Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

by Barbara Comyns

  One evening when I’d gone to bed quite early, a sculptor who had seen a painting someone had done of me ’phoned and asked me to sit for him. Although we had not met, we had a long, friendly conversation. Then he said he knew I was beautiful by my voice. I didn’t know what to say about that and rang off. Afterwards I regretted this, because we had made no arrangements about the sittings.

  About half an hour later there was a great ringing of the bell and knocking of the door, so Charles went and found a sculptor — not the one I had stolen clay from, but the one who had ’phoned. I was ashamed to be in bed and have no lipstick on, but was glad the sheets were clean. This sculptor (he was called Bumble Blunderbore) was an enormous man, rather like Chesterton to look at, and he kind of wheezed when he breathed. I think it is hardened arteries that makes people do that. He was carrying two large bottles of what I thought was beer, but it turned out to be champagne. He said he had come to arrange about me sitting for him. Then he opened the champagne and we all sat on my bed, which was a divan, and drank it. It was the first I had ever had and made me feel so happy.

  Then he walked round the room and looked at Charles’s paintings and drawings. There was a small framed drawing of a woman’s head and he said, ‘How much do you want for that? Would a fiver do?’ And when Charles said Yes, he wrote out a cheque straight away. Then he saw my clay bust and said it had ‘great quality’ and he offered to take it away in his car and get it cast. All this seemed like heaven and a fairy godmother and Christmas all in one. When the champagne was all gone he left, but it was arranged I should sit for him the next day, and he would come and fetch me in his car. When he had gone we felt very flat and sleepy.

  The next day Charles left the house early. He was spending the weekend with James and his family, who had a little house in the New Forest. He cashed Bumble Blunderbore’s cheque at the grocer’s on the way to the station. We were worried in case he changed his mind when he looked at the drawing the next morning. Soon after Charles had gone, Bumble ’phoned and asked me to meet him at the Café Royal for lunch, and I said I would, but remembered afterwards there was no one to give Sandro his lunch now Charles was away, but eventually found someone in the house who was willing to do this. Then there was the problem of clothes. The only summer dresses I had were cotton ones I had made myself. They were all the same design, very tight in the bodice, with long, gathered skirts. I used to starch them a lot to make the skirts stick out. He hadn’t seen me dressed yet, so I hoped he wouldn’t think I was frightful when he did.

  I was to meet him in the small private bar at the back of the restaurant. I had not been in a bar before and did not like to go in by myself, but I looked through the glass doors and saw him bulging over a round stool, looking rather like a bored Humpty Dumpty. When I went in he seemed very pleased to see me and asked what I would like to drink. I did not know so he said I had better have a Pimms Number One, and I was most impressed with all the things floating in the glass. Then a waiter came in and he ordered lunch — petit marmite soup, sole with mushroom sauce, chicken and ice cream: that is what he ordered. When all this was ready the waiter came back and led us to a table with Reserved written on it.

  We sat over our lunch a long time and I found it was quite easy to chatter away to him, partly because of the drinks and because he was so appreciative. I told him Charles was away and he said his wife was away, too, so I must spend the weekend at his house in Maidenhead. He had a studio in London, too. I said I couldn’t possibly do that because of Sandro, and he was most amused at the idea of me having a son and said he must come, too. Then I remembered his wife and suggested she wouldn’t like strange women and children coming while she was away, but he said she was a ‘great woman’ and would be delighted; he had a daughter at school and she was a ‘great woman’, too.

  So I agreed to go, but felt it would be a very difficult weekend with a baby in a strange house with no woman in it, and perhaps no proper meals or anything, but did not like to refuse and be ungrateful after eating all that lunch.

  We went back to Abbey Road to pick up Sandro and a few clothes, and headed for Maidenhead. Sandro was delighted with the car ride. Bumble stopped at a cake shop and bought masses of disgusting cakes all covered in imitation cream and jam and gave him them to eat. Fortunately, he didn’t like them, but thought it a good idea to smear them all over the seat and window of the car. Still, it would have made even more mess if he had been sick.

  We were all rather sticky when we reached the house, which was Georgian and simply covered in wisteria. It was nice inside, too, but the furniture was most unsuitable — all sorts of periods and styles all jumbled up, and some of the rooms had frightful gold-embossed wallpaper. I was glad to see there was a servant. She showed me the spare room and did not appear at all surprised at my unexpected appearance. I asked her for some milk for Sandro, and when she had gone to fetch it Bumble came in with a large doll’s cot for him to sleep in, so I put him to bed in that and he seemed quite happy.

  When he had gone to sleep I went downstairs and there was another man with Bumble. He was big and fat, too, but didn’t wheeze when he breathed. We had a cold supper which was already laid in the dining-room and afterwards we went out to a little pub by the river. It was the kind of place where everyone knew each other, and the barmaid was a ‘great woman’. Bumble introduced me to everyone and told them he was going to start sculpting me the next day and it was going to be the best thing he had ever done, and I had a lot to drink and began to think perhaps I was rather beautiful and wonderful, but hadn’t realised it before.

  The next morning I awoke late when the maid came in with some tea. She also had some breakfast for Sandro. When we eventually came downstairs Bumble was working in the studio, still wearing his pyjamas. He said he would be ready for me to sit in about half-an-hour, so I routed round the house and found some toys to keep Sandro quiet and put him out on the lawn in his play pen which I had had the foresight to bring.

  When I had fixed him up safely I returned to the studio and started to pose. Even after the first sitting the clay started to look interesting. I spent most of the day and some of the evening sitting and Sandro was as good as gold. I went home on Monday morning. Bumble hoped to finish the model the next weekend. I was rather doubtful if Charles would want me to come, but I had been given two pounds for my work and I thought he wouldn’t mind being left alone if I earned another two pounds.

  17

  When Charles came back from the New Forest I told him all about my weekend. He was rather surprised, but made no objection to me going there again the next weekend, so I told Bumble when he ’phoned that I could come. After this I often went to Maidenhead, sometimes taking Sandro and other times by myself. Each time I went Bumble started a new head of me, and the next time I went it had all dried up or he would be bored with it. He would start another and say it was the best thing he had ever done, and I would get all excited about it, but nothing was ever finished.

  This happened so often that eventually it became a farce me sitting and I gave it up. All the same, we were very good friends and I often stayed at his house. His wife seemed quite pleased to have me. She was a pleasant, sleepy woman who took everything as it came, even me. When Bumble was sculpting someone in his London studio he would often ask me to come and make tea and keep them amused. Sometimes they were grave, intelligent men he was sculpting, and I’m sure they did not find me in the least amusing, but were too polite to say so.

  That first summer in Abbey Road was the happiest and most carefree time I ever had. Our own acute money troubles seemed to be a thing of the past. Bumble Blunderbore put quite a lot of work in Charles’s way, but in the autumn he went to New York to have a one-man show. He stayed away for six months and when he returned he had rather forgotten us, although he did ask us to some rather grand parties.

  We gave some parties, too, but ours were bottle parties. We used to get a few bottles of beer, and perhaps gin, to start things off, but ever
yone brought something. I loved giving parties, and preparing the sandwiches and arranging the flowers. Sometimes Charles would paint frescoes on detail paper and hang them up on our walls, and it gave a very good atmosphere. Charles was very clever at things like that. He was a good host, too, when he had had something to drink.

  One evening a man we had recently met at Francis’s studio asked us to dinner. His wife was away and he was the kind of man who thinks he can cook. Men are often like that. They say they can cook and it turns out to be an omelette, scrambled egg or sausages. They never can cook jam or Christmas pudding and proper things like that (I don’t, of course, include chefs when I say this, I mean real men).

  We had to meet our host in the foyer of a theatre for some reason, perhaps he had been to a matinée. All the people came surging out and there was our host accompanied by a tall, dark, sinister man, who looked as if he might be a Warlock; but when we were introduced to him his face looked quite different when he smiled, and he put all his parcels on the ground so that he could shake hands with me. His name was Peregrine Narrow. I don’t think I have mentioned our host’s name yet. It was Mr Karam. He was a kind of foreigner, but I can’t remember which kind. He hustled us all into an underground train and in due course we emerged at Belsize Park and went to his flat, which was simply stiff with Chinese Buddhas and goddesses of Mercy; Kuanyin, I believe they are called. That is how he lived — selling Chinese works of art to art dealers. They were most impressive, all those calm figures, but one couldn’t breathe very well, there were so many. He asked me to help him in the kitchen and I was disappointed, because I wanted to talk to the sinister man, but consoled myself by the thought I could ask Mr Karam all about him while I worked.

  As I expected, it was sausages, nasty, long, thin, German ones. There was some spaghetti, too, but nothing to make a sauce with, not even an onion, so I opened a tin of baked beans and grated a piece of dry cheese I found. It grated so fine I thought afterwards it must have been a knife handle. As I worked I asked Mr Karam to tell me Peregrine Narrow’s life story, but he said all he knew about him was that he was divorced or separated from his wife and earned a living as art critic and journalist. He had also written one or two rather unsuccessful books on painting.

  By the time I had learnt all this, in between washing up enough things for supper and the cooking, the meal was ready. It wasn’t really a nice supper, except for the coffee, which was made by Mr Karam and was heavenly, but I enjoyed listening to Peregrine and looking at him as well. His dark face became full of animation when he talked (I think the right word to use for his face would be mobile), but when he was silent it became all bitter and sinister again, and his back was rather humpy. When I talked he listened most intently to every word I said, as if it was very precious. This had never happened to me before, and gave me great confidence in myself, but now I know from experience a lot of men listen like that, and it doesn’t mean a thing; they are most likely thinking up a new way of getting out of paying their income-tax. Although he was quite old, forty-five, he asked me to call him by his Christian name, which suited him very well. I didn’t like the Narrow part much. When he left he walked home with us and came in and saw Charles’s paintings, which in the whole he seemed to approve of. My famous piece of sculpture had returned from the casters by this time and he suggested I sent it to an exhibition, and he picked out two of Charles’s paintings that he thought might be accepted, too. When he left, he left his telephone number in case he could be of any use to us at any time. I put the telephone number in a safe place so that it wouldn’t get mislaid.

  18

  As the winter came, that beastly poverty came, too. I had forgotten how sad it was being poor, and the rooms were so large we couldn’t keep them warm at all. We still had our account at the grocers, but if we left the bill unpaid for over a month they wouldn’t serve us, and if we left the rent unpaid an awful man in a bowler hat used to come. We still had our friends and were not lonely and cut off as we used to be, and I felt perhaps poverty this time was only temporary. Although Charles’s paintings were improving all the time now, no one seemed to buy them, partly because he suddenly got the idea they were worth an awful lot of money. If anyone asked the price of a painting he would say it was fifty or even a hundred pounds, and hardly anyone we knew had as much money as that. We both had our work accepted in the mixed exhibition Peregrine had recommended us to send in to. I was very proud to see my sculpture mixed up with real sculptors’ work; but we didn’t sell anything.

  I longed to spend more time sculpting now. A hundredweight of anonymous clay had arrived addressed to me, and I somehow felt it had been sent by Peregrine, but we hadn’t seen him since that first meeting, so maybe I was quite wrong. I had suggested to Charles that we should ’phone him, but he said there wasn’t anything to ’phone him about. I always asked after him when I met Mr Karam, who seemed to keep in constant touch with him, but I did want to meet him again. He had somehow taken my imagination.

  Sandro resented my sculpting because it took my attention from him. He didn’t whine and grizzle, but did naughty things. Once he found a sponge cake and a dozen eggs that had been left in the main hall for an old lady with a Peke. He arranged the eggs on the top of the cake and fetched a hammer and hammered them all into the cake. When they were well hammered in, he fetched me to see something ‘pretty’. Another time when I was sculpting he threw all the teacups down the iron staircase that led to the garden. I rushed outside when I heard all the crashes, and told him how naughty he was, and for months afterwards whenever he saw broken glass and china on walls (I think it’s meant to keep burglars away) he would say, ‘Look, naughty.’ He thought that was the official name for broken china.

  He was growing so active Charles found it difficult to look after him while I was away from home working. He didn’t sleep much in the daytime now and got very bored with being in the pram, and if he was left for long would unpick his knitted clothes, or pull the feathers out of the mattress; but if he was in the flat running about, Charles found it most difficult to work. I wished so much I could stay at home and look after him myself.

  Then I had to stay at home because I caught ’flu; I think it was because it was so cold at home and in the studios where I used to work it was so hot and close I often used to faint. It was beastly having ’flu and not being able to earn any money. I had to live on Oxo cubes. Fortunately, I didn’t give it to Charles and Sandro, so as soon as my temperature went down I was able to work again, but still felt rather wretched and fainted quite often and my periods went all wrong. I felt very tired because I had to sit on Sunday, too, to try to make up the money we had lost by me staying at home.

  We both felt depressed about the wolf coming to the door again. We thought he had gone away for ever. Charles said the best thing we could do would be to have another party. We would just buy some beer to start with, and if everyone brought a bottle, we could take the empty ones to a pub and get quite a lot of money in return. So Charles drew some amusing invitations which we sent to our friends and we had a party. Lots of people came. Some of them we had never seen before, and some brought whole crates of beer. I painted the crates blue afterwards and used them for window-boxes. When all the people had come, I thought how nice it would be if Peregrine Narrow was there, too, so I went into the hall and ’phoned him. I was scared to because it was a long time since we had met him, and I thought he wouldn’t remember who I was, but when I got through he said he would be delighted to come, so I went back to the party and didn’t tell Charles. I hoped he would think he had come by accident.

  He came very quickly in a taxi and it was a lovely party. Peregrine and Mr Karam stayed after everyone had gone, and we made tea and talked and talked; at least, the men talked; I just lay on the divan listening.

  After that Peregrine often came to see us, and we went to his studio. I was disappointed in his paintings. They looked rather as if they had mud mixed in the paint, but I did not say so. I always fe
lt the days we didn’t see Peregrine were wasted.

  19

  Peregrine said he would like to paint a portrait of me. I didn’t want to be painted looking all muddy, but thought it would be nice to sit in his studio and talk to him, and perhaps hear his life story, so I agreed to go twice a week. The painting started by being all little dabs of light colours, and I thought it looked rather promising, but gradually it grew more and more muddy, until it looked like Southend when the tide is out. All the same, I enjoyed going to his studio and, as I had hoped, heard a lot about Peregrine’s previous life and marriage. He used to put his head in his hands and say how unhappy he was, and how he loathed his wife, who wouldn’t divorce him. He talked about how horrible she was quite a lot, and I felt as if I would know her at once if I met her in the street.

  They had married when he was twenty-one and his wife (who was called Mildred) was twenty-seven. She sounded the waddiest woman ever. He said she had a big chin and a large, flabby white face, and wore a lot of velvet and thought she was psychic. He said she simply smothered him, and after two years of married life he ran away. All these years he had been married to her, even before I was born, but still he couldn’t get free. It was dreadful, and I felt so sad for him. Twice he had tried living with other women, but she had always found out, and used to arrive and make frightful scenes. He got so worked up when he talked about all this, his jaw would all tremble, and he would walk up and down and forget all about the painting, so it was no wonder he looked so bitter and sinister.