The White Feather - 19
They watched the tractors push the snow to the sides of the road. Nancy shivered, and pulled her coat closer around her. She was glad the roads were being cleared. They could get the buses through again and she could go back to school. It was all too much being at home this long. She had tried to keep up with her learning but Mum wanted her for so much. Needed her. Fetch this and fetch that. Help fold the laundry. Help with washing up. Take care of our Angela, would you love, I’ve got a head. Well, she would have heads with all that drinking. She’d been terrible since Christmas, and New Year’s Day the worst. Nancy wanted to forget, but of course she couldn’t. Cleaning up the loo after her mother’s… accidents. She had thought she was going to be sick but had managed not to be. By the end of the clean up she hadn’t even felt sick. It made her think she could be a nurse after all. A secret and long-held ambition, not yet discussed with her mum. She was only twelve, so no need to make any decisions, but she would like to be a nurse and that’s what she would tell them at school. Nurse training, please.
The huge piles of snow made strange “whump” noises as they were dumped to one side. The tractor strained and growled, the noise magnified and dense in the snow.
And now there was Lawrie, slipping and sliding along towards her. Must have come to watch the clearing operation, like her. A lot of kids were watching. Keeping back, out of the way, the little ones with their mums in their gardens. The snowmen were watching too. The snowmen who had not melted and had stood like soldiers on guard since Christmas.
‘All right, Nance?’
He always called her Nance. Nobody else did. So it was special and nice. She smiled shyly at him. He stood alongside her and watched the farm hand at work.
‘Back to school tomorrow, you reckon?’ said Laurie.
‘I hope so.’
‘You hope so?’
‘Yes. My mum is being… quite annoying.’
‘Ah.’
‘I like school.’
‘Blimey.’
‘I wish I could’ve gone to the grammar though.’
‘You should of. But most kids don’t, you know.’
‘Have. Should have.’
‘Eh?’
‘Never mind,’ said Nancy. ‘Your Reg and Florrie go to the grammar.’
‘True. But they… they’re…’
‘They’re what?’
‘Bright.’
‘I’m bright. I think.’
‘Oh, yes, you are, Nance. But you and me and Barbara… we’re not posh, are we? My Aunty Shirley is quite posh. I think that makes a difference.’
‘Your Aunty Shirley’s not posh!’
‘Posher than us. We’re… you know what we are. Loveridges.’
‘You might be. I’m a Poole. Worse luck.’
‘You know what I mean. Anyway you’re half Loveridge. My dad and your mum and Uncle Cherry and Uncle Bill. We’re not grammar school people, are we?’
‘Not fair though, is it?’
‘S’pose not. It’s just how it is. My dad says we can’t all go to university and why would we want to. And what if everybody did? Someone’s got to clear the roads and fix pipes.’
‘And clean up sick.’
‘Nice, Nance!’
‘I might like to be a nurse.’
‘Yuck. Rather you than me.’
‘I’m serious. I’m going to ask them at school about the training. Nothing much makes me feel bad. Sick, I mean. I think I’ve got what your mum calls a “strong stomach”.’
Laurie turned to her then. ‘You’d be a lovely nurse, Nancy Poole. Nurse Poole. Oh, Sister! Sister!’
‘Shut up!’ But she knew he was being encouraging, and now that she had told somebody, it was real. It was a possibility. She was glad she had told Lawrie. Her words were freezing in the air above them, visible to all, if they were to look. But only Lawrie looked.
A huge mound of snow fell back into the road with a huge cracking whump. The man in the digger shouted, ‘Fucking hell!’ The mums tutted, and one covered her child’s bonneted ears.
‘Oh,’ said Lawrie.
‘Oh,’ said Nancy.