Grass in Piccadilly

by Noel Streatfeild

  The milkman felt the dim beginning of interest. A fun fair! That was more like it! He went down the area steps, delivered his milk and brought back the empties.

  “Make a lot at that sort of thing. Pin tables and all that?”

  The young man nodded.

  “This sort’a weather they’re bursters.”

  The milkman reverted to his feeling of fed-upness. Nobody could describe a milk round as a burster in any sense of the word. Not that he did not like a milk round; all the time he had been in the Air Force he had pictured himself coming back to it, and it was not so bad now he was back if only the weather was not so chronic. No, it was not the milk round that got him down, it was the unfairness of life. There were he and Joany, and the kid sticking it out in a couple of rooms. Not that they were not trying to get something else; he had worn a proper track to the Town Hall, whatever Joany might say about it. Then along comes that flash brother of hers and what has he done? Taken a house by squatting. It was no good Joany saying they ought to get a house by squatting, he didn’t believe in that kind of thing, he could not feel it would last, it was going against the law and going against the law sooner or later got you into trouble. He said sourly:

  “You and your uncle will do a stretch one of these days.”

  The young man grinned affably. He slipped off down the square, moving by nature furtively. His sharp eyes observed everything. It was queer the milkman saying that about a stretch just as he had come out. He looked up at the Nettels’ house, noting the window-boxes and the curtains. He had not been this way for some time. That house had been empty last time he came by; it was of no interest to him if the house were empty or not, it was just one of those odd bits of information he kept stored at the back of his mind, something that might be useful some day. At the corner of the square he took a deeper breath. His feet hurried, as if drawn by a magnet. Good old Piccadilly! Good to be back in “the Smoke.”

  The milkman chirruped at Nellie to move on. The young man was already out of his mind; that sort of type was to be found all over London, selling anything, cheating everybody, do any one out of half a crown. He did not despise them. With Cockney tolerance he accepted that everybody must live. They were just a different breed that was all. He and Joany and the kid were respectable citizens. People like the young man with the camera belonged to the shadows, the arches and the alleyways. Nellie stopped of her own accord outside the Nettels’ front door. The milkman counted the bottles for the house into one of his baskets. A kid on the top floor, two kids on the fourth and an expectant mother on the third. He did not leave milk in the basement for one and two, he took that up to the cook.

  Mrs. Parks was waiting for Nellie to stop. She opened her door.

  “Come inside a minute, I got a cupper tea waiting for you.”

  The milkman and Gladys stood inside the huge front kitchen. He sipped gratefully at the cup of tea.

  “Chilly for the time of year.”

  “What can you expect. All this rain, it’s a wonder we don’t rot away, that’s what I say. Would you believe it, I found a bit of moss grown in the scullery out there; I showed it to Mr. Parks and he said going on the way we were he wouldn’t be surprised to see a water lily come up.” The cat came scampering across the floor. Gladys looked at it approvingly. “That’s right, Ket, come and say how de do to the milkman and thank him for leaving you an extra drop now and again.”

  The milkman pointed to the basket of milk at his feet.

  “I’ve treated you all right, though that cat don’t seem to need nothing.”

  “He’s a wonderful mouser. Queer thing, for he’s foreign, comes from the East, he does; you’d expect him to be more one for lying down and fanning himself. Mr. Parks has never got fond of him like he did of old Mouser.”

  The milkman finished his cup of tea. It had been nice talking to Mrs. Parks. She was his sort, the kind you could speak your mind to. He wished he could have told her about Joany’s brother and the squatting, but he knew what a talker she was when she got started and he had his round to do.

  A woman was talking to Nellie, a scarecrow of a woman, with straggling grey hair, and over-bright, over-excited eyes. She was dressed in shapeless, damp black, green with age. In her hand she clutched a bag. Her voice, when she spoke, was startlingly cultured.

  “I was just giving your horse a pat, milkman. I see you take great care of her, that’s splendid.” The milkman knew her type. Too often was he stopped on his rounds by enthusiasts for animal welfare, almost every day someone complimented him on the appearance of Nellie. People like this lady always seemed surprised that Nellie should look nice and well cared for. They seemed to think he needed congratulating on the fact that she was not half-starved, beaten, and all over sores. Every one of the company’s ponies looked a picture, and why wouldn’t they? Better looked after and housed really, than he and Joany and the kid. The woman gave him a pleading smile. “If ever you have some milk over, a little perhaps left by someone in a bottle or a jug, I do hope you remember the poor cats. People are so careless, especially at this time of year when they go away for holidays. Nobody ever leaves a dog to starve, but they’re terribly thoughtless about cats. I make a round every day to see if I can find any. I leave such things as fish heads about for them.”

  The milkman gave Nellie a gentle flick with one finger. Nellie was a wonderful breaker-up of unwanted conversations. It was true about the cats and he thought it was a very good thing there were people like this lady to look after them. Later on, if they had a frost, she would come and talk to him again and tell him about the birds.

  With great dignity, serenely unaware that she was interrupting, Nellie moved on down the square.

  * * * * *

  Mrs. Parks put Alfred’s breakfast in front of him.

  “Sausages again. I wish we could get ourselves registered with a real hen. They”—she jerked her head upwards to indicate the Nettel family—“are still registered with real hens down at Peasefield. They do them far better than the grocer does us.” She put a saucer on the floor and opened the door. “Ket, Ket.”

  The cat cavorted in. Alfred looked at it with reserve, a reserve which was always with him in regard to so strange a beast.

  “Nobody can say he looks thin.”

  “Doesn’t eat more than a sparrow, proper choosey. Mrs. Duke said to me, ‘Wonderful how well the ket looks, I found him so difficult to feed, very chicken and cavia-ah.’”

  “Do well down here if he expected that.” Alfred watched Gladys settle down opposite him. He had never got over his pleasure at the cosiness of their kitchen. Now that it was late October it looked cosier than ever. The window was shut; the door draught-proof. It was too early to squander coal, but there was a nice little fire in the grate of wood saved from his work and a couple of logs; with the stove turned off the atmosphere was pleasant.

  “I bet there’s some high goings-on on five this morning, it’s her first night.” Alfred nodded. For days he had been shown snippets from the paper which said that Freda Bell was in the cast of the new farce. He did not know Freda well and what little he had seen of her he had not cared for. He never criticised the tenants; there was enough of that done by Gladys, but had he ever discussed Freda with John they would have found that their views about her were very similar. He was unable to share Gladys’s viewpoint that Freda’s first night was, in a way, a family event because she lived under the same roof, but then he had never been able to share Gladys’s viewpoint that a funeral was a family event because it was happening in your street. When they had lived with Rene and Frank, Rene and her mother had seemed to work each other up. Whether it was the air raids and the consequent additional deaths or whether being together acted on them in some way he never knew, but he could recall days when the curtains had been drawn at dinner-time for a stillborn baby belonging to somebody no one had ever heard of, who was said to have been passi
ng the night with her aunt who lived at the end of the street. He had to expect foolishness about Mrs. Duke. It wouldn’t be natural really, for Gladys to feel any other way. Lucky Rene wasn’t in the house or there was no knowing what lengths they mightn’t get to. Find himself standing outside the stage door like as not. Gladys was not put off by his silence. “She’s wearing a bathing dress in the second act. That’s when she gets in the bath.”

  Alfred felt a flicker of professional interest. Baths were inside his province. Ever since he had done up Penny’s bathroom he had been in great demand to juggle with the bathrooms of Penny’s friends. He was completely accustomed to being met by perfect strangers who said, if they were men, if only he would come round and do some work for them in the bathroom they would more or less pay him what he liked and there would be drinks. If they were women, they said it would be absolutely perfect if he could bear to start any day he liked.

  “They don’t have any right to be wasting baths on the stage when you can’t lay your hands on a nice bath for a flat.”

  Gladys refilled his cup with tea.

  “That’s right. Any bath they put her in on the stage wouldn’t be utility. Bound to be slap-up. She’s that type. I wouldn’t half like to be in the audience to-night.”

  Alfred got up. That was the kind of foolishness he had been afraid of. If Gladys had to see Mrs. Duke on the stage then it had better be a Saturday afternoon, and he would go along and see Frank and help mind the children. Stay any longer and Gladys would have talked him into forming up in a pit queue.

  “I’ve got to be going. Got to have a word with Mrs. Dill before I go out.”

  Alfred knocked on Penny’s door. She came out to him wearing a royal-blue dressing-gown. Against it her face looked the colour of milk off which the cream had been skimmed.

  “Hallo, Mr. Parks. What a deathly morning. Do you suppose it’ll ever stop raining? I do hope we get a warm winter; this house is like a bloody iceberg already.”

  Alfred knew that the only warm place in the house was, and would be, their kitchen. People like Mrs. Dill were very foolish about heating. They liked having different rooms for living in and eating in, very little furniture, and windows wide open, then they wondered why they couldn’t keep their places warm. He, too, hoped it would be a warm winter. If it wasn’t he saw every floor with frozen pipes. Draughty great place the house was. However, time enough for that.

  “I’ve heard of a basin. It’s not the colour you wanted, but very near. I got a friend could start work Sunday fixin’ that, and I can get on with the mirrors in your bedroom.”

  “Can you get the strip lighting? I never have the faintest idea what my face looks like, the bedroom’s revoltingly dark.”

  “Not meself, I can’t. I never touch electric, but my son-in-law, Frank, is in that line. He and my daughter, Rene, and the children will be coming to tea Sunday. If convenient I’ll bring him up after, to see what wants doing.”

  “Will it mean mucking up the bedroom much while you’re doing it?”

  Alfred considered.

  “Not above ordinary. It’s having to do it out of time. If it was a straight job with a permit we’d get it done in a coupla’ days.”

  “Fat chance I’d get of a permit, as well you know.”

  “That’s right, you wouldn’t, and what I says is, why waste the paper asking. A local authority, in a manner of speaking, is what you might call a sleeping dog, better left to lie.”

  Jeremy, holding Jane by one hand and a large bear in the other, came through the door from the back stairs.

  “Hallo. ‘Morning, Mr. Parks. I say, Penny, Jane wants to take this bear to school. That all right? You gave her the creature so you’re responsible.”

  Jane pulled herself away from Jeremy and flung herself at Penny. Penny knelt down by the child to say good-morning.

  “Do they allow bears at school?”

  Jane had her arms round Penny’s neck.

  “I told them it was a present for your special day, and that I had tools to dig with as well, so that I could dig with . . .” The child struggled to be correct. “ . . . S’ John.”

  Penny got up abruptly.

  “I’m a funny one for the days I choose for giving presents.” She held out her hand for the bear. “Is Freda in a hoo-ha? I’ve sent her a telegram and ordered some madly expensive chrysanthemums, which she’s going to hate.”

  Alfred cleared his throat.

  “Then I’ll start on Saturday, ’m.” Penny nodded. “Good-morning, ’m. Good-morning, sir. Good-morning, Jane.”

  Penny looked after Alfred as he retreated down the back stairs.

  “He’s absolutely the nicest man I know.”

  Jane tugged at her skirt.

  “Mummy’s had breakfast in bed. When I come in I’m to go straight to Mrs. Bettelheim so’s not to disturb her. Me and Irma are going to play at being actresses on a first night.”

  Jeremy made a face at Penny over Jane’s head.

  “Proper twit she’s in, I’d better be getting back.”

  “Don’t blame her. Thank God I’m not an actress. It’s bad enough showing clothes before a horde of gaping idiots, but if I had to say some words as well I should go mad. Come along, Jane, or we shall be late.”

  Mabel caught a glimpse of Jeremy as he ran up the back stairs. It was only a glimpse and there was nothing about Jeremy’s face to cause comment, but any glimpse of him was of interest to her. Mabel approved of Mr. Duke. Her own career at Penny’s age had been full of romance, usually romance in curious spots and in difficult circumstances. Dark lanes and barns were the luxury sites of Mabel’s romantic history. Cabbage fields, graveyards and even, on one occasion, a manure heap had their place in her memory. She was enchanted at the thought of Jeremy slipping down the back stairs through the sleeping house to share Penny’s bed. In Mabel’s philosophy love was a proper adjunct to life, however it was come by. Penny without love would have been to Mabel a Penny only half-alive. Unfortunately Mabel had no one with whom to gossip. It was all very well to ruminate by yourself on what was going on, but how much more pleasurable were ruminations shared. Hannah had always been blank to the point of stupidity on the subject of sex. She had stood by Mabel loyally in her younger days, unlocking back doors, leaving windows open and even lying on occasion. But when Mabel had wished to tell of the pleasure which Hannah had aided in arranging, Hannah had become a stone, saying, in a voice of grim disapproval, “I don’t want to hear of your nasty goings on.” Mabel had tried to hint at what might be happening to Penny in this very house, but Hannah had apparently not grasped the hint or else really had missed what was going on. It seemed odd because, of all queer things, Hannah had become friends with Mrs. Parks. She even went down to tea in Mrs. Parks’s kitchen, and if ever there was a woman who missed nothing that was going on it was Mrs. Parks. Mabel longed to discuss Penny and Jeremy with Mrs. Parks. There was no question of the pleasure they would both get from such a discussion, but such a course was unthinkable. Sir John and Penny were her family and not to be spoken of to outsiders except with respect.

  Hannah came into the kitchen.

  “Her ladyship isn’t getting up this morning. She’s got a headache. She says she’ll leave the lunch to you and she’d like some tea later. If I was Sir John I wouldn’t let her go away. Always ends with these sick turns.”

  Mabel made a pot of tea.

  “I think she has to go. It’s not pleasure. Been going ever since she came to us; always seemed kind of worried beforehand and depressed when she came back.”

  “Been worse lately. Never used to have headaches.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Parks is right in what she told you. It would upset me going to an asylum.”

  “Mrs. Parks says she gets a lot of pleasure out of it; that it’s pretty to see Mr. Parks’s sister, Ella, the way she’s so pleased at any little thing they
bring.”

  “From all I’ve heard she’d be pleased with a monkey on a stick. That wouldn’t make me want to go and visit her. I never did like people queer in the head. You remember that boy back at Peasefield? Always gave me the creeps.”

  “I don’t think from all Mrs. Parks said going regularly to an asylum is upsetting. She was telling me the nurses are ever so kind. Mr. Parks’s sister Ella is allowed to go for walks with the others that are as well as she is.”

  Mabel poured out two cups of tea and pushed one over to Hannah.

  “If her Ladyship goes to an asylum maybe it’s not someone who’s just soft like Mr. Parks’s sister; it might be somebody in a padded cell.”

  “Whatever it is, I wish she didn’t have to go. She’s herself and all that, very neat, and nicely turned out, but you can see she’s worrying.”

  Mabel stirred her tea.

  “Talking of worrying, I should think there’s a nice how-de-do going on on the nursery floor.”

  Hannah nodded.

  “Mrs. Parks was telling me yesterday there was a picture of her in a Sunday paper, she said she’d show it to me this morning.” She lowered her voice. “She’s in a bath.”

  Mabel choked over her tea.

  “Never! Nothing on?”

  “A bathing dress.”

  Mabel gave a rude chuckle.

  “I’d take a bet that several have seen her in her bath and not in a bathing dress.”

  Hannah refused to hear such talk.

  “Mrs. Bettelheim is being very good to Mrs. Willis. She had her there again yesterday until he came in.”

  “She’s good hearted, I must say. I never thought much about her at Peasefield except that she was a refugee. I’ll slip up for Mrs. Willis’s milk. I’ll make another of those coffee junkets that she likes.” Hannah and Mabel understood each other perfectly over Mrs. Willis. Her Ladyship had done her duty; she had seen Mr. Willis and evidently, as a result of that talk, Mrs. Bettelheim was being very good and Mrs. Willis was much less alone, but Mrs. Parks would not know that her Ladyship had arranged these things. Charlotte had actually said to Mabel, “If ever there is anything to spare you might offer it to Mrs. Willis; she’s expecting a baby in December, you know.” And to Hannah she had said, “Mrs. Bettelheim is very sweetly going to look in on Mrs. Willis when she can. I know you’ve got more to do than you can manage, but still, if ever you do get an opportunity to go up it would be kind.” For the honour of the house and from personal sympathy, both Mabel and Hannah had interpreted these remarks in the widest possible way. Mabel could not squeeze much food out of the house rations, for all that she had to spare she put in Penny’s frigidaire, but she could make tasty dishes out of what Mrs. Willis had. She discovered how little of her expectant mother ration of milk Jenny drank, and every day fetched some of it down and turned it into some dish to tempt the girl. Hannah usually took it up and while she was there found an excuse to dust and tidy a little. There was not much she had time for, and not much she could do, for by her standards the flat was a pigsty.