Dolly's Mixture
Page 14
‘I can’t see why it is such a big problem,’ said Chas. ‘Surely it is not beyond the ingenuity of any woman to make a hat to suit herself.’ ‘A home-made hat to my daughter’s wedding!’ Why could we not be like men, able to take our hats off inside buildings and at receptions? For ladies’ hats, it seemed, were particularly necessary, even at luncheons. I did try all sorts of home-made efforts, like chiffon scarves or small nosegays, but the scarves made me look like the office char and the flowers were definitely a mistake, for there was nowhere that they fitted in a natural way on my shaped head. Whatever finally persuaded me to settle for a Chinese coolie hat, albeit one composed of delicate, lavender feathers, I do not know. Someone cheerfully remarked I looked like ‘Anna Gone Wong’, and my less than smooth hair caused it to rise like a hovercraft all the time. I think hat and shoe shops must possess magic mirrors, for hats look so different in milliners’ mirrors, and shoes are always comfortable in shoe shops, or so I have found.
Chas’s dear friends, George and Frances, came early on the morning of the wedding. George, who was one of Chas’s wartime buddies, helped Chas in the shop, while Frances, a marvellous cook, caterer and organiser, took charge of the buffet arrangements. Preparations completed, cats shut out, we adjourned to the Town Hall where the Registry Office was bright with flowers and crammed to capacity, not only with the guests but also with Harry and Susan’s office colleagues. Susan looked stunning in a simple suit of apricot silk and the ceremony just flashed by. Home again the festivities began, but at 9 p.m., when they were in full swing, Chas decided, ‘Friday is a busy day for me,’ and went off to bed. In all that noise! William was intrigued when one guest filled his silver hip-flask from the display of drinks. Hopefully, it was the same guest who at the height of the festivities, walked past the outside loo (even though I had insisted the light must be kept on there) and down the area, a deep one, surrounding the cellar window. By a miracle he didn’t crash through. I didn’t hear that he was injured, although I do remember a gentleman looking a bit dazed, dusty and cobwebby a little after midnight! I could understand the dazed look, but I wondered at the time from where he had collected the dust and grime, for I had worn myself out evening spring cleaning before the great event.
The bride and groom were to go back to their flat a few doors away, which the groom, being a perfectionist, had transformed into a luxurious ‘penthouse’; and in a foggy dawn my sweet Sue walked away. I regretted the years that had gone. I wished I had done more for her, spent more time with her, not been irritable with her, and I wished she were a baby again. I could not bear to see her leave. I closed the door and went upstairs. What a wreck. I would not know where to begin next day; oh dear, it was Friday, our busiest day. I decided: no bed for me, I’ll start now. The doorbell rang and down I went. There stood Susan. She was laughing. ‘I forgot my toothbrush, mum.’ I felt quite annoyed inside me. She was so happy, surely she could have been a little tearful at leaving home? But of course she hadn’t really left home. Harry invited us to tea a day later. ‘Why, I wouldn’t think of intruding on your honeymoon, my dear,’ I said (already the perfect mother-in-law, you see). ‘You need your privacy.’ He thought this quite amusing. Susan used to laugh about it, for it seemed that, whenever they looked out of the window, one or other of their office colleagues would be passing. Up would go a thumb. ‘All right, Sue?’ or ‘How is married life, Harry?’ When Susan looks back now to her wedding day she says sadly to her friends and acquaintances, ‘I had to get married on early-closing day, you know,’ and she is forever surprised when people are amused by this mournful remark.
For some reason no one could understand afterwards, I never got into the wedding photographs, possibly I was dashing about superintending things, or the photographer thought I was a passing spectator. However, William determined I should be recorded for posterity in my wed-ding outfit, and the following Sunday marched me off to the Garden of Remembrance at the parish church. This garden was in remembrance of a fever epidemic and was built on top of the mass grave of the victims, so I was told. Whether it was because William was a very amateur photographer, or whether there was something wrong with the colour film, I don’t know, but I came out looking intensely swollen and very scarlet – indeed, an ideal prospective tenant for the garden. William’s rush of filial devotion was short-lived and he never bothered to photograph me again.
However, the curse of the hat lingered on. Someone said it was terrible to wear such an expensive hat only once, why not dye it brown, the feathers would glint and bronze would suit me. I bought a dye and nervously read the instructions to boil the garment to be dyed. Well, if the hat shrank, a little bronze skull-cap would suit me. I put it on to simmer on the stove in the scullery at the back of the shop. The odious smell of the melting glue (for the feathers had been stuck on, apparently) caused such screaming remonstrances from Chas (‘Do you want us to lose all our customers?’) that I had to remove the hat to the back garden, where it hung on the washing-line like a poor, drowned bird. At one time it had an audience of the shop cats who looked puzzled at first, but then, frightened, they slunk away one by one. It looked like the gamekeeper’s warning.
Chapter 17
Roman Holiday
One Thursday afternoon three excited men, Chas, William and Alfred, set off for the West End to obtain tickets for the Olympics. Marjorie and Alfred’s son, Richard, had been chosen to swim for his country and I had offered to soldier on alone so that Chas and William could accompany Alf, the proud father, to cheer Richard on to glory. Before the three set out to obtain tickets for the events they wished to see (Chas could not resist the lure of all the sporting activities), I gave them instructions for accommodation, stressing that they should go to Thos. Cook, the reliable travel agents. They bought their Olympic tickets first and were ‘persuaded’ by the ticket agents to book accommodation through them. (Chas insisted this was a ‘condition of sale’.) They arrived home with reservations for accommodation at the top price of 7,000 lira a day for each of them! But I was glad they had reserved the best possible accommodation; Chas had had few enough holidays since our marriage. Their passport photos caused much amusement. Chas appeared to be wearing six coats and looked a criminal born. All he needed at the bottom of his passport photo was a stamped number and it could have passed muster for the rogues’ gallery at Scotland Yard. Alfred, on the other hand, looked like a pink-faced clergyman.
The great day came and Marjorie, many of our customers and I waved them a vociferous ‘Bon voyage’. The journey was tiring, for, although they had reserved sleepers and couchettes, they were crowded into a tourist compartment. Chas had prepared for emergencies, however. Determined not to forgo a cup of tea, he had taken with him butter and groceries to make a meal en route, in case they were unable to obtain food through strikes or other troubles. You could never trust these foreigners! He had gone to great lengths to obtain special milk for travellers, solidified in a tube, no messy splashing through a jolting train. He was wearing an expensive linen suit and, in the intense heat of the crowded compartment, the butter melted through its ‘melt-proof’ wrappings and dripped down on to Chas while he slept. William had been anxious to see the beautiful Swiss scenery and Chas was cross that William missed this by getting into a heated debate on politics with some American students. William dismissed Chas irritably when Chas reminded him they were passing through Switzerland. As Chas said to me, ‘He was so busy talking, he saw nothing of the scenery. Such a waste of opportunity.’
Their super accommodation in Rome turned out to be a poor boarding-house in a mean street. The proprietor met them at the door on arrival, wearing dirty cotton trousers, a sleeveless singlet and looking greasy and unwashed. The food was uneatable, extra was charged for almost everything and the lavatory was permanently blocked. Fortunately they were able to visit Richard in the Olympic village and there wolfed some lovely meals. It seemed that my jinx on Chas’s vacations followed him even when I was not participating.
Meanwhile, Marjorie and I, left at home, were happy just thinking of our family’s intense enjoyment. Susan and Harry were also in Italy on holiday and saw Richard’s event on television. It was tremendously exciting, for he made the final, being the first Englishman to break the eighteen-minute barrier for the 1500 metres. Someone remarked to Susan, ‘Oh, he didn’t win, then!’ Marjorie and I shut our respective shops each evening and had a meal together, our eyes glued to the television in the hope that we would see Richard’s event, but we were unfortunate. However, one evening I galloped over to Marjorie to tell her it was to be on radio. She was scrubbing her shop floor and I sent the pail of water flying as I leapt in with the news. We left the flooded floor and chased upstairs, just in time to catch the broadcast.
Richard having made the final, Alf was determined to get a ticket for the event, which he did in the end by clutching his head and crying frantically in pidgin Italian, ‘Me Papa, my bambino he swim, me papa, my bambino, my bambino,’ finally touching the heart of the Italian in charge. Another man, also desperate to see the event, and impressed by Alf’s performance, copied Alf’s act but without success.
We were aghast when our three men arrived home looking tired and dirty. Marjorie and I were expecting suntanned revellers ready to take over the reins immediately, but they looked as though they needed a day or two to rest before resuming shop work. ‘We had a lift in the Italian pensione,’ explained William, ‘but we had to pay ten cents to go up and ten cents to come down and we were on the fourth floor.’ All their English money ‘disappeared’ from their bedroom, where trustingly, they had left it. They were next to a coffee warehouse and, of course, the smell of coffee has always been distasteful to Chas, so the strong, pungent smell upset him. At the end of the holiday they nearly fainted at the extras on the bill. They were being charged for an enormous number of baths, though they had been unable to have even one. Because, with so many guests present, the water never reached the top floor, they’d had to take their baths at the Olympic village.
When Alf described the place to me as a ‘typical Whitechapel doss house’, I could have cried for them. The ticket agency here had frightened them with tales of ‘no room at the inn’, whereas, had they gone under their own steam, they could have obtained first-class hotel accommodation for less money. It certainly seemed as though Chas was doomed not to have a happy holiday. Thank goodness I didn’t book it, and I did tell them to go to Thos. Cook.
Since I had nothing to do with booking the Italian accommodation, and didn’t ‘enjoy’ the trip with the men, I couldn’t be blamed, for once, for all that went wrong. Holidays were so important when people worked so hard. The two weeks away from worry and toil was a lifeline to many people. They saved hard all the year for two glorious weeks by the sea or in the country. ‘Surely you must have had some good holidays when you were young?’ Chas asked.
I had to think hard about it. I could remember the holidays my sisters enjoyed, there were snaps in the album to prove it. Amy with her bosom-friend, Edie Grainger, walking to the pier, smiling faces, hair blowing in the ozone under their woollen tam-o-shanters. Amy and Edie walking back from the pier, this time accompanied by two young men who certainly weren’t about when the first snap was taken; two young men in straw boaters, bow ties, trousers a little way up the mast to show the ‘clocks’ on the side of their socks and walking-canes a-swinging. Marjorie with her friend, at another time, another place, but on the same ‘promenade’ walk, and just as happy. Winifred and Agnes, too, but there were none of Dolly. Sadly, I had no girl friends to go on holiday with, I stayed at home, reading, for my holidays. Possibly I changed my jobs so often I never gained the benefit of holiday entitlement, for one had to be employed for a whole year to obtain one week’s paid holiday, and I never heard of anyone taking a holiday without pay, for we lived on our wages from week to week.
However, when I was eighteen Mother thought I should enjoy some country air and she wrote to my cousin Mabel, whose husband, Fred, was manager of a farm between Romsey and Southampton. I had stayed on a farm at Lockerley, near Romsey, when I was a little girl and I remembered it as absolute heaven, so I was overjoyed when Mabel wrote that she and Fred would love to have Dolly for a holiday. By the time I had saved my fare and money for my keep (Mother insisted that I must insist that Mabel took the money, for farm workers, too, lived from week to week) I had no money left for new shoes which I badly needed, and my father lent me a pound for this purpose. I bought some lovely ‘county’ shoes, with Cuban heels, brown suede insets and cream leather surrounds. Amy said, ‘Good heavens, Dolly, if Dad has a pound to spare I would have thought he could have given it you, not lent it.’ It never occurred to me he should give me money, but of course she was right, my father was a bit ‘tight’. I expect he felt his ten offspring had kept him short long enough.
I had a very quiet time on the farm. Fred was out working from early morn till late at night. Mabel spent her time cooking, it seemed to me, for everything was home made – bread, cheese, etc. – and she was in charge of the farm’s chickens and fed any orphaned lambs. Fred was a silent, quizzical-looking man, an expert farmer, but he had come to this farm because animals were his main interest. Just a country boy from farm-worker beginnings, he was as experienced as any vet from a practical point of view, although possibly he wouldn’t have been able to put his knowledge on paper. Anyway, this wasn’t necessary, but he thought me a highly educated town girl, because I wrote a beautiful letter! The owner of the farm, a maiden lady, was a very strange person, I thought. That she loved her animals there was no doubt. If an animal was sick she would send Fred off to bed and stay with the animal herself through the long night hours.
This was, of course, commendable, but I did think her a trifle eccentric. If the animal was the right size to get up the stairs, up it went to her bedroom for the night. While the animal breathed it had her loving care and attention: if, despite her loving warmth, it went ‘cold’ on her, then she was no sentimentalist; it was evicted from her chamber. One night while I was there, she took a sick pig to bed with her. In the morning this was lying stiff and cold on the ground beneath her bedroom window. It had gone to its little piggy heaven during the long night hours and she had unceremoniously thrown it out of the window. I was a little worried when Fred said the lady thought I was a little, pale, town girl. I certainly would not have liked to have shared the lady’s bed, although possibly, unlike the piggy, I would have looked forward all night to my eviction.
My brother Arthur and his wife, Edith, came to the farm for a few days while I was there, and this made a welcome break, for they were sociable, much travelled people, certainly not content to spend their time wandering about the fields or helping in the kitchen, as I had done. Arthur decided to take us all to Winchester, to wine and dine and go to the theatre. We didn’t know then that Fred had never visited a theatre previously, and Arthur was pleased to think he was giving Fred a treat.
I was enthralled by my first sight of Winchester. The buildings, the cathedral, the streets, all steeped in history, gave me a joy I have never forgotten. I dreamed I met a curate who fell in love with me and took me to one of the lovely residences belonging to the Chapter. I remember how madly my heart began to beat. It was the same feeling I experienced at my first sight of the Tower of London. Something stirred within me as though I had once lived and been part of both places. The dinner, the theatre, made no impact on me at all; I was back in the past.
The theatre – oh dear, that was an experience for us, but not an histori
cal one. Arthur, our perfect man-about-town, had rescued the best seats, and we wore our best bibs and tuckers, but many of the audience were in evening dress. I seem to remember Fred wore a blue serge suit with brown boots. His life on a farm did not call for dressing up, ever, and he looked a different person, somehow, dolled up for the occasion, his face red and tanned, weatherbeaten by many summers of wind, sun and rain.
Fred was enthralled with the play. He was in another world. At one dramatic turn in the play, the villain poisoned the hero’s drink. The hero entered the drawing-room, picked up his wine glass and, as he slowly raised it to his lips, in the silence of the theatre, came Fred’s frenzied shout, ‘Doan’t ee drink ut, it be pisoned, ’s’now.’ Arthur looked at me; he didn’t know whether to laugh or slide underneath his seat. The well-bred audience kept quiet, fortunately for the hero, who bravely ignored Fred’s kindly warning and, to Fred’s utter horror (Arthur had a restraining arm on him by that time), drank the poisoned wine and sank, slowly, horribly, in great agony, to the floor. ‘Dang me,’ said Fred knowing it was too late to save the hero, ‘I towld ee.’ Then he came back to earth and we left the theatre, laughing with relief. Fred did enjoy the play.
I came back to Poplar alone, for Arthur and Edith had gone to other relations of Mother’s in Devon. While I was waiting for the village carter to take me to the station, Fred sat on the kitchen steps chewing a piece of straw, silent as ever, his eyes in their almost closed position, as always. Suddenly he spoke. ‘Dolly, I ’ave never sin a prettier turned pair ’a ankles ’an yourn, ’s’now!’ I was startled by this compliment, for I had been unaware that he had even looked at me, let alone at my legs. I was very pleased by the compliment, for look at all the ankles he had seen in his busy life-horses, cows, pigs, sheep, goats. Yes, it was lovely, mine were the best.