Anne Bennett - A Little Learning

Bert was recounting some tale from the factory around the tea table, and Duncan was listening avidly. He was fascinated by anything to do with the world he would soon be joining. Betty was keeping a watchful eye on the twins, who were making a mess of feeding themselves but screamed if she tried to help them. She was just thankful it was Friday and she didn’t have to go to work. Janet had kept her head down all through tea, and catching sight of her now, Betty realised that she’d been quiet all evening. She hoped Janet wasn’t sickening for something.

There was a small silence after Bert had finished, broken only by the twins banging their spoons on their high-chair tables. Suddenly Janet said: ‘Mom, Miss Wentworth would like a word with you.’

There was a hoot of laughter from Duncan. ‘Why, what you done?’ he said, and added in disbelief, ‘Goody-goody Janet’s in trouble.’

‘I’m not, I’m not,’ Janet declared hotly.

‘That will do, Duncan,’ Betty said. She turned her gaze to her daughter and said: ‘D’you know what it’s about?’

All eyes were on Janet now, and she stammered: ‘I … I think it’s … it’s about the exam.’

‘The exam?’ Bert said. ‘What’s this?’

‘The eleven-plus, she means,’ Duncan said.

‘Oh,’ said Bert airily. ‘No need to worry your head about that, pet, you don’t need to do no eleven-plus.’

Janet’s face flushed crimson. Betty took pity on her and said, ‘Do you want to do it, love?’

‘Oh, yes.’

There was a shocked silence. Even the twins were staring at her. Bert put down his knife and fork and asked in genuine puzzlement, ‘Why do you want to take the eleven-plus?’

‘Miss Wentworth says I have a good chance of passing,’ Janet burst out. ‘She says I have a good brain and …’

‘This Miss Wentworth has been talking a lot of nonsense,’ Bert said, ‘and filling your head with rubbish. You’ve no need for a grammar school education and you can tell her that from me.’

Betty looked at her daughter’s stricken face and said, ‘It will do no harm to listen to what the woman has to say.’

‘Do no bloody good either.’

‘Bert,’ Betty admonished, with a nod towards the twins, who were reaching the age when they liked to latch on to unusual words and repeat them.

‘They’ll hear worse before they’re much older,’ Bert said, ruffling the heads of his small sons fondly. ‘Proper little buggers they’re growing up to be.’

Betty gave up. He’d never be any different. He stood up, scraping his chair back. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m away for a wash.’

‘You going to the club?’

‘I always go to the club on Friday.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Betty began collecting the plates, then said, almost casually, though she knew her daughter would be holding her breath for Bert’s reply, ‘I think I’ll pop along to the school and have a chat with our Janet’s teacher anyway, all right?’

‘Yes, if you want,’ Bert said. ‘Do as you like but it won’t make any bloody difference.’ He chucked Janet under the chin as he went out. ‘Cheer up, ducky,’ he said. ‘Why the long face? You’re much too pretty to worry yourself over any silly exams.’

Janet didn’t answer. She watched him lift the kettle from the gas and take it to the bathroom that opened off the kitchen, and a little later she heard him whistling as he had a shave.

Betty went to see Miss Wentworth the following Monday lunchtime. ‘You really think our Janet has a chance of passing the eleven-plus?’ she asked, gazing at the teacher in amazement.

‘Indeed I do,’ Claire Wentworth said with an emphatic nod of her head. ‘Janet has an exceptional brain. She seems to soak up knowledge.’

Does she? Betty thought. Miss Wentworth went on to describe a child Betty did not recognise as her daughter. ‘She’s one of the brightest I have ever taught,’ she said at last.

‘But she’s always so quiet at home, our Janet,’ Betty said.

‘Assimilating all the knowledge gained, I suppose.’

‘Pardon?’ said Betty, not quite understanding the words the teacher was using.

‘Taking it all in, you know,’ said Claire. ‘She’s probably got too much going on in her head for chattering a lot.’

‘Maybe,’ Betty said. ‘She often looks as though she’s in a dream. She must be thinking.’ She smiled and added, ‘It’s not something the rest of us do a lot of.’

Claire studied the woman before her. Betty Travers wasn’t at all how she’d expected her to be. She was younger, for a start, and prettier, very like Janet, with the same reflective eyes and wide mouth. Her hair was the same colour as Janet’s but slightly longer, and judging by the straggly curls, it had once been permed.

She looked open and approachable and did not appear hostile to her daughter taking the exam. A lot of parents were against their children bettering themselves, especially the girls.

Yet there was some obstacle, because when Claire had asked Janet that morning if she’d broached the subject at home, her eyes had had a hopeless look in them, and there’d been a dejected droop to her mouth. She’d said she’d told her mother, and that she was coming in to discuss it, and now here was the mother and proving very amenable too.

‘You are agreeable to allowing Janet to enter then, Mrs Travers?’

Betty didn’t answer immediately. She twisted her handbag strap round and round in her fingers. Eventually she said:

‘Well … the thing is, my husband … he … well, he … he doesn’t see the point.’

It was nearly always the fathers, Claire thought angrily. ‘You mean her father is refusing to let her take the examination?’ she snapped.

It came out sharper than she had intended and it put Betty’s back up. Janet’s teacher had no right to talk that way about Bert.

‘He’s a good man,’ she said stiffly. ‘It isn’t that he doesn’t want the best for Janet, but he sees this eleven-plus as a waste of time.’

‘It’s not!’ Claire cried. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity for her. You must see that.’

Betty stared at Claire Wentworth, but she wasn’t seeing her. The word ‘opportunity’ had stirred her memories. The war had given Betty the opportunity to be something other than a wife and mother. It had given her an independent life that she seldom spoke of, even to Bert, sensing his disapproval. Now an opportunity of a different kind was being offered to her daughter, and she was rejecting it on Janet’s behalf.

Have I any right to do that? she thought. Will she resent me and her dad for not letting her try? She knew Bert would be furious, but she felt she couldn’t deny her daughter this chance.

‘When is the examination, Miss Wentworth?’ she asked.

Claire smiled. ‘The examination is in three parts,’ she said. ‘There is a maths paper, an English paper and a paper to test intelligence. She must pass all three, and the first set is held in November.’

‘That’s not far away, it’s October already.’

‘Yes, I must enter Janet’s name by the end of the week. And she will need extra tuition.’

Betty was startled. ‘What d’you mean? You said she had a good chance of passing, you never said a thing about her needing tuition. I can’t afford that.’

‘Mrs Travers, you don’t have to afford it. I will coach Janet. She has a chance of passing now, without extra work, but the classes are large and I have no extra time to give her. I’ve explained all this to Janet. She is prepared to work hard.’

‘You will do that for our Janet?’ Betty asked, amazed.

‘I would do it for any pupil who would benefit from it,’ Claire said. ‘Unfortunately, most children at Paget Road junior school look no further than the secondary modern. It’s what they want and what their parents want, and they see no need to take an examination.’