Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

by Barbara Comyns

  Rose was going to Cairo when she married. Her husband, who was in the Air Force, was being sent there. Sometimes he would fly low over the house and make a dreadful din, and when we ran outside to see what was happening, he would drop a message tied to a stone for Rose. People in the village complained a lot about this, and eventually Mr Redhead put a stop to it because the noise made one of the cows slip a calf before her time.

  The preparations for the wedding made a lot of work. The house was spring-cleaned. All the mouldy old carpets were taken up and we beat them on the lawn with beaters made of cane, but still they looked awful. Rose got the idea of sweeping the drawing-room chimney by dropping a goose down it. She said the people in the village often did it, but it made a frightful mess when it ran squawking round the room, flapping its sooty wings. We had to distemper the walls after that. We took down all the bed-hangings and washed them, but some were so rotten they fell to pieces in the wash-tub. We found a dead bat and mouse in Mr Redhead’s room. They must have been there ages, but they didn’t smell much, because they had become all dried. Although Mr Redhead was glad Rose was getting married, he became rather grumpy about all the upheaval. He used to get cross with Sandro if he even climbed a tree, but, fortunately, the holidays were not due till after the wedding, so he was at school most of the day.

  There was not enough time to get all the clothes together for a white wedding, so Rose was wearing a soft blue two-piece suit trimmed with fur. I went into the spare room and looked at it every day. I would have so loved to have been married in something like that, but all I had was a horrid skirt that kept coming unwrapped. May was to be the only bridesmaid and it was with great difficulty she was persuaded to buy a new frock. She was quite uninterested in clothes.

  When the wedding-day actually came I got up very early to prepare the food. There was to be a cold luncheon for about thirty guests. I had cooked a number of chickens the day before; even some of the good, laying pullets had had to be sacrificed. The first thing I did was to prepare all the salads, which I put in the dairy to keep cool and fresh; then there was the butter to be pressed into hundreds of small pats. There was a giant veal-and-ham pie that I had made myself. It looked so real, just like something out of Mrs Beeton’s. I was very proud of it, but it was rather overshadowed by the wedding-cake, which was in three layers and came from a shop.

  There was the table to be laid. May and I had put five leaves in it last night and it looked simply enormous. It had to be covered by two tablecloths. In the cellar there were masses of daffodils which had been picked the day before. I brought them up and arranged them on the table and all around the room, and the bright spring sunshine came through the French window and everything looked lovely in spite of being so shabby.

  That morning the whole family, including the bride, had breakfast in the large kitchen, and when Auntie — the daily woman who did the rough — arrived, she sat down in her rusty hat like a black pudding, and had breakfast, too.

  Soon after breakfast the relations started to arrive. Very old ladies were carefully unpacked from old-fashioned cars full of moths. Girl cousins came on bicycles to know if they could help. Later on, a few rather shy R.A.F. young men turned up. They didn’t know what to do until the girl cousins took them in hand. While all these people were arriving, Rose had retired to her room, but soon she caused great consternation by coming downstairs wearing a ski-ing suit and a large sun hat covered by a thick veil. She said she was going to inspect the bees to see if they had survived the winter, and if they had, tell them about her wedding. Everyone followed her and tried to make her leave the bees alone, but she took no notice and went down the garden to the hives. The bees had survived the winter rather well. They were a very savage kind called British Blacks and one old lady and several members of the Air Force got stung, but fortunately the bride escaped.

  Then it was time for the people to go to church, and there was just Rose and May and their father left. The girls were upstairs dressing and Mr Redhead walked up and down the hall, biting his moustache and looking rather fierce and worried. Then one of the dogs was sick in the hall as well.

  When Rose came down she was looking really beautiful, and May looked very fresh and nice. She hustled Rose and her father into the car and they were gone. I ran to the dining-room to make sure all the windows and doors were shut so that the animals could not get at the banquet. They were great thieves. Often the cats and dogs would eat the entire joint before humans even saw it. In spite of the dog being sick in the hall, everything was safe.

  I went to the church through the fields, but did not enter, because I had no hat and, in any case, the church was too crowded. I stood in the porch with a huddle of village women. They were saying Mrs Redhead’s grave should have been decorated on such a day as this, so I felt rather embarrassed.

  When Rose and her husband came out there was a great shower of confetti and the local photographer took photographs. All the usual things happened, even an old shoe was tied to the car. I became carried away by the general rush and found myself returning to the house in a car with some quite nice people. I was glad I was wearing my best suit. Rose had to stand in the drawing-room when we came back. She had to keep shaking hands and receiving congratulations. I went into the kitchen to make sure the two girls we had engaged to wait at table had turned up; they had.

  Everybody went into the dining-room; I wasn’t sure if I was meant to attend the wedding-breakfast or just wash it up in the scullery — nobody had said anything about it — so I sat on the kitchen table and waited for someone to come out looking for me; but only the girls who waited at table came out and a lot of laughter and noise. So I went into the scullery and helped Auntie. She kept wiping her face on her sack apron and making remarks about me not being in the dining-room and that she would have thought they would have asked me and things like that. It made me sad and awkward, so I went up to my bedroom and sat looking out of the window and felt hollow and depressed. After a time there were voices and goodbyes and cars starting and I knew it was time to go downstairs and clear up.

  33

  It was Sandro’s Easter holidays and we used to go for long walks every afternoon. Usually we went through the fields to the woods. We were quite alone there except for birds and animals. Often I would sit reading on a log while Sandro explored. Sometimes we would fish in the lake. We hadn’t real rods, only home-made ones; but we had real hooks, not bent pins. Quite often we caught fish large enough to eat, but we always put them back alive. It was just the excitement of feeling them tugging on the line, and seeing the cork that served as a float bobbing up and down, that we really liked. When the fish was landed we almost wished we hadn’t caught it, because it was so beastly getting the hooks out of their mouths, poor dears. I think lots of the fish in that lake must have kind of hare-lips now.

  During the Christmas holidays we had learnt to skate there. I never thought I could learn to do a thing like that, and I loved it so much. I think the afternoons skating must have been the happiest I had ever had. The feel of the cold air on my face as I glided round and the exciting sound of our skates cutting the ice — suddenly a startled blackbird would fly in a great hurry from a bush, scattering hoar-frost and giving little cries. In the distance there was always someone chopping wood, which made us feel warmer somehow.

  The woods were delightful all the year round. Even when it was raining there were so many trees we didn’t get really wet. In the spring there were masses of primroses and bluebells, and people would come and pick them and we would see their long white stalks draped over the backs of bicycles, and often see great bunches just picked and left to die of thirst. When it was summer there would be wild raspberries, and we seemed to be the only people who bothered to pick them, and I used to make them into the most heavenly jam. There were blackberries, too. Everything that should be in a wood was there.

  One afternoon I was sitting on my log, reading an Edwardian romance — almost the only kind of book on the
Redheads’ shelves, except for a few sporting books and some Punches and Girls’ Annuals. By now I would have welcomed some of Mrs Redhead’s library detective stories. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to read real books. I suddenly stopped reading, because I heard Sandro call out, and I thought, ‘Oh, God! he has fallen in the water.’ Then, with great relief, I saw him running towards me. His feet made no sound, because he had taken off his socks and shoes. He was carrying something in his arms that looked like a giant hedgehog. He shouted, ‘Look! I’ve found a wild puppy,’ and when he came near I saw it was a fox cub. I took it from him because I was scared it would bite, but although it was frightened, it didn’t. It just crept under my jacket and hid its face.

  It was a lovely little thing, grey-brown, with black legs and a nice white shirt-front, and so fat we couldn’t bear to part with it. So we ran home and smuggled it into our part of the house, and I put it down in Sandro’s bedroom, where it disappeared under the bed. We thought it better to leave it alone until it got used to houses, and we left it alone with a saucer of milk.

  When it was time to put Sandro to bed we found it had drunk the milk and was playing with a tiny brush Sandro had had when he was a baby. It ran away as soon as we came into the room, but after he had been in bed some time, the cub jumped on the bed and, when Sandro wisely took no notice of it, began to play with him, and kept jumping on and off the bed and racing round the room. When I came to see how they were I found Sandro asleep and couldn’t see the fox anywhere, then I discovered it curled up under the bedclothes. I took it away in case it had fleas and made it a little bed in a clothes-basket. I put it in our bathroom and tucked it in with one of the Redheads’ hot-water bottles and a chop bone.

  In the morning I found it had eaten the bone and part of the hot-water bottle as well. Several times during the night I had been wakened by the noise of sharp, hard little barks. I hoped no one else had heard it. This morning it was so friendly and pleased to see me and ran after a ball of paper I threw for it. When I went outside to feed the baby chickens that lived on the lawn I found one dead, so I gave it to Foxy to eat and he crunched it up in a minute. I was usually most distressed when the chickens died, but now I was quite glad and hoped some more would die soon.

  We kept the secret of our fox for about a week, but eventually May remarked on the weird bird that seemed to haunt the garden every night. ‘It might even be a fox,’ she said. So I told her there was one living in the house, and she went all stiff and displeased and said I must put it back where I found it or give it to her father to kill. I was so terribly sad when she said this; I had never seen her annoyed before. Then I thought maybe her heart would melt if she saw it, so asked her to come up to Sandro’s bedroom with me to help catch it. When I opened the door Foxy frisked across the room to me, and when I bent down to pick him up he stood on his hind legs with excitement and made happy little noises. I threw a ball for him and he caught it and ran round the room with it in his mouth, then jumped on the bed and hid under the covers. May became quite enchanted with him, just as I had hoped, and said I could keep the fox if I never let her father know and it didn’t get too smelly.

  After a time we used to see Foxy looking sadly out of the window, and he would scratch the glass with his paws, and once he climbed up the curtains and tried to escape through the top of the window. We couldn’t bear to see the poor little thing pining, so thought it would be a good idea to let it loose on the tennis lawn when we were quite sure Mr Redhead was busy on the farm. There was wire netting all round, so it would be quite safe. We managed to do this every day and he was so happy to be out in the fresh air again it made us feel quite guilty that we had kept him in such close confinement all this time. He used to dig up worms and beetles and eat them. The old poodle used to watch him through the wire and they became quite friendly. I tried the experiment of letting them loose together and they had terrific games.

  One day Mr Redhead returned unexpectedly just when we thought he was doing something useful on the farm. Foxy and the poodle were playing and at first we didn’t notice him; but there was a great bellow which nearly blew us off our feet.

  ‘Who put that bloody fox on my tennis lawn?’ We were rooted to the grass with fright and I thought, ‘This is where I get the sack.’ I looked round out of the side of my eyes, but saw him disappearing by the bee-hives and I hated him. I told Sandro we must put the fox back in the wood or Mr Redhead might murder him, but he cried so much, then before I knew what he was doing, picked the fox up and ran back to the house with it. So I decided the best thing would be to take the fox away when he was asleep in the night.

  That evening as I was cooking a rabbit-pie, Mr Redhead came into the kitchen. I pushed it back into the oven with great damage to the pastry and slammed the oven door, which is a thing good cooks never do even when they are just about to get the sack. Mr Redhead did a lot of throat-clearing, then said, ‘That is rather a jolly cub you have, Mrs Fairclough, but please do keep it away from my chickens,’ and when I turned round to thank him, he was gone.

  I ran upstairs and told Sandro Foxy was reprieved, and we danced round his bedroom and had quite a celebration.

  After that the fox didn’t have to be a secret one any more, and we used to take him for walks with us on a lead. Sometimes when we met people in the fields they would say, ‘Isn’t that dog like a fox?’

  34

  I was sitting on the kitchen window-sill peeling apples. Sandro came running through the garden and climbed through the window and sat on the sill, too, and he ate the apple-peel. In between his munching, he said, ‘When I was playing by the lake this morning’ (munch munch) ‘I met a man painting, and he is putting me in his picture.’ (Munch munch.) ‘I was picking some large stones to make a house with, and he asked me to stay like that, picking stones,’ (munch) ‘so I did and now I’ve come in his picture.’ (Munch.)

  I was so startled that I cut my finger, and as I was licking the blood I thought, ‘Perhaps it’s Charles he has seen, or one of his friends. He will come here and remind me of things and make trouble of some sort, borrow money from the Redheads or disgrace me in the village.’ I asked Sandro what he looked like, this beastly artist. Sandro said he couldn’t remember, but ‘He’s awfully nice. You would like him, Mummy.’

  The next morning he wanted to meet this wretched artist again and I refused to let him go, but he kept looking at me so reproachfully and saying, ‘He was depending on me,’ in such a grieving voice, I had to let him go.

  I felt depressed and worried all the morning, and to make things worse, Auntie hadn’t come and there was much more work than usual to do. About every six weeks or so Auntie used to take a day off, and when she returned to work she would groan and moan and say she had had measles in the throat, or a fidget in the knee — once she had a gastric foot — but I really think she used to go by bus to Bedford to see her married daughter.

  At lunch Sandro was full of his new friend. He said he was called Rollo. So it wasn’t Charles, after all, but maybe it was a friend of his, which was almost as bad. But I did not feel quite so depressed, and after I’d washed the luncheon things and tidied the kitchen, we put Foxy on his lead and went for a walk. It was a perfect spring day and I thought we would pick bluebells and send them to my sister Ann. We walked through the fields that led to the woods and the poodle forgot its great age and ran about stirring up the cows, and Foxy pulled and tugged this way and that until I was almost running and became entangled round the long legs of a man coming towards us. Sandro started to laugh and said, ‘Here is Rollo. Now you can see how nice he is.’ I was still trying to free Foxy’s lead, and when I knew whose legs he was all mixed up with I dared not look up, but he bent down to help and soon was free. I had an impression of a young face with thick grey hair. I couldn’t remember seeing anyone like that while I was married to Charles, so I felt much better and stood up like a normal person and said I was sorry to have got him all tangled up like that. I saw he was a terribly
handsome person in spite of having grey hair. He had a delightful voice, too, and he thanked me for lending him Sandro and said he hoped I would come and see the painting. He had taken a furnished cottage by the church and the next thing that happened was we were walking to the cottage to see the painting right away.

  I was rather scared and didn’t say much; but he talked away in his nice voice and seemed to be charmed with Foxy; but when we arrived at the cottage Foxy became all nervous and wet the carpet, which I hoped Rollo didn’t notice, then ran up the chimney and stayed there rather a long time. I sadly called ‘Foxy, Foxy’ up the chimney, but he didn’t return. Rollo even put a piece of raw steak in the grate, but no one came down to eat it. With great firmness I restrained Sandro from climbing up the chimney after him and tried to forget Foxy and make polite conversation. The cottage was rather dark and overcrowded, but nice and peaceful, rather like a restful Sunday afternoon, which was how one would expect it to be, because it belonged to an old lady with a pug. I had often seen them doing a little gentle weeding in the garden, but I had never been inside before. Rollo said he was terrified of getting paint about or breaking something. Fortunately, a woman from the village used to come in the morning and do some cooking and cleaning. While he was telling me this Foxy suddenly appeared and ran across the carpet leaving a trail of soot and kind of grinning. I almost hated him. Rollo caught him and his beautiful light grey suit was made all sooty and Foxy tried to bite his hand. I don’t think he liked men.