Shadow Baby by Margaret Forster Page B
Authors: Margaret Forster
brushing it until it crackled, until it sang with life and all over her head tiny, thread-like tendrils sprang up like a halo.
Shona knew she was attractive and suffered from none of Kirsty’s and lona’s teenage angst over their looks. Out of school uniform she looked like an actress, a little like a red-headed Sophia Loren. To her mother’s distress she wore clothes completely unsuitable for her, clothes bought not in St Andrews or Edinburgh shopping with her watchful mother but in Carnaby Street on yet another trip to London with Archie. ‘Why did you let her buy that ridiculous skirt?’ Catriona raged at her husband. ‘And those boots, white boots, for heaven’s sake, Archie, what were you thinking of, look at her, look at her.’ Archie looked and saw that his wife was right. Shona looked disturbing. The skirt hardly existed and she was the wrong shape for it, and the boots merely drew attention to the barely covered bottom. ‘They’re all wearing them down there,’ he said, lamely, knowing he would be told, as he was, that Shona was not down there, she was here, shocking the whole of North Street and South Street whenever she paraded down them.
Kirsty’s and lona’s mothers were suddenly not so fond of Shona. They began to say she was too old ‘in her ways’ for their daughters to spend so much time with. In lona’s family in particular this new antipathy was marked, but then lona had a fifteen-year-old brother who could not take his eyes off Shona Mclndoe’s skirt. Shona, Heather Grant agreed with Jean Macpherson, was even less like her mother than ever and now hardly like her father either. But at least her parents were strict even if they failed to control how she dressed. If Shona stayed the night her mother rang to thank Jean or Heather but they both knew she was ringing to check up that her daughter was really with them.
There was, in fact, no need for her to check up, not then. Shona held hands with the occasional boy but she had not yet been kissed; and though the bolder boys had put an arm round her in the back row of the Old Byre theatre, it was doubtful whether Shona was as interested in boys as they were in her. If there was any sexual response on Shona’s part it was well concealed. Her mother suspected, and was relieved to suspect, that Shona was not as mature as she looked - her startling body did not yet know what it was about. And then, having been comforted by this thought, she was
thrown into sudden confusion. Had she been like this? Had she been like this, the woman she had tried so hard not to imagine all these years? Had she been unaware of her own power and suffered for it? And would Shona do the same, for the same reasons, whatever they had been, in the same way?
Panic filled Catriona. It was time to speak, of course it was, she had been a fool to think that time would never, need never, come. It had come, far sooner than she could have anticipated. Yet she stayed silent, eternally vigilant but silent. She simply could not bring herself to destroy what she had come to believe was truth.
53
Chapter Five
AT THIRTEEN Evie left school but, since she had only managed to be there less than half the time she was supposed to be, it did not make much difference. The transition from schoolgirl to working girl was hardly noticed. Evie had grown very quickly used to being kept from school, never counting on walking the two miles to the schoolhouse until the very moment she was grudgingly told to go. At first, she had minded her poor rate of attendance greatly, but after the first year it had mattered less. School was not the paradise she had once imagined. There were only two rooms, both enormous and divided by partitions, and the noise made her head ache. The partitions were thin and the poetry Class i was reciting in unison fought with the recitation of multiplication tables by Class 2 until those sitting in Class 3, as Evie was, found it hard to concentrate on memorising the
Shona knew she was attractive and suffered from none of Kirsty’s and lona’s teenage angst over their looks. Out of school uniform she looked like an actress, a little like a red-headed Sophia Loren. To her mother’s distress she wore clothes completely unsuitable for her, clothes bought not in St Andrews or Edinburgh shopping with her watchful mother but in Carnaby Street on yet another trip to London with Archie. ‘Why did you let her buy that ridiculous skirt?’ Catriona raged at her husband. ‘And those boots, white boots, for heaven’s sake, Archie, what were you thinking of, look at her, look at her.’ Archie looked and saw that his wife was right. Shona looked disturbing. The skirt hardly existed and she was the wrong shape for it, and the boots merely drew attention to the barely covered bottom. ‘They’re all wearing them down there,’ he said, lamely, knowing he would be told, as he was, that Shona was not down there, she was here, shocking the whole of North Street and South Street whenever she paraded down them.
Kirsty’s and lona’s mothers were suddenly not so fond of Shona. They began to say she was too old ‘in her ways’ for their daughters to spend so much time with. In lona’s family in particular this new antipathy was marked, but then lona had a fifteen-year-old brother who could not take his eyes off Shona Mclndoe’s skirt. Shona, Heather Grant agreed with Jean Macpherson, was even less like her mother than ever and now hardly like her father either. But at least her parents were strict even if they failed to control how she dressed. If Shona stayed the night her mother rang to thank Jean or Heather but they both knew she was ringing to check up that her daughter was really with them.
There was, in fact, no need for her to check up, not then. Shona held hands with the occasional boy but she had not yet been kissed; and though the bolder boys had put an arm round her in the back row of the Old Byre theatre, it was doubtful whether Shona was as interested in boys as they were in her. If there was any sexual response on Shona’s part it was well concealed. Her mother suspected, and was relieved to suspect, that Shona was not as mature as she looked - her startling body did not yet know what it was about. And then, having been comforted by this thought, she was
thrown into sudden confusion. Had she been like this? Had she been like this, the woman she had tried so hard not to imagine all these years? Had she been unaware of her own power and suffered for it? And would Shona do the same, for the same reasons, whatever they had been, in the same way?
Panic filled Catriona. It was time to speak, of course it was, she had been a fool to think that time would never, need never, come. It had come, far sooner than she could have anticipated. Yet she stayed silent, eternally vigilant but silent. She simply could not bring herself to destroy what she had come to believe was truth.
53
Chapter Five
AT THIRTEEN Evie left school but, since she had only managed to be there less than half the time she was supposed to be, it did not make much difference. The transition from schoolgirl to working girl was hardly noticed. Evie had grown very quickly used to being kept from school, never counting on walking the two miles to the schoolhouse until the very moment she was grudgingly told to go. At first, she had minded her poor rate of attendance greatly, but after the first year it had mattered less. School was not the paradise she had once imagined. There were only two rooms, both enormous and divided by partitions, and the noise made her head ache. The partitions were thin and the poetry Class i was reciting in unison fought with the recitation of multiplication tables by Class 2 until those sitting in Class 3, as Evie was, found it hard to concentrate on memorising the