Chapter 25: Buttercup - The Golden Hours

PART FOUR: AUTUMN 1964–JANUARY 1965

Nanny took Buttercup to school on her first day. Archie had been determined to, but his leg was too bad for the walk. Buttercup didn’t mind: Nanny was a kangaroo, and would take her in her pouch. She was allowed to bring a toy; she had wanted to bring Lumpety, an immense, unlikely crimson Viyella cat whose long tail she chewed at night, sewn for her by Harriet. If you stood him on his tail, Lumpety was taller than Buttercup. This made him too big for school, which was quite tragic, but instead a tiny mouse made of real white fur and with red glass pinheads for eyes, a gift from Nanny’s friend in Edinburgh, was tucked into Buttercup’s pocket. There was no uniform: she wore a green-and-white cotton pinafore she had inherited from Harriet, cut down to fit, with a sash and two big patch pockets, one red, one green, quite big enough for mice. The twins had had similar ones in different colours; Buttercup would get them all in turn. Her shoes, however, were her own: what Mummy called walking shoes and Nanny called clodhoppers – brown and shiny and rounded like big conkers, with laces she didn’t know how to tie but she would learn. Something about a rabbit running round a tree and down a hole.

Laura did not have hand-me-downs; she had new clothes. This did not go unnoticed, by Buttercup. Largely because it didn’t go unmentioned, by Laura.

Buttercup hadn’t realised Nanny wasn’t coming to school too. This was a problem. But after showing her the coat hooks – small and low for children to reach! – and the little rack for your plimsolls, Nanny squatted down with her by the classroom door and took her face in both her hands, so Buttercup took Nanny’s lovely soft face in hers, and they stared deeply at each other while Nanny promised to be right there at half past three to take her home for tea, which would be a baked potato and she could have as much butter as she wanted. It seemed a fair deal, and Nanny stuck to things. Also, there was a playground with huge painted wigwams in it, and a hopscotch grid printed on the tarmac, and through the door she could see there was a corner full of books, and what looked like a goldfish in a bowl. So Buttercup kissed Nanny and bravely entered, and went straight to that corner, and peeked in. A girl as small as her was sitting cross-legged on the floor, carefully reading, her neck bent and her head – oh, it was magical! – covered in little sprigs of hair, tiny pigtails, sticking out like cloves from a Christmas orange. (A pomander – she’d liked the word so much that Georgie had named several new kittens Pomander as his Christmas present to her.) They’re like rays from the sun, she thought. Each with its own little square of scalp! Buttercup’s own hair was in two long fair pigtails down her back. Her only parting was long and straight and her plaits did not stand up.

The small girl looked up at Buttercup. Her eyes were big and brown, her brow high and shiny, her smile sweet and shy, with little white teeth gleaming. ‘Hello,’ she said rather formally. ‘I am Omolola Omole.’ Buttercup heard the velvety softness of her voice. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I am Buttercup Lestrange.’ Omolola Omole looked as if she knew things. Their eyes wouldn’t move each from the other’s, and they started to giggle.

Buttercup sat down next to her. Their shoulders were at the same height. Omolola Omole smelled of warm laundry. She too was wearing a pinafore: hers was grey, with a white shirt. Their heads leaned forward, and the giggling set off further giggling. When the teacher called them to come and sit in a circle, they went together, each holding a book. They were sent to put the books back in the book corner, then called again because they were taking a long time deciding where to put them. They spoke quietly together, and came back, again, hand in hand.

There were no children whose surnames began with M or N, so they sat together at the low pale blue formica table, and shared when the reading books were handed out. ‘1a Play With Us,’ read Omolola Omole from the cover, and they looked at the little boy and girl peeking out of a wigwam not as pretty as the ones in their playground. When they finished reading the book Omolola Omole whispered ‘Where is the story?’ and the giggling began again. Buttercup said, ‘Perhaps in here? 1b Look at This.’ The children on the cover were admiring a butterfly. ‘Still no story,’ said Buttercup at the end, and the giggles became extreme, but the teacher didn’t seem to mind. They had read both books. They wanted to read 1c Read and Write now. That sounded interesting.

Lunch was disgusting. There was something called cold custard. A boy called Gregory sat and picked his nose. They learned that their school was called Greenfield Junior Mixed Infants School.

Playtime was all right because they occupied a wigwam and didn’t let a shouty girl in. Then they gave the wigwam up because they didn’t want to be mean. They jumped on and off long narrow lengths of dark wood that the bigger children called The Sleepers. They wondered if the blocks of wood would wake up, and if they did, would they talk, and what would they say? They didn’t run up the cobbled slopes at the edges of the playground because bigger children were doing that.

At half past three two big boys, Lanre and Tayo, came to the school gate to walk Omolola Omole home. They were her brothers; they called her Lola. Nanny came for Buttercup. There was a big crowd and they didn’t all meet one another. That night Buttercup told Lumpety about soft-voiced Omolola Omole whose name sounded like a river and whose forehead glowed so high beneath her astonishing tiny plaits. She lay in bed, whispering, Omolola Omole, Omolola Omole.

‘Your hair looks like a dandelion,’ announced a large girl called Linda, in a challenging tone, to Lola. ‘Buttercup and Dandelion. You’re weeds!’ she said.

‘Your face looks like a potato,’ said Buttercup, chin up, furious.

‘Buttercup and Dandelion,’ murmured Lola, smiling.

They sat next to each other for Onward Christian Soldiers in the hall for assembly; they climbed ropes together when the apparatus was wheeled out from where it lived against the walls; they complained about the smell when the yellow floor they sat on in rows was waxed. They got the giggles.

Lola lived near Portobello, between school and Buttercup’s house. Usually she would walk home with her brothers – who were in the juniors as Lanre was ten and Tayo was eight – but if they had football or a club, Nanny and Buttercup would walk with Lola. When Lola came to tea with Buttercup they had fried eggs and bread and butter, and chocolate biscuits and an apple. When Buttercup went to tea with Lola they had red rice which was called jollof and tasted – just tasted! – in a way that Buttercup had never known. Lola’s mother and father were never both there. He drove trains on the underground; she helped people have babies at St Mary’s, and they could be at work at any time. ‘Because people need trains and have babies in the day and the night,’ Nanny said. ‘It’s called shifts.’ They had an enormous turquoise and red glass fish on a low cupboard in their sitting room, and a long black wooden mask on the wall which Buttercup wasn’t sure about. Their house was only part of a house and it was warm. Jollof rice was warm. Lola was warm. Her mother was warm. Her father was quiet. They had a kind of cake that was black and squidgy. One time Mrs Omole invited Nanny up when she came to collect Buttercup, and they stood about and smiled and talked about babies. Nanny had a cousin working at St Mary’s; Mrs Omole knew her.

One teatime at Buttercup’s they were running about in the little garden that lay between Buttercup’s house and the big communal garden beyond, and Mrs Evans, the woman with too much scent, to do with Dad’s work, who Mummy didn’t like, said, ‘Oh! Aren’t they just lovely, the two little girls. Look at them together!’ in such a meaningful and nudgey way that Lola and Buttercup glanced at each other, then shrugged and took advantage of Archie’s distraction to hurtle off into the big garden where they weren’t supposed to go by themselves. They were making a den inside the mock orange bushes. Unfortunately so was someone who smoked a lot of stinky cigarettes, so they were always having to sweep out the cigarette ends and start again. As long as the person didn’t appear, they didn’t mind.