England's Lane (17 page)

“ … tea, really. Just on my way there—cafeteria, you know. It's just down the, um … well I expect you know where it, uh …
Nice cup of tea, thought that would be nice. This thing, this nightgown thing, I just saw it hanging there, and er …”

“Hello, Stan. How lovely to see you. Not often we can escape from the Lane, is it? Only on the blessed and sacred half-day closing. Except for Jim, of course. He never closes. He'd stay open all through the night if he thought there'd be any customers. How are you?”

“Keeping nicely, I thank you Milly. Kind of you to inquire. And yourself? Seem to be blooming, as ever. Saw it just hanging there, you know—and then I thought that Jane, Janey—you know, Janey, my wife, you remember—always was partial to that particular color. Wore it on our wedding day, matter of fact. Just struck me out of the blue, sort of style.”

“It seemed very elegant, from what little I could see of it. Are you going to buy it for her, then? How terribly sweet.”

He looked at her like a culprit in an orchard whose jersey was bulging with freshly scrumped pippins.

“Buy it …? Well—hadn't really, um … I'm not really, um … versed, you know. Not very good at … all this sort of gubbins.”

Milly was smiling encouragingly, though closing her eyes and silently sighing: what is it about men, actually? Why always must they be so very actively hopeless? With, of course, the one great glorious exception (and just thinking this, she was pleased to feel that keenest little surge of excitement rippling right into her).

“Maybe I might be able to advise …? Perfectly happy to, Stan—if you think I could be of any … I mean to say, we all of us need a little bit of help, don't we? Time to time. If something is beyond our ken. Now are you aware of her size? That's the prime thing. Listen—speaking as a member of the fairer sex, I'll let you into a little secret, shall I Stan?”

He gazed at her half-expectantly.

“Secret …?”

“Mm. I just can't tell you how terribly important it is in such delicate matters as these to make sure that the sizing's bang on. Too large, and a woman will be quite convinced that you see her as being fat. Too small, and she'll believe that she must be fatter than ideally you would like her to be. And nothing you can say, I'm afraid, will persuade her otherwise. Awful, isn't it? Neuroses, you see. It affects every single one of us, silly ninnies that we are. It really is rather a minefield. You poor things. I do quite sympathize.”

“Twenty-six, I think … Can't be sure.”

Milly regarded him.

“Twenty-six what, Stan? I mean to say—although I haven't actually seen Jane for quite a long while, I hardly think she can be a size 26—that would put her on a par with Tessie O'Shea and Bessie Bunter. Both of them bundled up together.”

“No no—that's her waist, I think. Used to be, anyway. Might be wrong. But I couldn't tell you all the other bits, not for the life of me. Look—I'm not sure I'll bother, you know. Like I say—I was just really on my way to have a nice cup of tea, and very possibly a portion of fruitcake. I just saw it hanging there, that's all. And Milly—you wouldn't, I don't suppose, um … I mean, thousand things to see to, I expect, but er … you wouldn't by any chance care for, maybe, a um …?”

“If you are inviting me to take tea with you, Stan, then I can think of absolutely nothing more divine on earth. I'm completely parched. But honestly, though—I really do mean it. If you'd like me to … I mean it's no bother Stan, you know, no bother at all. I can put it on, if you like, and then you can sort of see how it might look on her. Yes? I'm a size 12. Could that be more or less right, do you think? Is she my sort of size and shape, Jane …? I honestly can't remember, it's been that long …”

Stan now was openly staring at her.

“Your size, yeh more or less, I suppose. Not really your, er—shape though, I wouldn't have said. She's more sort of … don't know. Hard to say. Can't remember. Straight up, maybe …”

“I see … Well I'll just slip it on for you, shall I? Can you just hold my coat for me for a minute? Thanks, Stan. Oh it is nice, isn't it …? Beautiful fabric. And such a pretty shade. There! What do you think? I'm your very own model. You'll have to ignore the shoes and everything, though. Not quite designed for the boudoir. Shall I twirl …?”

Stan still was openly staring at her. And then he just about managed to say:

“Lovely …”

“It is, isn't it? It really is. Oh gosh—eighty-nine and eleven, though …! Still, it is a quality garment. You can certainly see that. What do you think …?”

“I think … no, I don't really think so. Thanks, Milly, for all the, er … looks lovely on you, it really does, but I think I'll leave it, you know. Now I come to look at it—now I come to see the thing, I don't think she'd … well I just don't really think it's her, somehow.”

“All right then, Stan. You know best. I'll just slip it back. Anyway—you can always get it later, if you change your mind. They don't shut till five-thirty, so you've got heaps of time. Now then—is your offer of a cup of tea still open? It is? Oh splendid. Well then lead me to it—I can't tell you how that will so hit the spot.”

They walked the short distance through ladies' coats and nursery things to the broad and handsome entrance to the cafeteria—very lovely, to Milly's eyes, the walls and reception counter still clad in the original 1930s rosewood veneer and gleaming streamlined chromium fittings—not unlike, it has just occurred to me, a smaller version of the Odeon just down the road. How awful if either had been bombed in the war. Can you honestly imagine a life without
John Barnes or the local fleapit? Dreadful. Now on the left, well—cafeteria is really too humble a word for the section on the left: proper and crisp white napery, and a single pink carnation with a sprig of fern in a silver flute on every single table: terribly smart. Waitresses quite like the old wartime nippies, all in black, with snowy pinnies and token mob-caps Kirbigripped to their nets and perms. Some of them I remember from so long ago: must be perfectly ancient by now—and yet still they're all scooting about the place, smiling and scowling according to temperament and the state of their feet, the make-up never less than caked—orangey powder and thin and puckered mouths smarmed over with bright red lipstick painted into an optimistic bow that far exceeds the contours of their nearly vanished lips: maybe the use of cosmetics is as strictly regulated as the code for uniform. Anyway—this is much more of a restaurant than anything (and many's the time I've enjoyed a more than adequate plaice, chips and peas here: very fresh, beautifully breadcrumbed, and not at all bad value at five-and-six, all things considered; Paul adores it, whenever I take him). The section to the right, however—well this is a far more modern and casual sort of a thing altogether: lemon and sky Formica tables, pale-green and cream linoleum tiles—and it's all this new “self service” idea where you slide a tray along a shelf sort of thing—not a shelf, not really, but I don't know what else you'd call it—and select whatever it is you want from all these see-through plastic boxes: all so very contemporary. That's quite the word at the moment, contemporary. Normally it's applied to that rather funny new furniture and so on—a chair that looks more like a raffia dog basket on these very thin and spindly black metal legs: far from cozy-looking. Or a side table, coffee table they call it, in the shape of an artist's palette; coat hooks and magazine racks with all differently colored balls on the ends of them, don't ask me why. The things they think of. It's all very
gay, I've no doubt of it, but not honestly to my taste—I much prefer the traditional and altogether more comfortable sort of thing.

Anyway—Stan is ahead of me in the queue, and whether I like it or not I'm looking for the first time at the back of his neck. I think he must go to the same awful barber as Jim—that dark and cheap little place just opposite Chalk Farm tube station, an area I wouldn't ever choose to visit, not if I could help it; certainly that neck is clippered, and it does seem rather raw. Nor, now I come to think of it, have I ever before seen him in a coat and hat and out and about. I think in everyone's minds, you know, the people in the Lane over time have gradually evolved into essentially no more than the most visible component of the shops they are running: one is unthinkable without the other, and it is strangeness itself to see them apart. Oh dear … there seems to be a blockage in the queue: we're not even budging, and I'm very sick of looking at a pyramid of Lyons' Individual Fruit Pies and this largish glass tank of perfectly ordinary milk, though churned up constantly by some or other sort of a device in order to make it appear so very temptingly bubbly, in the manner of a milkshake, I suppose—which, I see from the tariff, would cost you a whole shilling more, which does seem to me to be slightly excessive. So anyway … I think I handled the whole business of the negligee, or whatever you would like to call the thing, really fairly satisfactorily—not too badly, I'd consider. Well I was so completely thrown—didn't know what to say, really. Thank the Lord, though, that it hadn't been the other way around—because just imagine if Stan had happened along at the very moment I had been standing before a full-length mirror and holding in front of me a pair of white and frilly vaudeville knickers …! And was he really thinking of buying that perfectly hideous thing for Jane? It was horrid, when it actually came to the feel—clung to my clothes very clammily: clearly synthetic, and not nice at all—not to say
daylight robbery at even half the price, I should have said. Mind you, from what I've heard—admittedly at third hand from someone who had been talking to the beastly Mrs. Goodrich (and I know I shouldn't listen)—Jane, his wife, poor man, she doesn't even trouble to get dressed at all, these days. Doesn't even take the pins out of her hair—and that it's Stan who has to see to poor little Anthony. Cooking, cleaning, shopping—and all this on top of the sweetshop. Can that really be true? I think I'm going to have to find out, if ever we can pay for our teas and get settled at a table. But if it is true, if she really is, Jane, just lounging about the house all day in her nightclothes … well possibly buying that gown thing was a genuine intention after all. Well of course it was—what am I thinking? It had to be. Why else would Mr. Miller the confectioner be in the middle of John Barnes' lingerie department and staring at a pink nylon ladies' nightgown? An impetuous gift for his vampish fancy woman whom he keeps in some considerable style in a St. John's Wood villa? I hardly think so, do you? Not our Stan.

“Gosh—
finally
 …!” Milly was laughing, as she placed on a table quite close to the window her cup of tea and two McVitie's digestive biscuits, wrapped in printed cellophane. And then she glanced about her in a vague sort of a way for somewhere to put this mottled brown Bakelite tray, eventually leaning it against the table leg. “What on earth was the hold-up, Stan? I was imagining I'd die of old age before I even got to drinking my tea. I thought it was supposed to be quick, all this ‘self service' business. I thought that was meant to be the idea.”

Stan was sitting opposite her and unwrapping his briquette of fruitcake.

“Some woman. Forgot her purse. Wanted to write them a check.”

“What—for a cup of tea? I don't believe it.”

“And a packet of Ryvita …”

“Oh but still! A check! How was it resolved? Silly woman.”

“Well … I paid for her, in the end. Wasn't much. Nearly in tears she was, poor old thing.”

Milly had been stirring her tea, but she stopped that now.

“Did you really do that, Stan? Oh I think that's just so sweet.”

Stan looked down and wagged his head.

“Nothing. Only a bob or so. She did offer to put back the Ryvita, but I said I wouldn't hear of it …”

“Do you know, I wasn't aware of any of this. Must have been miles away. Well anyway, Stan, I'm sure she must have been terribly grateful to you. Is that her over there …? Oh gosh—she's waving, I think … how ghastly …”

“That's her, yes. Don't look over. Wanted my address. Pay me back. I said to her, listen dear, it's hardly worth the stamp and the envelope.”

“Well maybe she'll come into your shop one day. Tea's divine …”

“I think we both of us needed a cuppa, didn't we Milly? Yes, you never know. Maybe she will …”

“So tell me, Stan—golly it's just simply ages since we had a chat, isn't it really? You're always so busy in the shop, I never like to detain you.”

“Never too busy for you, Milly. You detain me as long as you wish. No, well—I'm not too bad. You know. Anthony—he can be a bit of a handful, of course, but Lord knows it's not his fault. Goodnatured lad. Don't begrudge him, not at all. Sometimes it gets a bit on top of you. Can't think what I'd do without your Paul, though. What a boy he is, ay? Lovely boy, Paul. Should be proud.”

Milly was smiling widely at the mention of his name.

“They're very good friends aren't they, the two of them? And I'm so pleased they are. And, um … how is Anthony, Stan? I mean—is he …?”

“Well as can be expected. That's all the doctors give you. That's all you get. So you don't know, do you? You just don't know. Not getting any worse, fairly sure of that. But whether he'll ever, well … how it all turns out in the long run—anyone's guess. They say that medically they're making progress all the time, but … Strides, is what they say. Making great strides. That's what I'm always being told. Yes well … but you don't ever really see the benefit …”

“Must be so difficult for you. For you both. As parents, I mean. And Jane … how's she keeping? Not been well, I hear …”