Mrs P's Journey

by Sarah Hartley

  Fortunately, Phyllis’s isolation, among a mountain of blankets for weeks on end, unable to read, to talk, to listen, did not depress her. Outside, the drilling noise of traffic reminded her of the speed of the world beyond her bedroom. In the third week of March 1947, those same cars came to a standstill in one of the worst blizzards of the century, but Phyllis did not notice. The barbiturates that fogged every sound and smell, took care of that.

  Phyllis could only allow herself to think about the office for a couple of minutes before her head kicked with pain. How was her little family coping without her? She pictured the arguments, the sulking, the petty rivalry, those who clocked off before 4 p.m. and those who arrived later than 10 a.m.

  The reality was far more serious. In the months that had elapsed since the accident, Mrs Ford had panicked about wages, and took it upon her flustered self to pay everyone too much. The new A-Zs had arrived, been sold with a solid profit to cover overheads and a reprint, but the original map plates travelling in the hold of the KLM plane had been damaged beyond repair and had to be replaced at great cost by Lowe & Brydone, wiping out any profit. On top of that, the company bank balance had allowed over £10,000 to seep out from under its gaze, lost to extra print runs, expensive paper and temporary staff.

  When Mr Bowman, Phyllis’s Bedford Row bank manager, paid a house visit, clutching a small box of chocolates, even she gauged that matters must be getting out of hand.

  ‘Do not worry about money, Mrs Pearsall, not one bit. We will allow a good customer such as yourself an overdraft of £8,000, should you need it.’

  The panic that now flashed to the front of her mind, was the date of 13 February. That was the deadline for delivery of the latest index for the A-Z, that had to be with Van Leer in time for the next 40,000 print run.

  ‘Only I can go,’ she muttered to herself. ‘It must be me.’

  On 11 February 1947, Phyllis hauled herself out of bed before lunchtime. She pulled on corduroy trousers over her pyjamas and put on a cardigan. Six hours later, she was ready and telephoned for a taxi. For an extra fee, the driver carried four heavy packages of index cards and original sheets into the car, and then went back for his passenger.

  The slightest movement or jolt to the head caused sickness and pain. The palms of her hands sweated and trembled as she huddled in the back of the taxi.

  ‘Here we are, love,’ said the taxi driver, as he pulled into Liverpool Street station. A hammering echoed in her ears as she rattled coins from her purse.

  ‘I’m all ready for the night-train,’ she said, winking at the taxi driver and showing a peek of her pyjamas.

  ‘Mind how you go now!’ he shouted after the woman, wobbling her way to the ticket booth.

  There were a few lost hours to follow. From fragmented accounts, Phyllis collapsed before boarding the ferry at Harwich, but was carried to a cabin by three sailors. At Hook, she caught the correct train but when Mr Groen of the Van Leer printers did not meet her at Nijmegen station, she collapsed a second time.

  The ambulance driver who met Phyllis at Liverpool Street station on her return was sickened by the light weight of the woman who was carried on to a stretcher.

  ‘You don’t speak much, do you?’ he joked as he lifted her on to her bed at home.

  Phyllis shook her head. Not any more.

  He emptied the dead flowers from the crowded vases, and washed the cups and saucers in the sink, but was unable to tempt Phyllis to some soup, while waiting for the doctor to arrive. The latter, after examining Phyllis with a variety of disconcerting sighs, issued a stern warning.

  ‘I must tell you, Mrs Pearsall, that you are in need of some quiet and a good year’s rest. Should you return to work, I would not like to be held responsible for the consequences.’

  Most of us would have listened to his words, and reluctantly accepted his advice. But there are some people like Phyllis who walk away from the predictability of safety. Their lives seem precariously rerouted, diverted, plucked within seconds from dangerous situations, only to hasten them on to the next, equally disastrous one. They exist at a constantly heightened pace, apparently one step ahead of the rest of us. Infectiously energetic, people like her seem to be ahead of their time. In fact, they are just trying to beat it.

  On the Monday morning, Phyllis greeted everyone from her desk as they arrived into work. She ignored their astonished faces, which confirmed how shocked they were by her ravaged appearance.

  ‘Good morning! Good morning!’ she said briskly.

  In the first couple of hours, Phyllis had instructed representatives from paper merchants to make appointments with her. Letters were issued to Van Leer, to confirm their printing contract of the A-Z for a further five years, despite the paper restrictions lifting. Lowe & Brydone would win back the sheet maps and theGreater London Atlas. Her shrill voice was higher than before, more insistent and more determined.

  Mrs Ford gave her a wrapped package of duck pâté and a jar of home-made gooseberry jam. ‘I feel better now you are here, Mrs Pearsall. So much better.’

  ‘So do I. Thank you.’

  Over the next few months, the financial concerns nipping at her ankles were kicked away. She remembered her father’s words of Expansion Equals Efficiency and hired a new draughtsman, Fred Bond, and a sales representative, George Elston.

  ‘In the next three years,’ she announced to the office one morning, ‘I want us to spread out from London, to cover all the major cities. First we will do a new map of England and Wales. To be followed by the quality editions – or Premiers – of Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Coventry, Glasgow, Wolverhampton, Walsall and Bradford.’

  Her eyes were still too sore to read, or concentrate on reading proofs, so she asked Mrs Ford to read out account figures. If she heard an inaccuracy or an extravagance she would shout ‘Stop!’ And then, ‘Sort that out, Mrs Ford.’ The weak energy resource Phyllis had tapped into could only supply power to her brain. Her body ached and the very thought of walking, or lifting packages, made her hands tremble.

  One morning, Wally Cooper approached Phyllis and waffled with embarrassment: ‘I know, Mrs P, that what with you not being so well, that you might like help indexing and well, you see, my wife Mary, who has worked on telephone indexing, could perhaps help you, if maybe you thought it might be a good idea?’ He flushed.

  ‘Why didn’t you say so before? A husband and wife team – I like it. But we need another office boy, too. Any ideas, anyone?’

  On 6 April 1948, Nigel Syrett took up his position as office boy, after Phyllis had interviewed his father, Jack.

  ‘My boy is only fifteen, but he is no good at school. Don’t pay him a wage and don’t give him a holiday,’ the man had admonished.

  Nigel would prove to be one of the company’s best acquisitions. Energetic and cheerful, he knew every short-cut possible for deliveries. His agility and practical thinking reminded Phyllis in her memoirs of her younger self: Mustard-keen he darted through London’s Underground with mounted board maps larger than himself, dodging in and out of coaches. He unloaded heavy Dutch consignments and carried them up and down the dicey office stairs and to and from the rat-infested basement. His mission efficiently and promptly completed, he asked: ‘What’s next?’ A fortnight after he began, Phyllis offered him a permanent job at one pound and five shillings a week.

  His boss was, according to Nigel, as tough as old boots: ‘Phyllis looked incredibly frail but she had the most fantastic mind. She was ambitious too, not for herself, but for the company. Her whole life involved the Geographers’ Map Company and it was hard to know where the business ended and her life began. Phyllis knew there was no potential for a get-rich-quick business like today. It was plain hard work.’

  Month by month the finances not only stabilised, but thanks to the dedicated office team, they steadily improved.

  However, the frustration at not being able to sleep at night, to walk more than a mile, or climb a flight of stairs without difficulty, h
ad started to grate on Phyllis’s mind. Despite the comfort they gave her, the painkilling drugs were making her drowsy, slowing her down; even preparing her paint palette at weekends seemed an incredible effort.

  Progress may have been limited, but she would be knocked off her feet, just after her forty-second birthday, by the first visit from her father since the war. Phyllis recalled his arrival in October 1948 at 21 Grays Road, completely unannounced, and how in front of the staff, he openly savaged her.

  ‘Good Lord. What a fright you look. Haggard. Crippled. Barely past forty, and like an octogenarian! Imagine what it’s like for me. To be afflicted with so decrepit a daughter is too much! Aren’t you ashamed? Can’t you put make-up on? Your mother never let herself go like this, even at death’s door. You look ghastly!’ On the verge of fainting, I reached for a chair and heard him from afar: ‘Take off my shoes, can’t you, instead of sitting there! Here’s my jacket – hang it up.’

  The spite and jealousy that spouted from Sandor had been provoked by irritating comments from Mr Cruise, the buyer at W.H. Smith & Son, who had, in a passing telephone exchange, commented that Phyllis produced better quality maps than her father.

  ‘Betrayed by my own daughter!’ he thundered. ‘You want to corner the market here, do you, so I can never return?’

  ‘You know very well that I have done my best for you, Papa. All of this is for you. All of it.’

  Tears did not fall down her hardened face and Phyllis remained seated, trying not to pass out as her father paced the office. Mrs Ford spotted her red fists clenched in anger and saw her left eye start to twitch as Sandor moved in on the filing cabinets and flung papers to the floor.

  ‘Is this any way to run a business? I don’t think so.’ With that, he stormed out of the office and shouted back up the stairs, ‘Meet me tonight at The Savoy. Dinner. Eight o’clock. Do not be late!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Lo! I Am With You Always, Even Unto the End of the World Matthew, Ch. 28, v. 20

  The waiters in the Savoy restaurant thought it was a lover’s tiff.

  A small woman in a blue suit would not stop crying. ‘How could you? How could you?’ she wailed.

  The man beside her, a smarter-looking, older gentleman in a cashmere suit, was turned away from her, but still raised his voice to hiss: ‘For God’s sake, Phyllis, how dare you make a scene! Everybody is looking. Be quiet now. How can I have two demented women in my life?’

  ‘Now I know what drove Mama insane,’ the woman shouted.

  If anyone had been able to eat their beef soup or rabbit pie up until then – well, now their hushed voices fell to an absolute silence. It was, they believed, perfectly acceptable to put down their cutlery and stare as the woman accused her companion of being a philandering adulterer, a devil and a megalomaniac, before throwing over her chair and running from the room. She flounced past the bellboys and out on to the street, and for the first time in two years, Phyllis walked, sobbing and sobbing, until she could sob and walk no more.

  The dinner had started off civilly enough, but then Sandor had insisted on pulling out his favourite topic – women – as he perused the menu. Hungarian wives are so much more accepting than English and American ones. They forgive peccadilloes as long as one doesn’t desert them, whereas Englishwomen demand monogamy.

  In her mind, Phyllis could see her poor, bandaged Mama, paralysed after the riding accident. She could feel her hand stiffen in hers, as Sandor threw insult after insult at her pathetic form. All Bella had ever asked for was his support and love.

  Some might say Phyllis’s outburst was connected to posttraumatic stress disorder after the plane crash. Others, that Phyllis came face to face with her own mental fragility. But that night, it seemed to her that Sandor had been employing the same sadistic, demoralising tactics in the office and in the restaurant, that had eventually robbed Phyllis of her mother.

  The next day, Tony received a letter from Sandor, a copy of which went to Phyllis. As an artist, Tony could not rise to any of the family squabbles about business. He skimmed through his father’s letter, but found himself untroubled by what he felt was petty. He had no interest in maps, in production or in being a company director. Whether his father’s actions were legal, given that he had handed over the reins to his daughter, is also questionable today.

  I write to say that Phyllis thrust convulsive scenes upon me in a restaurant this evening, where I am well known. She hurled abuse at me and her hysterical eyes were those of a madwoman, her voice shriller and louder than I have ever heard.

  I therefore have no alternative but to give you full control of the Geographers’ Map Company. I shall issue further shares in your name. I advise you to look into the accounts. She has to be watched.

  Your loving father,

  Sandor Gross.

  PS On receipt of a copy of your will, I will take the necessary legal steps.

  That night, after receiving her copy of the letter, Phyllis had a stroke.

  For two months, Phyllis was blind. The shock of her father’s wrath and her own vulnerability had snatched away her sight. Sandor had already flown home to New York, but on hearing the news from Mrs Ford, he sent a telegram, DO NOT WORRY. RETHINK. GET BACK IN OFFICE ASAP.

  His cruelty at tearing all her hard work out of her hands in one swipe, and handing it back in the next, had sickened her. Tears flooded her face as she curled up alone at home in her bed, realising that she was one step nearer her beloved Mama. She did not dare believe that her sight was gone for ever. She did not dare feel that her business would flounder and sink without her.

  To keep herself occupied during the day, she dictated stories to Mrs Ford about her travels in Spain. These would eventually be published in The New Yorker in 1955.

  After weeks of darkness, Phyllis awoke one morning and a mottled vision of the ceiling came into view. She could hardly breathe with excitement as she blinked and blinked, and out of nowhere, her sight flickered back into focus. It was, Phyllis would say in later years, like the Road to Damascus conversion. Having been an atheist, from that moment onwards she conducted her life and her company as a Christian – born again, in the true sense of the meaning. Whether it was in the quotations from the Bible in her Christmas cards, to references to the Bible in her company manifesto, her enthusiasm for Christianity would become as keen as it was for maps.

  As her sight grew stronger, she scurried for writing paper. The first thing Phyllis felt compelled to do, was to send letter to her father. Animosity would not be allowed to wear away at her. Forgiveness, she felt, was only fair for him, her dear, darling father. She would try to understand his own loneliness with acceptance and kindness. The relief that came with the release of her own, albeit contained, bitterness, coincided with her call to Christianity and it is around this time that Phyllis wrote of her vision of Christ:

  I had the strange sensation of an opaque membrane being peeled from my eyes. Without emotion, I experienced God, as a living, all-powerful presence. ‘Let not your heart be troubled,’ were the words, ‘ye who believe in God, believe in Me.’ And there spiritually He stood. In my heart, closer than hands or feet.

  For the rest of her life Phyllis, albeit not a churchgoer, would believe that although her own human father had abandoned her, God had lifted her miraculously above all her troubles and held her tight.

  What Phyllis could not foresee was that, despite her forgiveness, her father’s life would only stretch for another six years. After a series of heart attacks in New York, he let business relax as he took a succession of holidays in the South of France. In August 1957, Phyllis received her final telegram from him on the Queen Mary bound for Southampton.

  MEET ME OFF THE SHIP PLEASE. 30 AUGUST.

  That same night, Sandor was found dead, sitting upright in an armchair in his cabin after dinner, his heart having stopped without warning. The letter then, that Phyllis wrote as a reply that same night, in her firm, looped handwriting, he would never get to read
:

  My Darling Friend and Father,

  I cannot wait to see you. I know that I should thank you for all your help with my business affairs and I truly know how wise you are.

  Lovingly and gratefully, Phyllis.

  To be greeted then at Southampton dock by a body bag and her father’s suitcase would ordinarily have shattered his daughter. But her faith had allowed her to understand that her family, scattered to the heavens, were no closer than the family at 21 Grays Inn Road.

  Back to 1952, and the time of Phyllis’s conversion to Christianity. A strong will and a strong faith now carried her wherever she wanted to go but when her weight fell to less than five stone, her colleagues pleaded with her to check into a Sussex rest home, founded by Dr Octavia Wilberforce, in Backsettown, Henfield. Here, in the Tudor rooms with their views of rolling pastures, Jersey cows and orchards, Phyllis found a haven that she would retreat to often over the next ten years.

  Backsettown, read the brochure, supplies a Rest Pause, under special conditions, to the efficient women in every class whose activities are threatened or impaired by the stress of modern life.

  There teachers, nurses and academics were cared for with lavish attention, in the comforting surroundings of an old country manor. Phyllis was ordered to rest in bed and fed up on roast dinners with fresh vegetables from the farm, and soggy puddings covered in cream from the Backsettown herd.

  When her body plumped up to its usual eight stone, Dr Wilberforce started to reduce her painkillers.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve been over-drugged for too many years,’ she told Phyllis, ‘and the process for withdrawal is a gradual one. But you will succeed because you want to, unlike those poor unfortunates who use drugs as an escape.’