Playing with the Grown-ups Read Free Page A

fancy, Kitten?'
    'Don't be stupid,' she said gloomily. 'I go to school with girls.'
    'What about that heavenly boy with acne in the chemist's . . . I know you love him.' Elsie dug her in the ribs.
    'Shut up,' Kitty said. Her neck was hot in the dark.
    She liked the fuggy pub. They made steak sandwiches and crispy chips, and she was allowed Appletise in the bottle with a straw.
    'Stop,' Kitty said. 'One moment. I have a pain in my ovaries. A serious pain. I think I have to go back to the house, and
     get one of my sanitary towels.'
    'Not this again,' Ingrid said. 'Kitty, you do not have your period, OK? Just stop it. You probably won't get it for another
     two years. You're completely flat-chested. Why do you want it so badly? It's really strange. When you get it you'll be sorry:
     it's not fun.'
    'I think I have it, I do. I can feel things moving inside me, and I have a cramp.'
    'We're going to ignore you if you carry on. It's called the curse not the blessing. I'll bet you your pocket money it's not.
     Are you willing to take a bet?'
    'No,' Kitty said.
    'Would you like to go to another school? Boarding school, like we did?' Elsie asked.
    'Don't think so. Maybe, if there were boys.'
    * * *
    Boarding school was a topic of tired discussion at Hay House. Kitty had wriggled out of it for years. The others had all gone
     from eight to sixteen. Kitty knew secretly that one of the reasons her mother wanted her to go was so she could go up to London
     and not feel guilty. If she was away at school, she wouldn't be there to stare at her mother with accusing eyes when she came
     back the next day from a Party.
    Her mother sat huddled in the sitting room with Elsie and Ingrid, their hushed voices and squawks of laughter wafting under
     the door as Kitty eavesdropped.
    'God, I want to move to New York,' her mother said. 'What can I do here? There's nothing to do, I'll be stuck here for ever
     with you and the bloody chickens.'
    Kitty ran into the room, scandalised.
    'There's me!' she shouted. 'I'm here! Don't forget me! And there's everything to do, the walks and the woods and the canaries
     and the mornings . . .' She realised that she couldn't think of anything else and began to cry.
    Marina pulled her into a familiar softness that smelled of Mitsouko and Marlboro Reds.
    'Hush, hush, sweet girl, I would never leave you anywhere. Come and sit on my lap. I was just talking . . . being a silly
     chatty mummy . . . Whilst I realise that Hay is joy for you, my little bird, sometimes I get a bit bored here.'
    'It should be INSPIRING to you, you're a painter. No one else is bored, just you.'
    'I am,' Elsie said.
    'I want to move to Paris,' Ingrid said.
    'Well, I don't understand you - I think you're all horrible and disloyal to the lovely place where you were born!'
    They laughed and fluttered about Kitty, plastering scented kisses on her head, their soft hands pulling her this way and that,
     until, sated with love and ravenous, she ran to the kitchen to pester Bestepapa for one of his bacon and marmalade sandwiches,
     feeling that things were restored to their rightful order.
    Kitty always measured the passing of time by the calendar of her birthday, which fell, inevitably, like a spent plum, during
     the first week of the autumn term. The Larsens were big on birthdays, and from the moment she woke, Kitty was treated like
     a queen. Her mother brought her breakfast in bed, and she had been there for each and every birthday of Kitty's small life.
    It was the one day of the year Kitty was officially allowed coffee, and it arrived in a great oversized cup, so sweet it made
     her grimace, then smile, and her mother sat on her bed and told her, each year, the story of the day she was born. Kitty loved
     the story of her beginning; it reminded of her of Bestepapa's Viking stories:
    My waters broke at three in the morning. I had been ready for your arrival for weeks, and my suitcase sat at the end of my
     bed neatly packed, so nothing halted my