'Are you the parent of either of these two girls?'
'No. I am not.'
'A guardian? In some kind of legal capacity?'
'No, but they are living with me in our house, and they will be going to school from there.While she knew Rose would be, she didn't know about Jill, and so she was telling a lie.
Mrs Kent was taking a long look at the girls, who sat sulking, their legs apart, their legs crossed high, knees raised, showing black tights to the crotch. Frances noted that Jill was trembling: she would not have believed this cool girl capable of it.
' Could I have a word with you in private?' Mrs Kent said to Frances. She got up and said to the girls, We won't be one minute. ' She showed Frances to the door, and followed her in to a little private room, evidently her refuge from the strain of these interviews.
She went to the window, and so did Frances. They looked down over a little garden where two lovers licked at one ice-cream cone. Mrs Kent said, I liked your article about Juvenile Crime. I cut it out. '
' Thank you. '
' It's beyond me, why they do it. We understand when poor kids do it, and there's a policy of leniency in hard cases, but they come in here, boys and girls, dressed up to the nines, and I don't get it. One of them said the other day he was at a good school, mind you that not paying fares was a question of principle; I asked what principle and he said he was a Marxist. He wants to destroy capitalism, he said. '
Now that sounds familiar. '
What sort of guarantee can you give me that I won't have these girls up in front of me in a week or so?'
'I can't,' said Frances. 'No guarantee. Both are quarrelling with parents and they've landed on me. Both are school drop-outs, but I expect they will go back.'
'I understand. A friend of my son's a schoolfriend is with us more often than he goes home.'
' Does he say his parents are shits?'
' They don't understand him, he says. But I don't either. Tell me, did you have to do a lot of research for your article?'
' A good bit. '
But you didn't provide any answers. '
I don't know the answers. Can you tell me why a girl -I'm referring to the dark girl out there, Rose Trimble who has just had all her difficulties sorted out, should choose just that moment to do something she knows might spoil everything?'
'I call it brink-walking, said Mrs Kent. ' They like to test limits. They walk out on a tightrope but hope someone'll catch them. And you are catching them, aren't you?'
I suppose so. '
You' d be surprised how often I hear the same story. '
The two women stood close together at the window, linked by a sort of despair.
I wish I knew what was going on, said Mrs Kent.
' Don't we all. '
They went back into the office where the girls, who had been giggling and laughing at the older women's expense, resumed their silence and their sulky looks.
Mrs Kent said, Im going to give you another chance. Mrs Lennox says she will help you. But in fact I am exceeding my brief; I hope you both understand that you have had a very narrow escape. You are both fortunate girls, to have a friend in Mrs Lennox. ' This last remark was a mistake, though Mrs Kent could not know that. Frances could positively hear the seethe of resentment in the girls, in Rose at least, that they could owe anyone anything.
Outside the building, on the pavement, they said they would go off shopping.
'If I told you not to shoplift,' said Frances, 'would you take any notice?'
But they went off without looking at her.
That night they announced at supper that they had nicked the two Biba, or Biba-type dresses they were wearing, both so short they could only have been chosen with the intention of inviting shock or criticism.
And Sylvia did say she thought they were too short, in an effort that cost her a good deal to assert herself.
'Too short for what?' jeered Rose. She had not looked at Frances once, all evening, and this morning's crisis might never have happened. Jill, though, did say in a hurried mutter that combined politeness with aggression, 'Thanks, Frances, thanks a million.'
Andrew told the girls they were bloody lucky to have got off, and Geoffrey, the accomplished shoplifter, told them it was easy not to get caught if you were careful.
'You can't be careful on the Underground, said Daniel, who did not buy tickets, in emulation of his idol, Geoffrey. ' It's luck. You either get caught or you don't. '
'Then don't travel on the Underground without a ticket, said Geoffrey. Not more than twice. It's stupid. '
Daniel, publicly criticised by Geoffrey, went red and said he had travelled ' for years' without a ticket and had only been caught twice.
'And the third time? said Geoffrey, instructing him.
'Third time unlucky, ' chorused the company.
That was the week that Jill allowed herself to get pregnant, no, invited it.
All these dramas had played themselves out in the four months since Christmas and, as if nothing had happened, here were the protagonists, here were the boys and girls, sitting around the table on that spring evening making plans for the summer.