England's Lane (8 page)

But just thinking about it all now, you know … nearly all of the windows in the Lane—they're really rather wonderful, in their funny little ways. The nighties and stockings and petticoats in Marion's all got up as if they're just about to fly away—Bona, of course, with all these very strange packets of things, covered in seals and foreign languages. Some of them aren't even written in a recognizable alphabet. They're mostly, apparently—or at least that's what
the gentleman in there was telling me one time—Jewish sorts of things … what do they call it? Hebrew sort of writing, I think it is. There are quite a few Jewish people living around here now—Swiss Cottage mainly, some reason or other. Older people—all of them refugees from that blessed Hitler person. What a villain. There really does seem to be no end to the trouble that man continues to cause us all. Jim says he can't understand it: how can they bring themselves to go into Bona? It's run by a b-word Nazi. No Jim, I say to him, no—they're Swiss, I'm fairly sure. Austrian, conceivably—but definitely not Nazis, for heaven's sake: how can they be? They're not even German. They're all of them the same, is what he says then: they're all of them the b-word same: wouldn't trust a man jack of them. Oh dear dear. Well … that's my Jim for you, I'm afraid. More or less sums him up. And I hardly think he's alone. That's the trouble.

And then there's Dent's the fish shop, with its ranks of wet and glimmering shimmers of the sea. And in the summer—the colors of all those mountains of fruit on the pavement outside Levy's. And Miller's too, the sweetshop—that's always quite a fine show. But oh dear—poor Stan. I really don't know how he copes with it. With Anthony the way he is, and everything. I can't help wondering sometimes whether I'd be able to handle it all myself, if Paul were … well, you know. If he had that. God—I feel like I might be struck down dead for even thinking it. And Jane, his wife, I never ever see her. She's never in the shop, or anything. I don't think I've seen her for years. I do know she's not been well, but Stan … he never mentions it. Doesn't say anything. Well men—they don't ever, do they? I hope he knows though that if he ever does need help, he only has to ask. But I was proud, so very proud of Paul, when he took up with little Anthony a couple of terms ago. Like my shining knight. But I don't think that's it at all, now: the two of them genuinely
seem to be the very best of friends, and that is truly a blessing. I know that Stan thinks so, anyway. And in his window—so many tempting sweets and chocolates (if only I didn't so very easily put on weight!) and posters for cigarettes that are kind to your throat. I used sometimes to have a Craven “A” of an evening, but if I'm honest it was only really because I do think those wonderful women in the films always look so very poised and elegant when they lower their eyelids and slowly blow out that long blue plume of smoke … Joan Fontaine, Rita Hayworth, Katherine Hepburn. Those. I can't say I like it, though—I never could inhale, I'd die of choking. And I always had to have a Trebor's mint, to take away the taste. Jim, of course—he never stops. If he isn't stubbing one out he's scraping a Vesta to light up another. I've told him repeatedly that it can't be good for him and he just puffs the smoke right into my face and he says to me “So what? At my age, there's nothing that's good for me.” His attitude, that attitude of his, it really can't be helpful to Paul. It's all wrong. When there are young people about, I think you just have to be more positive and brave, to be seen to meet life's challenges head-on. Set an example, I suppose is what I mean.

Oh God—I'm suddenly frozen to the marrow. And it's not just me hanging about in the street, looking at tins of soup like a lemon—it's this thin and silly coat I'm wearing. November now, and it's not at all up to it. Much more of a spring coatee, this one is. My proper gaberdine with the quilted lining … well that's seen better days. But I've bought this length of wonderful tweed—got it from John Barnes, oh, months ago now. Scottish it is, and very good quality. And what I think will be a very smart and toning lining with a stripe to it. Quite fetching. I've had the pattern propped up on the sewing machine for Lord knows how long. If I don't get a move on, the winter will be over. I've got the thread—I've even got the buttons, so there's no excuse at all. Leather-covered, they are: look like little footballs.

And yes I suppose I can hardly be surprised that there is Mrs. Goodrich, bold as brass as usual—standing four-square at the center of the shop, and somehow managing almost to fill it. She always plants her wicker basket on top of the marble counter, just by the scales and the bacon slicer. As if she's establishing a kingdom—her very own sort of territory, or something. Marking out her area. I sometimes imagine, you know, that there somehow has to be a fleet of Mrs. Goodriches, a marching army of them—for how else could she ensure that no conversation, nothing that ever goes on (or anyway is said to) can pass unheard or unwitnessed? For it really does seem, sometimes, as if the woman is just simply everywhere. It's only a small street, England's Lane, and there's a limit, you'd think, to the number of times in a day when you need to pop out to the shops … and yet I can hardly recall a time when I haven't encountered her somewhere. And although I don't for a moment believe it to be true, sometimes it can even appear as if she's actually following you from place to place. Keeping an eye on you. “Ah,” she'll always say—her face so smug, and packed with secrets, real or imagined. “Mrs. Stammer. So we meet again.” And then some or other patronizing comment concerning the shop.

“Ah—Mrs. Stammer. So we meet again. And how fares the world of ironmongery? Continuing to prosper, I very much hope. Edie and I were just explaining to young Doreen here the necessity of a reliable laxative.”

Edie, behind the counter, smiled and slowly shook her head, while Doreen—the trainee at Amy's the hairdresser, Milly remembered now—rolled up her eyes before closing them tightly.

“So embarrassing …” she barely murmured. “I only came in here for some Quaker Oats.”

“Nothing embarrassing about keeping regular,” said Mrs. Goodrich, rather sternly. “When you get to my age, you'll know all about it.
Essential to inner cleanliness. Ex-Lax is next to useless. Won't shift anything. Senna pods—they'll see to you properly. And it's All-Bran you're wanting, not Quaker Oats. I swear by it. All-Bran is your man, believe you me.”

I think, thought Milly, that the hairstyle young Doreen is affecting—and young she very surely is, can only be seventeen at the outside—they are calling it a “beehive.” I saw it in
Woman's Own
. I wonder if Gwendoline did it for her. Not her usual approach. Looks more like candyfloss than hair—a great deal of backcombing, I should have said … can't be good for your ends … ton of lacquer, looks like. And what a lot of make-up around her eyes. Like a panda.

“Never mind, Doreen,” Milly was laughing, as she leaned on the counter, unknotting her scarf. “We'll change the subject, shall we? What very smart slacks you're wearing. Quarter of Green Label when you're ready, Edie.”

“They're not ‘slacks,'” muttered Doreen moodily, looking down at her legs and spreading her palms. “They're ski pants. They're the latest.”

“Are they, dear?” said Milly brightly. “And there was I thinking slacks were the latest. I thought they had taken over from jeans. Silly me. They certainly look like slacks. Why aren't they slacks, in fact, Doreen? And two pounds of granulated, Edie.”

“Slacks,” sighed Doreen, rapping the counter with an impatient red fingernail, “don't have these little straps, see? The little straps that go under your feet.”

Mrs. Goodrich was also sighing. “Whatever next? Little straps that go under your feet! You'd never catch me in trousers.”

“They're not
trousers
 …!” Doreen nearly was squawking.

“We know, Doreen,” said Milly placatingly. “They're ski pants. And very nice they are too. And where do you ski, dear? Primrose Hill?”

“
Christ
 …”

“Now now,” snapped Mrs. Goodrich. “Language. I won't have language.”

“Can I just buy my Quaker Oats?” Doreen pleaded with Edie. “It's all I came in here for.”

“Here you are, Doreen love. On your Mum's slate, eh?”

Doreen nodded, grabbed the packet, and looking only at the floor, quickly made it to the door.

“Young
people
 …!” spat Mrs. Goodrich, with scorn.

“Mustard powder, please Edie,” said Milly, consulting her list. “Small tin. You make them sound like a plague of vermin, Mrs. Goodrich.”

“Not far short. The more I look around me, the gladder I am not to be encumbered. I made a conscious decision. I said to my Colin right at the outset—Colin, I said: I have not the slightest intention of spending the best years of my life up to my elbows in nappies and ordure and kowtowing to a bawling brat. Oh no. Not me. I made a conscious decision.”

“You don't know what you're missing, Mrs. Goodrich. Packet of lard and the large drum of Cerebos, and I think that's all of it, Edie.”

“On the contrary. What I am missing, Mrs. Stammer, is the likes of that Doreen strumpet who no doubt by now is already off gallivanting with yet another man. They may be terribly sweet when they're toddlers, oh yes maybe—but that's what they grow up into. There's what you are left to deal with. I pity that one's mother.”

“She's not so bad …” Edie said quietly—looking now nervously from Milly to Mrs. Goodrich.

Milly wasn't really listening to anybody now because she had just caught sight of the cardboard box on the counter, crudely wrapped in a scrap of last year's rubbed and creased Christmas paper, alive with robins and snowballs, a slot gouged into its lid. The sight of
it depressed her terribly because this year it was Milly's turn to be in charge of the festive party, and apart from the gathering together of all the food and drink donations, there was always a collection box stationed somewhere prominent for the inevitable extras—decorations, crackers, little token presents for the kiddies, on top of all the rest of the palaver. This year, though, it had been decided—and which idiot was it, Milly would dearly love to know, who came to so foolish a decision?—that there should be a separate box in every single shop the length of the Lane. She herself with reluctance had dressed up an old Price's candle carton and placed it on the counter at Stammer's, just by the string dispenser. Two weeks ago she did that, and still it was empty. This was the trouble—and why could they not have foreseen it? Everyone will ignore each of the boxes, claiming they have already given to another one. The net result will be zero: she felt it in her bones.

“Not so
bad
 …!” hooted Mrs. Goodrich. “What—
Doreen
? She's one of the very worst, she is. No respect for her betters. Man-mad, of course.” And she puffed up the scarf at her throat, so as to make it clear that she meant what she said.

“How much do I owe you, Edie? I'm sure that can't be true, Mrs. Goodrich.”

“Oh you're sure, are you? Well, Mrs. Stammer, I am here to tell you that you are very wrong. Only just broken up with that teddy boy—what was his name? What was his name, Edie? You know the one. Works in the garage in Winchester Road. Anyway—name doesn't matter. And he was up to no good, you just had to look at him. Hair like a pop star, tight trousers. Those things on his face—what are they? Sideboards. Well that lasted no time—but now our Doreen has very much bigger fish to fry, from what I see and hear. Oh yes. Her current tastes seem to be running to rather the more mature sort of gentleman. The sort with a bit of money behind him.”

“Oh Mrs. Goodrich …!” Milly couldn't help but giggle. “Honestly—where do you get it all from? Do you make it up, I wonder? What do you think, Edie? Do you think she makes it all up?”

Edie now seemed almost to be cowering away from something to come.

“That'll be nine and tenpence ha'penny please, Mrs. Stammer.”

Milly passed across to her a ten-shilling note and stowed away everything into her basket. Suddenly keen to be back at home now, cozy in the warmth of her kitchen and making herself a good strong cup of tea, she had already become careless of Mrs. Goodrich beside her—happily unaware of the narrowing of her eyes, a new and purposeful tightness at the mouth. And then, with relish, a slip of wet tongue was darting in and out of it.

“Well you can think I'm making it up if you want to,” Mrs. Goodrich was huffing, her voice growing steadily more threatening. “That is your privilege, I'm sure. But if the gentleman Doreen was seen with coming out of an X-certificate and doubtless very bawdy screening at the Swiss Cottage Odeon just this last Friday evening and then getting into a taxi with him, if you please—if that gentleman wasn't the greatly esteemed husband and father Mr. Barton, our family butcher … well then it was someone who very much looked like him, I can assure you of that. Might it conceivably be his twin brother, Mrs. Stammer, do you imagine …?”

A fleeting and malign twisting of triumph was swiped across the press of Mrs. Goodrich's lips, her small eyes bright with satisfaction at the result of her goring (its surgical precision, its undoubted effect). Edie looked away as Milly, suddenly flushed, turned upon Mrs. Goodrich a shocked and affronted face—and then she felt the heat in her cheeks quickly fade into pale. She had to go, quickly and immediately, and so she strode toward the door with unbending purpose, not at all aware of Edie calling out after her about a penny-ha'penny
change. And then she just stopped. Her hand was frozen, reaching for the handle on the door, and then she just stopped abruptly. Milly was only sort of aware of Edie asking her now if she was quite all right, but still grimly she focused on the reverse of the sign hanging against the glass, not smiling at it this time, but reading it with care, over and over. “Sorry! We are closed—even for the sale of Lyons' Cakes.” It was not the collection of her change, though, that was making her pause, but a pain—more than a throb—deep down and within her. Milly was hardly a one to give in to such things: an active person—hadn't she said this a thousand times?—an active person has to expect the odd little ache, the occasional twinge. It'll go away by morning—hadn't she said this a thousand times?—and always her comforting homily had proved to be true. But this one, this particular pain she had had before. Just yesterday, as a matter of fact. And now it was back. This gnawing then stab that is grabbing her, this sickly convulsion, well … it hadn't gone away by morning.