England's Lane

by Joseph Connolly

  “No no—that’s her waist, I think. Used to be, anyway. Might be wrong. But I couldn’t tell you all the other bits, not for the life of me. Look—I’m not sure I’ll bother, you know. Like I say—I was just really on my way to have a nice cup of tea, and very possibly a portion of fruitcake. I just saw it hanging there, that’s all. And Milly—you wouldn’t, I don’t suppose, um … I mean, thousand things to see to, I expect, but er … you wouldn’t by any chance care for, maybe, a um …?”

  “If you are inviting me to take tea with you, Stan, then I can think of absolutely nothing more divine on earth. I’m completely parched. But honestly, though—I really do mean it. If you’d like me to … I mean it’s no bother Stan, you know, no bother at all. I can put it on, if you like, and then you can sort of see how it might look on her. Yes? I’m a size 12. Could that be more or less right, do you think? Is she my sort of size and shape, Jane …? I honestly can’t remember, it’s been that long …”

  Stan now was openly staring at her.

  “Your size, yeh more or less, I suppose. Not really your, er—shape though, I wouldn’t have said. She’s more sort of … don’t know. Hard to say. Can’t remember. Straight up, maybe …”

  “I see … Well I’ll just slip it on for you, shall I? Can you just hold my coat for me for a minute? Thanks, Stan. Oh it is nice, isn’t it …? Beautiful fabric. And such a pretty shade. There! What do you think? I’m your very own model. You’ll have to ignore the shoes and everything, though. Not quite designed for the boudoir. Shall I twirl …?”

  Stan still was openly staring at her. And then he just about managed to say:

  “Lovely …”

  “It is, isn’t it? It really is. Oh gosh—eighty-nine and eleven, though …! Still, it is a quality garment. You can certainly see that. What do you think …?”

  “I think … no, I don’t really think so. Thanks, Milly, for all the, er … looks lovely on you, it really does, but I think I’ll leave it, you know. Now I come to look at it—now I come to see the thing, I don’t think she’d … well I just don’t really think it’s her, somehow.”

  “All right then, Stan. You know best. I’ll just slip it back. Anyway—you can always get it later, if you change your mind. They don’t shut till five-thirty, so you’ve got heaps of time. Now then—is your offer of a cup of tea still open? It is? Oh splendid. Well then lead me to it—I can’t tell you how that will so hit the spot.”

  They walked the short distance through ladies’ coats and nursery things to the broad and handsome entrance to the cafeteria—very lovely, to Milly’s eyes, the walls and reception counter still clad in the original 1930s rosewood veneer and gleaming streamlined chromium fittings—not unlike, it has just occurred to me, a smaller version of the Odeon just down the road. How awful if either had been bombed in the war. Can you honestly imagine a life without John Barnes or the local fleapit? Dreadful. Now on the left, well—cafeteria is really too humble a word for the section on the left: proper and crisp white napery, and a single pink carnation with a sprig of fern in a silver flute on every single table: terribly smart. Waitresses quite like the old wartime nippies, all in black, with snowy pinnies and token mob-caps Kirbigripped to their nets and perms. Some of them I remember from so long ago: must be perfectly ancient by now—and yet still they’re all scooting about the place, smiling and scowling according to temperament and the state of their feet, the make-up never less than caked—orangey powder and thin and puckered mouths smarmed over with bright red lipstick painted into an optimistic bow that far exceeds the contours of their nearly vanished lips: maybe the use of cosmetics is as strictly regulated as the code for uniform. Anyway—this is much more of a restaurant than anything (and many’s the time I’ve enjoyed a more than adequate plaice, chips and peas here: very fresh, beautifully breadcrumbed, and not at all bad value at five-and-six, all things considered; Paul adores it, whenever I take him). The section to the right, however—well this is a far more modern and casual sort of a thing altogether: lemon and sky Formica tables, pale-green and cream linoleum tiles—and it’s all this new “self service” idea where you slide a tray along a shelf sort of thing—not a shelf, not really, but I don’t know what else you’d call it—and select whatever it is you want from all these see-through plastic boxes: all so very contemporary. That’s quite the word at the moment, contemporary. Normally it’s applied to that rather funny new furniture and so on—a chair that looks more like a raffia dog basket on these very thin and spindly black metal legs: far from cozy-looking. Or a side table, coffee table they call it, in the shape of an artist’s palette; coat hooks and magazine racks with all differently colored balls on the ends of them, don’t ask me why. The things they think of. It’s all very gay, I’ve no doubt of it, but not honestly to my taste—I much prefer the traditional and altogether more comfortable sort of thing.

  Anyway—Stan is ahead of me in the queue, and whether I like it or not I’m looking for the first time at the back of his neck. I think he must go to the same awful barber as Jim—that dark and cheap little place just opposite Chalk Farm tube station, an area I wouldn’t ever choose to visit, not if I could help it; certainly that neck is clippered, and it does seem rather raw. Nor, now I come to think of it, have I ever before seen him in a coat and hat and out and about. I think in everyone’s minds, you know, the people in the Lane over time have gradually evolved into essentially no more than the most visible component of the shops they are running: one is unthinkable without the other, and it is strangeness itself to see them apart. Oh dear … there seems to be a blockage in the queue: we’re not even budging, and I’m very sick of looking at a pyramid of Lyons’ Individual Fruit Pies and this largish glass tank of perfectly ordinary milk, though churned up constantly by some or other sort of a device in order to make it appear so very temptingly bubbly, in the manner of a milkshake, I suppose—which, I see from the tariff, would cost you a whole shilling more, which does seem to me to be slightly excessive. So anyway … I think I handled the whole business of the negligee, or whatever you would like to call the thing, really fairly satisfactorily—not too badly, I’d consider. Well I was so completely thrown—didn’t know what to say, really. Thank the Lord, though, that it hadn’t been the other way around—because just imagine if Stan had happened along at the very moment I had been standing before a full-length mirror and holding in front of me a pair of white and frilly vaudeville knickers …! And was he really thinking of buying that perfectly hideous thing for Jane? It was horrid, when it actually came to the feel—clung to my clothes very clammily: clearly synthetic, and not nice at all—not to say daylight robbery at even half the price, I should have said. Mind you, from what I’ve heard—admittedly at third hand from someone who had been talking to the beastly Mrs. Goodrich (and I know I shouldn’t listen)—Jane, his wife, poor man, she doesn’t even trouble to get dressed at all, these days. Doesn’t even take the pins out of her hair—and that it’s Stan who has to see to poor little Anthony. Cooking, cleaning, shopping—and all this on top of the sweetshop. Can that really be true? I think I’m going to have to find out, if ever we can pay for our teas and get settled at a table. But if it is true, if she really is, Jane, just lounging about the house all day in her nightclothes … well possibly buying that gown thing was a genuine intention after all. Well of course it was—what am I thinking? It had to be. Why else would Mr. Miller the confectioner be in the middle of John Barnes’ lingerie department and staring at a pink nylon ladies’ nightgown? An impetuous gift for his vampish fancy woman whom he keeps in some considerable style in a St. John’s Wood villa? I hardly think so, do you? Not our Stan.

  “Gosh—finally …!” Milly was laughing, as she placed on a table quite close to the window her cup of tea and two McVitie’s digestive biscuits, wrapped in printed cellophane. And then she glanced about her in a vague sort of a way for somewhere to put this mottled brown Bakelite tray, eventually leaning it against the table leg. “What on earth was the hold-up, Sta
n? I was imagining I’d die of old age before I even got to drinking my tea. I thought it was supposed to be quick, all this ‘self service’ business. I thought that was meant to be the idea.”

  Stan was sitting opposite her and unwrapping his briquette of fruitcake.

  “Some woman. Forgot her purse. Wanted to write them a check.”

  “What—for a cup of tea? I don’t believe it.”

  “And a packet of Ryvita …”

  “Oh but still! A check! How was it resolved? Silly woman.”

  “Well … I paid for her, in the end. Wasn’t much. Nearly in tears she was, poor old thing.”

  Milly had been stirring her tea, but she stopped that now.

  “Did you really do that, Stan? Oh I think that’s just so sweet.”

  Stan looked down and wagged his head.

  “Nothing. Only a bob or so. She did offer to put back the Ryvita, but I said I wouldn’t hear of it …”

  “Do you know, I wasn’t aware of any of this. Must have been miles away. Well anyway, Stan, I’m sure she must have been terribly grateful to you. Is that her over there …? Oh gosh—she’s waving, I think … how ghastly …”

  “That’s her, yes. Don’t look over. Wanted my address. Pay me back. I said to her, listen dear, it’s hardly worth the stamp and the envelope.”

  “Well maybe she’ll come into your shop one day. Tea’s divine …”

  “I think we both of us needed a cuppa, didn’t we Milly? Yes, you never know. Maybe she will …”

  “So tell me, Stan—golly it’s just simply ages since we had a chat, isn’t it really? You’re always so busy in the shop, I never like to detain you.”

  “Never too busy for you, Milly. You detain me as long as you wish. No, well—I’m not too bad. You know. Anthony—he can be a bit of a handful, of course, but Lord knows it’s not his fault. Goodnatured lad. Don’t begrudge him, not at all. Sometimes it gets a bit on top of you. Can’t think what I’d do without your Paul, though. What a boy he is, ay? Lovely boy, Paul. Should be proud.”

  Milly was smiling widely at the mention of his name.

  “They’re very good friends aren’t they, the two of them? And I’m so pleased they are. And, um … how is Anthony, Stan? I mean—is he …?”

  “Well as can be expected. That’s all the doctors give you. That’s all you get. So you don’t know, do you? You just don’t know. Not getting any worse, fairly sure of that. But whether he’ll ever, well … how it all turns out in the long run—anyone’s guess. They say that medically they’re making progress all the time, but … Strides, is what they say. Making great strides. That’s what I’m always being told. Yes well … but you don’t ever really see the benefit …”

  “Must be so difficult for you. For you both. As parents, I mean. And Jane … how’s she keeping? Not been well, I hear …”

  Even Stan couldn’t resist a stifled sort of a laugh at that: he hoped it hadn’t emerged as smirking.

  “Not well, no. I think it would be fair to say that she hasn’t been at all well, Janey, for quite some time now. But it’s … well it’s all very hard to talk about, Milly, you want me to be frank. Never mentioned it to anyone. You’re the first one who’s even so much as … but it’s not like … it isn’t as though she’s got an illness—disease, sort of style—anything you can put your finger on, if you know what I’m driving at. A lot of it’s in her mind, seems to me. But I’m no expert. Not by a long chalk. Don’t know what she’s thinking, half the time … haven’t a clue. Christ Alive though, ay? What a business. Life.”

  “Well … what does she say, Stan? What does she say to you is wrong?”

  “Yes well that’s it, isn’t it? She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t talk. Not really. Oh look, Milly—I don’t want to go on to you about all my little troubles. Let’s just enjoy our tea, ay? What about yourself? You all right, are you? And Jim? And Paul?”

  “No—never mind about us, Stan. We’re all fine. Let’s talk a bit more about this problem of yours. I’d like to—honestly. Maybe I can—I don’t know … help a bit. Look—I don’t want to butt in where I’m not wanted, all right? I’m not prying or anything, I do hope you know that, Stan. But I mean—would you like me to … I don’t know—come round and see her, maybe? Drop in for a chat, sort of thing.”

  Stan looked up to the ceiling, his eyes now midway to closing, as a wistful little smile crept across his mouth.

  “Can’t honestly think it would help, if I’m honest, Milly. I mean—it’s ever so kind of you to offer, and everything … but I wouldn’t want to inflict it on you. And anyway—if she doesn’t talk to me, I don’t really think she’s going to …”

  “Ah but that’s just the point, Stan. People do, you see. Often, people will talk to a comparative stranger. Say things they wouldn’t dream of to someone who is close to them. Why don’t you let me try? At least I could try. Nothing to lose, is there? Hm? When you think about it. If she doesn’t speak, well then she doesn’t speak. No worse off, are you?”

  Stan sat in silence, simply gazing at her. He said it before he knew he was going to:

  “You’re a wonderful woman, Milly …” And then in an effort to recover himself, he quickly tacked on: “Sorry. Sorry, Milly—I didn’t mean …”

  “Not wonderful, Stan, believe me. Very far from it, I do assure you. Capable, is all I am. I can do things. Simple things. So let me try. Yes? I mean—who knows? It might make your life just so much easier if at least you could learn what the problem is. And then later on, maybe I could persuade her to see someone, you know—professional, as it were.”

  Stan was nodding slowly.

  “It could well be … yeh, I must admit it’s crossed my mind that it could well be that what she’s wanting. Well … I wouldn’t know where to go. How to, you know—set about it. What I was really asking for. And it’s not a thing you like to—well, talk to anyone about, is it? Strangers. Not really. And then again, Milly—look at all the guff I’m always getting from Anthony’s doctors. All that stuff they give me. All I told you about. Lost track of the number of doctors who’ve seen him. It doesn’t change anything, does it? Nothing changes. Shall I tell you the only thing that’s changed? Shall I? Well Anthony—he’s growing, isn’t he? Yes he is—and I’m grateful for that, I thank God for that, because they don’t, you know—not always. And last time they had him in—Hampstead General, that’s where I take him—the doctor, he says to me, these calipers, Mr. Miller, he says: these calipers—we’re going to remove them. And little Anthony—he looks at me, see. He looks at me, and those big eyes of his—they’re that bright, I’m telling you. And I’m going well yes, doctor—that would be marvelous, doctor. Three bags full, doctor. Because I can’t really believe my ears. Yes and then he says to me: Mr. Miller, I don’t think you quite understand. No well I didn’t, did I? And nor did the boy. Damned doctor, he said to me they’re going to take away the perishing things, so what else am I supposed to think? What would you think? Hey? Turns out what he’s meaning, all he meant was, they’re getting a bit tight on him. Well we know that, don’t we? Anthony, he’s been saying for ages they’re pinching something terrible. Told them that the last time. So anyway, they measure him up and blow me if they don’t just bung the poor little blighter into bigger ones. Same blessed thing, only bigger. So that’s all that’s changed—now he’s got bigger ones. And Anthony—still just looking at me, he is. Doesn’t say anything, though. And then he does. He’s smiling. I’m telling you the God’s honest truth, Milly. He’s smiling, and then he says to me ‘It’s all right, Dad.’ That’s what he says. Can you credit it? Believe that? Boy of his age? Trying to make me feel better, see? Christ Alive. I don’t know. Fair breaks your bloody heart … excuse language.”

  Milly’s eyes were creased into sympathy. She reached out a hand to him.

  “Oh Stan … I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Well. Way it is. But all I’m saying is, Milly—we go to a doctor about Janey, some other sort of quack, and �
� well, same old story, isn’t it? One person sees her and says one thing, someone else sees her, and he says another thing. You don’t know where you stand. Pills is all they’ll give her. That’s all you’ll get. Already got thousands of them, hasn’t she? Pills. Prescriptions … that GP we’ve got, Fellows Road, completely hopeless, he doesn’t come and see her any more. Says there’s no point. So the prescriptions, he just pops them in the post. Spend half my time in Allchin’s, getting them filled. And what’ll they do to her? New pills, different pills that she gets from somebody else? You don’t know, do you? And they don’t know either. It’s all hit and miss. They haven’t a clue. And if she goes and gets worse, which is highly likely—do you know what they’ll do then? Do you?”

  “Stan. Try not to upset yourself. Please, Stan …”

  “You’d be upset, Milly. If it were your Paul, your Jim—you’d be upset, I can tell you. Look. All I’m saying is—they’d just go and give her some other pills. Wouldn’t they? Hey? What they do. Another color. Different shape. It’s the same thing, though. It’s just the same old thing.”

  “Stan …”

  He shrugged. Looked at the floor, and then sharply back at her. His face then began to relax as he slowly released the grip he had taken on her hand.

  “Forget it, Milly. Forget I even spoke. Don’t know what came over me—going on like that. Forgive me, please. Here—let me get you another cup of tea, hey? How about that? We could do with another cup after all of that malarkey, yeh?”

  Milly smiled, very fondly.

  “That would be quite lovely, Stan—but I shall get it. No no—I insist. You paid for the last one. Indeed, you seem to have paid for tea for everyone in the whole of the cafeteria …!”

  And he laughed, thank heavens. Oh thank heavens, Milly was thinking: he laughed, he laughed. And now he was up on his feet.