All The Days of My Life (13 page)

“I'm sure Sir Frederick and Lady Allaun would be only too pleased to help with the fares,” said Mrs Gates, adding tactfully, “You are a big family, after all, or will be, when Jack's home again.”

“It depends,” said Ivy stiffly. “She'd better settle in here first, before we discuss plans.” She was a proud woman and disliked the way Mrs Gates was looking at her. She knew Mrs Gates would have described her as a bit of overpainted trash, if not as something worse. She was not going to have her family's finances discussed by a woman she regarded as a servant, which was not a position of dignity, as far as Ivy was concerned.

“I'd be pleased to come and collect her from here,” Mrs Gates persisted, “to spare you the long journey.” At this Ivy, staring into the healthy, stiffened face of Mrs Gates, thought that this was the woman who had cared for her daughter for a long time. And detected the desire to keep in touch with the child hidden by Mrs Gates's manner. She said, “I think that would be a nice idea, Mrs Gates.”

And Mrs Gates, who had now had time to look behind Ivy's heavy make-up and shabby appearance – and also look round her at the others in the cafeteria, almost equally shabby, worn and strained – said, confidentially, “It could be quite a good thing for her – to keep up the connection.”

“They sent her back quick enough,” said Ivy. “I hope there'd be no more of that. Reading between the lines, I thought there'd been some trouble. I hope Mary done nothing wrong.”

“Not a bit of it,” Mrs Gates said, a little too promptly. “Results of the war. They had no choice but to send her home. Sir
Frederick told me particularly to say Mary would be very welcome for visits.”

“We'll have to see then, shan't we?” said Ivy. “Shirley – stop playing with that biscuit. Eat it or leave it alone. Named after Shirley Temple she was,” she told Mrs Gates. “Out of luck there, wasn't I? Look at that hair – straight as a yard of pumpwater.”

Mary had been studying the little girl with some horror as she broke up the digestive biscuit, the last one, given to her as a favour by the woman behind the counter. She was making a little pile of crumbs on the table, and then licking up the crumbs with a finger she put in her mouth before sticking it in the crumby heap. Now she looked at her sister's hair which was, indeed, very straight.

“She's a very pretty girl,” Mrs Gates said. “All your children are good-looking, Mrs Waterhouse.” And, thinking of Mary and Jack, “thoroughly good-natured.”

“Thank you, Mrs Gates,” Ivy said. “And I'd like to thank you very much for taking such good care of Mary. She couldn't have fallen into better hands.”

Mrs Gates responded, equally formally, “It's been nothing but a pleasure, Mrs Waterhouse.”

At this point Ivy, who since Mrs Gates's remarks about her children seemed to have been thinking, bit her lip, bent forward and was, Mrs Gates knew, about to say something of importance. Mrs Gates sat waiting, with her hands in her lap. A momentous statement was about to be made in that crowded cafeteria. Then Ivy breathed out slightly and leaned back. She had changed her mind about speaking. Mrs Gates betrayed nothing. It would come out in the end, she reflected. Everything did. All you ever needed to do was wait. And so she stood up politely and said, “I must be going now or I'll miss my train back. Don't forget – if ever you need me, or Mary does, I'll be ready for as long as I'm spared.”

“For a long time, I hope,” said Ivy Waterhouse. “Mrs Gates – thank you again for all you've done.” Ivy made as if to stand up but Mrs Gates said, “Don't come with me. You start your journey home,” and kissing Mary on the cheek she walked steadily to the door and out of it. Ivy said, to herself, “Poor woman – it must be a blow parting with you, Mary.” And Mary burst into tears.

“Eat your choclit,” said little Shirley, offering the only solution she knew. “I saved my ration – I brung it all the way.”

Mary gave an agonized glance over her shoulder, searching for the
invisible Mrs Gates. Now that it had happened she could not believe it. She stared at Shirley as the tears rolled down her cheeks. Shirley was holding out a Mars bar, slightly soiled and softened by its long journey.

“All of it?” Mary said. Only the village children were allowed to eat their sweet ration all at once. Hers was always doled out to her in small portions by Mrs Gates, every evening, before she cleaned her teeth.

Shirley said, “Yer.”

Mary took it and said, “You can have half,” and broke the bar in two. “I've still got my full week's ration in my book,” she said.

“I got sixpence off Dad,” Shirley told her. “For coming here,” she added tactlessly.

“Didn't you want to come?” Mary asked.

“I wanted to stay and help with the party,” Shirley said. She was cramming the sticky Mars bar into her mouth like a famished animal. Mary looked at her despondently. She seemed like quite a nice little girl but she was ever so dirty. She thought of Mrs Gates again. Ivy quickly stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “Come on, Mary. We're going home.”

They pushed out of the station and climbed upstairs on a big, red bus. As the bus began to move Mary's fear began to evaporate. She began to feel excited. The city they passed through was very big. The buildings were huge and dark with soot. They passed the Queen's garden, at the back of the Palace, and Ivy promised they could go to see it from the front, soon. There were great, wide streets, there were birds in mobs and clusters on the ledges of the buildings, there were statues of men on prancing horses and the top deck of the bus was full of people. Two of the soldiers, who wore funny uniforms, were all black. There was another one with a turban on his head. And everywhere, as they went along, sitting right in front, there were gaps between the buildings, full of rubble. “That's why we had to send you away,” explained Ivy.

“London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down-” Mary sang. She was feeling cheerful, though a little frightened. Now they were going to have a party in all the ruins, she thought. “Build it up with sticks and stones, sticks and stones, sticks and stones –” she sang.

The big, generous buildings gave way to narrower streets, tired and battered. “Nearly home,” said Ivy. “Mind you, it'll be a bit different
from what you're used to, Mary. You'll have to make the best of it.”

They had what seemed like a long walk from the bus stop, through some dingy streets with uneven paving stones and small shops with dusty windows. Then they walked up a street wider and busier than any Mary could remember, with a big Woolworth's and a huge Home and Colonial and all sorts of shops selling clothes and shoes. In the shoe shop there was a picture of the King and Queen. There was a big Odeon. Mary hoped they would go there soon. She had seen very few films in her life. Then they walked up Treadwell Street, where small houses led straight into a dusty street. And round the corner into shabby, narrow Meakin Street.

“Here we are – home again,” said Ivy cheerfully. “Looks pretty, don't it?” But to Mary's eyes it did not. The red, white and blue bunting stretched across the street from upper window to upper window did not look pretty. The twists of bunting round the lamp posts did not look pretty and the Union Jack hanging limply from three or four windows did not, equally, help to cheer the forty houses on both sides of the street. Indeed, the fresh colours only drew attention to the dirty brickwork, the small windows, with cracking paint on their frames, the peeling front doors and the general lack of freshness and openness in the terrace of small, two-storey houses, rushed up eighty years before to accommodate the Victorian working classes. Mary stared, urgently wondering which of the houses she would be living in. Then a great surge of will came over her. She thought, “Well – I'll make the best of it.” She felt slightly better.

Two men, one in a khaki battledress tunic and old corduroy trousers, the other in a black suit and a shirt without a collar, were hauling a trestle table along the street.

“Hullo, Ivy,” said the man in the khaki tunic, putting down his end of the trestle. “Well, well – you must be little Mary. What a great, pretty girl you've grown into, I must say. Welcome home.” He stared round the street, waving like a host. “Not much – but it's home.” A pale boy, older than Mary, ran up. He said, “'Ere, Dad, let me 'elp –” and then stopped and stared at Mary. The starched dress with its immaculate collar obviously caught his attention. “My dad's back from the Middle East,” he told her. “Inne brahn?” Mary could not understand him.

“This is Jim,” said the tanned man. “I expect you'll be going to Wattenblath Street School together.”

Mary looked at the boy, who, Mrs Gates's training told her, was a village boy. “Well then,” said Ivy, “we'd better be getting home and sprucing up for the party. 'Bye, Mr Flanders, keep up the good work. Nice man, Joe Flanders,” she remarked, as she and Mary walked up the street, with Shirley running in front. “Couldn't ask for better neighbours. He's a driver on the buses, same as your dad.”

Number 19, Meakin Street was the same as all the other houses. The front door, which Sid, in a cheery mood, had painted red in 1938, led straight out on to the pavement. The paint on this door, which was now cracked and peeling, was the first thing Mary recognized from the past. “It's the old door,” she thought, staring at the paint, the doorknocker and the tiny iron letterbox. Inside the house was the parlour, which looked out on to the street. Behind it was the kitchen, which overlooked a small yard, where washing was hung to dry nearly every day in the week. In the yard, next to the coal bunker, was a door to the lavatory. Upstairs there were two bedrooms, papered with floral wallpaper. In one bedroom Mary would sleep, with Jack, when he returned, while Shirley would go into her parents' bedroom and sleep in a little truckle bed next to the window. There was no bathroom. The family bathed in a big metal bath which hung on the back of the kitchen door, where it gonged out a note every time the back door was opened or closed. The water for the baths, or more often bath, since normally everyone bathed in the same water, was heated by Ivy in kettles and pans on the kitchen stove. Only Sid did not participate in the weekly bath. He went on Fridays to the public baths, where there was more hot water and the towels were softer. Like pints at the pub, this was a luxury allowed to the breadwinner.

Standing in the narrow passageway, putting her key back in her handbag, Ivy said, “Come on, you two. I'll just put the kettle on and we'll have a bite before the party. I've made some lovely salmon sandwiches for the street, but we'll pinch a few in advance. Go in the parlour, Shirl, and sit down and behave yourself.” And Mary followed her mother into the little kitchen and looked out through one of the windows beside the door into the narrow yard. Ivy, putting the kettle on, said, “I'm sorry, gel. Bit riches to rags, isn't it? But think of all the poor souls who haven't got anywhere to live – we should be very grateful.”

“I'll have to make the best of it,” said Mary. Ivy looked at her and burst out laughing. “You've no bleeding choice, Mary Waterhouse,” she told her.

Mary had a job eating as they sat round the small dining table in the parlour, which otherwise had in it nothing but a small suite of furniture, two armchairs and a sofa, upholstered in a hard brown material known as leatherette. She gagged on the sandwich, which was filled with tinned salmon on slices of margarined bread. She had a hard job not to pull a face when she drank her tea, which was at once bitter and very sweet, being strong and full of sugar. At Allaun Towers she had never been offered, or wanted, tea. Now, in Meakin Street, she had too much sense to ask for a glass of milk. “There's no cows for miles,” she thought to herself. Then she, Ivy and Shirley went out into the street to help with the party – spreading sheets on the trestles, assembling the sandwiches and biscuits, chatting with the other neighbours. For Mary the whole thing took the quality of a dream. This morning she had woken in her bed at Allaun Towers to the sound of calling wood pigeons. Now, this afternoon, she was carrying plates and setting them down incongruously on tables laid out in a narrow, dusty, London street.

Under the bunting the line of trestles was covered with cakes and biscuits and sandwiches. There was Tizer and lemonade for the children and two big enamel bowls in the middle of the table containing an apple and an orange for everybody in the street. On the pavement, under a lamp, was a piano, contributed by the Fainlights at number 21. They were an elderly couple who considered themselves a cut above the rest. The piano was a symbol of this superiority and it was only when accused of a want of patriotic fervour on a day of national rejoicing that they had consented to its being moved out into the street. Now, at the piano, wearing a black hat and with her handbag firmly placed on top, Mrs Fainlight sat playing “Pale Hands I Loved.” And front doors began to open and the guests who were not already running up and down the street on errands began to emerge. With the exception of the babies, the too-old and the sick, the whole street sat itself down, ready for the beano. Mrs Fainlight struck up some selections from Gilbert and Sullivan. Red-headed Harry Smith said cheekily to Joe Flanders, “This is a bit morbid, innit – wot no ‘Roll out the Barrel'?” and Joe Flanders had said to him, “Keep your mouth shut, Harry. It's her piano. Any complaints and she'll have us hauling it back inside.” Meanwhile the real barrel had already been opened and the bung put in. The men carried foaming tankards about with them, smacking their lips and calling out to each other, while the women and children told them to sit down so that they could all turn
to. Up a ladder a thickset man was adjusting some bunting to a lamp post, while down below his mate stood holding a pint mug in each hand with his foot on the bottom rung.