Cotter's England (2 page)

Margaret Walters, 1980

Cotters' England

Some Persons

Pop Cotter, Thomas

Ma Cotter, Mary née Pike

Their children:

Ellen (Nellie), marries George Cook

Thomas

Peggy

Simon Pike, brother of Mary, Jeanie and Bessie

George Cook

Eliza Cook, his first wife

Mrs. Gwen McMahon, houseworker

Georgiana, her little daughter

Venna, a prostitute in Southwark

(does not appear)

Robert Peebles, Nellie's editor

(does not appear)

Bob Bobsey, an old woman

Camilla Yates, a dressmaker

Caroline Wooller, an office worker

Johnny Sterker, a strange woman

Other women

It was…

IT WAS a Saturday, a fine March morning. Two women and a man were in the basement front room, Mrs. Nellie Cook, a journalist, Mrs. Camilla Yates, a dressmaker, and Walter, a window cleaner. Mrs. Yates was making a blue dress for Mrs. Cook.

Mrs. Cook said to the window cleaner, "It's fresh today, pet. Did you try on that leather jacket of my brother's? I had a fit of conscience and wrote to him and said, I gave your leather jacket to Walter, do you mind? And he wrote back, You know me better than that."

"I gave it to my brother. He sold it and bought some vegetables. He's rented a truck," said the man, with a questioning glance.

"I'll give you a suit, too, love, though there's moth in it somewhere. Ah, but I ought to make you give me your spattered denims in exchange, for my husband George. It would bring me fine George nearer to humanity. He wore them once, down on the docks; and now, nothing but tailormades. It was he started me on the primrose path, Mrs. Yates, love. I was told the other day I'd lost all me personality since I married George. But marriage is an incurable disease; and it drives out the others."

Mrs. Yates said it was not incurable.

Walter asked if he could pull the curtains apart in an alcove; he did so. A four-year-old girl was sleeping on a cot there. The window showed a brick wall, some bare trees.

Walter did the window quickly, went out to the kitchen and at the foot of the stairs stopped, "I took some hot water, Missus."

"That's all right, pet," said Mrs. Cook.

When he had gone to the attic, Nellie Cook said she wished he would wear a safety belt. It was a big drop. She didn't like to talk to him about it for fear of putting the idea of a fall into his mind.

"We're creatures of our figments, love."

He was not a professional window cleaner. He had chest trouble and needed outdoor work. Because he needed the money, he came round too often. He knew he came too often and made a concession. He got a pound each time.

Nellie said, "I'm ashamed to grudge it to the poor fellow. Besides, he admires George; and is always asking him his political opinion. I'm afraid he hasn't the head for it. He'll ask the same question several times and then he'll repeat what George said, word for word. Is that your opinion, Mr. Cook? It's touching. He followed George home from a meeting once—the same as I did meself! And he'll reassure me to this day, 'Don't worry, Missus; I didn't come to do your windows; I just wanted to ask the Mister what he thinks.' And the way he'll listen to him standing and won't sit down; and then quietly go and you can see him mouthing it over to himself on the doorstep—it's pitiful Camilla darling—I may call you Camilla, love?"

The man dodged into the doorway, brought Mrs. Cook her purse from the piano and pocketed his money with thanks and a strange smile. At the door he turned and with yet another manner, mincing like a Chelsea aesthete, he said he'd be round in three weeks.

"And how is the Mister? I miss his talks on politics."

Nellie said heartily, "Do you, pet? Ah, bless you. It does me good to hear it, Walter. The bugger's on the continent yet, Walter, living on the fat of the land, touring the world as a representative of the working class of Great Britain. The call of England Home and Beauty rings feebly in his ear. He'll be back, pet, in a couple of weeks; but I can't tell you when. He wrote he's drunk every day from midday on. That's his world of the future. That's your sex for you, Walter."

The man gravely nodded and this time glided away without a smile. In a moment they heard the front door close.

"I wonder if that's worth five shillings or whatever informers get," said Mrs. Yates, looking down at her pattern and picking up a sleeve.

"He's a pet, poor man," said Nellie.

"He gives me the creeps; he's not natural. I wouldn't let him in," said the dressmaker, good-naturedly. She was a powerful woman, in her early forties, with a straight broad back, a small classic head on a strong neck, low forehead and short nose in line, dark hair and eyes.

Nellie impatiently stumped out her cigarette and reached for another.

"My test of a person is their opinion of George Cook! I stand high there meself. Eh, Walter's no better than the rest. Mrs. McMahon told George that Walter tried to kiss her and wanted to take her to the movies and asked questions about the boss; but what she wouldn't say. Gwen McMahon's a loyal soul. I could do with a cup of tea."

She drummed on the table with her tobacco-stained long fingers.

Mrs. Yates remarked in her pleasant voice, "You see? A dick. That was my first impression. He's all patches, a makeshift. I said, Now what act is that? And trying to get intimate with the maid."

"Ah, no, pet; it's no good, Camilla. No, no, your suspicious mind can't turn me against Walter. We're old friends. And Mrs. McMahon's no maid, pet; she's our friend. She's been with us since before we were married."

Mrs. Yates held out the dress. Mrs. Cook shed the faded overalls she was wearing and stood in her cotton shirt and long fleecy bloomers, holding out her arms. Mrs. Yates stood back and looked at the hang of the dress.

Mrs. Cook said absently, "You're nervous, Camilla. You feel hunted. So you think your husband is divorcing you, eh? You must be the headlong sort; you rush into the baited trap."

"I married for love."

Nellie now undressed again, was smoking furiously, hanging on to the mantelpiece, waving to the child in the bed. She said rapidly, "It's a grand thing, aye, I don't blame you. Will I do then, pet, in that dress? I won't be an eyesore at the airport when I welcome home my hero? I'll go and make a pot of tea and we'll sit down quietly. You've earned your crust. I'm glad to take it easy on my Saturday off. I'm generally on some off-the-record assignment, or visiting a sick friend, or fixing up the income tax or the mortgage, or running messages for me carefree lad.

"Eh, Camilla, there's a rooster in the hencoop! I expect they were glad to get him out of the navy. He laid out a plan of action for the admiral, or they feared he'd commandeer one of the lifeboats and sail for Tahiti. There he is making the French dames step to his tune. Eh, what a man, what a man! And do you think, Camilla, I'll do in that dress? For I want it now to go to see me mother in, to show Bridgehead, me old home town, that I'm respectable. For there's a skeleton in me cupboard. George and I lived together before we were married, pet. A cat and dog life it was; we didn't think we'd be able to stick it out. Eh, what a bloody egotist, love; but what a man! And to meself I said, My lass, you must submit, you must give up the fine free-lance life. And the wonder of wonders happened, Camilla; the perfect marriage, the perfect counterpoint, aye. Well, before that, I had to tell my folks that I was married, for I had my sister down here to visit, and Bob Bobsey, the dear old elf, who's now gallivanting with me boyo, you don't know her, a real pal, who looks as if she was a shriveled soul, but what's inside is as the meat of the walnut. Bob was in Bridgehead and she called upon my family, the Cotters, and she had to answer my mother's thousand questions. What time of day was it? Did it rain or shine? What dress did Nellie wear? For she swore to my mother that she'd been present at the wedding. Bob's a glorious old bohemian, but she's old fashioned and she didn't approve of us living in sin. It would break my heart if a daughter of mine did it, she said to me solemnly, shaking her dear old head, that great old stone face that's like the face of Grandmother Fate—"

"She must look like a gargoyle," said Mrs. Yates laughing.

"Ah, no, pet; that's your acidulous nature. She's my standby in storms; loyal and staunch. And she said to Mother, being up against it, Your daughter wore a nice blue dress. Every time since, when I go up home, Mother harps on it. Why don't you wear the nice blue dress you were married in? Because I'm keeping it in camphor out of sentiment, I said. So take the tacking threads out, darling, or you'll ruin me; and I've bought a cake of camphor to rub over it. My mother was always a foxy little deducing creature; that was her compensation for a life of defeat." Nellie, in her long bloomers and cotton shirt, went out the back to get tea.

There were three rooms on each floor of the little three-story brick house. Down short stairs here on the ground level, was an old-fashioned W.C. with the handle in a wooden seat and a blue flowered bowl. There was no light and no window; so that generally they sat with the door slightly open looking at the grassy back yard. At the side, a long paved kitchen. There were no windows; the door to the yard was usually kept open here, too. The small back yard was enclosed by brick and low stone walls and contained two small trees and a couple of sheds. On the left, dark old terrace houses with long back yards ran at right angles. They were occupied mostly by immigrant workers, Cypriots, Maltese, Greeks, doing sweatshop labor. On the right, along Lamb Street, were big garages, filling the space of houses knocked down by the bombs. The houses in Lamb Street, all low and narrow, like Nellie Cook's, were occupied mostly by machinists and other garment trade workers. Mrs. Yates lived across the street, with her two children, in two rooms over a small grocery shop. She lived separated from her husband. Her lover, a painter, a tall bulky ungainly man, visited her every day, ate there, used her as a model, looked after her children.

Nellie was a strange thing, her shabby black hair gathered into a sprout on the top of her small head, her beak and backbone bent forward, her thin long legs stepping prudently, gingerly, like a marsh bird's, as she came over the hogback ground floor, stairs up, stairs down, to the front room with her tea tray. The tea tray was neatly set, with a tray cloth; and she had cut thin bread and butter.

Camilla sat with her head bowed over her work. The hooded daylight came from the areaway into the middle of the room and shone on the bright wiry hair. Her neck and curved strong shoulders, dull and smooth, bent down in the plain blue cotton blouse, gathered on a cord and rather low. Her long thighs were apart to make a convenient sewing lap. Opposite her sat Ellen Cook, slouching, her elbow on the chair arm, her fingers to the cigarette, her nose and hair sprout in the air, the other hand on her hips. She spread her legs jauntily apart, in their gray knee-length bloomers, wrinkled black stockings. She wore pointed black shoes, the toes turned up, the thin heels turned down with wear. The light fell on the hollows in face, neck, chest and bony arm and darkened the exhausted skin. Her small eyes, dark blue, looking out sharp between half-closed lids, were tired. She sat smoking, drinking tea and nonchalantly ruminating. At length, she mentioned that she had had a budget of mail that morning, something from George. He had been to Geneva, looking for a job in the I.L.O. office, and was back in France. He was not coming home yet but was going on with the dear old elf, Bob Bobsey, to Florence. Bob had the money.

"He promised it to her long ago, and she says this may be the last time. Eh, old age is a high wall you can't climb and she's coming to the foot of it."

To save money George and old Bob had taken one room with two beds in their travels through France. George went to the Gare du Nord to meet old Bob and brought her to the hotel. Everyone in the hotel ran forward to have a look:
Mon Dieu, ces anglais!
George thought it was a great joke. When they went out for breakfast in the morning again everyone ran to look at them. George thought they admired him for being above prejudice.

After a pause Nellie said that she also had a letter from a sweet friend Caroline, she wanted Camilla to meet.

"She's known the tragedy of failure and the dead end on the lonely road."

Not long before, Nellie had been working in the offices of the Roseland Estate Development in Buckinghamshire. Nothing had developed. There they all sat in the naked old villa, with grass growing over the old avenues; but no new house had yet been built.

"It's all bourgeois waste and caprice anyway. Someone taking the ideas of some Frenchman, great blocks of flats with angles and courtyards, a brick prison, it won't suit England; no fireplaces, no chimney and everything laid on from a center. Suppose there's a strike! The whole place can be without fire or water or heating; the mothers and children sick and the fathers grousing. All they have to do is sabotage and hundreds of families can't get their tea or wash their faces. I've seen pictures of it in France. It's the home turned upside down. The British, Camilla, will never give up their fireplaces and their cosy little back rooms. You sit in front of the fire and look into it and you begin to relax after the day's work. You throw in your cigarette ends and your rubbish. How will they keep the place clean? You'll have matches and cigarette butts all over the floor, and where will you relax? Ah, Camilla love, there's nothing better than to come home when you can't go on anymore and brew your pot of tea and sit before the blaze and dream. With this Corbusier there'll be no relaxing and no dreaming; only a soulless measured-off engineer's world with no place for us."

She lit a fresh cigarette. Through it she murmured, "Caroline, aye! There's a beautiful soul, Camilla, who didn't see the wrongs of it. She believes in the world, she wants the world to be beautiful. She's lonely, aye, living there in a wretched room with a wicked old landlady. Ah, the landladies! And what rooms can you get in a one-street country village? So the only reality to Roseland is a broken-down villa with grassy rises and a landlady's damp cell with peeling walls. I've made her see it. You won't help the world, I said, with building stony streets of barracks with stone cells for the soul of man. They're tearing down the tenements, I said, to put the workers into prison; won't it be easy to isolate and machine-gun a workers' prison? There'll be no freedom then; and no desire for it, I said. Just watch your step and watch your neighbor. She's leaving it. She's coming here for a few days. She's not happy. No; there's another cause. A broken marriage with a dull man, a wandering man."