Dolly's War

by Dorothy Scannell

  Then the blow fell. Although we had paid our rent regularly the agents had not paid the rates which were included in our rent and we were summoned by the council. I thought they’d have plenty to distrain upon in our house, but I realised we couldn’t go on living as we were. The council were very helpful regarding all our problems and offered us a council-house at Dagenham as so many people were dashing off into the country to avoid the raids.

  The new residence had a very large garden which had been badly neglected. Chas decided he’d still have time to dig for victory before he was called up and attacked the forest of weeds the very day we moved in. As the furniture-van departed came a knocking at the door, and as I opened it a sallow-faced dark-haired woman marched straight into the house. She went from room to room downstairs and I followed her helplessly. Suddenly she said, in a tone of incredulity, ‘Ain’t you got no pianner?’

  ‘No,’ I stammered apologetically. ‘Ain’t you even got a china cabinet?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘Oh,’ she said, in tones of utter disbelief, ‘I said to my husband, by the looks of her, they’ll be bound to have a piano and a china cupboard.’ I felt quite ashamed to have let this neighbour down, and I couldn’t think how my appearance could have deceived her into thinking I was musical, and as for the china cabinet, there was definitely nothing porcelain about me.

  Chas’s garden positively flourished and the man next door (husband of the disappointed lady) was disgusted. He would gaze at his garden, which, according to him, he worked at ceaselessly but which looked like the Sahara with a bit of green showing here and there. He would complain of his bad luck and be quite insulting about Chas’s ‘good luck’, but finally he achieved a small success with some broad beans. Now, as every gardener knows, broad beans are a magnet for black fly and his were literally crawling with the creatures. We were in the garden one day when he called to us, ‘You see what luck I have, no one else gets black fly but me.’ Chas was about to tell him what to do towards a cure (and why he had black fly), when I stopped him for I knew the man would not take any advice kindly. ‘I know what I’ll do,’ he said victoriously. ‘I’ll do something to kill the buggers once and for all, they’ll never come in my garden again.’ Chas was very interested, always eager for any new tips about vegetable growing and pest control. As the man re-emerged from his house carrying two kettles of bubbling, boiling water, I knew what he planned to do. I fled into the house, but Chas, either disbelieving, or transfixed, I don’t know which, stayed, watching the approaching Jonah as though paralysed. The man went from plant to plant pouring boiling water on to them. As he reached the last plant he turned round triumphantly to view the millions of dead black insects, but the beans were already doing their dying swan act and the man jumped up and down in his garden in fearful rage. He knew I was watching for I couldn’t get back from the window quickly enough and he shouted, ‘You don’t get my bloody luck, do you? It’s not fair, it’s not fair,’ and away he went indoors where we could hear a fearful row going on between him and his wife. She was sure we were to blame. After all, what can you say about people who look as though they possess a ‘pianner’ and don’t?

  But I know how easy it is to put failures down to ‘bad luck’ for I thought I had sheer bad luck when cooking. Chas was for ever on about his mother’s steak and kidney puddings. Although I was scared of ever trying to make one, I thought perhaps as he was soon to leave us that if I tried my best, he would remember his wife’s delicious pudding and even boast about it in times of stress on the battlefields. It would be a warm and tasty reminder of me. I took great trouble and care, not telling Chas for I wanted it to be a surprise. He sat at the dining-room table, looking all welcoming for he had remarked when coming in, ‘What is that lovely smell?’ I turned the pudding out on to my best oval dish and surrounded it with all the vegetables. Then singing out ‘Tarah, tarah’, or some such piping tune, I entered the dining-room and his eyes lit up. ‘Gosh,’ he said, ‘that looks marvellous.’ Confidence overwhelming me I swung the dish round in the manner of a professional chef, my heel caught on the carpet and the whole dish shot up in the air. I screamed with distress, then in the commotion which followed I wondered vaguely why the pudding had bounced instead of smashing to pieces. Chas looked a little puzzled too as we rescued it. He cut it with a large carving-knife and then I thought he would stab me, he was so annoyed. The pudding was just solid, no gravy or meat, the crust had turned the pudding into a large solid dumpling filled with little streaks of brown substance.

  My tears did not soften Chas’s disappointment or heighten his enjoyment of the bread and cheese he was forced to eat. Chas said what annoyed him as much as his disappointment was the fact that I remarked on discovering the solidity of the pudding, ‘Well, dear, you wouldn’t have been able to eat it if it had been perfectly made, for it would have been smashed on the floor and all the lovely gravy and meat would have been wasted.’ Anyway I did give him my ration of cheese.

  Most days Chas would arrive home round about late lunchtime, having completed the collection part of his duties, and even though money was extremely tight I would try to give him one real meal in the middle of the day, though I never attempted steak and kidney pudding again. It was possible to get a chop (of a sort) for 6d. and with this I would cook all the vegetables he grew, plus a Yorkshire pudding, so that a small chop with cauliflower, white sauce, carrots, onions etc., and a ‘high-rise’ Yorkshire pudding would look a meal fit for a king, plus a sweet of some sort to follow. Amy lived not far away in a new semi-detached house she and James were purchasing, at Goodmayes. Her son Rodney was at school and her small daughter Angela not yet of school age. Compared to the rest of the family Amy was the affluent one, always such a wizard with her needle, and material and other accessories being reasonably priced in that area in those days, she always looked like a picture from Vogue. Sometimes she would make frocks for Angela and herself of identical material and pattern so that they could have been taken for fashion models of ‘mother and daughter’. Amy also possessed a close friend of the same age, also not hard up, also with the same flair for clothes and possessing an attractive slim figure, as our Amy did. They were, to put it mildly, something to be seen and marvelled at, especially by my ‘piano-divining’ neighbour.

  The trouble with possessing these talents and acquisitions is there is not much point in hiding their lights under a bushel, and housework completed at lunchtime, Amy, with small daughter, and friend would call on ‘Dolly’ each afternoon to share a dish of tea, and of course, my baby was naturally an attraction. I would hope Chas had finished his midday meal so that I could at least wash up and tidy the kitchen before these two ‘ladies’ arrived. I always felt like a fat slovenly matron in their company, ashamed of the pile of baby washing waiting for ironing, and my old maternity frock gathered round me with a belt to give it a few fashionable gathers.

  One day they arrived before I had time to wash the dinner things for Chas had been late home. The kitchen seemed full to capacity with dirty saucepans, dishes, a rice-pudding dish soaking because of the hard brown bits round the edges, a large Yorkshire pudding tin, also soaking on another table, piles of clothes from the line, ready for folding, me untidy, hot, not belted up properly in my afternoon fashion. ‘Mother and daughter’ and friend swept through the kitchen to go into the garden to say ‘hallo’ to Susan in her pram. They looked absolutely fantastic, with white silk, blue spotted frocks, smart straw hats with matching bands, navy blue accessories and they carried dainty shopping baskets. Amy gazed around the kitchen with a look of utter distaste. I knew how she felt for it is very depressing to call for a cup of tea and a chat to find one’s hostess ‘unprepared’ to say the least of it. Irritation overcame her and she said indignantly to me, ‘Why do you make yourself such a lot of work, Dolly, giving Chas such a meal each day?’ Then she added, gazing at the Yorkshire pudding tin with its overflowing contents of cold, pudding-spotted water, ‘And Yorkshire pudding too,’ just as though it was caviar!
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  She then swept out into the garden. Behind me stood little Angela and Amy’s silent friend, the friend trying to look as though the clouds were not rising up on my domestic horizon. Bravely, I waited until Amy was out of earshot, or I thought she was, and then I said, ‘Well, some people would eat...’ (Over the years my descriptive word, which I admit was unforgivably vulgar, has altered in our memories. To me the word becomes milder and more acceptable, to Amy the word becomes more vulgar and more unacceptable.) Perhaps I was braver, or more hurt than I thought, for Amy heard my remark and assumed I was hinting that (because her sweet husband never minded, or complained about any dish set before him) she was not conscientious or interested in what she supplied at her table. Her eyes flashed, she looked so furious I trembled inwardly. She came back into the kitchen, said, ‘Come, Angela’ (my little niece looked so disappointed for she loved to be with Auntie Dolly), and swept out of the house. Her friend was trapped between me and the kitchen door for the kitchen was a long oblong affair. Her friend was not brave enough to say good-bye to me, and hanging her head in embarrassment she scuttled after Amy.

  I knew Amy would not speak to me for a long time, if ever, and I did not intend to make the first move, but I was not courageous enough to face her head-on again until I knew how she felt. If I saw her at the shops I would dash down a side turning. I would call on Agnes for family news, praying Amy would not appear. The trouble with our family has always been that sides are taken with the ‘member’ present at the time. Agnes was always sympathetic to my side of the affair, but I knew she would be just as sympathetic when Amy was there with her. She hated any bad feeling and was worried we would both meet at her house before our tempers were cooled.

  Finally I called on Agnes one day just as Amy was leaving. ‘Hallo,’ I said, just as though we’d only left each other moments before. Amy was pleased I had spoken, but I knew she was still unforgiving. She looked at Susan in her pram and said to me, ‘She looks very pale, isn’t she well?’ which was true retribution for she knew how I worried abnormally over my baby.

  But James had the last word and at last made Amy laugh. One day after visiting me when Marjorie was there, and having a happy time, she arrived home after James. He knew she had been visiting us and he said, ‘And what member of your family have you upset today?’

  I often wished I hadn’t made that remark and listened to Mother when she said, ‘Dolly, a still tongue makes a wise head,’ but I suppose it was forced from me in a mixture of shame for my untidy kitchen, and a protective feeling for my Chas, as I resented the suggestion he was not important enough for me to make an effort with his food. Or was I jealous of two ladies, more elegant than I could ever hope to be?

  *

  After a quiet spell, warfare in the air began to hot up and one day I was in the dining-room when the fireplace began to shake and make a roaring sound. In the council-houses the fires had an oven above them and the door of this oven, which opened downward, began to rattle frighteningly. At that moment the Barking guns began to boom. I had a bomb down my chimney! I threw myself on top of Susan who was crawling on the floor and waited for the explosion and I waited and waited and still the oven shook, and still we were safe, yet I daren’t stand up, all the instructions said, ‘Lie down.’ Then there was a furious banging on the front door. I grabbed Susan and ran. There was my sallow-faced neighbour. ‘It’s a funny thing to set your chimney on fire when there is a raid on,’ she said suspiciously. I suppose now (because I was piano-less) she thought I must be a spy. I really don’t know how the chimney caught fire for my fire was only a normal one, but I was in my neighbour’s bad books again, and this gave her great pleasure.

  As Chas was waiting to be called to the forces, and eventually hand over his job with the Prudential to me, he was made a ‘supernumerary’ and took on the job of training the new lady agent as each man was called up. I was his first pupil and possibly the least conscientious of any. Marjorie, my youngest sister, was expecting her first baby, and would take care of Susan in the country, Marjorie’s husband, Alfred, was already in the forces and Chas had obtained for Marjorie through the auspices of his relatives in Suffolk, a cottage, one of a pair, in a quiet country lane (which seemed to lead nowhere) at Somerton, near the pretty village of Hartest. The cottage was next to a lovely grey church which looked ghost-like as though it had no human worshippers. The cottage garden, looking out on to lush meadows, was lovely. Water had to be fetched from a pump some way distant from the cottage, quite a difficult task for Marjorie, large with child, and with Susan barely able to walk. The girl next door was friendly but out at work all day so that Marjorie had no one to speak to for weeks on end and at night time when Susan was in bed Marjorie must have felt very frightened alone in the lamp-light. The lane was overhung with trees, beautiful but darkly sad, a lonely sanctuary for them both.

  Chas was determined, if it was humanly possible, to make me an efficient agent. I liked the people and was so pleased when the children ran to greet me like an old friend. But I was terrified of the dogs and when Chas gave me a ‘trial run’ he was horrified at my reason for so many ‘non-payments’. ‘Oh, the dog in that house looked so fierce.’ He had to go round again ‘to keep me straight’. He tried to instruct me in the art of chatting up people. ‘Take the money first, then chat afterwards,’ he would say, but of course I got terribly delayed, for the woman of the house and I would start talking as soon as the door was opened.

  And I missed my baby so much I felt like half a person. I couldn’t keep my mind on anything else really, although I tried. One day after Chas and I had had a fierce argument in a Dagenham road I tore off to the station and went down to Somerton to Marjorie for a few days. It was sheer heaven. We were all delirious at our reunion. I didn’t worry about Chas’s food because by that time we had two evacuees billeted on us by the authorities, a widow and her daughter, and I knew that Chas would be ensured of ‘home comforts’. The widow, Mrs Beadle, was like something out of Charles Dickens. She’d had a hard life and was always referring to the ‘late Mr Beadle’. He was ‘very respectable’ as indeed she was. Her daughter was a girl of about eighteen, tall, slim, very pale, with dark brown eyes and masses and masses of black ringlets. She worked in the City somewhere and spent her evenings off getting ready for our evening dive down into the Anderson shelter in the garden. She would do her hair up in ‘crackers’, pieces of rag wound round and round each ringlet. These she would dampen with spit, while she was reading a paper magazine. She seemed quite contented with her lot. Mrs Beadle, I think, worked as a charwoman somewhere and would arrive home at lunchtime when she would prepare her daughter’s evening meal and put it on a saucepan to keep warm for hours until her daughter, June’s, return in the evening.

  They were no bother at all and Chas felt so sorry for them having to live in someone else’s home that the curtailing of our love life seemed the least of our worries. Finally I became a fully fledged agent for Chas was called up for his army medical. He arrived back in a triumphant state. Baring his chest he announced, ‘I’ve received my first medal.’ On his chest over his heart was a blue circle. The doctor had discovered that Chas had an abnormal heart-beat and after eliciting from Chas the information that, no, he’d never felt faint, no, he’d not had rheumatic fever, he ordered him to chase, stripped, round the examination room at full gallop several times, after which he tested Chas’s heart each time and looked dubious about accepting him at all. Eventually a delighted Chas ‘received the King’s shilling’ and the medical grading of B1. I was furious, because if he had not been accepted I could have been in the country with Susan. He thought me most unpatriotic and asked if I wanted him to be different from other men and shirk his duty. ‘Yes,’ I snapped, and we went sadly to bed, knowing that ‘I would not love thee half as much’ did really apply to him. Once a boy scout always a boy scout I felt. I was really being incredibly selfish but I hated the thought of trudging the roads of Dagenham and coming home to an empty house,
for God knew how long. Now, too, I knew about Chas’s peculiar heart I would be more worried by the hard times I knew our men would have.

  On the day of his departure we crawled out of the shelter, aching from our makeshift bed and the damp atmosphere. It was still dark but Chas was so anxious not to be late ‘on parade’. An air raid was in progress but neither of us seemed unduly perturbed about this. He said good-bye to the Beadles who broke down and cried and Chas cleared his throat noisily. As we went out into the cold and dismal road the guns seemed suddenly ear-splitting and I suggested we go back into the shelter and wait for the all-clear. ‘You go, dear,’ said Chas, ‘but I have a train to catch,’ and in a state of nightmarish numbness I took his arm. How could I be less brave (or stupid I felt) than this obstinate man with his innate sense of duty? It seemed, when we reached the main line station, that I was the only cowardly one, for the platform was teeming with men accompanied by sad wives and mothers. Some were crying and I felt guilty that I couldn’t squeeze even one tear. I just wanted the train to come in and go out with all speed possible. I was so cold I felt as though I was frozen to the ground, like a statue that has lost its plinth.

  Chas hardly kissed me good-bye as though he was eager to be gone and I smiled brightly as I waved him good-bye. I almost said, ‘Have a good time,’ as though he was going on holiday. I wondered if he felt me callous, a happy-looking wife amongst so many weeping women, but he wrote me that he would always remember my lovely smiling face as the train left the station. He said if I had broken down he would have wept in sympathy. He added, ‘You are my brave soldier girl,’ which undeserved compliment made me feel extremely guilty.