It’s the first day at my new school and I am bursting with excitement.
Due to the sudden rush to find me a place, Grandpa George’s Girl Friday, who is actually an old and highly efficient lady called Bonnie, has enrolled me in a local state school in Memphis, not the sort of place I’m accustomed to.
“We’ll find a more suitable option for the next school year,” Grandpa George tells me. “This will be a good experience for you,” he adds.
To me it’s all too thrilling.
I will be meeting the kind of American salt-of-the-earth types I have only ever seen in the movies or read about in newspapers. I imagine them all to be Chicago wise guys like Al Capone. Perhaps I can fashion myself into a dame, or a broad. Whatever I decide, I fully intend to become their fearless leader.
“Let the anthropological survey of the United States of America commence!”
I clasp my hands in joy and shout this, a little too enthusiastically, to my new nanny, Miss Mary, as she drives me to school. I will be starting in the American version, and what they call ‘the eighth grade’.
It’s a dark, overcast November day in 1948, but to me the towering Gothic-looking main building of Humes High is bathed in sunshine and hallelujahs, the grass a vivid green and the sky a clear blue.
“You need to calm yourself down, Miss Birdie,” Miss Mary tells me, sending me a reprimanding glance. “And whatever you do, do not, and I repeat, do not, call anyone ‘salt of the earth’ in conversation.” She nods for emphasis. “It will only set you further apart than you already are.”
I accept. She is probably making a lot of sense. I know nothing about making sense; I only make nonsense. Everyone says so.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say in my best Southern drawl as I get out of the car. I am sure she is happy to see me go, I have been sending her mad all week, practising various American accents on her as I have eagerly settled into the new house and found my way around town. Miss Mary has told me, in no uncertain terms, that I must not do this out in the wild, that it will deliver me a bloody nose before my first lunch break, I should just relax and be myself, and not act like I am living in Movieland.
“I can’t help it,” I reply matter-of-factly. “I was made this way,” I look at her, “it’s just the way it is.” I say and shrug.
“Very well,” Miss Mary sighs, “but do try,” she continues. “And after that, you must try again.”
She asks if I would like for her to walk me in to meet the principal but I tell her, “no, thank you.”
I can find my own way into the principal’s office.
I can find my own way around this school.
Of course I can.
***
“Hey, you,” I say, dropping into the seat beside a blonde unassuming looking boy. “Is this taken?”
“No, ma’am,” he replies, politely. “But I guess it is now.”
He smiles, then looks me up and down. This boy looks nothing like Al Capone. In a way I am relieved that none of the kids here do. This one is cute. I immediately take to him, quickly forgetting my ambitions of becoming any sort of leader of anybody here.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Why, I’m Birdie Darling, of course.”
I flick my hair back performatively, like I am back in Pretend-Movieland.
“You are going to love me.” I tell him, deadpan.
I extend my hand for a formal introduction. He shakes it.
“Really?” His eyes flick to mine, then dart away. He half chuckles.
“You can count on it.” I say with a wink, opening my book like a real little know-it-all.
I turn to face him again, and smile.
“Hello, new city. Hello, winter term of the eighth grade.”
Then, glancing back again, I smirk, adding with dramatical flair:
“Welcome to the winter of our discontent.”
He looks puzzled.
“…made glorious summer by this sun of moi!”
I spread my fingers around my face and beam. It’s a ridiculous performance, and I know it.
He just stares, clearly not a Shakespeare buff. Can he even see the light I’m shining right at him?
“I mean me,” I add deflated, for clarity.
He nods, face turning red.
“I mean, your sad days are over. I’m here now to brighten them all.” I have lost my momentum.
“Kinda figured,” he mumbles, grinning.
We both giggle.
He forgets to tell me his name, and I’m too excited to ask.
***
I sit with a group of new classmates outside of school, waiting to be picked up, me by Miss Mary, the others by their parents.
We are all scared of The Bomb. We’re pretty sure it’s going to blow us all to Smithereens.
“How long d’you think it takes?” one of the boys asks.
“Not long,” says another. “Maybe a minute.”
We go quiet, each of us picturing it, bright flash, then nothing.
I think of all the poor people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the children, wild nature and animals too. I wonder what sort of grown-ups do things like that, and when I realise it is this kind: Americans, I shriek. Americans do horrible things in the name of Freedom, of Empire and Progress, and to fight the Reds from the East who were once, not so long ago, our allies against the Nazis. I don’t say any of this out loud. These people love being American too much.
One boy says his daddy told him the Soviets are working on a bomb. And when they get it, it’s only a matter of time. He snaps his fingers. “Just like that.”
We all hope it won’t happen.
But we all feel like it might.
***
“I made a new friend.” I announce to Miss Mary when I jump in the car. I wave goodbye to the group, smiling as though we’ve known each other forever.
“Well done, baby girl,” she says, patting my knee. “I knew you would. Everything will be plain sailing for you here.” She smiles.
Her grey eyes flick over me with approval as she pulls a gloved hand through her light brown updo, making sure every hair is in its right place, then returns her focus to me. Miss Mary isn’t as old as the nannies I’ve had back in England. She isn’t stuffy either, she’s a proper American lady.
“I know.” I smile. “Thank you.”
As a treat for having survived my first day in the trenches of a new school, she takes me out for ice cream.
I love Miss Mary, she’s the best nanny I’ve ever had. And I’ve had it up to my ears in nannies, I can tell you that.
***
“Where are you from?” my new friend asks during recess.
“Heaven knows. A whole other world,” I reply, vague on purpose. I’m not sure why, it just seems easier that way. The less I say, the more likely I’ll fit in. “But I’m here now,” I add, keeping my eyes down as I sketch in my notebook.
Realising I’m being rude, I glance up, smiling at him.
“The old world.” I wave one hand in a theatrical swoop, dismissing the distant continent.
“You have an English accent…” he prods, then gently mocks it.
“Bingo!” I grin. “You’re sharper than you look.” He guffaws. All this talk, and focus on me is making me nervous.
He squints as though he might ask more, but thinks better of it. I have a feeling he can sense that I am anxious and shy underneath all my bravado and fancy pants posturing. So instead, he just says:
“Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”
That gets a laugh out of me. In my best Bogart, I shoot back:
“Of all the schools, in all the towns, in all the world, I just had to walk into yours.”
He gives my shoe a little nudge with his. The bell rings.
“Get up, Bergman, we got class.” he says.
I reach up, offering my hand for him to pull me off the floor.
“Thank you, my good man.”
He snorts in surprise. “You’re welcome.” Then, after a pause as we walk down the hall, he adds,
“I don’t reckon I ever met anyone quite like you.”
He says it like it slipped out, then glances sideways.
I smirk. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He just shakes his head.
***
He keeps sneaking looks at me in class. When I catch him, he flusters and looks down. A good sign, I think smugly. He loves me already. I don’t blame him; I am almost too good to be true. Then I purse my lips with self-satisfaction, and consider all my assets as a human being, before my mind drifts off elsewhere.
As we step into the hallway after class we chat.
“I think I’ll just sit next to you in English from now on. Are you okay with that?”
“If you got to.” He smiles without wanting to.
Then, with newfound confidence, he guffaws, the kind that comes from being around someone you refuse to take seriously.
“Good.” I wink and stroll off down the hall. “See you tomorrow, kid.”
He waves, and walks in the opposite direction. After a few steps he turns around to take one last look at me before slinking off home.
It’s the darndest thing we’ve just started.
***
It turns out we’re both new in town, so we have that in common.
We also both love to natter and are constantly reprimanded for talking in class, always threatened with being split up if we don’t stop.
We don’t stop. And we are not split up.
The teachers do not want to make things harder than they already are, new school, new city, all of it.
But for me, it isn’t hard at all.
For me, it’s the adventure of a lifetime.
I’m happy as a clam. I love being in America.
America is everything England isn’t, rich in everything that matters, literature, music, movies, and stars!
I’m in love with Cary Grant (who’s really a poor boy from Bristol, but never mind), and I want to be like Katharine Hepburn, because she’s just grand, isn’t she?
America!
I can mingle with the sublime and the brilliant!
America, you big ol’ melting pot of promise!
I am here to live in dreams. I am here for all of your magical worlds.
“Oh, America!” I exclaim, clasping my hands to my thirteen-year-old chest.
“What adventures will you bring me?” I swoon.
I twirl down the corridor, looking up at the ceiling tiles as if they’re a sky I need to reach, the boy trailing behind, not knowing whether to run or stay.
***
“I was born here, you know,” I whisper to him in class, almost in secret.
He looks stunned.
“You were?” he asks.
I nod solemnly. I tell him all about it, my life in England, part of the reason why I am here. “After all that war business back home… you know, all that stuff, everyone thought it’d be good for me to come here for a while.”
He listens quietly.
“I’m living in a house my grandfather owns here in town. One of the places my mother grew up. And you know what? I kinda like it.”
I laugh.
“I kinda like it a lot!”
I realise I’m being too loud again, like a real-life lunatic. I tone it down. I look at the boy, he doesn’t seem to mind.
His face is full of questions.
“Are your folks here with you?” he ventures.
“No,” I say, matter-of-fact.
“I’m here with my nanny, Miss Mary. She’s wonderful. You’ll meet her soon.”
“But what about your mamma and daddy?”
“What about them?” I reply, glibly.
He’s jogged me out of my American dream and back into the real world.
“I have Miss Mary,” I say with a hint of petulance.
He frowns, scratching his head, but doesn’t press me further.
I hop up suddenly.
“Miss, may I please go to the bathroom?”
Miss Prendergast nods.
“Thank you, Miss,” I say, then lean over his desk and whisper in his ear, “You’ll have to wait for the rest for another time.”
I can tell I am taking him by storm.
My World of Interiors 