The Collected Stories

More interesting than Helena’s own household were the households round about. The death that had taken place, the honouring of the unfinished work, her mother’s seriousness, were far less fascinating than the gaudy hair and dresses of Mrs Archingford or the arguments of the elderly couple in the garden of the house next door. Sometimes a son visited this couple, an unkempt figure who intrigued Helena most of all. Now and again she noticed him in the neighbourhood, usually carrying a cage with a bird in it. On one occasion he sat in the garden next door with a cage on either side of him, and Helena watched from a window while he pointed out to his mother the features of the budgerigars these cages contained. His mother poured tea and his father read a newspaper or protested, in a voice loud enough to carry to Helena’s window, that the conversation about budgerigars was inane. On another occasion Helena saw the unkempt son entering Mrs Archingford’s house with a cage and later leaving empty-handed, having presumably made a successful sale. She would have liked to report these incidents to her mother, but when once she referred to the elderly couple’s son her mother stared at her in astonishment.

When she was twelve, Helena brought a girl called Judy Smeeth back to tea. She had asked her mother if she might, since she had herself been to tea several times with Judy Smeeth, who was considered at school to be stupid. She was stout, with spectacles, and experienced difficulty in covering her large thighs with her gymslip. When teachers drew attention to this immodest display she laughed and said she did the best she could.

Helena’s mother looked at Judy Smeeth blankly, and afterwards said she didn’t think she’d ever met a more unattractive person.

‘She’s my friend at school,’ Helena explained.

‘Biscuit after biscuit. No wonder she’s the size she is.’

‘She invited me to her house five times.’

‘You mean by that, do you, Helena, that when she comes here she must make up for all those visits by grabbing as much as she can, by filling herself with biscuits and Swiss roll? Is there not a more attractive girl you could have as a companion?’

‘No, there isn’t.’

‘That was said roughly, Helena.’

‘She’s my best friend.’

Helena’s mother vaguely shook her head. She never talked about friends, any more than she talked about her mother or her father. Helena didn’t know if she’d had brothers or sisters, and certainly that was not a question she could ask. ‘Gosh, your mother!’ Judy Smeeth said in her amazed way. ‘Didn’t half give me the jitters, your mother.’

Many months later, in answer to Helena’s repeated pleas, Judy Smeeth was permitted to come to the house again. On this occasion they played with a tennis ball in the garden, throwing it to one another. Unfortunately, due to a clumsy delivery of Judy’s, it crossed the fence into Mrs Archingford’s garden. ‘Hey!’ Judy cried, having climbed on to a pear tree that grew beside the fence. ‘Hey, lady, could we have the ball back?’

Her plump hams, clad only partially in navy-blue school-regulation knickers, were considerably exposed as she balanced herself between the pear tree and the fence. She shouted again, endeavouring to catch the attention of Mrs Archingford, who was reading a magazine beneath her verandah.

‘Hey! Yoo-hoo, lady!’

Mrs Archingford looked up and was surprised to see the beaming face of Judy Smeeth, bespectacled and crowned with frizzy hair. Hearing the sound, she had expected the tidier and less extrovert presence of the girl next door. She rose and crossed her garden.

‘It’s only the ball, missus. We knocked the ball a bit hard.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Mrs Archingford. ‘D’you know, dearie, for a minute I thought your appearance had changed most peculiarly.’

‘Eh?’

Mrs Archingford smiled at Judy Smeeth, and asked her what her name was. She picked the tennis ball out of her lupins.

‘Judy the name is. Smeeth.’

‘Mine’s Mrs Archingford. Nice to meet you, Judy. Come to tea, have you?’

‘That’s right. Thanks for the ball,’

‘Tell you what, why don’t you and what’s-her-name climb over that fence and have a glass of orangeade? Like orangeade, do you?’

‘Yeah. Sure.’

‘Tell you what, I’ve got a few Danish pastries. Almond and apple. Like Danish pastries, Judy?’

‘Hey, Helena, the woman wants us to go over her place.’

‘No,’ Helena said.

‘Why not?’

‘Just no.’

‘Sorry, missus. Cheerio then.’

Judy descended, having first thrown the ball to Helena.

‘Hey, look,’ she said when she was standing on the lawn, ‘that woman was on about pastries. Why couldn’t we?’

‘Let’s go into the house.’

Her mother would have observed the incident. She would have noticed the flesh of Judy’s thighs and Judy’s