Sons and Daughters

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘I had a high pulse rate when I was sixteen,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Because of some ravishing young schoolgirl?’

  ‘No, because of tonsillitis,’ said Jimmy. ‘I didn’t know any ravishing schoolgirls. They were all demons, with daggers between their teeth while they lay in wait for simple blokes like me.’

  ‘I’ll pass on simple,’ said Jenny, ‘but I will ask, what were the daggers for?’

  ‘Cutting off our trouser braces,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Kill me some more,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Oh, they just liked to see our trousers drop and flop,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘You don’t think I believe that, do you?’ said Jenny.

  ‘I didn’t believe it myself when it first happened,’ said Jimmy. ‘That is, not until I saw my trousers down to my ankles, and a hundred female demons doing a shrieking war dance around me.’

  ‘Jimmy, you’re a terrible liar.’

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ said Jimmy.

  Jenny’s friends appeared in the near distance at that moment. They hailed her, and she came to her feet. Jimmy unfolded himself and stood up.

  ‘I’d ask you to join us,’ she said, ‘but Barry would probably heave you overboard.’

  ‘He’s your personal bloke?’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I told you, a close friend,’ said Jenny. ‘Bye, and enjoy your day.’

  ‘You too,’ said Jimmy. He stood watching as she joined her group to begin her walk with them to Rock by way of the beach. One of the girls turned and gave him a wave. Fiona, he supposed, and he returned her friendly gesture.

  On they went, a laughing group.

  Lovely girl, he thought. Much more natural and forthcoming than when he met her for the first time in the store.

  Out on the blue sea white-sailed yachts and dinghies skimmed about. Out of the water and onto the beach came Aunt Polly, Uncle Boots and the growing twins.

  Aunt Polly. Over fifty, wasn’t she? Who’d know it, who’d even think it? That swimsuit, that figure, that silky walk. She looks as if she’s modelling beachwear for a fashion magazine. And what a witty, likeable woman she was. No wonder Uncle Boots turned to her when he lost Aunt Emily, although it did cause uneasy ripples in the family.

  Jimmy remembered that when he was twelve, he’d asked his mum with all the gaucherie of an adolescent why Aunt Polly hadn’t married a lord instead of Uncle Boots. And his mum had said because Uncle Boots is her kind of man. Well, what’s Aunt Polly’s kind of man? Uncle Boots, said Susie. Crikey, said Jimmy to that, what a daft answer, it’s uninformative. And Susie asked him where he got words like that from. From Uncle Boots, he said. There you are, then, said Susie, Uncle Boots is a man for all people, young, old and in between. And especially for your Aunt Polly.

  He understood perfectly now, watching them as they advanced over the shining wet sands, their irrepressible twins skipping ahead. They were talking, and holding hands, Boots and Polly. Holding hands. At their age. I know something, thought Jimmy. They’re still lovers.

  Up they came, the lovers and their twins.

  ‘Where’s your lady fair, Jimmy?’ asked Polly.

  ‘Gone to Rock to sail a boat, I hope and trust that boat can float,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Crumbs, was that a poem?’ asked Gemma.

  ‘Of a kind,’ said Boots, the firm healthy look of his body belying his age. ‘An entertaining kind. Jimmy has his share of talent.’

  ‘So has his lady fair,’ said Polly. She smiled at Jimmy. ‘We spotted you talking to her.’

  ‘Yes, lovely girl,’ said Jimmy. ‘Come on, kids, I’ll help this time with a sandcastle.’

  Gemma and James scampered over the beach with him.

  ‘I think Jimmy’s acquired a crush,’ said Polly.

  ‘I haven’t met the young lady, I’ve only seen her from afar,’ said Boots, ‘but all the same, I feel I can compliment him on his taste.’

  ‘Isn’t that a little patronizing?’ said Polly.

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ said Boots.

  ‘I’m very fond of Jimmy, and all our young people,’ said Polly.

  ‘So you should be,’ said Boots, ‘you’re the mother of two of them.’

  ‘I still feel their conception was a miracle,’ said Polly, musing on that.

  ‘Aside from the Virgin Mary, miracles do sometimes happen to a special kind of woman,’ said Boots.

  ‘I wonder, did my fairy godmother wave her magic wand?’ murmured Polly.

  ‘No, I waved mine, in a manner of speaking,’ said Boots, ‘and hers isn’t the same as mine, in any case.’

  Holidaymakers turned their heads to look at a slender woman in a white swimsuit emitting peals of laughter.

  And Polly wondered exactly how many more exhilarating years she and Boots would share.

  Behind them, Paula and Phoebe came running, everyone making for where Susie and Sammy were opening up the usual mid-morning snack of flask coffee and Cornish jam doughnuts.

  Still exploring the waters and the hills of the English Lake District, Sammy and Susie’s daughter Bess found herself much more compatible with the exuberance of her university friends. She was able to resist making comparisons between their never-failing high, noisy spirits and the mature nuances of the American man, Jeremy Passmore. He lingered in her mind, which gave her moments of quietness.

  ‘Penny for ’em, Bess.’

  That request came to her ears more than once, when one friend or another noted her absorption in her own thoughts.

  ‘Oh, they’re nothing earth-shaking.’

  But they were thoughts of a kind she hadn’t had before, simply because they concerned a man who made her companions seem just a little adolescent. Would he really get in touch with her? Or would he merely drop her a line to say he had finally gone home to Chicago? She really could not imagine he would stay on indefinitely in the UK, when America was booming and the UK, still broke, was in the doldrums.

  Bess was always honest with herself, just as Sammy, her father was. She frankly hoped she would see Jeremy again.

  Jeremy, at the moment, was back working as the efficient manager of a large dairy farm that also had acres of land devoted to the cultivation of fruit and vegetables. Kent, after all, as he had found out, was the garden of England.

  Chapter Twenty

  Earlier that day, on the broad, tram-lined thoroughfare of Kennington Park Road, Paul and Lulu found The Lodge, an old three-storeyed Victorian house standing by itself. Paul knocked. The door was opened by a little old lady in a white lace cap, a white blouse with a starched lace collar, and a black skirt. Her eyes were bright, although surrounded by crow’s feet, her cheeks as round and rosy as apples.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ said Paul.

  ‘Good morning, young man,’ she said.

  ‘Would you be Mrs Trevalyan?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Would be?’ She twinkled. ‘I am.’

  ‘I’ve had a letter from you, I’m—’

  ‘Well, come in, come in,’ she said, ‘don’t stand on the doorstep, there’s a draught. Bring the young lady in with you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Paul.

  He and Lulu stepped into the hall, Mrs Trevalyan closed the door and ushered them into her living room. The windows overlooked the main road and its moving pictures of trams, buses and pedestrians. The room itself was full of old-fashioned mahogany furniture, the upholstery of dark brown leather stuffed with horsehair. Pot plants sprouted African violets. The several pictures decorating the walls were all oil-painted portraits of women with either Victorian or Edwardian hairstyles.

  ‘Sit down, sit down,’ twinkled Mrs Trevalyan, and Lulu seated herself on a sofa. Paul joined her, glancing at the portraits as he sat down. The little old lady perched herself on the edge of an armchair. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘why have you called, mmm? Mmm?’

  ‘I’m Paul Adams, secretary of the South London Young Socialists, and this is my assistant, Miss Lulu Saunders. We received a letter from you, Mrs
Trevalyan, a very nice letter—’

  ‘What? What? Mmm?’

  ‘A letter.’ Paul kept looking at one of the portraits.

  ‘What letter?’ Mrs Trevalyan was briskly enquiring.

  ‘Wishing good luck to our organization and its aims, and enclosing a very welcome cheque towards our funds,’ said Paul.

  ‘Eh? Eh?’

  ‘We’re grateful for your generosity,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Cheque, you said, young man?’ Mrs Trevalyan’s bright eyes sharpened. ‘Show me the letter.’

  Paul extracted it from his inside jacket pocket. Mrs Trevalyan twinkled quickly to her feet, took it from him, opened it up and scanned it.

  ‘Something wrong, Mrs Trevalyan?’ said Lulu, on her best behaviour.

  ‘What? Mmm? Yes.’

  ‘There is something wrong?’ said Paul.

  ‘I didn’t write this letter, but I know who did,’ said Mrs Trevalyan. ‘Let me see the cheque.’

  ‘Here it is.’ Paul handed it to her. She scanned that too with a sharp eye. She murmured something.

  ‘I didn’t catch that,’ said Lulu.

  ‘Hussy,’ said Mrs Trevalyan.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Lulu.

  ‘Not you. My granddaughter.’ Mrs Trevalyan crossed in quick, sprightly fashion to the door, opened it and called. ‘Henrietta!’ The name travelled upwards like the shrill cry of a seabird. There was no response. ‘Henrietta!’ This time there was a response.

  ‘You want me, Granny?’

  ‘Come down here this minute.’

  ‘Yes, Granny. Coming.’

  Down she came, the granddaughter.

  ‘In here, you hussy,’ said Mrs Trevalyan, and a very pleasant-looking young lady, a brown-eyed brunette, entered the room. In a light summer dress of pale lemon, her demeanour and expression were so demure that hussy was written all over her.

  Seeing Lulu and Paul, she said, ‘Oh, hello, you’re new.’

  Paul came to his feet.

  ‘Henrietta,’ said Mrs Trevalyan, ‘this is – oh, bother it, I’ve forgotten your names. Never mind, this is my granddaughter Henrietta.’

  Paul offered a smile.

  ‘I’m Paul Adams, and this young lady is Miss Saunders. We’re from the Young Socialists—’

  ‘Oh, how thrilling,’ said Henrietta in a little burst of delight. ‘How do you do? I’m a heart and soul Socialist.’ She took Paul’s hand, squeezed it and looked into his eyes. Yuk, she’s syrupy, thought Lulu. ‘Lovely to meet you, I adore campaigners for the cause of the workers.’

  ‘Poppycock,’ said Mrs Trevalyan. ‘Now, you hussy, what’s the meaning of this?’ She brandished the letter. ‘And this?’ She held the cheque under Henrietta’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, so sorry, Granny,’ said Henrietta, ‘I forgot to mention it to you.’

  ‘You forgot to mention you’d forged my name?’ said Mrs Trevalyan. ‘A likely story.’

  ‘Well, Granny dear, you weren’t at home at the time—’

  ‘Poppycock, you hear?’

  ‘Ever so, ever so sorry,’ said Henrietta, and glanced at Paul and offered a winsome smile. ‘I’m absent-minded sometimes, you know.’

  ‘Absent-minded, my glass eye,’ said Mrs Trevalyan. She uttered a little chuckle. ‘That’s if I had a glass eye. Which reminds me, dear old Percy Beresford had one. The poor man lost his good one in a tussle with a truncheon when he was trying to shield Emmeline from a police charge in Downing Street.’

  ‘Emmeline?’ said Paul, and looked at the particular portrait yet again. ‘Got it,’ he said, ‘that’s Mrs Pankhurst, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst.’

  ‘The great pioneer of the suffragette movement?’ said Lulu.

  ‘Oh, its leader and its champion,’ said Henrietta. ‘You know something about her?’ She put the question to Paul.

  ‘I know she’s part of the historical annals of the Labour Party,’ said Paul.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Mrs Trevalyan. ‘There was no such thing as a decent Labour Party in her day. If you try to claim her, I’ll take my umbrella to you. Where is it, Henrietta?’

  ‘In the hallstand receptacle, Granny dear,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘Besides,’ said Granny dear, ‘Emmeline couldn’t stand the Labour fellows bleating about the lot of the working classes. Let me tell you, young man, it was their women’s lot that needed looking at. Yes, my word, it did and still does, for the working classes still keep their wives chained to their kitchen sinks. Disgraceful.’

  ‘Well, really,’ said Lulu, prickling. ‘Don’t you know why? Other classes employ servants. The working classes can’t afford to. And probably wouldn’t, anyway. Like me, they don’t believe in menials.’

  ‘Piffle,’ said Mrs Trevalyan. Then, ‘Henrietta, who is this young woman?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘Miss Saunders is my assistant,’ said Paul, ‘I’m the secretary of the South London Young Socialists.’

  ‘Are you really?’ Henrietta’s eyes glowed. ‘I’m thrilled to meet you. I’m devoted to Socialism.’

  ‘A likely story,’ said Mrs Trevalyan. ‘It’s just one more of your fanciful fads. I won’t have it, you hear me, miss?’

  ‘Granny, it’s not a fad to believe in the benefits of Socialism,’ said Henrietta sweetly.

  ‘Total Socialism?’ said Paul, and Henrietta gave him a winning smile.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said.

  ‘You share that belief with Lulu,’ said Paul.

  ‘Lulu?’ said Mrs Trevalyan. ‘Never heard of her. Who is she, a belly dancer? Disgraceful, and a reprehensible slur on womanhood.’

  ‘I’m Lulu,’ said Miss Saunders.

  ‘A belly dancer?’ Mrs Trevalyan quivered. ‘You need correction, my girl. Henrietta, fetch my umbrella.’

  ‘Miss Saunders is a visitor, a guest, Granny,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said her grandmother. ‘You know very well I’d never invite a belly dancer to tea. Are we having tea?’

  ‘Of course, in a while,’ said Henrietta. ‘Do sit down, Paul, and my grandmother will be delighted to talk to you about her idol, Mrs Pankhurst, and the suffragettes. You sit down too, Granny.’

  Paul and Lulu were virtually locked in. Paul minded not at all. Lulu had the fidgets. Henrietta, looking sweetly happy with events, seated herself on the other side of Paul, her dress coyly hitched.

  Mrs Trevalyan treated her audience to tales of her time as a suffragette and as one of Mrs Pankhurst’s umbrella-wielding bodyguards. It was dear Emmeline who put women on the march towards equality and the vote, she said, but my, what battles they had to fight, and what suffering they had to endure each time they were arrested and sentenced by whiskery old reactionary magistrates to a term in prison. When they went on hunger strike, odious police doctors force-fed them, scarring their human dignity. As for the politicians, they were all devious men, of course, promising much but doing little. She interrupted herself to ask Paul if he was devious in his politics.

  ‘You wouldn’t expect me to say yes, would you?’ said Paul.

  ‘That, young man, is a devious reply,’ said Mrs Trevalyan.

  ‘You bet it is,’ said Lulu under her breath.

  ‘Oh, we must give him the benefit of the doubt, Granny,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘Mmm? What?’ said the little old lady, looking as bright as a button. ‘Well, he’s a fine-looking young man, of course, but looks can be deceptive.’

  ‘Have a banana,’ said Lulu, also under her breath.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to have him visit,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘Yerk,’ muttered Lulu.

  ‘What’s this belly dancer saying, Henrietta?’ asked Mrs Trevalyan.

  ‘I really don’t know,’ said Henrietta, lightly hip-to-hip with the fine-looking young man.

  I’m going to be sick, thought Lulu, but sat bravely through more anecdotal reminiscences relating to hair-raising episodes in the doughty suffragettes’ campaign to secure votes for
women.

  ‘Granny loves reliving the years when the suffragettes were at war with politicians,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘These portraits,’ said Paul, ‘are they all of suffragettes?’

  ‘Yes, and aren’t they splendid?’ said Mrs Trevalyan. ‘My late husband painted them. Of course, when war broke out against Germany in 1914, dear Emmeline immediately called a halt to our campaign and instructed us to support the Government unreservedly, on the grounds that of all men the Prussians were the chief enemies of women’s emancipation.’ She stopped to wrinkle her brow. ‘Half a mo’,’ she said, ‘wasn’t there something about a cheque?’

  ‘Oh, we’re past all that, Granny,’ said Henrietta.

  ‘No, we’re not,’ said Granny. ‘You hussy, you forged my name. You and your hare-brained enthusiasms will ruin me. What was the last one, mmm? I know, a home for tramps, and that cost me a year’s interest on some of my investments. You saucy girl, fetch my umbrella.’

  ‘If I fetched your chequebook instead, perhaps you’d sign one yourself for our Young Socialists,’ said Henrietta. ‘We can’t let Paul go away with nothing, Granny dear.’

  ‘Paul?’ said Granny dear. ‘Is he hare-brained too? Are you?’ The question arrived sharply in Paul’s ear.

  ‘I can truthfully say no,’ he replied, and Henrietta smiled at him and crossed her knees. ‘In fact, it would cause me pain if I had to say yes.’

  Poor bloke, he’s mesmerized by that girl’s tarty legs, thought Lulu.

  But she said, ‘We do need funds. To help the Labour Party win the next election. And to keep Churchill and the Tories out.’

  ‘Churchill? Winston Churchill?’ said Mrs Trevalyan. ‘Goodness gracious me, what do belly dancers know about Churchill? Of course, he could be as devious as Asquith and Lloyd George regarding votes for women, but when the world needed the right kind of leader to fight Hitler, he proved to be a lion. Keep him out? I won’t have it.’

  ‘Come on, Granny dear, be a darling,’ said Henrietta. ‘We can tear the other cheque up.’

  ‘I’ve a good mind to disown you,’ said Granny dear, but a little chuckle made its mark, and she looked at Paul. ‘You must forgive Henrietta, young man. She lost her parents years ago, and has lived with me ever since. Alas that I failed to cure her addiction to fanciful ideas. My, my, young people today, so wild. How much money is it that you need?’