Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

by Barbara Comyns

  After we had discussed the trunk call in great detail, Emma said she would meet us at the station to-morrow, and put in a good word for us with Charles’s father. I can’t go on calling him Charles’s father all the time, so had better call him by his Christian name, which was Paul. He rather resembled Guy Fawkes, and was handsome; women were always falling in love with him and it made Charles’s mother even more mad. Her name was Eva. She was like a hard, shiny, rather pretty but horrid beetle, a spoilt, nagging kind of beetle.

  We were feeling awfully tired when we left Emma’s flat and hardly spoke on the bus going home. Charles came with me to the house where I lived, but I asked him to leave me, as I had so much packing to do, but before he left my landlady came running up the basement stairs; she appeared to be in a great flurry, and said that Charles’s mother had been, with a whole host of uncles and aunts, but they had left now and had gone to the house where Charles lived. This was so dreadful, I felt if only we could wait until the morning, but Eva was the kind of woman who would never wait till the morning. My landlady was a kind woman. She did things to people’s feet to make them better, and had a room with plaster feet all over the walls. She was most distressed about the invasion of Charles’s relations. As a matter of fact, it was she who unintentionally gave us away. That morning Charles’s mother had called at his bed-sitting-room, but as he was not there his landlady had sent her on to my house, which was quite near. When my landlady answered the door and Eva explained who she was, she was welcomed in and asked if she had come up for the wedding, so after that Eva spent the rest of the day ’phoning and sending telegrams to everyone she could think of, really rather enjoying herself, I should think; she loved confusion.

  While we were discussing this in the hall, there was a great thumping at the door and when it was opened in tumbled all Charles’s maternal relations. I tried to run up the stairs, but they just fell on me like a swarm of angry hornets. One woman in a stiff black hat gripped me by the arm, and I was pushed into the room full of plaster feet. She said I was an uncontrolled little beast, and when was I expecting the baby. Eva said I was not capable of love, only lust, and it was all a trap to catch Charles. I told them I wasn’t expecting any babies, but it took a long time to convince them, and they seemed almost disappointed when I did. All the time they tried to make out that I was wicked and sordid to want to marry Charles, and eventually I began to feel I was and my teeth started to chatter. Charles just looked very white and scared; he wasn’t very much help. His mother went on talking so much her voice went almost away and she kind of croaked.

  When it was about one o’clock my landlady came up and told them they must go away because everyone in the house was complaining about the noise they were making. Eva tried to make me promise I would not see Charles for a year, but all I would say was that I would do whatever Paul said we were to do when he came in the morning. This made her even more angry. She said if he allowed us to marry she would go to the church and stop the marriage. Then they all went, taking Charles with them. I never expected to see him again. I couldn’t help wondering what would happen to all our beautiful furniture.

  3

  Then the morning came and it was light. There were half-packed suitcases all around my bed. The posters that had disguised the ugly wallpaper were lying about in long white scrolls. Great Warty looked at me from his glass house, so I took him out and let him walk up my arm until he fell in the bed, then I made tunnels out of the bedclothes for him to walk slowly through and he looked extra prehistoric. All this time I tried to close my mind that this should have been my wedding morning, also I had to give up my room at twelve o’clock because it had been let to another girl. Actually, I supposed I could live in the flat, but felt this would be impossible without Charles. I never wanted to see it again, also the rent would be far too much for me on my own. I earned two pounds a week and my present room was only fifteen shillings.

  Eventually I had a bath and dressed, then I wondered what I should do next, ’phone Mrs Amber, the spiritualist friend, and tell her not to bother about the little reception she had planned to give us after the wedding. Then I started thinking about Charles. Had his mother spirited him away to Wiltshire, and was he as miserable as I was? I heard the front door slam, then there were hurried steps up the stairs and Charles opened the door of my room. At first I thought it was too good to be true and I was imagining things, but it really was Charles. He kissed me and said it was time to meet his father and he thought we should both go to the station. I was so happy to see him again after all my sad thoughts. There he was looking just as if he were going to be married after all. He was wearing his new suit; it had little checks on it and was one of his twenty-first birthday presents, so I pulled off my old yellow linen frock and put on rather a frightful green suit that had a wrap-over skirt that was always coming unwrapped at the wrong moments, but it was my best. Then we hurried away to Paddington Station.

  When we arrived there we saw the tall figure of Emma walking up and down the platform, so we went to her and told her all about the dreadful reception we had had after we left her the previous evening. Then the train came in and there was Paul. He was wearing rather an old-fashioned bowler hat, a thing I’d never seen him in before, so I said to Charles, ‘That must mean there is going to be a wedding, your father wearing a hat like that.’ But when he turned round to talk to Emma, I saw his suit was very shabby; it had been let out at the back with new material and it made a stripe all down his back, so my heart sank, but Charles seemed quite cheerful and said, ‘Don’t worry. Whatever he says, no one can stop us getting married to-day.’

  Paul had a lot of things in the guard’s van, a round table and some hampers and some things he was bringing up for a friend; he disposed of these in the cloak-room, then we all went to Hyde Park, or maybe it was some other London park. There we sat on benches and discussed how impossible it was for Charles and me to marry. He gave us quite a long lecture which he enjoyed very much. We didn’t listen, but managed to say Yes when it was needed. Charles said, ‘Oh yes. Yes indeed,’ and the lecture went off very well. He asked us what Eva thought about it all, and he laughed when we told him, and said it was just like Eva. Both he and Emma were rather shocked about the woman in the stiff black hat thinking I was going to have some babies already. After all this talk he said we had better have some lunch, so we went to an Italian café near the Cobden statue. I always thought that statue was of Crippen to point out what a wicked place Camden Town is, but I was quite wrong; Cobden was an eminent Victorian.

  I thought it a hopeful sign we were having lunch so near the church we had arranged to be married in, and after we had drunk some wine Paul said: ‘Now, Charles, if I allow you two children to marry, I shall stop your allowance. I have enough expense with keeping two homes going as it is, and I can’t manage three. If you can’t keep yourself now you have come of age and are intending to become a married man, you never will.’ Charles said ‘Yes, yes’ several times — he always did this when he was embarrassed. The thought of saving Charles’s allowance seemed to please Paul quite a lot, but we were all in a pretty good mood; we had drunk rather a lot of wine that tasted of ink and the lunch had been quite good; it was an Italian restaurant, not at all the kind of place Paul usually went to. When we were halfway through our coffee he said we had better hurry or we would be too late for the wedding. By this time I had made up my mind he was going to consent to our marriage, and after the remark about Charles’s allowance I was quite sure about it.

  We left the restaurant in a great hurry, because it was already half-past two and in England you can’t get married after three — something to do with the licensing laws, I should think. The church was next door to my house, so I ran in and perched a beret on my head, because there is another law about that; I put Great Warty in my pocket as a kind of page and ran out of the house. Paul and Charles were waiting outside the church. Paul said he would give me away. We had arranged for rather a handsome actor we k
new to do this, but as he seemed to be enjoying himself so much we let him do the giving away and an artist friend of Charles, called James, was the best man.

  When we got in the church the priest took Charles right away. I thought it was a trick of his mother’s at first, but no one seemed surprised. Then I saw him standing with James very stiff and still. They made me sit in a pew with Paul and I felt a bit scared in case they married me to him by mistake. There were masses of people in the church, most of them uninvited. There was the man who owned the studio where I worked, and some women I sometimes did typing for, also the place was quite stiff with old landladies; some had big hats all covered in feathers. Charles owed rent to quite a lot of them. There was Emma and some of her friends, and my sister Ann. I had asked her to come as a witness. She looked very surprised to see Paul and all those people at a secret wedding. I smiled at her to show it was all right. I could see Mrs Amber sitting by herself with a worried look on her face; I could guess she was worried about all the people in the church, in case they all came to the reception; she was only expecting about seven.

  Then I forgot all about the people in the church because lovely little noises came, kind of singing, chirping noises. I saw all up in the roof there were masses of little birds, all singing and chirping in the most delightful manner. I felt so glad we hadn’t paid extra for the beastly organ and hoped so much we would make a success of our marriage after the birds being so nice about it.

  A little man called a verger came and told us the time had come to go up the aisle. I looked round the church quickly to make sure Eva wasn’t around somewhere. She had said she would say she knew a just cause and impediment why we should not marry and I was dreading a scene like there is in Jane Eyre, but she did not appear to be anywhere unless she was hiding. I soon found myself going up the aisle very fast on Paul’s arm. I hoped my boss couldn’t see the seam down Paul’s back. People kept smiling at me and I wasn’t sure if you had to acknowledge them or not; the landlady before the last shouted out, ‘Would you like a kitten born on your wedding day?’ as I passed, so I shouted back, ‘Yes,’ just as I reached the altar. Charles was still there and the priest and James, who produced the wedding-ring. Charles and I had to do a lot of talking, but it was not difficult, because we said it after the priest, and we were married in no time, quite safely, because Eva was not there to say about just causes and impediments.

  When we got to the vestry Paul kissed me and I felt rather sad because it should have been Charles, but he was looking rather white and dazed, also he hadn’t enough money to pay them for marrying us. It was quite a lot of money they wanted — about seventeen-and-six, I believe, but we borrowed it from James. Of course, we need not have paid, because they couldn’t unmarry us if we hadn’t. I expect people do that sometimes, but it would be rather unpleasant.

  As soon as the wedding was over we all went to Mrs Amber’s flat in Buckingham Gate. We went in taxis, buses and Emma’s car. Although the flat was very small the reception was quite a success and Mrs Amber did not seem to mind that the party had grown so large; she got on rather well with Paul. I was so thrilled by my wedding-ring I didn’t notice the guests much. I found a quiet corner where I could look at my left hand in all sorts of positions. The effect was rather spoilt because there was a lot of sea-green paint under my nails that I had not had time to get out.

  After a time Paul said he would like to see the flat, so we said Goodbye to the guests and took a taxi to the station to collect the things for his friend, but when we arrived at Haverstock Hill it turned out they were meant for us, so he must have made up his mind about us before he left home. There was a dear little oak tip-up table, and we were so pleased with it. In the hamper was linen and some glass and china, also there was an enormous bunch of asparagus.

  He thought our flat most attractive, and before he left it was arranged that we should spend the next weekend at his house in the Cotswolds, so it was good to think that we were not at all in disgrace with him. After he left we walked round the shops and did our first shopping. There was a street of small shops quite near, one or two of each kind, even a draper’s and cobbler’s. I still had my two pounds wages in my bag, so we could buy quite a lot. I didn’t know much about meat, so when we got to the butcher’s, I said, ‘Can I have a small joint of bones stuck together?’ and the butcher told me that kind of meat is called best end of neck of lamb.

  In the evening Ann came and helped us unpack and arrange things, and to talk about the wedding. We ate heaps of asparagus and drank Chianti which came out of a nice bottle dressed in straw; we kept that bottle for years. We were awfully tired and went to bed as soon as she left, but the divan we had bought on hire purchase was not comfortable at all, because we had no mattress on top and the clothes kept slipping off, also the sheets were new and stiff and smelt funny. We were much too tired to make love and it was not at all the kind of wedding night I had read about, but eventually we bought a mattress and were able to tuck the clothes in and the sheets were washed and didn’t smell and we became proper married people.

  4

  Sophia Fairclough was my new name and quite soon I became used to it and to being called ‘Mrs’ and wearing a wedding-ring. Already, after a few weeks’ married life, my saucepans had burnt marks on them. I had hoped to keep them always shiny, because I had a stupid feeling that as long as I could keep them like new my marriage would stay the same, but in spite of the saucepans we were quite happy. Sometimes I worried about money a little because my weekly two pounds did not go very far, but we had some cheques in one of the dresser drawers, and whenever we ran out of money we asked my sister Ann to cash one. She earned enough to have a banking account and was a real bachelor girl with a flat. She was two years older than I and rather efficient at her job on a woman’s weekly. She collected material for a page ‘Ways of wasting not more than five shillings’ and all the articles on the page had captions underneath like this: ‘This dainty little butter-dish made of leather costs but 2/11’ or ‘Wouldn’t the kiddies just love this jolly little squeaking mouse — a bargain at 4/9’. They gave her the things she wrote about quite often, so her flat was full of gadgets, and she had a box under her bed simply stiff with things to give people for Christmas. Before our marriage Charles used to paint and draw me quite a lot, but now we were living together I had to pose in every imaginable position. In the middle of washing the supper things, Charles would say ‘Don’t move’, and I would have to keep quite still, with my hands in the water, until he finished drawing me, or I might be preparing the supper and everything would get all held up. He painted me in the bath once and I have never been so clean before or since. Sometimes when I woke in the morning, there would be Charles painting me asleep. That was the most comfortable way to be painted, but it made me late for work. When I was out during the day he liked to paint still lives. He would arrange a group on a cushion — a melon, a banana and some carrots and perhaps a kipper or an egg, but the kitten, Matthew, would eat the fish in the night and play football with the fruit and Charles would be most upset, although he was rather batty about the kitten usually; he was called Matthew after the church we were married in, he was grey and dainty. Most mornings Charles would walk with me to Chalk Farm station and Matthew would follow about halfway and wait for Charles until he returned, and they would be company for each other during the day. Charles stayed at home painting most of the day; he did the shopping, too. Sometimes he went to commercial studios in search of work, but nothing ever came of it; not that he really expected anything, this was the time of the Great Depression or Slump, but there were still a few cheques in the drawer.

  On Saturday afternoon I had a holiday and we would give the flat a great clean and shop, and on Sunday we went for long walks on the Heath or read and were lazy by the gas fire. In the evening Ann or other friends came to supper.

  At first everything I cooked tasted very strongly of soap, I can’t think why, but soon I became quite a good cook. During the week I w
as so hungry when I returned home I couldn’t attempt anything that took a long time, but I used to experiment in the weekend. Quite often James came to dinner and we would discuss cooking. He was a very good cook and could even make bread. One evening I returned to find the windows streaming with steam and the most awful smell of burnt frying. Even the cat had run away. I walked through a haze to the kitchen to find Charles trying to curry eggs from Mrs Beeton’s cookery book. He had been at it since four o’clock and he was just burning his third lot of eggs, but we ate them.

  It was a long time before the smell of burnt curry left the flat.

  One Saturday, after we had been married about two months, we thought we would skip the housework, so Charles met me and we had lunch in Charlotte Street and then went to the Tate. We returned home with masses of postcards in time for tea. I glanced through the windows of the flat as we passed on our way to the side door. To my surprise the room was full of people. Charles said, ‘It must be Mummy, I can hear her voice.’ He was quite right. There was Eva surrounded by the same relations she had brought with her the night before the wedding. My first thought was, ‘Well, they can’t unmarry us now.’ Then I remembered the flat was all dusty and uncleaned. My heart sank right down to my rather holey shoes. If only I had known they were coming and had polished the floor and had everything grand and tidy. I had thought it too good to be true that Eva had ignored us all this time, although I believe she sometimes wrote pained letters to Charles.