CHAPTER FOUR
Anything Not Familiar
Milly could tell by the neat, still steaming, curlicue of dung—those stray bits of straw stirred up by the wind in the alleyway to the side of the United Dairies—that she’d fetched up just too late for her selection of treats to be eagerly crunched by the milkman’s horse. She folded the sugar lumps back into her hanky, along with the chopped-up chunks of a withered pippin. She missed seeing the horse’s big brown eyes grow larger with greed as she approached him. Not though, naturally, from love or affection—she wasn’t a fool. Nor even recognition, not of herself; but even for one’s bounty to engender just any sort of a desire in a single living soul … well that could be something too. Champion, his name is. Champion the Wonder Horse—so silly to call him that: he’s sweet, but it’s not as if he were a steeplechaser or anything. But they got it from an American program on the television, Paul was telling me—a sort of a cowboy show, I can only imagine, but I really wouldn’t know a thing about it. Don’t really seem to get much time for the television these days, although I don’t really know quite why that should be: other people seem to. I used to love it when Paul, of an afternoon, would cuddle up beside me on the sofa, happily waiting for Watch With Mother. Were we sitting comfortably? Yes we truly were. I’d have a nice cup of tea and a digestive, and Paul would be sucking on a chocolate finger until it threatened to play mayhem with his clean white shirt. Much too old for all that sort of thing now, of course, my little Paul—but sometimes if he’s home from school on a Friday promptly, we’ll still watch that cartoon show he so much adores. The sailorman. Popeye, that’s it, that’s the fellow. And his skinny girlfriend, Olive—she does makes me laugh. In the early days, Paul—he begged me to buy him lots of tins of spinach from the United Dairies, which I was more than happy to do because to get him to eat up any vegetable at all apart from peas and potatoes is little less than a miracle from heaven, quite frankly. And it seems so funny now, but golly—I wasn’t best pleased at the time, I can assure you of that: well he refused to have anything to do with them, didn’t he? Those three large tins I’d got for him—and Smedley’s, so it wasn’t as if they were cheap or anything. And why? Because he couldn’t squeeze them open with the pressure of his hand. In the cartoon, he was wailing—just like a silly baby—Popeye does that and the spinach whooshes right up into the air and he catches it all in his mouth. Yes I know Paul, I said to him—but that’s a cartoon, isn’t it? It’s not real life, is it Paul? It’s just a cartoon.
So that was me eating all the spinach for it seemed like years. I really didn’t care for it. I tried it on Jim, but he just eyed the wet green mound of it on his plate as if it were about to reach up and throttle him. “What’s this muck?” he wanted to know. Anything not familiar—anything that isn’t a pie or a roast or a fry-up—all of it’s just “muck,” in his eyes. Once I bought some real Italian spaghetti from Bona, and my golly was that expensive. It was terribly long, in a bright-blue paper wrapper and a diamond-shaped label I couldn’t make head or tail of. I’ve kept it in my drawer, the label, as a sort of souvenir. I only got the stuff because I’d seen this recipe in Woman’s Own, and all it needed was tomatoes and a bit of mince. Make a nice change from cottage pie, I thought. Well you just should have heard the furor: “We fought the b-word Eyeties all through the War! Those b-word Eyeties—they’re all b-word fascists!” he was ranting away. Yes well, I said—not you personally, Jim. You were in Munitions in Minehead, if you remember: not too many Italians to fight in Minehead, I shouldn’t have thought. Wrong thing to say, of course, but I was really very peeved with him, if you want to know the truth. I’d been to quite a lot of trouble over that supper—set the table nicely with the floral cloth and the proper cruets and even a cupful of marigolds from some pots I had in the backyard, at the time. Refused even to so much as try it. When I urged him, he threatened to throw his plate against the wall. If Paul hadn’t been at table (and he ate it all up like a good little boy) then I’d have dared him to do it, I was, ooh—that angry with the man. And he would have, you know—yes and then who do you think would have been up till all hours clearing away all of the mess? Exactly. Anyway, I thought it was actually very tasty—a lot of cutting up involved, of course: you wonder why they make it quite so long. The recipe said to put cheese on the top, but that would have made it more like a rarebit sort of affair, to my mind. And anyway, all I had in the house were some portions of Dairylea. I get it for Paul—he likes it on his toast.
And isn’t it funny? I’m looking now into the window of the United Dairies, and what’s the very first thing that catches my eye? A pyramid of tins of Smedley’s spinach …! Yes well you can keep them, thank you very much. But I do love this window—I sometimes think I could stand on the pavement and gaze at it for hours. And maybe in the past I have done—well, not for hours, obviously … but more than once somebody like that busybody Mrs. Goodrich or the lady from Amy’s the hairdresser—not Gwendoline, not the one who does me, but the other one—they’ve touched my arm and they’ve said to me something along the lines of Are you quite all right, my dear …? And I’ve come right back to earth and laughed at myself for ever having drifted away. Oh yes quite all right, thank you, I eagerly assured them. But that Mrs. Goodrich, she obviously thinks I’m touched. It’s just that I love to look at the displays, that’s all—why I don’t really care for these supermarkets, as they call them; even the new food hall they’ve got in John Barnes—I’ve never been in. Before I go into any of the shops in the Lane, though, I always pause to look at the windows. In the Dairies, it’s mostly these tapering piles of packets and tins—they look so very impressive, I always think, when they’re all massed together like that. Ranked like soldiers. The red of the Heinz Tomato Soups always makes for a cheery sight—reminds you of winters by the fire: I always add the top of the milk—gold top though, it’s got to be that. Stir it in—makes all the difference, I can tell you. And those great big boxes of Force, with Sunny Jim looking always so very posh and happy. Worlds away from my Jim, isn’t he …? My Jim, he never could be said to be sunny—perpetually overcast, rather more, with the threat of anything from showers to an out-and-out tornado. I don’t think they can be real though, those enormous packets—there’d be more than enough cereal in there to feed a family of six for a year. The manufacturers must just make them for show, I suppose. Well if that’s the case, their money isn’t wasted. If it wasn’t quite so nippy today, I’d linger longer—savor all these brand new Huntley & Palmers big square tins and the handsome jars of Marmite. But there’s always the devil of a wind just on this corner, so I think I’ll go in there now and get what I came for.
I always smile at the sign on the door: “Yes! We are open for the sale of Lyons’ Cakes.” When they shut the shop in the evening—and even when it’s half-day closing on Thursdays—I’ve seen Edie, the manageress (and she’s always the last to leave) … I’ve seen her turn it around: she never forgets, she always turns it around before she locks up the shop. And then it says “Sorry! We are closed—even for the sale of Lyons’ Cakes.” I wonder if there’s anyone else who even so much as notices? I hope so—because I think all these windows, they’re really a bit of an art that we all just take for granted. And oh my goodness, the number of times I’ve said to Jim—God’s sake, man: you’ve just got to do something about the state of your window. Well you can imagine his reaction: “Window? My window? State of my window? What’s b-word wrong with the state of my window? Looks all right to me. Nothing wrong with my b-word window.” On and on. Yes well—like so many men, he just doesn’t see. I mean … even the glass itself, that hasn’t been cleaned in a decade, and every day he hangs up the same old things outside—and that tin bath, I’m telling you: it must be a museum piece, by now. All dented and gray—not silvery and shiny like galvanized is when it’s new. When it’s not a museum piece. It’s not even as if anyone’s ever going to buy a tin bath in the first place. We may not all be living in Buckingham Pal
ace, but I think we’ve at least progressed from that. And everything else out there is coated in grime, from the traffic and the flies. The idea of a window display, I say to the man, is to entice people into the shop—to tempt them to buy something they may not have thought of. People look at your window, they’d run a mile. He says I don’t know what I’m talking about: they come in, they buy their flypapers, their nuts and bolts, their paraffin, their brooms and their four ounces of tacks—and the b-word butcher buys his buckets. No doilies and pretty pink bows in the window are going to make the slightest bit of b-word difference. And I don’t know—he might even be right. I still used to argue, though—and then I stopped. I used to do a lot of things where Jim is concerned. Yes I did. But now I’ve stopped.
It is true though that Mr. Barton, Jonathan, he does seem to buy an awful lot of buckets. And in his line, you don’t really care to inquire, do you? I did think of asking him one time, but I didn’t like to in the end. Now his window—oh my goodness! That really is a work of art, and no mistaking it. All these neat little white porcelain trays divided up by what I think is supposed to resemble parsley, though I must say the green is very vivid. The sirloin steaks, all fanned out so very handsomely, their creamy fat and marbling part of nature’s wonder, to my mind. The carcasses of pig, the neatly trussed-up chickens (for those who can afford them) with those sweet little chef’s hats perched on the ends of the drumsticks—and that parade of pinkish lamb chops, curling like commas. Mr. Barton, Jonathan himself—oh, he’s just such a gentleman. So very beautifully spoken and courteous, and always just perfectly turned out. Immaculately groomed, his hair and mustache always just so. Sounds so silly now, but I used to be quite … well, not frightened of him, exactly, no—but never really wholly at ease in his presence. Awed, I think I was, maybe just a little. He is rather commanding. He does tend to dominate any given space—and particularly so when he’s behind the counter of his own very brightly lit and nearly glittering shop. Which always smells so … I don’t know … clean, really. Is the nearest I can get to it. But it’s true that I still hear people talk of him as being really rather intimidating, but you just have to see beyond all that: that’s only his manner—he’s actually very kind. I find it all, all of it, quite a comfort. Big strong hands. Well you need that, I suppose. If you do what he does.
But just thinking about it all now, you know … nearly all of the windows in the Lane—they’re really rather wonderful, in their funny little ways. The nighties and stockings and petticoats in Marion’s all got up as if they’re just about to fly away—Bona, of course, with all these very strange packets of things, covered in seals and foreign languages. Some of them aren’t even written in a recognizable alphabet. They’re mostly, apparently—or at least that’s what the gentleman in there was telling me one time—Jewish sorts of things … what do they call it? Hebrew sort of writing, I think it is. There are quite a few Jewish people living around here now—Swiss Cottage mainly, some reason or other. Older people—all of them refugees from that blessed Hitler person. What a villain. There really does seem to be no end to the trouble that man continues to cause us all. Jim says he can’t understand it: how can they bring themselves to go into Bona? It’s run by a b-word Nazi. No Jim, I say to him, no—they’re Swiss, I’m fairly sure. Austrian, conceivably—but definitely not Nazis, for heaven’s sake: how can they be? They’re not even German. They’re all of them the same, is what he says then: they’re all of them the b-word same: wouldn’t trust a man jack of them. Oh dear dear. Well … that’s my Jim for you, I’m afraid. More or less sums him up. And I hardly think he’s alone. That’s the trouble.
And then there’s Dent’s the fish shop, with its ranks of wet and glimmering shimmers of the sea. And in the summer—the colors of all those mountains of fruit on the pavement outside Levy’s. And Miller’s too, the sweetshop—that’s always quite a fine show. But oh dear—poor Stan. I really don’t know how he copes with it. With Anthony the way he is, and everything. I can’t help wondering sometimes whether I’d be able to handle it all myself, if Paul were … well, you know. If he had that. God—I feel like I might be struck down dead for even thinking it. And Jane, his wife, I never ever see her. She’s never in the shop, or anything. I don’t think I’ve seen her for years. I do know she’s not been well, but Stan … he never mentions it. Doesn’t say anything. Well men—they don’t ever, do they? I hope he knows though that if he ever does need help, he only has to ask. But I was proud, so very proud of Paul, when he took up with little Anthony a couple of terms ago. Like my shining knight. But I don’t think that’s it at all, now: the two of them genuinely seem to be the very best of friends, and that is truly a blessing. I know that Stan thinks so, anyway. And in his window—so many tempting sweets and chocolates (if only I didn’t so very easily put on weight!) and posters for cigarettes that are kind to your throat. I used sometimes to have a Craven “A” of an evening, but if I’m honest it was only really because I do think those wonderful women in the films always look so very poised and elegant when they lower their eyelids and slowly blow out that long blue plume of smoke … Joan Fontaine, Rita Hayworth, Katherine Hepburn. Those. I can’t say I like it, though—I never could inhale, I’d die of choking. And I always had to have a Trebor’s mint, to take away the taste. Jim, of course—he never stops. If he isn’t stubbing one out he’s scraping a Vesta to light up another. I’ve told him repeatedly that it can’t be good for him and he just puffs the smoke right into my face and he says to me “So what? At my age, there’s nothing that’s good for me.” His attitude, that attitude of his, it really can’t be helpful to Paul. It’s all wrong. When there are young people about, I think you just have to be more positive and brave, to be seen to meet life’s challenges head-on. Set an example, I suppose is what I mean.
Oh God—I’m suddenly frozen to the marrow. And it’s not just me hanging about in the street, looking at tins of soup like a lemon—it’s this thin and silly coat I’m wearing. November now, and it’s not at all up to it. Much more of a spring coatee, this one is. My proper gaberdine with the quilted lining … well that’s seen better days. But I’ve bought this length of wonderful tweed—got it from John Barnes, oh, months ago now. Scottish it is, and very good quality. And what I think will be a very smart and toning lining with a stripe to it. Quite fetching. I’ve had the pattern propped up on the sewing machine for Lord knows how long. If I don’t get a move on, the winter will be over. I’ve got the thread—I’ve even got the buttons, so there’s no excuse at all. Leather-covered, they are: look like little footballs.
And yes I suppose I can hardly be surprised that there is Mrs. Goodrich, bold as brass as usual—standing four-square at the center of the shop, and somehow managing almost to fill it. She always plants her wicker basket on top of the marble counter, just by the scales and the bacon slicer. As if she’s establishing a kingdom—her very own sort of territory, or something. Marking out her area. I sometimes imagine, you know, that there somehow has to be a fleet of Mrs. Goodriches, a marching army of them—for how else could she ensure that no conversation, nothing that ever goes on (or anyway is said to) can pass unheard or unwitnessed? For it really does seem, sometimes, as if the woman is just simply everywhere. It’s only a small street, England’s Lane, and there’s a limit, you’d think, to the number of times in a day when you need to pop out to the shops … and yet I can hardly recall a time when I haven’t encountered her somewhere. And although I don’t for a moment believe it to be true, sometimes it can even appear as if she’s actually following you from place to place. Keeping an eye on you. “Ah,” she’ll always say—her face so smug, and packed with secrets, real or imagined. “Mrs. Stammer. So we meet again.” And then some or other patronizing comment concerning the shop.
“Ah—Mrs. Stammer. So we meet again. And how fares the world of ironmongery? Continuing to prosper, I very much hope. Edie and I were just explaining to young Doreen here the necessity of a reliable laxative.”
&nbs
p; Edie, behind the counter, smiled and slowly shook her head, while Doreen—the trainee at Amy’s the hairdresser, Milly remembered now—rolled up her eyes before closing them tightly.
“So embarrassing …” she barely murmured. “I only came in here for some Quaker Oats.”
“Nothing embarrassing about keeping regular,” said Mrs. Goodrich, rather sternly. “When you get to my age, you’ll know all about it. Essential to inner cleanliness. Ex-Lax is next to useless. Won’t shift anything. Senna pods—they’ll see to you properly. And it’s All-Bran you’re wanting, not Quaker Oats. I swear by it. All-Bran is your man, believe you me.”
I think, thought Milly, that the hairstyle young Doreen is affecting—and young she very surely is, can only be seventeen at the outside—they are calling it a “beehive.” I saw it in Woman’s Own. I wonder if Gwendoline did it for her. Not her usual approach. Looks more like candyfloss than hair—a great deal of backcombing, I should have said … can’t be good for your ends … ton of lacquer, looks like. And what a lot of make-up around her eyes. Like a panda.
“Never mind, Doreen,” Milly was laughing, as she leaned on the counter, unknotting her scarf. “We’ll change the subject, shall we? What very smart slacks you’re wearing. Quarter of Green Label when you’re ready, Edie.”
“They’re not ‘slacks,’” muttered Doreen moodily, looking down at her legs and spreading her palms. “They’re ski pants. They’re the latest.”
England's Lane Page 6
