Monday Lunch in Fairyland and Other Stories

by Angela Huth

  The first winter in London put an end to Mrs Willoughby’s visits to her daughter. A November fog gave her bronchitis, and when she recovered she no longer had the energy, or, to be truthful, the desire, to re-establish the old routine. Instead, on one occasion, Rose came in the Mini to south London. But it wasn’t a success. There was no room in the flat for five children, nothing to do. Rose was in a dither about getting the car back to Jack in time to get to the airfield: she and her mother had little to talk about. No mutual interest helped them, not even the past. Rose had left home at fifteen. Her parents, puzzled and hurt by this, agreed at the time their caring for their daughter would never be quite the same again. And things hadn’t changed.

  Mrs Willoughby hadn’t seen Rose and her grandchildren for three years now. They were simply coloured snapshots on the fireplace of shiny tiles above the electric fire. They sent each other cards, Christmas and birthdays, but ceased to have any real concept of the other’s life. Rose would never have guessed that her mother, so energetic, independent and gay, now spent three-quarters of her time communicating with no one more rewarding than the budgerigar.

  In her three years alone, Mrs Willoughby’s struggle to accept her present life had become easier. In fact, it had almost come to the point where she had no energy, or even wish, to change it. She had long since ceased to hope for any companionship from her neighbours. They were a reticent, dour lot who went up and down in the draughty lift with secret and uninteresting faces. Mrs Willoughby once invited the harassed young mother who lived next door for coffee one morning. But the woman said she hadn’t time, thank you, and no reverse visit was suggested. It seemed that the policy of the building was to keep yourself to yourself. After several rebuffs ar the beginning, Mrs Willoughby fell in with this pattern.

  All she had ever required in her life was to love someone in an atmosphere of peace. With Edgar, she had happily managed that for thirty-nine years. Now, she still had peace, but empty peace was a different matter. And as she could think of nothing to enliven the present – abhorring as she did any attempts to join old people’s clubs – her days became a prolonged reverie of old times.

  That was not to say she let things slide. A strict upbringing had had its impact for life: wash the dishes straight after the meal-no leaving them till later. Hair to be brushed fifty times night and morning, though all the brushing would not bring back its shine now – the shine that Edgar had so admired. Keep to a sensible diet – proteins, a little meat once a week, one slice of wholemeal bread and butter for tea. Lights out at nine-thirty after the news. These determined adherences to her own rule gave Mrs Willoughby an inexplicable satisfaction, and as a reward for keeping them she treated herself to a few minor luxuries: a box of milk chocolates once a fortnight, African violets the year round, an occasional expensive magazine.

  She left her flat – each time dreading the precarious journey in the lift – only once a week, to do her shopping. She had no friends in the shops: after three years still none of the assistants seemed to recognise her, and the trips were not a pleasure. One summer she had gone to Kent for a holiday to stay with the doctor and his wife, old neighbouring friends. But she hadn’t liked the experience, going up the stairs that for thirty years neither she nor Edgar had ever gone up, to their chilly spare room. Besides, she had been unable to resist taking a look at the chemist’s shop. It was unrecognisable, brash with neon lights and selling shoddy clothes. After that, she decided holidays were of no use to her. She still wrote once a month to the doctor’s wife, but stayed at home, reading, knitting, watching the news, and reflecting.

  One October morning Mrs Willoughby’s alarm clock failed her. It had been a wedding present from her mother-in-law and for over forty years had awakened her with its shrill old-fashioned voice at seven-thirty. The morning it died Mrs Willoughby slept till eight o’clock. When she did wake up she was surprised to find herself put out by the uncalled-for change in her custom. After all, there was nowhere she had to be at any time. It was her shopping morning, but there was still plenty of time to do the chores before setting out at eleven, which was the time she always left. Quite angrily, she rattled the clock. Its lack of response, for some reason, brought a ridiculous tear to her eyes. Silly to get so upset about a clock. She dressed quickly and went to boil the kettle.

  In the kitchen Tina, the balding budgerigar, was chirping to herself in her usual monotonous fashion. Mrs Willoughby had hung her cage in the window to break the view of gaunt sky and neighbouring block of flats and she managed, when pressing her face to the wires of the cage, to distort her vision so that cheerless sight beyond the cage became out of focus.

  Now, as always, Mrs Willoughby talked to Tina at breakfast.

  ‘Morning, my lovely one: my lovely one. Slept well, did you? I’ll tell you something, my clock didn’t go off this morning. That’s why I’m late. That’s why I’ve kept you waiting for your breakfast. I’ll have to get it mended somewhere. I can’t be sure where. Now just a moment and you shall have your clean water . . .’

  Mrs Willoughby fed the bird and herself. Even without looking directly out of the window she couldn’t help noticing it was a fine day. Blue sky, sun. Wind down there, though, she wouldn’t be surprised. She made a mental note to wear a hat-pin.

  She washed up and wiped down the small Formica-topped table. Then, passing Tina’s cage, she let her fingers slip along the wire sides gently as a harpsichordist feeling for her strings.

  ‘We’re all right, Tina, you and me,’ she said. ‘There’s no doubt about it, we’re very fortunate, all things considering.’

  On mornings like this, she remembered, Edgar would be very alert at breakfast. She had never known anyone like him for responding to weather. There only had to be a glimmer of sun for Edgar to be out in the garden, checking that its life-giving rays were injecting themselves into the palm tree. That palm tree, that poor old palm tree! Mrs Willoughby smiled at the thought of it, battling for life like no plant she had ever known. She and Edgar had spent their honeymoon on the island of Tresco in the Scillies. There, Edgar had become so entranced by the tropical gardens that he had tried to recreate them, on a smaller scale, of course, in their patch behind the shop in Kent. But the climate in Kent is less temperate than in Tresco, the soil less sympathetic to highly strung plants. Exotic blooms withered before their prime. Only the palm tree, fed on strange potions from the chemist’s shop that Edgar concocted over the years, clung tenaciously to life. This morning Mrs Willoughby remembered that, in her last letter, the doctor’s wife had told her she’d heard the old tree had finally died, and the people at the boutique planned to chop it up for Guy Fawkes’ night. Once again she wiped away a tear, despising herself for having to make the gesture as she did so.

  Mrs Willoughby went to her bedroom and opened the small cupboard beneath her dressing table. There, in neat army rows, stood twenty-nine small bottles of old-fashioned lavender water. The sight cheered her immediately. The store meant much to her. When Edgar had died and the shop and all its contents had been sold, Mrs Willoughby had forced herself to go back to check the place finally. She had opened each mahogany drawer, each cupboard, all unfamiliar now they were empty, and on the shelf beneath Edgar’s mixing sink she found the bottles. Somehow they’d been overlooked. Without a second thought Mrs Willoughby had taken them for herself. She knew quite well Edgar wouldn’t have minded.

  In her widowhood Mrs Willoughby had preserved the lavender water carefully. She wanted it to last till she died. She sprinkled a few drops on her handkerchief every morning, and every morning the smell brought back to her the polished wood of the shop, the sun making a streak of lightning in the scarlet liquid that filled the huge pharmicist’s bottle, the anticipation that never dulled as to who would be the first customer, the reassuring early cough (never a worry till the end) as Edgar mixed the contents of his old brown jars.

  Today it was time for a new bottle. With some reluctance Mrs Willoughby unscrewed the cap.


  It was, as she had predicted, windy outside. She bent herself in the direction of the all-purpose shop, where she bought herself a small selection of tasteless packaged things, thinking all the while that she’d give her soul for warm crusty bread like their next-door baker used to bake, a bit of fish still smelling of the sea, muddy eggs instead of these anaemic things. Outside the shop again, buffeted by the wind whose direction changed every moment, and made it more disconcerting, Mrs Willoughby wondered where to take her clock. Opposite, through tears the wind made in her eyes, she could see a jewellery shop. Maybe they could help. Rattling her shopping bag, suddenly concerned for the future of her clock, she stepped off the pavement.

  Mrs Willoughby was aware of a sharp pain in her leg, a screech of brakes, a shout, and a small patter of glass on the road. Then blackness. When she came to, a crowd of faces bobbed like yo-yos up and down at her. She was unable to feel her leg, but through a strange rug that covered it, seeped a widening stain of dark red blood. A folded mackintosh had been put under her head, but the pavement was hard beneath her spine.

  She couldn’t make out what they were saying at all. A confusion of voices, like a foreign language. She tried to ask them if they had seen her clock, but thought they wouldn’t understand.

  ‘Don’t you worry about anything, dear,’ a kind voice said, then, in a language she understood, and she heard the wail of a siren. At that moment the black spots cleared before her eyes and she gave herself up to the marvellous attentions of the ambulance men.

  In a life of consistent good health, Mrs Willoughby’s only suffering had always been from an incurable fear of anticipated illness and accidents. It was therefore with some surprise she found herself almost enjoying the trip in the ambulance, and still she felt no pain. They’d bandaged her leg and wrapped her up in a scarlet blanket to match the blood, and there was a nice fresh smell of disinfectant.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked. Her voice sounded shaky, she thought, but the ambulance man didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Seems you had a fall, dear, and a car just missed you.’

  ‘Oh. Anyone else hurt?’

  ‘Not a bit of it, not a bit of it. Now you just keep still.’

  ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ said Mrs Willoughby.

  ‘You just wait,’ grinned the man, cheerfully, but his warning didn’t frighten her.

  In the hospital they were swift and kind. She was wheeled to a cubicle, a doctor looked at her leg, a nurse cleaned it and dressed it and said they’d like to keep her in for a couple of days. When Mrs Willoughby protested, they insisted: it wasn’t the wound, they said, but the shock. Shock had to be looked after carefully.

  ‘Especially at my age,’ conceded Mrs Willoughby, and two pretty young nurses smiled at her, even though they were so busy. One of them asked her about her nearest relative: they’d like to get in touch. Mrs Willoughby gave them Rose’s number but asked that she shouldn’t be troubled. The nurse made no reply, no smile this time, and wheeled her to a ward.

  Mrs Willoughby was given a pain-killing injection and something to make her sleep. When she woke up the two old ladies either side of her, neither of whom looked very ill, were drinking tea. Drowsily, Mrs Willoughby began to heave herself up into a sitting position: she was immediately helped by a nurse who plumped up her pillows and went off to fetch her something to eat. There was a dull pain in her leg now, but it wasn’t too bad. Quite bearable.

  Glancing round the ward, Mrs Willoughby wished she had her own pink nightdress and wool dressing-jacket instead of this stiff hospital thing: still, it didn’t really matter. She was warm and comfortable and they were all so nice and concerned.

  Suddenly, through the swing doors at the end of the ward, she saw a familiar figure. Rose came stomping towards her, in a scarlet coat (so much scarlet today), bag swinging from her shoulder, a look of slight concern on her face which had, Mrs Willoughby thought, grown heavier.

  ‘Oh, mother, there you are. You gave us all an awful fright.’

  Rose looked down at her mother. As soon as it was apparent that she was in no actual danger, or even in any great pain, Rose’s thin mouth drooped.

  ‘I managed to get here,’ she said, sullenly.

  ‘That was good of you, Rose,’ said Mrs Willoughby.

  ‘It was a devil of a job finding someone to baby-sit at that short notice,’ Rose went on, ‘and then the traffic’

  ‘You shouldn’t have bothered,’ said Mrs Willoughby. ‘I’m all right.’ They kissed.

  ‘Glad to see you are,’ said Rose. ‘They sounded fairly adamant that I should come. I’ve brought you these.’

  She put a paper bag on Mrs Willoughby’s bedside table. It contained half a pound of small white grapes. Mrs Willoughby, who had never liked grapes, thanked her daughter with convincing appreciation. There was silence between them for a few moments. Then:

  ‘Your clock’s stopped,’ said Rose.

  Mrs Willoughby turned to her bedside table again. This time she noticed the clock. In an instant she realised that someone must have rescued it, taken care of it, and seen it delivered safely to her. The thought of such care on the part of a stranger caused a constriction in her throat.

  ‘I was going to get it mended,’ she managed to say eventually, ‘when I had the fall.’

  ‘Poor old Mum,’ said Rose, looking at her watch.

  She left five minutes later and Mrs Willoughby drank her tea. The old lady on her left turned to her.

  ‘That was a smart young woman,’ she said.

  ‘My daughter,’ said Mrs Willoughby, surprised at her own pride.

  ‘Lucky to have a daughter like that. I’ve only got a sharpjack of a husband. What’s more, when he comes, he only talks to other people. You’ll see.’

  Mrs Willoughby smiled.

  There was boiled fish and rice pudding for supper, and very good it was too. Then the visiting hour: the old lady’s husband arrived, very smart, as she had warned, in beautiful big-checked tweeds and a stiff collar. He made several cheering remarks to his wife but she, who had apparently looked forward to his arrival, now wouldn’t answer. He offered her a chocolate but she pushed the box away. So he offered one to Mrs Willoughby instead, who accepted with delight. They fell into conversation. He was a Mr Potterville and used to be in market gardening. His wife had insisted on their moving to London when they retired, but he was not enjoying the life. He missed his greenhouses. Mrs Willoughby understood. Then suddenly, without meaning to, she found herself telling Mr Potterville all about the struggle she and Edgar had had to keep the palm tree alive.

  That night Mrs Willoughby’s leg ached a little harder but the pain was still quite tolerable. Her last thought, before going to sleep, was that she was enjoying herself. Who would ever have thought it? Here she was in hospital after a nasty fall, with a wounded leg and the effects of shock, no doubt, to come, quite positively enjoying herself. Even the thought of Tina, alone in the flat, could not spoil the strange feeling of contentment. It coursed warmly through her body and she smiled in the dark.

  Mrs Willoughby continued vigorously to enjoy herself in hospital for two days, then she was taken home by an ambulance man who escorted her to the lift. By coincidence, a middle-aged neighbour, face vaguely familiar, was also going up.

  ‘We heard you had a fall, Mrs Willoughby,’ she said.

  Mrs Willoughby who had never, as far as she could remember, imparted her name to anyone, seemed surprised by the news. She stuck out her bandaged leg, tapping it with her stick.

  ‘Oh, nothing to worry about,’ she said.

  ‘You can’t be too careful,’ replied the woman. ‘I’ll give you a hand to your door. Mrs Winner’s the name.’

  Mrs Winner ended by staying for a two-hour tea. She was remarkably interested in Mrs Willoughby’s fall, and when the detailed story of it came to an end told three stories in return. They were about friends of hers who had had even worse falls, all with disastrous consequences. It seemed that the hospital,
who had thought of everything, had arranged for Mrs Winner to look after Tina and the African violets. She was a friendly if somewhat tiring woman, and Mrs Willoughby asked her to come again. She quickly accepted.

  When she had gone Mrs Willoughby felt quite tired, but pleased to be home, even if it all looked a little strange since her absence, and since the visit of Mrs Winner.

  Next morning there was, surprisingly, an unexpected ring on the doorbell: Eileen – the young housewife next door, previously so cold, now full of offers to do the shopping. Mrs Willoughby made a short list, hands trembling with gratitude and excitement as she did so. From that time on it could be said that her flat was almost a-bustle. The news of her accident seemed to have spread round the building and, from whatever motive, strange neighbours came with offers of help and advice. They drank her tea and talked for hours, so that each night Mrs Willoughby fell into an exhausted and grateful sleep. Rose rang three times – the unexpectedness of the calls gave her mother three separate frights, but it was nice to be able to say to the companion of the moment, ‘That was my daughter, you know, just checking up.’

  On several occasions Mr Potterville, on his way back from the hospital, dropped by. Once he brought a bottle of sherry; another time Mrs Willoughby made him sardines on toast and they listened to a radio play.

  ‘I positively enjoyed myself, Mrs Willoughby,’ Mr Potterville said one night, as he left. ‘The visit has quite bucked me up.’

  ‘And so did I, Mr Potterville. I haven’t had such a good time for several years. Please come again soon.’