Sandra/Cassandra
‘Where do you think we’ll all be in twenty years’ time?’ Rose asked.
‘Old,’ Eliza said.
Spring had arrived at last. We were sitting bare-legged in the grass on School Hill, looking out across the lake that not so long ago had been frozen solid. The sun had real warmth in it. I felt warm inside too. I didn’t want to feel mean or harbour a grudge; I just wanted to be normal. There were times when I thought I might not be. And I don’t mean not normal in a cute oddball way. I mean not normal in the way a sixth finger isn’t normal, or a rogue cell. I knew too that Eliza sensed this about me and that that made her uncomfortable.
‘Apart from old?’ Rose said.
Eliza frowned in concentration. The breeze ruffled her auburn curls and the sun had brought out every last one of her freckles in spite of her wearing a sunhat. It was a battered old straw hat that looked like something your grandmother might wear when gardening and she’d fixed some daisies and forget-me-nots into the faded brown hatband. It was a pretty rubbish hat but somehow you ended up wanting one just like it. It was the same with that small enamel four-leaf clover she wore around her neck. It was nothing special, in fact had someone worn it back home I would have thought it was quite tacky even, yet, back when I had hoped we might be best friends, I had yearned for one exactly the same. I had described it to my parents, telling them I wanted it for Christmas. Of course they missed the point entirely and handed over this really expensive all gold one with a little diamond at the centre. ‘We looked at a little enamel one like the one you were talking about but we thought this was much more stylish,’ my mother had said, looking pleased with herself.
I wore it when I was home, so as not to upset them, but it wasn’t what I wanted.
Finally Eliza replied. ‘I’ll be on my way to a meeting with my publishers.’ She pushed her hat down securely on her head and sat back in the grass, resting on her elbows, a dreamy little smile on her lips.
‘I’m eating a croissant as I walk. I’m too busy to sit down at a café. My first two books of fairy tales have been a success and now they want to discuss a third one but I’m not sure because I might want to focus solely on my art.’ She laughed, so pleased with it all, and although I hadn’t meant to, I found myself smiling back.
‘What about money?’ Portia asked. ‘Are you rich?’
‘No. No, I don’t think so. But I have a nice flat and a good bicycle and I go on holiday to Italy once a year.’
‘Then you’re rich,’ I said.
Eliza looked unsure. She was probably trying to work out if she had been tactless to those less fortunate, i.e., me.
‘What about a family?’ Rose asked. ‘And a husband?’
‘Of course. Eventually.’ Eliza rolled over on her front and her hat slipped off her head and on to the grass. As she picked it up a sprig of forget-me-not dropped to the ground. ‘What about you all?’
‘I’ll be preparing for the Oscars,’ Rose said, straightening her back and tossing her dark curls, as if she were already on that red carpet. She giggled but I suspected that deep down she was deadly serious.
‘You could play Snow White,’ I said. ‘You have the right colouring.’
Rose dimpled. ‘You know, I don’t think there’s been a film with real actors as opposed to the cartoon version. It’s actually a really clever idea.’
‘Cassandra is a very clever girl,’ Eliza said.
I wondered if she was taking the piss but she didn’t look as if she was. She had the kind of face that showed everything she was thinking and right now she seemed to be thinking nice things. Her smile was friendly and her eyes were kind.
The sun had been sheltering behind a cloud but now it reappeared, just in time for us not to have to put our cardies back on. Portia passed round a packet of Philip Morris. She lit her cigarette and mine then Rose leant in towards the match. It made for a funny picture, Snow White with a fag hanging from her lips.
‘Don’t’, Eliza said.
Rose drew on her cigarette. ‘What?’
‘Three on a match,’ Eliza said. ‘You remember, the First World War thing?’
‘No,’ Rose shook her head. ‘Wasn’t there myself.’
Eliza sat back up and as she hugged her knees to her chest I could see the back of her milky-white thighs all the way up to her knickers. I think she saw me looking because she pulled her skirt down really quickly. ‘If three soldiers lit the cigarette from the same match the man who was third on the match would be shot.’
‘Why? Why would he get shot?’ Portia asked.
‘What happened was that when the first soldier lit his cigarette the enemy would see the light; when the second soldier lit his cigarette from the same match the enemy would take aim and then, when the third soldier lit his cigarette from the same match, the enemy would fire. It’s been considered bad luck ever since.’
‘So who would cop it?’ Portia asked. ‘The guy holding the match or the guy lighting his cigarette from it?’
‘Hm?’ Eliza tilted her head to one side and rubbed the side of her nose with her middle finger. ‘I suppose I always assumed it was the guy lighting his cigarette.’
‘Bang bang,’ I said. Pointing my pistol finger at her.
‘Not funny,’ Rose frowned.
But Eliza and Portia laughed so Rose laughed and then I laughed too.
Rose stubbed her cigarette out on a stone. She never smoked them to the end. Then she spat on it to make sure it had gone out before brushing it into the long grass. She looked up at the sky and then at all of us. ‘God, we’re so lucky,’ she said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Think if we’d been boys and it was back then. Two of my great-uncles died in the trenches. They were really young.’
‘The average life expectancy of a junior army officer in 1914 was eleven days,’ Eliza said. And her eyes grew round the way they always did when she thought about some interesting fact or was about to tell a story. ‘They were so young and so brave and then it all ended, for nothing, face down in that stinking mud. They would have sat around just like we’re doing now, talking about everything they were going to do and see and feel with all those lovely years. And then the war started and those beautiful boys put on their uniforms and picked up their guns and went off singing as if they were off on a great adventure.’
I thought of all the spotty spindly teasing youths I knew and I said, ‘They weren’t all beautiful, or brave either. And them dying made no difference to anyone other than their mothers.’
There was a silence. Then Eliza shook her head. ‘No, I won’t allow that. No one knows, that’s the thing. Because they died before they could be much of anything, the world will never know what it missed or from whom.’ Then she smiled. ‘So that’s why anyone who dies young gets to be good and beautiful. It’s part of the deal.’
‘Julian would be about to go off to war if now had been then,’ Portia said, ‘Or then had been now. It would kill my mother even if it didn’t kill him.’
Julian, Julian who was beautiful and good, my Julian. My heart lurched.
Rose squeaked. ‘Don’t even say things like that.’
Eliza leant forward and patted her knee. ‘It’s OK, Rose. It won’t happen again. At least not while we’re young.’
‘How do you know?’ Rose asked.
Eliza shrugged. ‘I don’t. But I assume.’
Portia said, ‘I can’t make up my mind whether I’ll be an ambassador or just live in a big crumbling house in the country with masses of dogs and horses and children.’
‘What about a husband?’ Rose asked again.
‘Of course,’ Portia said, just as Eliza had.
‘You think you can just decide?’ I said to them. ‘You seem to think it’s all just out there, just sitting there, waiting for you to go and get it.’
All three princesses turned surprised faces in my direction. ‘How do you mean?’ Portia asked.
I couldn’t believe she had to ask. Eliza lay back down in the grass. ‘What about you, Cassandra?’ She touched my shoe with the tip of hers. ‘Where do you reckon you’ll be twenty years from now?’
I looked across at the lake that sat like crumpled foil at the foot of the hill. ‘Oh, I expect I’ll be working in some office somewhere.’
I waited for them to argue with me. Instead they seemed to accept this as a suitable limit, not only to my ambitions but also to my prospects. I looked at the sky, staring at the sun until my eyes stung. Then I looked at back them. They looked blurred. You know nothing, I thought. You don’t know that twenty years from now all you’ll be able to say is, ‘To think we knew her.’