like some of the other boys. There was Jenkins, for instance …

The teacher’s voice telling his pupils to get out their exercise books brought Edward abruptly back to reality. He fished in his desk, produced both his history exercise book and his copy of
Life under the Tudors
, and wrenched his mind from the present to the carryings-on of Henry VIII and his six unfortunate wives. The teacher was writing a list of a dozen questions on the blackboard, telling the boys to put away their textbooks and write their answers, in pencil, in their exercise books. ‘Then you will hand your books in, get out your textbooks and read Chapter Seven whilst I correct your answers,’ he said, beginning to walk up and down the aisles between the desks as he did so. When he reached Edward, he stopped for a moment and looked over his shoulder at the page Edward had already produced. ‘Well done, Edward. I can always rely on you to hand in neatly written work. Now tell me, did I see you this morning with that little blind girl from Class 3B? A friend of yours?’

Edward did not know whether to feel gratified or offended, since he felt that a normal boy of fifteen would scarcely befriend a girl nearly two years younger. But no one sniggered or even looked towards him and the teacher’s question had been fair enough. ‘Her dad’s in the fire brigade, same as mine, so Mr Lawrence asked if I’d walk to and from school with her until she gets used to it,’ he explained. ‘But I wouldn’t call her a friend exactly, though she’s a nice enough kid.’

Mr Johnson guffawed. ‘Never let it be said that a lad in my class looked twice at any girl,’ he said, and gave Edward’s shoulder a playful punch. ‘You’ll be singing a different tune in a year or two, young man. But perhaps you fancy the other sister; they’re identical twins, aren’t they? If so, you’ll make a good pair, because you’re pretty bright, like … Gillian, isn’t it? She won a scholarship to St Hilda’s, anyway, which is no mean feat.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Edward mumbled. Mr Johnson had always been a bit of a joker, but it didn’t do to cross him. ‘During the Easter holidays, Gillian – she’s the older twin – went everywhere with Joy, the one I’m taking to and from school. It’s because Gillian’s starting at St Hilda’s today that her pa needs me to help out.’ He waited for a snigger from the boys at the desks surrounding his own, but for once they were concentrating on their work.

‘Well, I’m glad one member of my class at least has a social conscience; the rest of them don’t even know the meaning of the phrase,’ Mr Johnson said. ‘Starting today, is she, eh? She’ll have a lot to talk about when she and her sister meet up this evening.’

Gillian got off the tram at the end of her road and waved to the girls who were still aboard. She had been a little anxious lest her new schoolfellows snub her or ignore her, but instead they had vied to take care of her as the class moved from room to room. In fact she had had a fantastic day and was still glowing with pleasure.

Furthermore, until today she had not realised how the burden of her twin’s dependency had weighed her down. When she was with Joy she could not relax for one moment. Her eyes were not only on the pavement ahead, but also keeping a lookout for possible dangers: a dog on one side of the road and a cat on the other could spell disaster for someone who could see neither, so Gillian would warn her sister to slow down, to hang on to her arm and not to worry if she heard the screech of brakes and the shouts of passers-by. It would only be the dog darting into the traffic or the cat streaking up a side street.

When they met someone they knew, Gillian would tell Joy who it was in a whisper, and they had made this into a sort of game –
Mrs Tudor Williams on our port bow
– so that when the woman greeted them they could chorus: ‘Hello, Mrs Williams. Nice day, isn’t it?’ Mrs Williams must know that Joy could not see her, but she would answer the greeting placidly. If she felt astonishment, she would not show it. This, Gillian soon discovered, went for anyone they met and greeted. So she not only had to warn Joy of possible hazards, but of approaching acquaintances as well.

It had worked beautifully and Gillian had not realised, until now, what a strain she had been under. Going into a new class in a new school with a great many other girls, none of whom she had met before, she felt the freedom of being without her twin as a real blessing. She might have felt guilty, knowing Joy was alone in her dark world, but instead she suspected that Joy, too, would benefit from their separation. With the intuition which she imagined all identical twins must share, she had a mental picture of Joy talking to other members of her class, maybe even laughing and joking with them, showing off a little to that boy – what was his name? Oh yes, Edward Williams – on the walk to and from school. All the little tricks which Colin had mentioned on his one visit and which Joy had scornfully refused to use should come into play now that she did not have Gillian to be her guide and her eyes, and Edward would surely be impressed.