Grass in Piccadilly

by Noel Streatfeild

  Freda stubbed out her cigarette.

  “Dreaming again. Don’t bother to talk to me. I know it bores you.”

  He thought, my God, you don’t know how true that is. Out loud he said:

  “Sorry, old thing. I was thinking about Jane. Got any ideas about schools?”

  “No. Somebody’s sure to recommend something. I’d like to get her fixed for the autumn term.”

  “She won’t be five until December.”

  “Might get a convent to take her. I was shoved into a convent when I was three.”

  He said nothing to that. There was nothing to say that would not lead to a row. Freda’s parents—her father an actor always on tour, her mother a nurse he had married in a burst of gratitude after being saved from dying of pneumonia—were just the sort to shove their child into a convent when she was three, but it was not the sort of thing his people would do, or that he would do if he could help it. The only thing was, would Jane be happier at a school? It couldn’t be much fun for her at home with Freda. Luckily it was only June. He could make inquiries and ask advice himself before September. Penny would help.

  He got up. He staged a well-done yawn. He knew Freda would not leave half a glass of whisky and soda, nor hurry herself to suit him.

  “I’ll be moving bedwards. Coming?”

  Freda moved her head to look at him. Her mouth took a bitter curve.

  “Makes no odds to me when you go to bed. Doesn’t matter to you what I might be wanting.”

  He stood there, shamed and awkward. It was true, he and Freda were no good to each other now. She blamed him, and quite right too. No good came of falling in love when you had to marry someone else. He said lightly:

  “You wait, my girl. Now we’ve got a place to ourselves you’ll be surprised how often I’ll make a rude suggestion.”

  Freda thought back to their bedroom at his mother’s. The double bed, the thin walls. Could they have been the trouble? She looked at him. Christ, he was good looking! His fair hair; his long, lean body; she remembered how good he had been . . . no one had ever been so clever with her. She moved restlessly. What hell life could be!

  Jeremy went to the other half of the house. The houses narrowed at the top; the rooms were smaller and closer together on the nursery floor. Jane’s little room was at the back next to his study. He stood at her door listening. She had stopped crying. He opened the door softly and went in. She was asleep. He could just see her by the light in the passage. She was lying on her side, her face smudgy with tears. He stroked her hair. Such incredibly fair hair, like moonlight. He loved Jane’s hair, he was so glad that she’d taken after him and not after Freda. Not that his hair had ever been Jane’s colour. People said it was a pity she had missed Freda’s colouring. He agreed, of course, but inside he thanked God. One Freda was enough in any family. Something stirred under the blanket. He raised a corner. Trinity’s blue, malevolent eyes blazed at him. He ran a finger through his fur. “It’s all right, old man, I’m not shifting you.” He replaced the blanket. Maybe he could find a way to get the cat upstairs to sleep with Jane. That might cheer her up a bit; it was unlikely Freda looked in on her. He closed the door softly and crossed the passage to his own and Freda’s room. He stared at his bed—his own bed. No more of that ghastly double bed. No more of his mother’s conviction that a double bed united sons and their wives. He flung himself on his bed and childishly threw both legs in the air, waggling his toes. This was more like it. A room of his own to work in. A bed of his own to sleep in. Perhaps this flat was going to be the beginning of better times. He sat up hurriedly, hearing Freda come along the passage. When she came in he was cleaning his teeth.

  * * * * *

  A policeman walked round the square. He threw the light of his torch into the areas. He climbed the steps and tried the front doors.

  The caretaker of a house still requisitioned by the government was sitting outside his front door smoking a pipe. He jerked a thumb at the Nettel’s house.

  “All moved in now.”

  The policeman strolled into the middle of the road and stared up at the lights showing behind the curtained windows.

  “Good thing too. Gives me the creeps some nights going round this square; scarcely see a cat.”

  The caretaker joined him.

  “Gives you the creeps! What about me? You ought’er been here in the war. This square was like Piccadilly Circus. Never a dull minute. That ’ouse was full of Belgians all parley-vooing and all round we ’ad the Yanks. Used to park their jeeps in the garden there. Of an evenin’ they used to sit on the steps and chew gum. Never saw chaps like it for sittin’ on doorsteps. It’s been lonely since they went. Talk about creeps, sometimes now of a night I think I see ’em. Still sittin’ and still chewin’.”

  The policeman moved on round his beat. He had not been demobilised long. He found life queer back in civvy street. He had been a very young, new policeman before the war, but a proud one. A policeman in Mayfair in those days saw life. He thought Mayfair was a proper mess now. He thought the empty houses no joke with all the criminals about. He was a Londoner born and had not yet grown accustomed to the lines, grime and damage he had found on his city’s face. He had not yet grown accustomed to its citizens, so shabby and so less gay than when he had left them. He looked back at the Nettels’ windows. As he moved on he whistled under his breath. One more house lived in; one extra house with lights in every window; that was more like it.

  Two girls stood on the corner of the square. Their figures clearly outlined by their tight coats and skirts. They stood thrown awkwardly forward on their incredibly high heels.

  “Look, Marie, there’s people living in those houses where the Belgians were.”

  Marie powdered her nose.

  “For me, I am glad. These squares have been terrible since the Yanks went away. I do not like to cross them alone.”

  The other girl looked at Marie; there was scorn in her eyes. They were queer, these foreign girls. All alike, Greeks, Rumanians, French or whatever it was. Quite nice to talk to but queer. They looked upon London, particularly Piccadilly, as a place where you worked. So it was, but it was more than that. She turned away.

  “Getting like old times. Ought to get Eros back in Piccadilly Circus any day now, shouldn’t wonder. So long.”

  An old man had watched the policeman until he was out of the square. He wore a deplorable overcoat and his shoes were through at the toes. He pushed his way through a gap in the privets and laurustinus into the square garden. He shuffled across to one of the seats. He took out of a pocket a wad of newspapers, put them on the seat and sat on them, then he leant back, relaxed and gazed at the sky. Lovely it was, blue-black and full of stars. He sucked at a hollow tooth; he could still taste a bit of that onion; nothing like a raw onion for supper. His eyes caught the lighted windows of the Nettels’ house. It was a bit of all right lights coming back and all that, but you didn’t see the stars the way you had in the blackout. The shadow of Freda crossed her curtain, then the light went out. Big Ben called the time. A quarter to eleven. The old man nodded towards Freda’s window; they were welcome to their houses, give him a fine night like this and a seat in the open. Nothing like it. His lids drooped. He was asleep.

  * * * * *

  Charlotte looked at herself in her glass. How fortunate that shoulders which sagged inwardly did not show as sagging outwardly. But did nothing show? She seemed to remember reading somewhere that if you were down and out it was all right as long as you did not feel down and out. You could still sell your matches, or whatever it was, but if once you felt down and out it showed, and you couldn’t sell anything. She was not sure that this morning she had not reached the stage when how she felt showed. There was the usual old worry nagging and pulling at her mind. That was no worse except that every month brought the decision, what to do next, nearer. Ridiculously it was not the big, perman
ent worry that was making her sag inwardly, but the collection of little, frittering, fraying worries that cropped up every day since they had come to live in London. She opened her wardrobe. No need to look out of the window; it was sure to be raining. She took out a wet weather hat and her good mackintosh. People said wet weather was worse in the country. What unutterable rubbish. In the country rain was clean. There was mud, but you put on Wellingtons, a large shabby mackintosh and something over your hair, and did not care. In London you did not wear Wellington’s, and every passing bus and car ruined your stockings, and you carried that revolting object—an umbrella. Until they settled in London Charlotte had forgotten how greatly she detested an umbrella, banging into everybody, showering water down your neck.

  Dressed, she went down to John’s study. Outside his door she paused, collecting herself, schooling her face to cheerfulness.

  John was reading The Times. When he had read it all through he would do the crossword puzzle. Round about twelve he would step along to his club. Stupid sort of life; he would be glad of something sensible to do, but what? Nobody wanted a man of his age. He was wanting Charlotte. He had hoped she would look in. He was bursting to speak his mind.

  “This will shake the country. Bread rationing. There’s your Labour Government for you! That’ll throw them out, you’ll see. The people won’t stand tampering with their bread or beer.”

  Charlotte had read her paper. She read the Daily Telegraph. It was quicker than The Times, you could get a lot from headlines. John never read his paper until after breakfast, so Charlotte did not either. She carried the Daily Telegraph about with her, snatching at the news at odd moments. John never grasped that she read a paper. His mother never had, nor his first wife, and he believed that women learnt how the world wagged from what they could pick up from their menfolk. Charlotte did not disillusion him. She did not hold his political views. She had not voted Labour, but she was a very left Conservative. She thought it was natural John should hold the views he did, and not for worlds would she upset him by arguing with him.

  “How tiresome! I hope we get enough. Mabel and Hannah eat an incredible amount of bread.”

  “Blue murder, that’s what it is. What can you expect when you let a whole lot of gardener’s boys and farm labourers run the country?” John picked up a letter. “Had a note from the estate office this mornin’. They want to get a garden committee started again. Want me to serve on it.”

  Charlotte went to the window and looked out.

  “I wonder why people ever plant privet and laurustinus. I hate both.”

  He joined her. The garden looked most uninviting. Nothing had been done to it since 1939. The privet and laurustinus bushes had once been caged by railings, but these had been removed in the scrap-iron drive, and the bushes had then grown and spread, sprawling over the pavement, interlocking with each other, branch bound to branch by soot and dirt. In the centre was what had once been a lawn, which, from the moment the railings had been removed, had become a highway, and, when Americans had lived in the square, a jeep park. There were three derelict benches and the remains of some flower beds.

  “When I was a boy, and we came here to stay, we used to play in that square. Seem to remember roses, syringa, lilac, that sort of thing.”

  “Who else would be on the committee? Most of the houses are still government, or are being converted into offices.”

  “Didn’t say. Just said they were formin’ a committee. Might have some bulbs for the spring. Never know here when spring’s comin’.”

  Charlotte thought of Peasefield. Even neglected there had been so many pleasant signs of spring. Snowdrops, aconites and scyllas poking up when spring was still only a dream. Thinking of Peasefield, the square for a moment blurred and became her garden. Funny how ideas were born. Staring at rain dripping off dirty leaves was not a moment when you would expect inspiration.

  “I suppose London will only stop looking shabby and drab when we all do something about it.”

  “Can’t do much with this damn’ government wantin permits for everythin’.”

  Charlotte thought of the surrounding streets.

  “Where people have painted their doors . . . John, we ought to have window-boxes—some people have, and I love looking at them.”

  John was still considering the square garden.

  “Too late to do much this year. Soon as we get a fine day I’ll have a look round.”

  Charlotte put on her gloves and gave him a kiss.

  “And write to-day and say you’ll serve on that committee. I’ll have a word with Mr. Parks about window-boxes.”

  Charlotte went to the kitchen. She felt better. It was fortifying to have considered something constructive; it would be armour against the day’s quota of grumbles.

  Mabel despised Charlotte as a shopper. She knew that when she herself went out for anything she came back with it. Men were born to be got round. Her Ladyship wasn’t the getting round sort. She didn’t know there was an under the counter. She believed that being pleasant and getting to know about the trandesmen’s families worked here as it had at home. Lot of nonsense! A joke, a dig in the ribs and now and again a half-crown, or even a note, was the London way.

  Charlotte opened her notebook.

  “Got a list for me?”

  Mabel took a slate off the dresser.

  “We must have some more tea and glass cloths, seeing we’ve no laundry.” Charlotte had expected that, but all the same, her spirits dropped back to their lower level. “You might speak to the coal merchant. He hasn’t been.”

  “I’ve written again.”

  “Writing never does any good; it’s seeing and speaking out does it.”

  Charlotte knew what that meant. She was determined not to give Mabel a lead into the old argument.

  “Dreadful day again. We’ve been here over a month and we’ve hardly had a fine day.”

  Mabel was not to be circumvented by weather talk.

  “Not fit to be out. If we dealt at a stores you wouldn’t need to go shopping. All the big stores deliver once, if not twice, a week now. I see the vans.”

  Charlotte knew it was weak to let herself be led into argument. It was her home, she had a right to decide who did the shopping, but Mabel had a way of making her feel she must answer her.

  “The butcher has been very decent. We’ve had kidneys twice and that liver last week. That’s very generous to newcomers.”

  “Butcher might be worse, but what about the points? Do we ever get biscuits? Have we seen a soap flake since we got here? Now I went . . .”

  Charlotte had to interrupt. Mabel spent all her free time walking round grocery departments of the big stores. Too well she knew the conversation that began, “Biscuits and soap at Harrods,” or the Army and Navy or wherever she had been. “No good to us, registered customers only.”

  “I got a lot from Fortnum’s yesterday and we aren’t registered there.”

  “We need a vanman that calls regular. Look how I do with the milk roundsman.”

  Charlotte had copied the list. It was perfectly true Mabel did somehow get the most miraculous amount of milk. Charlotte disapproved but she could not stop it, she never saw the milk roundsman. She said mechanically, for she had said it so often:

  “You must tell him we don’t want more than our ration in the winter. We can’t rob the children.”

  Mabel rubbed out what she had written on her slate. It saved her answering. She had every intention of taking all the milk she could wheedle out of the milkman. It made her laugh to think what her Ladyship would say if she knew that money given for petty cash was wangled on the books and became half-crowns for the milkman. And why not? Sir John liked a milk pudding, bless him, and Miss Penny would drink milk if she found it in her frigidaire, and if anybody needed milk she did. Nothing but skin and bones.

  Charlotte left th
e kitchen. It was cowardly to hurry out like that; she ought to have made Mabel promise to talk to the milk roundsman. Shocking how often she was hurrying away from somebody nowadays.