Mother Knew Best (28 page)

But I felt I had worse worries than slit shirts. There was the problem of my rubbish. In those days of modern sanitation and regular refuse collections, how could I possibly worry about this, yet sometimes I wished I had been living in good King Charles's golden days where I could just have thrown everything out of the window. To get to my new silver dustbin I had to go through the kitchen of my landlord's flat, which I hated. My demoniac-looking landlord was on shift-work, so that even had I waited until his wife was out shopping before passing through their kitchen-cum-living-room to the garden,
HE
might have been there.

I spent hours on the stairs with my little bucket waiting for them both to be out of the house at the same time. On Chas's day off I would try to persuade him to empty the rubbish, making the excuse that I had hurt my wrist or foot. He always refused because he thought me crazy to be so inhibited and felt that the more journeys I made into the hinterland the more used I would become to entering the premises of comparative strangers. At last, as the rubbish piled up I decided I would take it down after midnight when all below would be sleeping. This was quite a job and a slow process for I had to feel my way inch by silent inch in the dark in stockinged feet. On a wet night I would have to retrace my steps and erase any muddy footprints with a dry cloth. However, all seemed to go well and I became a past master, or rather mistress, of the art of feeling my way around in the dark, but as so often happens I became over-confident.

I was on my way back from the dustbin run one night after a successful trip. I had only the passage to negotiate and then there was the blessed safety of the stairs when, with a blinding flash, on went all the lights. My heart leapt at the sudden and unexpected illumination. Facing me in the passage was an astonished Mephistopheles, clad only in a very, very short white shirt or shift-like garment. His daring apparel, on top of his unexpected appearance, paralysed my body for a moment yet my brain and pulses raced. For a moment he, too, was silently still. His nether portions were so white and so enormous he seemed to me like a half-veiled statue. I felt like a shocked lady mayoress who had pulled the cord on the unexpected. The statue came to life before the lady mayoress did and with a lightning movement Mephi's hands grabbed the ends of his shirt turning it into a leotard. This caused him to shrink from a colossus to a hunchback, as he had to crouch to secure the leotard's permanency.

‘I hope I didn't wake you up,' I said brightly as I squeezed past him, scraping his bent knees on my swinging bucket. ‘I just popped out to the dustbin,' and I sauntered casually up the stairs. Once inside my own quarters my nonchalance deserted me. I leant my banging head against the inside of my kitchen door. I heard voices. I just had to know what ‘
HE
' was saying to his now wide awake wife. ‘There's something bloody fishy about them two upstairs,' he was saying angrily. ‘I don't believe he is a waiter, and have
you
ever heard of anyone going to the dustbin in the dark after midnight?' I wondered if he would challenge my Chas, due in at any moment, but a door closed and the downstairs lights went out. Recovering myself, I became indignant with my landlord. Surely he could not be a nice man to go to bed so scantily attired? Why my darling wouldn't even get into bed unless the top button of his pyjamas was fastened high round his neck. I wished I had been quicker-brained. I could have pretended I was sleep-walking.

Finally I hit on a solution to my problem. When I visited Mother as I did two or three times a week I took a suitcase filled with refuse. My mother was mystified, but my father simply said, ‘Dolly's always been afraid of her own shadow.' I prayed that if ever I did bump into my landlord on the way out, the catches on my suitcase would not let me down.