England's Lane

by Joseph Connolly

  “Right. So … you want to stop with me then, yeh …?”

  “I … yes. Yes I do, Jim. I honestly do. If you’ll have me …”

  “And … that ain’t just on account of he pushing off, then?”

  “Who …?”

  “You knows bloody well who …”

  “Yes. Sorry, Jim. I actually wasn’t aware of that … but I’m pleased. If that is the case, then I’m pleased. Very pleased.”

  “I see. Right. Got it. Well I don’t hate you, Mill. Won’t never hate you. Can’t, can I? Loves you, I does. Always I done that. Always loved you, Mill. And I bleeding always will. As to the kid … well—I done all right by Pauly, my way of thinking. So I don’t see how I can’t be doing it again. What you want, ain’t it? As to having you, well—can’t be doing without you, gel. Right lucky to have you. Always were. That’s all I ever does it for. Shop. All of it. On account of I loves you, Mill … I loves you …”

  My throat was stopped—I was close to strangulation. My heart was huge within me, the scattering of my brain quite utterly dizzied. I exhaled, once and so sharply, and was panting now from I think it must have been shock, and a nearly delirious gratitude: the sobbing which I felt just launching from my eyes, and tumbling away so freely, my lips an uncontrollable jumble. I just gazed at the man, and was gasping. I simply could not speak. And then on an unthinkable impulse, I rushed toward him and fell to my knees—held his hand, and kissed it with tenderness. I looked up into his wearied face that held for me no expression—a face that I had not even seen, and for so very many years. His lips were so firmly compressed, and in each of his eyes there trembled unfathomable tears.

  It’s great now it’s the holidays and everything, but they did go and dole out piles of prep just like I knew they would because they always do. Madman Downes gave us the most because he’s a stupid pig. And I know what Amanda said about getting it all done in the first weekend but I can’t do that. Well—could, I suppose, but I’m not going to. It’s the party today where everyone from the Lane goes which I always say to Auntie Milly I hate because it’s all full of old people but I quite like it really—and there are children going, Amanda’s going and other people from the council schools who she doesn’t like because they’re common—and Anthony, he’ll be there and everything. I’ve been trying to be decent to Anthony, but it’s quite hard because he doesn’t really talk much any more. I thought it was because his mommy died but he says it isn’t because he didn’t ever see her anyway. And I said well what’s wrong then, Anthony? Is it because you’re living with us? Don’t you like it? Your dad won’t be away very long, that’s what Auntie Milly told me. But don’t you like it? Living here with us? I like it, living here. Don’t you? What’s wrong with it? And he said it isn’t that—that he does quite like it, living here, and he really likes my Auntie Milly because everybody does and what she cooks for us and especially sausages and fish fingers and sometimes chicken which is best of all and he doesn’t even mind Uncle Jim which is really amazing because I do. Aunt Milly, she’s been quite nice to him lately, Uncle Jim—and I don’t know why or anything, because he’s just disgusting, like he always is. I hope she stops. I really do. Anyway I said so what’s wrong then, Anthony? Aren’t you looking forward to Christmas? Because I jolly am, I can jolly well tell you that. There’s this tank I saw in Toys Toys Toys and it’s really great because you put a battery in it like you do with a torch and it actually moves on these rubber sort of tracks which have got a special name but I can’t remember what it is, and all these sparks come out of the gun bit and it turns around. I’ve told Auntie Milly about it heaps of times but I don’t know if she’s got it for me because it’s forty-two-and-six which is very expensive I know, but it’s really really great. That’s what I really want but there’ll be lots of other stuff too and some of it will be good but not things like V-necks which she knits and hankies and things. But I’ll get the Beano Book and the Dandy Book because I always do and sometimes the Topper and the Beezer as well and I’ve said I want Take Jennings for Instancewhich is new so they won’t have it in the library but we’re going to the library now for the party so I can check but I don’t think so. And I get a stocking from Santa which I know isn’t really from Santa but it’s jolly nice to get, and on television there’s been all these commercials with Santa in and he looks really fat and kind and nice with his beard and everything and he makes me feel all excited and the commercials are only for pretty rotten things like Hoovers and Brylcreem and Woolworth’s but he always looks really nice even if he’s only black-and-white and not all red like you see on Christmas cards and things. I know he doesn’t really exist, but maybe he does because nobody really knows.

  And Anthony said he is looking forward to Christmas but he doesn’t know if he’ll get any presents because his dad’s in a hospital somewhere but he knows where the spare key to the stockroom is so he says he can get us a Cadbury’s Selection Box each—and the seven-and-six big one as well—and I said all this to Auntie Milly and she said that she was quite sure that Santa wouldn’t forget him, which I told Anthony but he didn’t say anything. And then I said can you get a Cadbury’s Selection Box which I can give to Amanda as well because all I’ve got for her is a slide for her hair with a ladybird on, but he didn’t answer. And so I said it again and he still didn’t answer and then I saw he was all sort of blubbing, like a little baby. So I said what’s wrong now, Anthony? Why are you blubbing like a little baby? And I didn’t expect him to answer me or anything, but he goes and says Amanda, and I go well what about Amanda? What’s she got to do with you? And he says Nothing—she’s got nothing to do with me at all and then he goes on crying which was pretty embarrassing actually and it’s just as well we were at home and not at school because people like Robbins and Marshall and Hirschovitz would have tied him on to the pegs in the changing room and pelted him with inky blotch or something until he packed it in and if he didn’t they would’ve poured water into his indoor shoes which they did to Handley the term before last.

  Just thinking of Amanda, though—it’s all been just so great with her lately, but I’m really really sad and it’s the only thing that’s really rotten. Because we’d been on the Hill again and she’d let me touch her and everything and she kissed me and everything and I get this really funny feeling when she touches me back on my thing and everything that I don’t get when I go and do it myself because I tried it and it doesn’t work. And then she told me that her dad had told her that soon, some time in the new year, they were all going to go away and I said what do you mean, Amanda? For a holiday? Is that what you mean? Why aren’t you going in the summer because it’ll be beastly and freezing in the new year because it always is and she said no Paul, not for a holiday—we’re going away for good. Moving. Don’t know where. And we’re selling the shop and everything. And I said oh no that’s terrible—but what about your school? And she said she didn’t know. And I said well maybe you’re not moving far away—like only up to John Barnes or something and he can be a butcher in there, your dad. And she said she didn’t know. And so I told Auntie Milly and said I was really really sad and she said she was sad too. And I said but even if she does go away, Auntie Milly, I still will see her again won’t I? And she said of course you will Paul. And I said well that’s good Auntie Milly because I want to marry her, you see. Not yet obviously because I’m still going to school but when I do I’ve got to know where she is, got to have her address, haven’t I? And she said I would. She said I would. And I’d already decided about that before, about marrying Amanda, because she’s pretty and really nice and I’m obviously not ever going to marry Elizabeth Taylor because she’s a film star which you’re never going to meet in England’s Lane because nothing exciting ever happens in England’s Lane because everyone in it’s so stupid and boring, and anyway she’s probably quite old. Anyway—I’m going to see her now at the party—Amanda, obviously, not Elizabeth Taylor—and I’m really looking forward to that. She said she’d go
t a new dress for it with what she says has lilac ribbons on it and I bet she’ll look really smashing in it. But still you know I don’t get what Anthony’s got to cry about. He doesn’t even know Amanda.

  “Paul …! Paul … can you hear me …? I’m downstairs …”

  “Yes, Auntie Milly …?”

  “I’m going off now to the library, Paul. Got to see to all the little finishing touches before everybody starts to arrive. Oh heavens—do you know I’ve been there twice this morning already? Completely exhausted. One of the trestle tables that Mr. Bona lent to us, yes …? Chose to collapse just as Edie had put all the plates on to it. Can you believe it? Most of them were those Bakelite ones from Lindy’s, thank the heavens, so there wasn’t too much breakage. So anyway—can you and Anthony come along in about an hour, then? An hour, yes Paul? You can come with your Uncle Jim if you want … although he might be popping in somewhere else first, of course …”

  “Yes. Washington. No—I’ll just come with Anthony.”

  “Right you are, then. And have you got your bow on? Do you need any help with it? My goodness—you’re going to be quite the masher.”

  “Of course I don’t need any help with it. It’s only clip-on. What’s a masher?”

  “A very handsome young man—that’s what a masher is. All right Paul, my sweet. See you very soon, then.”

  That’s if I last that long: oh my Lord, I just can’t tell you how over the last few days I honestly have come within an inch of being run off my feet …! It’s perfectly extraordinary—no matter how carefully, how very diligently you try to plan the timing of everything, it all just seems to come at you at once. This party—and I do so hope that it all goes well—yes this party, rather surprisingly, has proved to be the very least of my burdens. But then of course I have been so terribly lucky in having all of the girls helping me out—we’ve all mucked in together—and Edie and Gwendoline in particular: I honestly couldn’t have managed it without them. And I did so laugh when Edie this morning so very eagerly volunteered to put up the paper chains: I think she felt that she just had to be certain they’d be there! The lad who works for Mr. Levy, he’d already rolled across Mrs. Dent’s piano, and then he carried over two of the tallest stepladders that Jim had in the shop—and goodness, though: I didn’t at all envy Edie being up there. It literally made me shiver just to look at her—because I’ve never been awfully good at heights, you know—and Eunice, she used to taunt and tease me quite mercilessly when we were little. At home, I couldn’t even bear to look out of the attic window, though she forever was making me do it—and then she’d be urging me to climb up the big old conker tree we had in the garden, and she knew I just couldn’t: it was all very naughty of her. In later years, we laughed about it all, of course …

  And Doreen—she’s been in the library all morning with her little Dansette and records and seemingly reams of sheet music … and also her very sallow and unsmiling young man—he it is who works in Woolworth’s and is, she simperingly told me, called Derek. His guitar I have to say is rather beautiful—bright shiny red with lots of chromium detailing, rather reminiscent of those terribly long and swish American automobiles looking rather like spaceships that you see at the pictures. Derek, by contrast, is very drab indeed—dressed from head to toe in black, and possessing the dead air of a bloodless vampire. We can but hope that his alarming amplifier doesn’t fuse the lights. The boy with the drums seems to be an altogether jollier sort of person, but the noise he was making during what he was pleased to term a “tune-up” was quite perfectly dreadful, and horribly loud. I have told Doreen to limit the amount of time the group is actually playing because this room—already it’s resounding with echo, and any conversation will be a complete impossibility.

  Anyway—not long now till the off, and all is looking reasonably festive, I think. And it’s just so wonderfully warm in here! All the radiators, you see (and gosh—what utter bliss it must be to have this central heating: just imagine to be rid of the freezing bedroom and the drafty hallway!). The tables, they have been pushed down to the far end—and when I saw them I did feel so terribly foolish because it had utterly escaped me that the library would of course be full of tables, but by then I’d already asked Mr. Bona to lend us those trestles he uses in the shop, and so then I thought I had to go ahead and use them because he’d been to such a beast of an amount of trouble to clear them of all his boxes and barrels and everything, and I felt that if I didn’t he could easily be offended. The chairs have been placed in little groups around the edges, and dear Mrs. Jenkins from Moore’s has in addition to the balloons also given us quite a few lengths of colored crepe paper which I have draped in front of several of the bookcases, and Edie is attaching to them a series of stars and snowflakes that she has cut from a roll of cooking foil from the Dairies: the stars, yes they’re really quite nice, though the snowflakes do not in the least resemble any snowflake I have ever seen, though of course I’ve said nothing to Edie. And those balloons—I had completely forgotten to ask Jim to blow them up (it was on my list, so I don’t know how I came to overlook it) and so this very dingy Derek person is attending to them now: he looks so very pale and puny, you know, that the effort may very well do for him, which could easily be a blessing in disguise.

  The keg of beer is looking horribly huge, the worry being that I have no doubt whatever that all the men will see it off with ease. Also on the table there, thanks to Victoria Wine, I can see whisky—two bottles of that—gin, cherry brandy, sherry and something obviously foreign and the brightest yellow that I am told is called … I think it is advocate: I do hope no rowdiness results. And Mr. Levy has given us such a lovely tree—oh the smell! It is quite perfectly divine!—and both Miss and Mrs. Jenkins have all the morning been very busy decorating it, and extremely beautifully too. It’s so much larger than the really rather weeny little thing that late last night I finally got around to putting up in the living room, just to the side of the television set. And it’s really so strange—each year when I get out the old shoebox, yet one more little glass ornament is always broken—I just can’t understand it because I always so very carefully fold them into tissue and then newspaper; I think I might this year have to buy one or two more, because it does look rather gappy. Usually I eke out the baubles with these little stacks of miniature chocolate bars each in a differently colored shiny paper, and hanging from a little bow: we all eat them all up on Boxing Day. I used to buy them from Stan, but he didn’t get them in this year. Paul loves it though, our little tree—and I’ve already wrapped this blessed tank that he’s been on and on at me for weeks on end to buy for him. Fearfully expensive for what it is—it’s only plastic, after all—but his heart was so set on it, little lamb. I’ll put it beneath the tree this evening, but of course I shan’t let on to him what it is. He loves his surprises on Christmas morning, and yet he’s forever pleading with me to tell him what is in each and every one of the packages, silly little boy: by Christmas Eve, he’s just so ridiculously excited … and I do adore it, to see it in his eyes. Anyway, I’ll say to him it’s something dreadfully dull such as socks, or to do with school. And although it seems that I’ve been running myself ragged over all these preparations at home, if I am being perfectly honest I do actually feel quite positively charged with energy: I actually am feeling it pulsing through me—it sometimes is almost as though I were lit up from within. Doctor McAuley, he told me the day before yesterday when I went to him for my checkup that this can often be the way, following all the pain and nausea that I was seemingly endlessly having to endure: thank the Lord all that’s behind me. It did make me smile though when earlier this morning Edie said to me that I was looking “radiant”—that was her actual word—because apart from Jim, I haven’t told a soul. I suppose though as the new year progresses—1960! I still simply can’t get used to the sound of it—then things will begin to be quite apparent, but until such time I’d far rather keep quiet about it. My little secret. Big secret. And growing wit
hin me all the time …! Can barely believe it—have to keep pinching myself. I haven’t quite decided when to tell Paul … possibly leave it until he asks me why suddenly I’m becoming so horribly fat! Difficult to project quite how he might feel about it all. He’ll just have to take a little time to get used to the idea, I suppose. Well—we all will.

  And apart from this tank affair—and I do hope it isn’t just a nine-day wonder, because it really did cost a small fortune: the battery alone was seven-and-six and weighs an absolute ton—I’ve also got for Paul his annuals and a handsome wooden jigsaw of HMS Victory, which I think he might like. And a drum of rubber building blocks called Minibrix that caught my eye while I was in Selfridges: rather clever—they connect, you see, but then you can take them all apart afterward and build something else entirely; and it’s got roofs, you know, and little doors and windows—quite sweet. For his stocking there’s a Matchbox car I know he hasn’t got—I do hope he does still like them though, because I haven’t seen him playing with them for simply ages—and a yo-yo, a multi-colored biro that I saw in Smith’s, a bag of gold chocolate coins, the usual white sugar mouse with pink eyes and his little stringy tail … and of course a clementine for the toe. And I’ve had to do similar for poor little Anthony: well I had to, didn’t I? Though I was quite at a loss as to what I might buy him for his primary present: there I was in Selfridges, surrounded by the bewildering mayhem that was the toy department, and my mind a complete and utter blank. I almost—I can’t even say it!—I almost settled for a football and two little net goalposts, and then I was just gasping in wonder at myself: oh my goodness, Milly—what in heaven’s name are you thinking of …?! I was covered in shame. So in the end I got him another jigsaw—this one of a racing car, so afterward the two of them can swap about—and a rotating globe on a wooden stand. And the Beezer and Topper books. Haven’t a clue as to whether he’ll actually like any of it—but what was I to do? I don’t know the boy, do I? And I couldn’t ask Stan, could I? (and anyway—he’s not allowed visitors: I do hope he’s not terribly ill). There was such an endless queue for Santa’s grotto—it went all the way out and around the shoe department and well into sporting goods—that I did feel rather relieved that this year I hadn’t brought Paul along with me. He did so love it last time, though: Uncle Holly is his favorite, and he cherishes all the badges he’s given him, over the years. And after all of that I was in the drizzle of Oxford Street feeling like a beast of burden and waiting for the bus, when I saw this stall on the pavement selling rolls of Christmas wrapping paper at very considerably less than in John Barnes and Smith’s or even in Woolworth’s, but when I got them home I was perfectly disgusted to discover that each of the sheets was virtually transparent …! Great heavens—what do they imagine to be the point of decorative wrapping paper …? You’d have to cover something in three or four sheets, or else there would be no surprise at all. So now I’ve simply spread them all across Mr. Bona’s trestle tables in the library to jolly them up a little bit, and ended up paying really rather a lot for some admittedly very good-quality rolls from John Barnes—holly, robins and Santa: all very traditional—and while I was there, I ordered our turkey. Hen bird—sweeter meat, I always find; usually I get it in the Lane, of course. I haven’t had the time this year to knit for Paul a nice and Christmassy V-neck, but I did buy a new pattern and five balls of royal blue and primrose two-ply, so I’ll have something bright for him at Easter. I daresay I shall be knitting other little tiny things too—oh what unimaginable excitement …! And I know I shouldn’t have, but I also got for myself one-and-a-half yards of nigger-brown corduroy which I think might make up into quite a pleasing little bolero: handy for the spring. It did make me remember though with a flood of guilt that I haven’t so much as even begun on my winter tweed coat, and I’ve had the material for positively months. Which is why I’m still shivering in this old thing.