I Ordered a Table for Six

by Noel Streatfeild

  The girl turned and called George, who was under some bushes. It was dim with the murkiness of late afternoon, and she did not want to lose sight of him. Funny, how men talked, she thought. Three pounds a week might be starv-ation to hear him. Of course you couldn’t do any extra spending on it; still, you would think you could carry on for a bit without making a fuss. Still, men were queer that way. Some told you about losing hundreds as if it were pennies, and another groused about an odd half-crown; only women seemed to have any idea what money was worth. Not that the girls didn’t spend money as they got it; but no matter what they had they never forgot what you could get along on in a pinch. George, gay with the tug of spring in his blood, came bounding up the path. The girl turned back to Noel.

  “Couldn’t his mother have agreed about the three pounds and then sent him a bit on the quiet?”

  Noel’s voice became peevish.

  “Of course she could, and so she should have done. It was her fault Paul got into a jam. You can’t bring people up to expect to spend money, and then just take it away. I tell you, that Framley woman must be a gutless bitch.”

  “Oh, I don’t know; relations can be awful. When my father died I went to the funeral. I always send my mother something at Christmas, so she had my address—where I was before I was bombed out—and she wrote and told me, see? Well, I thought she wrote so that I would go to the funeral, and so I went. I was dressed all right, nice and quiet and all that, but you should have seen my sisters’ faces when I blew in. Talk about something the cat’s brought in! Well, I’d got there, wreath and all, so I stayed, but I don’t mind telling you I cried all through the funeral, and it wasn’t on account of Dad, who was a crotchety old b—, but on account of my family.”

  The girl was but a repository for the overflow from Noel’s burdened conscience. He did not consider that she had feelings.

  “Well, you were a different case; Paul’s mother simply adored him.”

  “My God! What did she say when that case came on?”

  “Turned him down flat. Never saw him, never wrote, paid for the best counsels and all that, but treated him as if he was dead.”

  “Funny people are, aren’t they? Of course, being mixed up in what was nearly a murder isn’t what you’d call nice, but it wouldn’t make me feel different about anybody. There was a fellow I knew who was queer; liked rough stuff, you know. Well, one day he gets so rough he knocked me out. I must have been unconscious for hours; but I never felt bad about him, not except just at first. What I say is, it’s just his way, see?”

  “It wasn’t so much that she felt different about him; it was that she hated her blessed name dragged in the mud. That’s what the snapshot reminded me of—Paul and me drinking that rum, and his saying: ‘It’s not the old lady’s fault; she’s pretty good value, but she’s a publicity hawk. Her father—my grandfather—was soap, and not used to high society, and Ma thinks it’s the cat’s whiskers. She’s spent the hell of a lot climbing up the ladder, and she’d die rather than be pushed off.’”

  “She must have slipped a bit after that case. It was terrible what they wrote in the papers.”

  “I’ll say she did, but she’s clever. She climbed back on the war. She keeps a charity, something to do with clothes for bombed people, pictures of her in the papers and all that.” His tone warmed: “I’m taking a bet she won’t want to slip again.”

  The girl stood still.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Noel held her elbow and leant down to her, smiling.

  “Nothing illegal, my poppet. I’m going to ask her to lend me the two hundred quid, or perhaps even two hundred and fifty, because, if not, when I crash, the fact that I was a friend of Paul’s is going to come out. You know: nice boy, bad friends—that stuff; photograph inset of Paul’s mother who is running clothes for the bombed, and a paragraph about Paul, who should be released from prison soon.”

  The girl shivered and drew her arm away from his hand.

  “I must be going, it’s getting late. I’ve work to do if you haven’t.”

  She had reacted wrong, and put Noel in a bad temper. He had not told this little drab his story to be criticized; she should have been sympathetic, and certain, far more certain than he was, that his scheme must work, and the awful Monday would never dawn.

  “There’s no need to be high-hat. It’s a damn sight more honest than your way of getting money.”

  She let that pass as too idiotic to be worth reply. She was surprised at her reaction to the story. She was often surprised at herself, being unaware that she had a list of objects over which she was utterly sentimental, whether the individual object deserved it or not. The list included children, called in her mind kiddies—particularly cripples and babies; hungry cats; statues of the Virgin Mary; and all mothers, preferably those with grey hair and hands wrinkled with hard work. Adela, during the story-telling, had acquired these attributes. However, it was not in the girl’s nature to annoy a male, even a male with whom she was merely walking, and with whom there was no business in prospect. She apologized.

  “It’s cold.”

  Noel was determined to get the balm he needed. His voice took on the faint whine which had been successful in his childhood.

  “You can’t imagine what it’s like, having money and then losing it, can you? But, believe me, it’s the hardest thing that can happen to anybody. I know: it happened to me.”

  The wind was in their faces. The girl hugged her foxes to her and wished she was home. She would, she decided, have a nice cup of tea before she started work. Her voice, permanently keyed to a note of interest in men’s conversation, showed no sign that her mind had wandered.

  “Really?”

  “We’d no end of money until I was seventeen, and then Dad went bankrupt. It was simply hell for me, had to leave school and all that, and they shoved me into an office. As a matter of fact I didn’t stay in the office long; I meant to, but I simply couldn’t stick it. I expect this’ll make you laugh, for I don’t suppose you ever talked to anybody quite like me before, but do you know I never wanted to grow up. It’s a fact. When I was quite a kid I used to wake screaming because I’d dreamed I was a man.”

  She giggled.

  “Started young.”

  He could have hit her; her vulgar giggle and the coarse thought behind it smeared his story, but he was enjoying his self-exposure too much to risk breaking the thread of what he was saying in order to snub her.

  “I liked being looked after; you know, told what to do and all that. You’ll think it awfully queer, but I still like it. Do you know, I enjoyed being ill with my appendix—all those nurses fussing. That’s why it was so ghastly for me being taken away from school suddenly. You see, I still thought myself a kid. I wasn’t a prefect or anything, and then there I was catching a tube, a daily breader.”

  She was listening, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth. Funny, men were—the same stories over and over again, and all thinking they were saying something new. It was like theme songs to a picture, they all sounded much alike whatever they were called. What she liked was boys who came to her just because they needed her. That was something that required no explaining.

  “After I left the office,” Noel went on, “I got into the motor business. It wasn’t so bad there. You could do more what you liked. We’d quite fun in a way. Sampson was working there. That’s how I met Paul and his lot. Of course I know he sounded not much good in the papers, but he was grand to me. He’s two years older than I am, and he was no end of a friend. Took me everywhere, and usually paid. He’d lashings of money. That was in the days when his mother was still coughing up.”

  “I bet he was a rotten friend for you.”

  “Well, of course, there is that. I was still a bit green, and if you get admiring anybody at that age you think everything they do is all right. All the same, Paul was differ
ent to the others. There was a thing about him that always surprised me. He knocked around a bit, you know, and you wouldn’t expect to find him far from a bar, but one day his car stopped outside our salesroom and I popped out to speak to him, and he’d got his little sister with him—kid in socks. And where d’you think they’d been? The Zoo.”

  “You heard the story about the alligator?”

  He silenced her by quickening the tempo of his speech.

  “He wasn’t too pleased to see me, but the kid was full of chat, and you could see Paul was a king pin with her. That was queer. I tried asking him about her afterwards, but he shut me up.”

  “There’s nothing funny in being fond of kiddies.”

  “No, but it was odd if you knew Paul. It wasn’t long afterwards that things got sticky for him. He’d had a job with some friends of an uncle of his, and there was a hell of a row, and that was when he was pushed off to Man-chester. I didn’t see much of him then for a bit, and then he took to coming to town for odd nights. Well, you couldn’t blame him. Nobody could stick Manchester all the time. We were all rather on our uppers just then, but we raised a bit here and there. Sampson was an absolute wizard at finding the odd spot of cash. I got another job, still in cars. That’s what my elephant does for me. I often seem to be right up against it, and then something turns up. That’s why I feel it’ll be all right to-morrow. Now you’ve heard how things work out for me, wouldn’t you think I was the sort who would always squeeze through?”

  “Hope you do. Funny what a difference a mascot makes. A fellow gave me a string of beads once he said were lucky, but I never wore them. They were comic, all shapes and that. Anyway, I lost them when I was bombed.”

  “I’ve got to get through this. The Army’s my big chance. I see that. You know, I’m not a bit like I want to be. I mean, if only I’d had an easier time I wouldn’t have mucked things up. Going bankrupt broke Dad up, and Mum has spent all her time looking after him. There’s been nobody to help me. I expect I’d have been better to stay in the ranks, but I’d had about enough of that after five months, and when they picked me for an officer’s course, I was off. It was grand at first. I wish to God they’d sent me abroad. If I’d been abroad I might have done all right.”

  The gate was in sight. Unconsciously, with the vision of her cup of tea before her, the girl’s step quickened, but something in Noel’s worried, fretful voice had called out the mother in her. She gave his arm a squeeze.

  “If you get out of this bit of trouble all right, you try to go straight, and don’t keep looking for somebody to prop you up. From what I’ve seen, you have to manage on your own in this world.” She gave his arm another pressure to take the edge off the harshness of her words. “You want to be careful, you know, or you’ll finish up like those friends of yours, and you’re too nice a boy for that, see?”

  “You’re quite right, that’s what I’m scared of, but I’ve made an absolute vow if I get out of this all right I’ll never owe another penny as long as I live.” She turned to put George on his lead to cross the road. He misinterpreted her movement. “I know you think I’ve probably said that before. Well, so I have, but this is different. I’ve thought an awful lot lately, and if only I’m given a chance I believe I could do well in this war.”

  She looked up from George.

  “I’m sure you can. Get the V.C., shouldn’t wonder.”

  He dismissed that, but all the same his face lighted.

  “Well, not quite that, but it’s all a matter of getting a chance, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever had a chance really.”

  She stopped in the gateway.

  “Well, good-bye. I’m ever so pleased to have met you.”

  In the street she was no longer a girl out with her dog, but a woman of her trade, her eyes darting left and right. Even her walk had changed. He turned hurriedly so that he should not be connected with her.

  “Cheerio!”

  She looked after him, the wisdom of age-old experience saddening her eyes.

  “Cheerio! Good luck!”

  Claire, in spite of wearing her green linen overall over two jerseys and a tweed skirt, shivered.

  “Damn cold to-day.”

  Bill, the canteen driver, was lifting a thermos urn of tea up the canteen steps.

  “Spring’s coming. How you getting along with those rolls? Shouldn’t wonder if there’s only you and me on this to-night. I’ve got two girls on the other. I let them know we wanted an extra, and they said they’d try to send one along, but there’s ’flu about.”

  “It’s all right, we can manage. I’ve cut most of these in half. There’s only the margarine to spread. I can do to-morrow night if you’re short. I only told my aunt I’d go to that do of hers if you didn’t need me.”

  “I think we’ll be all right. I’ll ring you up if we aren’t. Where can I get you?”

  “I’m at Bermondsey all day. You’ve got the number on that list I gave you, but if you like I’ll come down here anyway.”

  Bill pushed the urn into place and squeezed past her to light the two oil stoves at the end of the canteen.

  “No need for that. You’ll be knocking yourself up soon if you don’t take a night off.”

  “I like that, from you. You’ve hardly had a night off since the first blitz.”

  Bill liked Claire. They had a friendship based on mutual respect. They had shared some ghastly nights together, and there was no one, man or woman, he would rather work beside in a bad raid. He knew her ways; how she grew more blasphemous as the bombs fell. He was never blasphemous himself, but he accepted that it was her way, though he thought it was a pity, and bad in front of the other canteen workers. He knew, too, the way she would get up after she had thrown herself flat for a bomb, and, having sworn at any upset mugs of tea or Bovril, make some crack that would set them all laughing. His idea of the way to behave in an air raid was to go on as if it were not happening. Sometimes when the girls on the canteen were nervous he helped them out a bit, giving them jobs which would keep them a long time in the shelters; but Claire needed nothing like that. The difficulty was to get her not to take on an unfair share of the work. If somebody had to take an extra trip to fetch some dirty mugs, it was always Claire who snatched up a tray and went off to do it. It was no safer in, or by, the canteen than walking up the road to the shelter, and he, without actually framing the thought, disapproved of Claire suggesting that it was. It was dramatizing the air raids, which seemed to him in a way unpatriotic. It was giving in to Hitler to make much of them. That Claire was a bit different during an air raid from what she was on a quiet night was a quality he could not understand in her. Although they came from totally different worlds, he did not, he thought, read her wrong as a rule; but when the siren went there was something about her which he had never placed. At first he had thought it was nervousness, the way her movements quickened and she became talkative; but a very few of the early raids had dispelled that idea. The raids affected her with excitement, not fear. Not that she was not human. She felt the strain of the danger. He remembered a night in the winter when they two had been out alone. It had snowed all the while, the gunfire had been very heavy, and the shelters were crowded. Coming home the car that towed the canteen had broken down, and they had been some while working on it; it was very late when at last they had reached the yard where they parked. As they arrived a window above them had opened and a voice had shouted something. It had been at first quite hard, above the gunfire, to make out what, and then they realized it was a member of the Home Guard to know if they would like a cup of tea. They had sat round a fire with some of the guard. The men had been charming to Claire, but though she made an effort she was, for her, silent. Her face was always pale, but Bill had thought she was unusually white. They came out and Claire got into her car to drive herself back to the West End. Suddenly she lowered the window and leant out. “You know, Bill, nobo
dy should ever be kind after the hell of a night. It’s the last straw.” A gun-flash lit her face. He could not be sure, but he thought her eyes were full of tears. There had been other little things, small pointers to a humanity in her which showed a different Claire from the polished, sophisticated girl he usually met.

  Bill had a good plumbing, carpentering, and decorating business, built by himself. He was South London born, and had been to the local council school and left it, at fourteen, to work. His mother had been an exceptional woman, firing her children with a desire to get on and live in good conditions, but with no desire to leave the people among whom they had been born. Bill’s father had died when Bill was ten, and money in the home had been tight. Bill had been ill about then, and away from school for eight months. Those eight months with his mother had given him a real understanding of the housewife’s existence. His mother, who was a grand manager, had talked to him as she worked, and by degrees he had known of her little savings on this and that, and what day each special piece of work was done, and he shared some of her pride in a home from which nobody could turn her, for the rent was ready for the landlord every week. When the war came—and in September the bombs had rained down night after night, and not one home but streets of homes were smashed, and the women practically lived in the shelters, slipping back to their wrecked houses to cook, some way, any way, what they could for their families—Bill, more than most of the men around him, understood what the women’s struggle really meant, and though, being a cockney, he would have insulted them rather than told them so, he almost worshipped their bravery. For the housewives, struggling to keep washing day, and provide a Sunday dinner, and have a clean doorstep, when there was seldom any gas to give them heat, and often enough no water in the tap, he felt he had to do something. He remembered how much thought his mother had given to the meal they had when the family were home from work. He saw in the shelters the comic, if it were not tragic, effort to carry on the tradition: the newspaper spread on the bench, and the odds and ends the housewife had managed to buy, between sirens, laid out for the family tea; the murmur, which was almost shamed, which rose from the women: “I don’t like ’em to come ’ome and not be able to give them so’thin’ ’ot.”