The Way Ahead

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Lizzy’s a bit old-fashioned,’ said Sammy, ‘but if she likes Leah enough, she won’t throw a fit. Ned won’t worry either way. Ned’s an old soldier, and old soldiers like peace and quiet. Besides, they’ve already told me they won’t mind. But what about Isaac?’

  Isaac was Rachel’s father. Isaac Moses.

  ‘He’ll put up a fight,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Well, I know he’s of the faith, and has been all his life,’ said Sammy, ‘but he won’t fight with the gloves off, will he?’

  ‘No, he won’t make loud noises or bang a drum, Sammy,’ said Rachel, ‘but I know he’d prefer Leah to marry into the faith. I think he’ll say so.’

  ‘How exactly do you feel?’ asked Sammy.

  ‘I feel, Sammy, that I want Leah to be happy,’ said Rachel.

  ‘She’s a sweet girl, and deserves some happy-ever-after,’ said Sammy. ‘Wartime’s not much fun for girls her age. They’re stuck in no man’s land, if I might coin that as suitable wordage. They’re not old enough to fit themselves into a uniform, and nor are they ready to slip into something silky and come-on.’

  ‘Sammy, could you fascinate me by explaining something silky and come-on?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘Yes, the kind of frock Mattie Harry wore as a spy for Kaiser Bill,’ said Sammy, ‘and which sent French generals cross-eyed on account of there not being much of it.’

  ‘God help me if you give me hysterics at my age,’ said Rachel. ‘You’re talking about girls like Leah wanting to be old enough to be a Mata Hari.’

  ‘Well, we’ve all had dreams,’ said Sammy. ‘I just suppose girls like Leah don’t like having to wait while old-enough females are swanking around in uniforms. Listen, me remarkable friend, I’ll consider myself a fortunate bloke if Leah ends up as a niece of mine, and that’s my last word on this particular subject.’

  Rachel smiled.

  ‘You’re a good man, Sammy,’ she said.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Sammy.

  ‘I should say you aren’t?’ said Rachel.

  ‘Rachel, you ought to know by now I’ve been a hard-hearted and armour-plated businessman for years,’ said Sammy. ‘I’ve had to be, and it’s – Rachel, is that you laughing?’

  ‘I should be crying, Sammy?’

  ‘No, but laughing?’ said Sammy.

  ‘Yes, I think you said you were hard-hearted and armour-plated, didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t mind people knowing it,’ said Sammy.

  ‘Sammy, you’re priceless,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Granted,’ said Sammy. ‘Shall we do some work?’

  ‘Yes, Sammy, and thank you,’ said Rachel softly.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Sammy, whose attitude to many things was entirely easy-going unless they constituted a threat to his business. It was then that he put on his armour-plating.

  Saturday afternoon

  Mr Finch was much better, and Sammy and Susie’s eldest son, Daniel, had helped to buck him up.

  Seventeen-year-old Daniel, named after his late grandfather, Chinese Lady’s first husband, was perky, self-confident and voluble. He had his mum’s blue eyes, his dad’s dark brown hair, and the lanky legs of the family’s males. Like his cousin Edward, he was on the thin side.

  Working at the Adams garment factory in the Belsize Park area, he had been asked by his Uncle Tommy to pop down to the local ironmonger by Camberwell Green this afternoon for a supply of sewing-machine needles. The factory was running short, and an expected delivery from the suppliers hadn’t yet arrived. Would Daniel get some and bring them in on Monday? Certainly, said Daniel.

  After he’d arrived home from work and eaten lunch, he went down to the shop in Camberwell New Road. He was now looking at a selection of nails.

  ‘Look, Mister Broom, I said sewing-machine needles, not nails,’ he expostulated to the ironmonger, whose shop he admired. What a place. It was a cavern of treasures with its multitude of shelves, cupboards, drawers and boxes full of this, that and the other. As a young man with a leaning towards the fundamentals of turning wheels, he was in tune with ironmongery that related to the mechanical. Things like cogs, springs, ball-bearings, spanners and so on.

  ‘Now now, hold yer horses,’ said Mr Broom, aged but not simple. He had grey sideboards, thinning grey hair, tea-stained whiskers and gaps in his teeth. ‘I pride meself I can hear as good as the next man, but I ain’t able to hear all that good when me customers mumble and gargle. Nails, that’s what I thought you said. Are you sucking a gobstopper?’

  ‘Give over,’ said Daniel, looking pained. ‘I grew out of gobstoppers when I was ten, didn’t I? Besides, the war’s taken them out of sweetshop jars. Come on, Mister Broom, sewing-machine needles, if you please. I’ve been requested by the management to get a handful from you and take them in on Monday. The factory’s still waiting for its ordered supply. That’s the war again. I tell you, Mister Broom, I’ve never been in a war like this before, you can’t even get stick-on rubber soles for footwear. That’s boots and shoes, y’know.’

  ‘I’m obliged for the information,’ said Mr Broom, a pencil stuck behind his right ear, and an old brown shop coat draping his stringy but enduring body. ‘And regarding orders for needles, might Hi be so bold as to say I notice you don’t place orders with me? It’s a pleasure for me, is it, to have you bounce into me shop once a year just for a handful of minor odds and ends?’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me saying so, Mister Broom, I don’t happen to have been working at the factory for a year, just a few months,’ said Daniel. ‘But I’d like to point out that in those few months, I’ve come to give you some personal custom at least six times.’

  ‘And ain’t I bowed to you each time, Yer Worship?’ said Mr Broom. It was always a lively and enjoyable set-to whenever Daniel Adams appeared in his shop. ‘Now, sewing-machine needles, is it? Could you speak up in the affirmative, like?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Daniel. ‘Sewing-machine needles!’ he shouted, but with a grin on his face.

  ‘That’s it, you young rip, wake the dead,’ said Mr Broom, and his lined brow darkened. ‘There’s been a lot of that about these last four years, dead and dying. Still, it’s not my doing, it’s them German hooligans. Time they was all put under the ground. They’ll complain, of course, like they did after the last war. Can’t stand being beat. Now let’s see.’ He turned, pulled open a drawer, produced three tobacco tins, placed them on the counter and released the lids. Each tin was full of gleaming steel needles. ‘What’s your pick, young man?’

  ‘That’s ’em,’ said Daniel, pointing to one tin. He already knew a lot about the factory’s sewing-machines and the right kind of needles. ‘I’ll take a hundred.’

  Mr Broom spilled a quantity from the tin into one dish of small brass scales. He weighed them, added a few more and said, ‘That’s a hundred, or d’you want to argue?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Daniel, ‘and in any case I wouldn’t argue with an expert. Would you put ’em in a bag, Mr Broom, as I don’t think it would be clever to slip ’em as they are into my trouser pocket. They might vaccinate my leg. Listen,’ he went on, as Mr Broom transferred the little gleaming heap into a brown paper bag, ‘if in a few years you thought about selling your shop, I might consider buying it.’ Daniel was very much the son of Sammy. He was in regular touch with his cousin David, Uncle Tommy’s son. David had ambitious ideas, and Daniel reckoned that together they could make a profitable go of something like a hardware shop. ‘Would an offer interest you, Mr Broom, at the right time?’

  ‘Seeing I’ve decided I’m going to die in here on me feet,’ said Mr Broom, ‘perhaps you’d like to wait for that to happen, when Hi might leave the shop to you in me will.’

  ‘That’s a really kind thought of yours, Mr Broom, and it won’t hurt me to exercise patience,’ said Daniel. He took the bag of needles, paid for them, said a perky goodbye to the proprietor and left. He began his long walk back home, whistling as he went. It was another breezy day and w
alking was an invigorating exercise. He turned right by Camberwell Green and made for Denmark Hill. Buses rumbled by and trams clanged in a way reminiscent of pre-war days. Camberwell had known German bombs, but the Green was intact. He began his ascent of Denmark Hill. He crossed to the left-hand side after leaving Ruskin Park behind. A girl on a bike passed him.

  ‘Hi,’ she said as she went by.

  ‘Watcher, Bubbles,’ said Daniel.

  She stopped and waited for him to catch up.

  ‘How did you know my name was Bubbles?’ she asked.

  ‘Just a guess,’ said Daniel, and she looked at him. He didn’t seem to have much flesh on his bones; he was close to being skinny, but he had a clean, fresh look and the kind of blue eyes that could make some girls blink. ‘Good guess, was it?’ he said.

  ‘No, you boobed,’ she said, and cycled away.

  ‘Gladys, then?’ called Daniel, loose-limbed and quick-moving.

  Again she stopped and waited for him to catch up. She was wearing a white woollen pull-on hat over dark hair, a summer dress of ivy green, and fully-fashioned nylons. Pert hazel eyes and a small retroussé nose gave her a saucy look.

  ‘Gladys?’ she said. She had an American accent. ‘You sure that’s a name?’

  ‘I’m positive,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Nuts to positive and to Gladys,’ she said, and rode away again.

  ‘Betsy, then?’ called Daniel, and again she stopped. Again he caught her up.

  ‘Patsy,’ she said.

  ‘Patty?’

  ‘Patsy. You deaf or something?’

  ‘Patsy, not Betsy?’ said Daniel. ‘You look more like a Betsy.’

  ‘That’s it, get cute,’ she said.

  ‘Not my style,’ said Daniel, ‘and in any case, I’m on my way home for a cup of tea and a slice of cake, if there is any. The war’s ruined the regular availability of homemade cake. Still, nice to have met you, Betsy—’

  ‘I don’t know what all that means,’ she said, ‘but I’m Patsy. Don’t I keep telling you?’

  ‘Patsy, right, I’ll remember,’ said Daniel, and went on his way. She kept up with him, wheeling her bike close to the kerb. She had slim, vigorous legs that made easy work of climbing the hill.

  ‘I guess you want to know where I come from,’ she said after a while.

  ‘Brighton?’ said Daniel.

  ‘Brighton? Brighton?’ She obviously thought that a daft guess. ‘Brighton, you said?’

  ‘Down in Sussex,’ said Daniel, thinking she ought to be spoken to by her dad for talking to strangers. Mind, he knew that a lot more people did talk to strangers these days, especially after an air raid. It was a kind of coming-together due to everyone being in the same rocky boat. ‘I’m only guessing.’

  ‘Try Boston,’ said the girl.

  ‘Boston, Lincs?’ said Daniel, not stopping in his walk.

  Still keeping up with him, the girl said, ‘Boston where?’

  ‘Lincolnshire,’ said Daniel.

  ‘My Boston is in Massachusetts,’ she said.

  ‘Got you,’ said Daniel, ‘you’re an American girl.’

  ‘Patsy Kirk.’

  ‘Kirk?’ said Daniel.

  ‘You’ve got something against that?’ said Patsy.

  ‘No, should I have?’ asked Daniel.

  ‘It’s OK with you, then?’ said Patsy.

  ‘Fine,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Are you in the Army?’ asked Patsy.

  ‘I’m not eighteen yet,’ said Daniel.

  ‘You look as if you could be, and you could say you were,’ said Patsy.

  ‘Well, I’ve got a grandmother who’d knock my head off if I did,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Couldn’t you sneak off without telling her?’ asked Patsy.

  ‘Some hopes,’ said Daniel. ‘Can I confide in you?’

  ‘Oh, please do,’ said Patsy, ‘I’d be thrilled, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Well, Grandma gets to know everything,’ said Daniel. ‘She’s the kind of second-sight character you come across in books about Ancient Rome. You’ve heard of Ancient Rome, have you?’

  ‘Sure I have,’ said Patsy, ‘and I’ve heard of Nero too, but I’ve never heard anything about Ancient Rome grandmothers with second sight.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to be able to inform you that Ancient Romans revered their grandmothers, whose second sight was useful when Caesar’s army was going to war, which it often did,’ said Daniel. ‘Even Nero revered grandmothers. After he poisoned his own, he made a special offering to the gods, sacrificing a dozen Ancient Briton slaves. Generally, Ancient Roman grandmothers gave all the orders and all the people obeyed, and if they didn’t their grandmothers flung them to the lions. Horrible sight it was, believe me.’

  ‘I’m not believing any of that, you dope, not a single word,’ said Patsy.

  ‘It’s your own funeral if you want to stay ignorant,’ said Daniel.

  ‘If you think I’m going to believe old Roman grannies threw people to the lions, you’re crazy,’ said Patsy. A bus passed, going up the hill, while she and Daniel walked on in chummy fashion. ‘Of course, I know Nero was a homicide, but he didn’t really poison his grandmothers, did he?’

  ‘Alas,’ said Daniel.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Alas, he did,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Oh, you kook,’ said Patsy, ‘alas is archaic.’

  ‘How’d you spell it?’ said Daniel. ‘Listen, Patsy, Nero put arsenic in his grandmothers’ lunchtime helping of jellied eels. The poor old dears fell dead off their couch after only three mouthfuls. Then—’

  ‘Hey, slow down,’ said Patsy, ‘I’m not believing jellied eels. What are they?’

  ‘Cylindrical lumps of eel cooked in jelly,’ said Daniel. ‘My cockney forebears loved ’em.’

  ‘You’re disgusting, d’you know that?’ said Patsy. ‘And so are your forebears. Still, I kind of like the way you talk. You’ve got a musical tone.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Daniel.

  ‘Sure,’ said Patsy. ‘Have you ever thought about being a singer? You could develop into a great baritone. They’re favourite with me, baritones. How much farther is your home?’

  They were halfway up the hill, a residential thoroughfare of handsome properties.

  ‘It’s still a bit far,’ said Daniel. He stopped then, stepped off the kerb and relieved her of her bike. ‘How far do you have to go to your own home, Topsy?’

  ‘Patsy,’ she said. ‘How many more times? And it’s Danecroft Road.’

  ‘That’s only a little way on from me,’ said Daniel, and gave her a more interested look. He still wasn’t sure she ought to talk to strangers, but then he hadn’t yet discovered Americans were a gregarious people given to offering friendship at the drop of a hat. He’d lived as an evacuee in a quiet Devonshire village, away from American Army training areas, for most of the war. Deciding this particular female American was likeable, he said, ‘I’ll push your bike for you.’

  ‘I’d like to know your name first,’ said Patsy, as they stopped. ‘You might be anybody.’

  ‘Yes, so I might,’ said Daniel. ‘As anybody, I could give you a false name, then set about you and pinch your bike.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that, I read you as a good guy, even if you’re unbelievable about Nero’s grannies,’ said Patsy. ‘So what’s your name?’

  ‘Daniel Adams.’

  ‘Adams?’ said Patsy. ‘That’s a proud name in Boston. If you remember, when we licked you in the War of Independence—’

  ‘No, I don’t remember,’ said Daniel, ‘I wasn’t there. But I daresay it hurt a bit.’

  ‘While we were fighting you,’ said Patsy, ‘John Adams, a lawyer who practised in Boston, did such a great job for the cause of our independence that he became the second President after Washington.’

  ‘Was John Adams English?’ asked Daniel. ‘His name sounds as if he was.’

  ‘Well, I guess he might have had English parentage,’ said Patsy, ‘but
being born in America, he was American.’

  ‘D’you mean that if you’d been born in China, you’d be Chinese?’ enquired Daniel.

  ‘I’m going to find out if I can sue you for saying a thing like that,’ said Patsy. ‘In Boston, folks still talk about heroes of the Revolution like John Adams and another Adams, Sam Adams.’

  ‘I don’t think we ever talk about them over here,’ said Daniel. ‘Bad losers, I suppose,’ he said with a grin. ‘Well, good old Boston. See you there one day. Say when I’m a travelling baritone.’

  Patsy took a new look at him. She thought even when he was standing still, like now, he had a supple energy that issued vibrations and made him kind of doubly alive.

  Patsy Kirk was nearly seventeen, the daughter of a radio newsman. Her mother had been a lawyer, but tragically, in March 1941, lost her life in a car accident when driving herself to her office. Her father, grieving, decided a change of background would help, and received accreditation from his radio station to go and cover the war in Europe from London. He took Patsy with him, but because of the air raids had sent her to a boarding-school in Somerset. Other American girls, mostly daughters of resident diplomats and military attachés, were there, forming a sisterhood to rival the cliques of snooty English girls. Patsy quickly took the lead, which frequently meant being carpeted by the principal.

  ‘You’re a troublemaker, Miss Kirk.’

  ‘Me, ma’am?’

  ‘You. You have a problem. What is it?’

  ‘I just wish this was a co-ed school.’

  ‘A school for girls and boys?’

  ‘Yes, I like boys better than girls. Boys are fun guys. Girls – well, they’re just girls.’

  ‘But better behaved than boys, allowing for exceptions. You’re an exception, Miss Kirk. You, in fact, are a holy terror.’

  However, it was said with the hint of a smile. Further, Patsy gradually adapted and made many friends among the English boarders, who invited her to their homes during vacations, where she sometimes had the thrill of meeting elder brothers on leave from the Army, Navy or Air Force, and wished herself old enough to swan around in pink satin while blowing smoke rings after every puff on a cigarette in a long holder. That, she imagined, would wow the British Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF. She was probably right. The flappers, the Bright Young Things of London in the wild Twenties, had wowed a nation in such a way.