Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

by Barbara Comyns

  When I left the hospital they gave me a card which was pink and had my name on it. This card had to be produced when I returned to the hospital in labour. It said I would not be admitted without it. I felt sure I would lose it in all the hurry and pain and I would be turned away at the door. They gave me a pamphlet, too. It said I must always clean my teeth, with salt if I couldn’t afford tooth-paste, and I mustn’t take dangerous drugs to try to produce a miscarriage. There was some other advice about if you started to bleed, I think.

  7

  A few weeks before Christmas there was a great stir in Charles’s family. Stiff-black-hat died. She caught ’flu, and it made her dead in three days, although she was only forty-four and not due to die for years. As soon as Eva heard the news she came to London to stay with her brother Edmund. She ’phoned and asked us to come and console him, too. I didn’t much like going to a house with dead people in it, but Charles said we had better go, all the same.

  When we arrived at the gloomy Kensington house, they were all having tea — Edmund, Eva and Stiff-black-hat’s mother, who lived with them. Edmund looked very tired, but Eva was full of vitality, and was telling him just what to do about the funeral, and advising him to sell the house and sack the servants, sell the furniture, get a housekeeper and give away the dog. He seemed rather dazed, and beyond saying Yes occasionally, took very little notice. I wondered what Eva’s ideas about the old mother were. You could hardly sell or give her away. She didn’t seem at all put out by her daughter’s death, and kept on stuffing away at little pink cakes. When she had quite finished eating she started chuckling to herself, and said, ‘Who would have thought it? Who would have thought I would have outlived my youngest daughter? I shall go and live at the Regent Palace Hotel and have a gay time.’

  I felt now that Eva was so interested in the funeral and Edmund’s affairs, it would be a good moment to tell her about the coming baby. I waited until she should cease talking for a moment. I had to wait rather a long time, but eventually she did and I found myself almost shouting, ‘I am going to have a baby in fourteen weeks.’ My news caused a great commotion and for the time being Eva quite forgot about death and funerals, and she left Edmund in peace and he fell asleep with his head hanging over the teacups.

  Eva was rather impressed that we had made all the necessary arrangements. I did not tell her that I would shortly be leaving my job, because already she had said that penniless people had no right to have children. She didn’t seem to think it was Charles’s baby — only mine, because later on, when I was upstairs putting on my coat, she kissed me quite kindly, but spoilt it by saying, ‘I shall never forgive you, Sophia, for making my son a father at twenty-one.’ I almost added, ‘And you a grandmother at forty-six.’

  Charles went to the funeral. He had to hire the grim clothes, but I didn’t see him in them, because I was at work. He told me all about it when I returned home in the evening. He said Eva had told all her relations about the coming baby, and they had asked him masses of questions about how he was going to support a wife and family. They had given him some money, though, four pounds in all. I was glad to hear this, as we had only one golden guinea left in the dresser drawer, but my gladness did not last long, because it turned out he had already spent the money on some paints, brushes, books and an enormous walnut cake from Fullers.

  We had the walnut cake and coffee for supper and while we ate he told me that Stiff-black-hat had left the house and furniture to a woman friend. Apparently Edmund had turned this property over to her, so now he had nothing. Charles said he did not seem to mind very much. It was a most gloomy, depressing house, stiff with heavy dark furniture. There were sideboards with prancing bronze horses on them and silver-plated biscuit barrels; the mantelpieces were made of black and green marble, and the curtains were of black or maroon plush, so really it was a jolly good thing he had lost the house.

  He also told me that the old mother-in-law had had her hair dyed black and really had gone to have her ‘gay time’ at the Regent Palace Hotel.

  We sat talking over the walnut cake for some time, and Charles said that now his mother knew about the baby the time had come to tell the rest of his family, so I fetched some ink and paper and we started writing letters all among the walnut cake and coffee cups. I didn’t like it to seem as if I hadn’t any relations to write to, so I wrote to my brother. I did not expect an answer, and was surprised when I received a letter from his wife a few days later. She wrote suggesting I paid them a visit after the baby’s arrival. I was rather pleased about this. They had a nice country house. I had never been there, but had heard about it from Ann, who stayed there quite often. I think the reason they had not asked me before was that they thought I was a bit ‘arty’ and odd, but expect they hoped now I was becoming a mother I would improve.

  The person we were most frit of telling about the baby was Charles’s Aunt Emma; she so disliked babies, and we knew we would go down deeply in her estimation when she knew we were having one. We had been to her flat quite a lot since we were married, and she had sometimes taken us to the Arts Theatre on Sunday evenings. Just lately I felt I was enjoying this hospitality under false pretences. Charles undertook to call round one afternoon at tea-time and tell her the dreadful truth. I thought this immensely brave of him. She received the news very coldly, and made it quite plain she was most disappointed in us. We saw her very seldom after this.

  8

  Paul was a bit het up when he heard we were going to have a family, but at the same time, you could tell from reading his letter he was rather amused at the idea of being a grandfather, as long as it didn’t cost him anything. Ann had known she was going to be an aunt for some time, and she kept showering me with motherly magazines published by the firm she worked for. They — the magazines, not the firm — were very sentimental, and called babies ‘little treasures’, and the walking ones were ‘toddlers’. There were pages about the glories of motherhood. Also there were letters from mothers asking advice — ‘Was it true that if you eat apples before your baby was born, you would have a dwarf?’ Or ‘Why does my baby cry after eating sardines?’ There were stories, too, telling how much more men loved their wives if they were domesticated and had some children. In some of the stories the wives used to prefer going to work every day instead of doing the housework and having a baby. Their husbands always left these selfish wives, but just at the last minute before anything drastic happened, the wife would become all domesticated or find she was having a ‘little treasure’ and the husband would come back. All these stories had happy endings, which was a good thing.

  By now it was nearly Christmas and the lease of our flat ended at that date. We felt it was not worth renewing, because it would be too small for three people. Charles hated the idea of moving and suggested we kept the baby in the cupboard, but after reading all those magazines I knew it wasn’t a good idea, and made the reluctant Charles go flat-hunting. I couldn’t go myself because of work. Quite soon he reported he had found a super studio flat that had belonged to a well-known poster artist. I thought it sounded very expensive, but he said it was only twenty-five shillings a week, so on Saturday we both went to see it. It was at the top of a large red brick house off Finchley Road. There was a huge studio, bedroom and kitchen and bathroom, and cupboard for unsightly brooms, as the landlady pointed out. I was most impressed, so we told the landlady we would have it, but when we were discussing the rent we discovered it was £96 a year. Charles said he thought that worked out at twenty-five shillings a week, and the landlady said, ‘I should think not, indeed!’ and hustled us downstairs.

  Poor Charles, he was so disappointed, but eventually he found an attic flat in Fortune Green. It had three rooms and a kitchen on the landing. I had to work overtime the day we moved. It seemed strange to leave home in the morning and return to a new one in the evening. When I arrived James was cooking sausages on the landing by the light of a candle, and Charles had got one room straight and a fire going. We had discover
ed you had to pay a deposit at the electric light place, so we had to do without any till after Christmas, when we hoped we would have some money left over from Christmas presents.

  I looked about for the ginger cat, Ambassador, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then Charles told me a sad thing. When he had arrived holding Great Warty under one arm and the cat under the other the landlady had said, ‘I never allow pets. Take the creature away at once.’ He did get Great Warty in by pretending he was a goldfish, but she insisted on him taking Ambassador away at once, so he left James to do the unpacking and took the poor cat to my old landlady and asked her to find a good home for him, and afterwards we heard he had a very good home by the British Museum. We missed him very much, and I hoped she wouldn’t expect me to give the baby away when it came.

  It was a difficult journey to the studio from Fortune Green and the flat wasn’t so nice as the one on Haverstock Hill. We had to share the bathroom with lots of other people, but the view from the small bedroom window was marvellous. You could see right across London. On fine days we could even see green fields in the distance. We used to spend hours picking out various buildings. The Crystal Palace was the most conspicuous.

  Living in such an out-of-the-way place lost us quite a number of our friends, but Ann and the faithful James came quite frequently. James was teaching me how to knit baby clothes, but I didn’t get on very well when he wasn’t there, but I did manage two vests that resembled badly made porridge.

  Francis and his sister came sometimes, too. They came one evening soon after we had moved. They were accompanied by an Austrian woman. She was a portrait painter and always looking for new models, so she asked me if I would sit for her when my job ended. I was delighted. I had been so worried about how we would manage when my salary ended. A model’s fee was half-a-crown an hour and she said she would need me quite a lot and would introduce me to other portrait painters when she had finished painting me. I just felt so happy, as if a great weight had gone from my mind; now I could tell Charles’s family I was still able to earn money and not be a drag on Charles.

  Two days before Christmas I left the studio where I had been working for three years. I told them Charles had plenty of commissions coming in and I was looking forward to a rest. The other unmarried girls were quite envious and said what fun it must be to be married and going to have a baby. I said it was marvellous, and they must all come and see me when it had arrived. I said Goodbye to the boss and he gave me an extra two pounds on my last week’s wages and shook hands with me. Then I threw my paint-stained overall in the dustbin and never saw any of them again.

  Both Charles’s parents wanted us to stay with them for Christmas, so we went to Wiltshire for a week and spent a difficult time dividing ourselves between them; we even had to eat two Christmas dinners. Although both Charles’s parents tried to be kind, we did not enjoy the holiday at all. For one reason Paul’s wife was a managing, domestic kind of woman. She kept asking how I did my various household tasks and when I told her she would say it was all wrong and show me the proper efficient way. Some of the things she taught me I couldn’t remember. She must have shown me how to fold a gentleman’s shirt at least a dozen times, but even now I can’t fold the wretched things, but I can mend an electric fire or burst pipes (lead ones) and make plaster casts and regulate pianos, and masses more things she can’t do, but people are always shocked if you don’t do the things they do properly. She was quite a generous woman really, and kept wanting to give me things for the baby, nice things, but Charles said I wasn’t to accept them, because Eva would not approve. He had always been brought up to hate his father’s second wife, and when we went to see Eva, she would say ‘How is that dreadful woman?’ and make fun of her. She would ask questions about how the house was furnished, and get in a temper and say ‘Do you mean to tell me that creature is using my dressing-table?’ or silver, or whatever it was she was enquiring about, although she had nothing to worry about really, because she had had much more than her half of the furniture from the old house she used to live in when she was married to Paul. Another thing that upset her a lot was that since Paul had married a second time he ran a car and a house telephone. Both these things he had refused to have while they were living together. I expect he would have let her have these things if she hadn’t nagged so much for them.

  When we got back to Paul’s house, Mrs Paul would say, ‘And how was Her Ladyship? Is it true that she has a new fur coat?’ Then she would go on for hours with much bitterness about how much alimony Eva had and how unhappy she made Paul when she was married to him. I couldn’t bear all this and said I must return to London because I was due for another examination at the hospital, and Charles said it was most important I didn’t miss it, so we went home to have some peace.

  9

  This book does not seem to be growing very large although I have got to Chapter Nine. I think this is partly because there isn’t any conversation. I could just fill pages like this:

  ‘I am sure it is true,’ said Phyllida.

  ‘I cannot agree with you,’ answered Norman.

  ‘Oh, but I know I am right,’ she replied.

  ‘I beg to differ,’ said Norman sternly. That is the kind of stuff that appears in real people’s books. I know this will never be a real book that business men in trains will read, the kind of business men that wear stiff hats with curly brims and little breathing holes let in the side. I wish I knew more about words. Also I wish so much I had learnt my lessons at school. I never did, and have found this such a disadvantage ever since. All the same, I am going on writing this book even if business men scorn it.

  After we had returned from our Christmas visits, the Austrian woman kept her promise and wrote and asked me to sit for my portrait. She painted several pictures of me and I enjoyed spending the day at her studio. There was a large gas-fire burning away in the grate, not one like ours that kept on going out because it wanted more shillings. I enjoyed the warmth so much and there was lunch, too. We used to go to a small restaurant nearby where she used to meet several of her girl friends. I was rather shy for them to see I did not pay for lunch myself, but they did not seem to notice.

  When she had finished the third portrait of me she gave me an introduction to an R.A. she knew. I was nervous when I called at his studio. I need not have been; he was most kind and so was his wife. He said he would paint me straight away, and that he would like to paint me with the baby when it arrived. These people gave me lunch, too, and these free meals were a great help, because I had grown dreadfully hungry lately and we were rather short of food at home. All the golden guineas had gone now and we only had the little I earned as a model. With this we had to pay for food, light and heat, and laundry and of course rent. Sometimes we were several weeks behind and the landlady would ask us for money each time we went in or out of the house. I would hear her talking about us to the other people who lived on the floor below and felt dreadfully ashamed. Charles did not mind. He just said she was a silly old bitch. As soon as Charles started to paint he forgot about the cold and money worries. That is how artists should be, but I was only a commercial artist, so I went on worrying. In any case, there was no time for me to paint, because there was all the work of the flat, and shopping and cooking to do when I returned home in the evening.

  When things were looking pretty grim, Francis put some hack lettering work in Charles’s way, so we were able to pay the rent that was owing. Then another friend wanted their flat redecorating and asked Charles to do it. They paid him ten pounds for this work and it seemed like a fortune to us, and I was able to keep back a little of the money I earned to get a few things for the baby. I already had a cot, given to me by the old woman of eighty with the twisted hands, so I bought some most attractive blue spotted muslin to trim it with, and I bought a nice soft feather pillow for a mattress. I made a little pillow for its head out of three bullrushes’ heads I had saved for this purpose, and it was beautiful. Several people had given me baby clothe
s. Most of them were rather clumsy and coarse, not the kind of things I had seen in the baby-shop windows; although I put new ribbons on them they were still ugly. I had knitted some little jackets and vests, but they didn’t look quite right. The nappies were new. Some were just like towels, but the ones Paul’s wife had given me were rather grand and called Harrington Squares. Charles said I was not to write and thank her for them, but I did.

  I packed a suitcase all ready to take to the hospital in case the baby came too soon. The hospital said I wasn’t to take any baby clothes, just some night-dresses and toilet things, and a teapot and bed jacket. I longed for a pretty bed jacket, one all trimmed with fluffy swans-down. One of Charles’s aunts sent me rather a horrible kind of roly-poly affair — a kind of shawl with sleeves — made of stiff, scratchy wool, so I had to pack that. I also put two half-crowns in the case to make sure we had enough money for a taxi to take me to the hospital.

  By this time I was growing rather large, not only in the tummy, but behind as well. This made me extremely sad when I saw myself in shop windows — luckily we had not got any long mirrors at home. Charles used to call me ‘Dumpling’, and his mother often said I was a dumpy little person, and if the baby took after me she couldn’t possibly be called Willow, which was a ridiculous name in any case. They seemed to forget how slim I used to be. My waist used to be only nineteen inches before I became all stiff with babies. Eva said, ‘Why on earth don’t you wear a maternity gown? You can’t go about like that.’ Needless to say, I couldn’t afford one. There was one nice thing about being such a funny shape — it made strangers very kind. Busmen were so careful helping me in and out of buses, and policemen held up the traffic when I wanted to cross the road; fortunately, it was just before they had traffic lights. The people who served in shops were most kind, too.