Sons and Daughters (9 page)

‘What do you want to be?’ asked Boots.

‘Like Mummy,’ said Gemma.

‘I see,’ said Boots gravely, ‘a woman.’

‘Yes, and with nice frocks like Mummy’s,’ said Gemma.

‘You can’t drive a racing car in a frock,’ said James.

‘Course I can, when I’m a growed woman,’ said Gemma.

The woman who wore nice frocks and was a growed woman was standing behind the window of the lounge, watching her husband and children, a little smile on her face. In the years gone by, Polly would never have believed she would end up as a suburban housewife and mother, and content to be so. But there they were, the man, the girl and the boy who belonged to her, and she asked for nothing different, nothing more sophisticated. Boots had done that to her, made a wife and mother of her, the old darling. The twins loved him, although not in the same kind of way she did. If she was less passionate now in her demands on him, she still bristled at the way some women looked at him, and crept up on him. It was absurd that at fifty-three he was still uncommonly attractive. One woman had boldly said to her, ‘My God, Polly, your husband’s got frightening sex appeal.’ ‘Well, buzz off, ducky, before I have to chop your head off,’ said Polly.

She opened the window and called.

‘Supper on the table in five minutes. But Flossie won’t stand for any of you having filthy hands. Wash yours, James, and you too, Boots.’

‘Mine aren’t filthy,’ said James. ‘Well, not much.’

‘You’ll still have to wash them, and I’ll have to wash mine,’ said Boots. He winked at Gemma. ‘That’s what comes of your mother being a growed woman, poppet.’

Gemma giggled. Polly called again.

‘I heard that, you bounder.’

It had been many years since Boots had suffered nightmarish dreams about the hideous trenches of France and Flanders during the First World War. Since the end of the conflict against Nazi Germany, he had had the occasional restless dreams of the ferocious campaign in Normandy, when the roaring guns blew men to bits. And there had been the horrendous dreams of Belsen concentration camp, of dead and dying inmates, and of faces, brutalized SS faces, uncaring faces and cold blue eyes that still mirrored a belief in the sickening ideologies of Hitler.

This night the dream woke him up. The faces, the cold eyes, the corruption. Reminders, reminders. But of what, apart from the stinking foulness of the camp and its guards? Something was ticking away in his mind, but it struck no bell.

Beside him Polly lay in the warmth of sleep. Polly. A growed woman. Witty, amusing and unfailing. A friend, a wife and a lover, as necessary to him as Emily had been.

He relaxed and drifted back to sleep.

‘So the factory’s going to turn out nylon stockings,’ said Susie over breakfast the next morning.

‘So it is, Susie, so it is,’ said Sammy.

‘And the material wasn’t black market stuff?’ said Susie.

‘What brought that up?’ asked Sammy.

‘Yes, what did?’ said Paula.

‘Beats me,’ said Sammy.

‘I think Mum’s got suspicions,’ said Paula.

‘Oh, lor’,’ said Phoebe. ‘Crikey, suspicions,’ she said.

‘I’ve been thinking since yesterday evening,’ said Susie.

‘Crikey, thinking,’ said Jimmy, ‘that’s on a par with suspicions.’

‘Mum’s got principles,’ said Paula.

‘Principles?’ said Phoebe. ‘Oh dear, what’s Dad got, then?’

‘Twice as many as anybody else,’ said Jimmy, ‘on account of twice as many being necessary to a businessman who’s always having to fight competition.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Susie, ‘that you didn’t look me in the eye, Sammy, when you were telling me yesterday evening about the auction and the Fat Man.’

‘Ah,’ said Sammy.

‘Ah-aah-ah-aaah,’ sang Paula through a mouthful of toast.

‘I think Dad’s in trouble,’ said Phoebe.

‘Sammy, what I really want to know is did you really sit on the Fat Man?’ said Susie, looking charming in a button-through flower-patterned housecoat.

‘Believe me, Susie, we really did,’ said Sammy. ‘Well, he was trying to do a black market deal on the crafty quiet, so we upped our bid fair and square.’

‘We flattened him,’ said Jimmy. ‘Mr Greenberg added his weight, the good old codger. So there you are, Mum, six walloping great bales of nylon for the factory. Thousands of nylon stockings.’

‘I’m looking at you, Jimmy,’ said Susie.

‘Crikey, looking,’ said Paula.

‘Is that special?’ asked Phoebe.

‘It is when Mum does the looking,’ said Paula.

‘Believe me, Mum, it was a fine bit of business done fair and square, as mentioned by Dad,’ said Jimmy.

‘Thousands of pairs of nylon stockings?’ said Susie.

‘Thousands, goodness me,’ said Paula.

‘Sammy, reserve six pairs for me,’ said Susie.

‘And me, and me,’ yelled Paula.

‘Then there’s Lizzy, Vi and Polly,’ said Susie.

‘And Rosie, Emma, Annabelle, Felicity and Auntie Tom Cobleigh and all,’ said Jimmy.

‘Well, as it wasn’t black market,’ said Susie, ‘the family can benefit with a clear conscience.’

‘Well, of course, Susie, and at a family discount,’ said Sammy, and looked her in the eye. Susie’s Pacific-blue left optic closed in a slow wink.

‘Crikey, now what’s happening?’ asked Phoebe.

‘Dad’s gone potty,’ said Paula.

Sammy was shouting with laughter.

Miss Lulu Saunders alighted from a bus at Herne Hill railway station at nine thirty. She looked around. This is it, lower middle class vintage, she told herself. The Party’s fixed enemy. Shame, really, that Socialism frightens them. Right, let’s storm their privet hedges. If I only make one convert, I’ll be a magician. Is magician masculine? Bound to be. What’s the feminine? Magicienne, I suppose. Here goes.

She began her round, the satchel containing about two hundred leaflets.

At the end of an hour, she’d had some quite interesting conversations with housewives who didn’t mind a chat, and some brusque invitations to go back home to Trotsky. She’d as good as made one convert, of a lady whose war-disabled husband had been awarded what she thought was a criminally rotten pension in 1944.

‘Churchill’s wartime government did that,’ said Lulu, and expounded on the infamy of Conservative attitudes towards soldiers and workers, and the benevolent generosity of the Labour Party towards one and all. It impressed the lady, and she received a leaflet with pleasure.

Lulu carried on.

At eleven, Chinese Lady answered the doorbell.

‘Good morning,’ said Lulu.

Chinese Lady surveyed the caller, a young woman in a black beret, long purple dress, pale face and dark eyes framed by spectacles.

‘Good morning,’ she said.

‘May I take up a few minutes of your time?’ said Lulu.

‘Not if you’re going to try and sell me something,’ said Chinese Lady.

‘Sell you something?’ said Lulu. ‘Not I. Not likely. Don’t go in for making a living on people’s doorsteps. That’s for plodders. Like the man from the Pru. No, I’d just like to ask if you’re a supporter of the Labour Party.’

Chinese Lady, with her fondness for respectability, considered the Labour Party a bit loud and vulgar.

‘D’you mean Socialism?’ she said.

‘The compassionate system of government,’ said Lulu.

‘What’s that mean, might I ask?’

‘Caring,’ said Lulu. ‘Caring for the poor and
needy. And the sick. And the downtrodden workers.’

‘Well, I’m sorry for anyone that’s downtrodden,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘I’ve been downtrodden myself in my time, and you look as if you are a bit. Yes, a bit like the poor and needy.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Lulu, ‘I’m not—’

‘Of course, it could be a touch of anaemia,’ said Chinese Lady sympathetically. She didn’t like to see young ladies looking a bit pale and lacking. And she didn’t like to close the door on this one, especially as her fondness for a doorstep chat had stayed with her all the way from her years in Walworth, where such sociable moments of gossip had always been enjoyable. ‘Have you tried lightly cooked liver? Lamb’s liver’s nice, and you don’t need ration coupons for it.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Lulu again, ‘but I’m not anaemic. Or poor and needy—’

‘Well, about this Socialism,’ said Chinese Lady, ‘you’re not a Bolshevik, are you? Lor’, the times I’ve worried what would happen to my family if Lenin and his Bolsheviks came and took over.’

‘Lenin’s dead, Mrs – er—’

‘I don’t know anyone’s ever told me he was,’ said Chinese Lady, ‘or if he’d stopped throwing bombs. Now, if you’re not a Bolshevik, would you like to come in? I’ll make some tea and a nice sandwich for you.’

‘Pardon?’ Lulu gaped.

‘Well, if you don’t mind me saying so, you look as if you’d like a nice sandwich, and you can meet
my husband. He used to work for the Government, and can tell you a lot about what them politicians get up to, and what Mr Churchill thinks of Lenin. My family’s very admiring of Mr Churchill.’

‘Because of his record as our wartime leader?’ said Lulu. ‘But he’s a back number now. Just as well—’

‘D’you mean like last week’s Sunday papers?’ said Chinese Lady.

‘You could put it like that,’ said Lulu. ‘Out of date, you know. Still a Victorian. And a bit of a blimp. Good thing the country got rid of him. Hope he—’

‘Lor’, I never heard the like,’ said Chinese Lady, ‘and I don’t like listening to it at my own front door, it’s downright scandalous. You sure you’re not a Bolshevik?’

‘I’m a modern Socialist,’ said Lulu, ‘and I—’

‘What’s a modern Socialist, might I ask?’

‘One dedicated to practical help for the downtrodden—’

‘I don’t know any downtrodden,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘I used to know a lot, but wages being a lot better now, no-one ought to be downtrodden.’

‘It’s the capitalistic bosses who—’

‘I suppose you work for one like that,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘No wonder you look a bit starved and chronic. Still, you’re young yet, and I expect you can get a better job.’

Lulu, getting a bit steamed up about being pitied, said, ‘I’m a volunteer worker for the Young Socialists. We’re—’

‘I don’t know I like young people getting mixed up with Bolsheviks,’ said Chinese Lady, frowning.

Silly old cow, thought Lulu, she’s barmy.

‘Nothing to do with Bolsheviks,’ she said. ‘The Bolshevist Party became the Communist Party. Massacred Hitler’s Nazis. Relieved the world of them. What the Labour Party—’

‘Me and my family wouldn’t want anything to do with them Communists,’ said Chinese Lady, just about ready now to bid the caller goodbye.

‘I’m getting nowhere,’ said Lulu, just about ready herself now to file this barmy old biddy as a lost cause. ‘You’re not hearing what I’m saying. What the Labour Party in this country would like to do, is make sure you, me and everyone else get a fair deal. To start with, relieving it of the bosses who still think they’re God Almighty.’

‘Well, I never did,’ said Chinese Lady, ‘if I wasn’t standing in the way like I am, that blasphemy would of jumped straight through my open door and gone all over my house. I’d best close the door right away. Good morning, young lady.’

The door closed. Lulu, beefed up, gave herself the satisfaction of shoving not one, but three leaflets through the letter box before striding off.

In the kitchen, Mr Finch, who had come in from a stint in the garden and was making coffee, said, ‘Who was that, Maisie, someone interesting?’

‘Oh, just some poor starved girl who liked the Labour Party, but had some funny ideas about the Bolsheviks,’ said Chinese Lady.

‘Ah, the Bolsheviks,’ said Mr Finch and smiled. ‘Very interesting.’

‘Upsetting, more like,’ said Chinese Lady.

‘Well, how did you make out today?’ asked Paul when Lulu arrived back at five o’clock.

‘I think I made three middle-class converts,’ said Lulu, dumping the empty satchel.

‘That all? Just three in a day?’

‘Three middle-class converts in a day I count as a triumph,’ said Lulu. ‘I lost out badly on one silly old has-been. Kept asking me if I was a Bolshevik. Bolshevik, would you mind. In this day and age. Still, give her her due. She stuck to her guns. Stayed on her barmy level from start to finish.’

‘You get characters, even among middle-class women,’ said Paul, ‘and barmy is more interesting than boring.’

‘I haven’t asked,’ said Lulu, ‘but what’s your background?’

‘Respectable,’ said Paul.

‘Hard luck, mate, I had some of that,’ said Lulu. ‘All the time my mother was alive. By the way, you owe me one and tuppence for bus fares.’

‘Right,’ said Paul, and settled up from the petty-cash box. ‘By the way, the satchel belongs on the doorpeg, not on the floor.’

‘Who’s a bloody fusspot?’ asked Lulu.

‘Me,’ said Paul.

‘That grin on your face labels you,’ said Lulu, ‘as a male who kids himself he’s superior.’

‘Still, we’re in the groove, you and me,’ said Paul, ‘we’re on an equal footing.’

‘Is that a fact? Fill me in,’ said Lulu.

‘You’re as superior as I am,’ said Paul.

‘You’re killing me,’ said Lulu, and chucked the satchel at him.

Before that day was out, the bales of nylon were safely lodged in the stockroom at Sammy’s factory at Belsize Park, north-west London. Gertie Roper, chargehand and faithful servant before the Second World War, all through the war and now post-war, was getting on a bit, but jumped about like a two-year-old at the prospect of the factory turning out nylon stockings.

‘But we got to have a machine first,’ she said to Tommy, factory manager.

‘All in hand, Gertie,’ said Tommy.

‘Vell, Gertie my dear, ain’t I pointed Sammy at vhat is just the job?’ said Mr Greenberg, whose stepsons had cheerfully borne the burden of hefting the bales into the factory from the ‘Greenberg & Sons’ furniture van, once in ancient times an LGOC omnibus. ‘As Tommy says, all in hand, ain’t it?’

‘And ain’t I now a happy woman?’ said Gertie, whose husband Bert was assistant manager and maintenance man. ‘How did we get hold of such large bales, Mister Tommy?’

‘Fair and square, wasn’t it, Eli?’ said Tommy.

‘Sammy’s exact vords,’ said Mr Greenberg.