The Past and Other Lies (27 page)

‘Oh I don’t think I can,’ she said, looking to Matthew for assistance but he, she was fairly certain, had only had one muffin and less than half a slice of gingerbread. The two old ladies had themselves barely nibbled a teacake each. There was a lot of food left over. ‘Well, perhaps just a small one?’ she suggested helplessly, took the smallest muffin and placed it on her plate.

That Mrs Lake and Aunt Daisy had been expecting her—and possibly her entire family—was evident from the quantity of tea they had laid out. Mrs Lake had triumphantly wheeled the trolley in from the kitchen only seconds after she and Matthew had stepped into the lounge to share the happy news.

‘How marvellous! Daisy, isn’t it marvellous?’ Mrs Lake had exclaimed, turning to her elder sister.

‘Marvellous!’ agreed Aunt Daisy beaming at them. ‘You will join us for tea?’

Bertha took a small nibble of her second muffin and looked up into the radiant faces of Mrs Lake and Aunt Daisy who were perched side by side on the settee. Matthew, on a chair, was smiling brightly at her. She swallowed her mouthful with difficulty and smiled brightly back.

In the hallway, a huge grandfather clock ticked noisily. And then it ticked again. And again. The silence grew until very soon it had filled the whole of the tiny lounge so that there was hardly space enough to take a breath. Bertha focused on the plate balanced on her lap and prepared to take another mouthful of muffin, even though the crumbs of her last mouthful were clogging her throat.

Would she be living here, in this house? The dimly lit room they sat in was so crammed to bursting with heavy Victorian furniture that there was barely room for the four of them to sit.

‘You will be glad to leave the telephone room, I expect, Miss Flaxheed?’ said Mrs Lake suddenly, and Bertha looked up.

‘Oh, the exchange! Yes, I—’ she began automatically, and then she paused.

That was a rather big assumption, wasn’t it? That she disliked the world of business and was just waiting for the excuse to leave paid employment forever? Then she thought of the endless hours she had spent perched on a high stool speaking into a transmitter that flattened her hairstyle and gave her a sore ear, and of the endless callers who either treated her like she was a machine or were rude to her. And she thought of Miss Crisp, creeping around the switchroom like a belligerent spirit, and Elsie, who was stuck with Bernie; of Nellie who was fortunate to be working at the West Western at all, and of poor Nancy, widowed with a little girl. What future did any of them have?

Her reply was emphatic. ‘Yes, indeed, I shall be very glad to leave. And very glad to take up my new duties and responsibilities,’ she added as an afterthought, and saw Matthew nod approvingly.

‘Telephones are such fearsome beasts, of course,’ announced Aunt Daisy, with a glance at Mrs Lake for confirmation. ‘We do not have one here as we have no need for one, and I feel sure they are not quite respectable nor healthy either.’

Bertha smiled tightly because she knew all this, Aunt Daisy having said the very same thing on her previous visit.

Mrs Lake and her elder sister were as alike as two sisters divided by seven years in age and a lifetime of marriage and motherhood for one, and spinsterhood and paid employment for the other, could be. They were perhaps in their late sixties and early seventies, both tiny of frame with child-sized hands, thin-faced with long narrow noses, their wispy grey hair tied up in a neat high bun. They both dressed in heavy black crinoline skirts that rustled at every movement and high-collared white blouses. By comparison, Miss Crisp seemed the height of fashion.

The two sisters operated as a team, so that it was a constant challenge to remember which was which. One would open a door, the other would pull the trolley through, one would hold up the plate, the other would cut the cake and place the slice on the plate. It all happened wordlessly and seamlessly. They both perched on the edge of an overstuffed maroon leather settee and stared at her in unblinking silence.

‘These muffins are delicious,’ Bertha said, and Mrs Lake and Aunt Daisy looked collectively pleased.

‘We made them specially,’ confided Mrs Lake and Bertha thought, Supposing I had turned Matthew down?

‘I do like a good muffin,’ she replied.

‘You’ll soon be making your own,’ observed Matthew proudly as though he had offered to show her how to drive or had made her captain of a cricket team.

The clock chimed the hour loudly and for seven counts no one had to say anything at all. Seven o’clock. They had been here one hour.

‘And what about your own people, my dear?’ said Mrs Lake abruptly, her tea cup poised in mid-air halfway between saucer and mouth.

‘Yes indeed, you’ll be wanting to tell your own people the wonderful news,’ agreed Aunt Daisy, and the way they said Your Own People made Bertha feel as though she were of some other race entirely rather than just Bertha Flaxheed of Wells Lane on the other side of High Street.

‘Well, yes, I expect I shall tell them,’ she replied. ‘You must come over to tea on Sunday, Matthew, and we shall tell them then.’

And this was such an odd, such a significant thing to do—arranging for your new fiance to come to tea so that you could tell your parents you were engaged to be married—that for a moment the room, the plate, the muffin in her hand, the two little old ladies leaning eagerly towards, seemed quite unreal.

Then she saw that her fiance was Mr Matthew Lake of the post office whom Mum and Dad had already met and whom they had thought rather old and had said very little to, and suddenly it all seemed very real indeed.

‘Yes, that would be very nice,’ said Matthew, and he didn’t appear nervous at the prospect.

Now that tea had been settled, they plunged into another silence until Matthew finally said, ‘Well, perhaps we had better be getting along.’

‘Yes, yes indeed, we must,’ Bertha agreed, putting down her plate.

‘Oh, but Miss Flaxheed hasn’t finished her muffin, Matthew.’

‘That’s alright, really.’ Bertha was already on her feet.

‘Don’t want to spoil our fish supper,’ agreed Matthew.

Oh, they were going to Pontison’s after all.

Aunt Daisy went out to the hallway and retrieved their jackets. ‘Don’t tire Miss Flaxheed out, Matthew,’ she said in a chiding manner.

‘Yes, you mind Miss Flaxheed gets home at a respectable hour, Matthew dear,’ agreed Mrs Lake, holding out Bertha’s jacket.

‘Now then, Mother, we’re only going for a fish supper at Pontison’s then I shall escort her straight home. Ready, my dear?’

Bertha nodded and made for the front door. How, she wondered, did you say goodbye to your future mother-in-law and her elder sister? Her mind baulked at the idea of kissing them. She turned as she reached the door, smiled as brightly as she could, and waved a cheery farewell. ‘Thanks ever so much. Goodbye,’ she said, and Mrs Lake and Aunt Daisy smiled brightly back and waved goodbye. Bertha stumbled out into the cool night air and made her way quickly along the path to the gate.

‘Well. This is lovely, isn’t it?’ said Matthew as they walked arm in arm back along Oakton Way.

‘Yes, lovely,’ said Bertha.

Sunday came around, as Sundays do, very quickly indeed—quicker, in fact, than most, because this was a Sunday filled with nervous trepidation.

Bertha had remained steadfastly silent on the subject of engagements for forty-eight hours. Not that either of her parents appeared to have noticed the fact, Dad’s attention being entirely taken up with the curious machinations of the local council with whom he had become increasingly obsessed to the point of considering standing for election himself, and Mum’s time being taken up with The Saving of Janie, her sister’s eldest, who had got herself in the family way by some young man at the factory who looked in no hurry to marry her. Amid such uproar, a secret betrothal and the appearance of an engagement ring on the finger of their own eldest daughter went entirely unnoticed.

And so be it, thought Bertha. She certainly did not need their approval any more than Jemima had sought their approval to marry Ronnie. Jem had simply come home late one evening and mentioned it casually over breakfast the following morning, right between the first pot of tea and the arrival of the Sunday paper. Then she had flounced out and acted like Lady Muck all the rest of the day and Dad had been absolutely furious. But there was little he could have done about it because it had already happened. It was soon after that he had begun to get interested in the local council.

No, announcing your engagement so casually over Sunday breakfast, without your intended even being there, was not quite right, Bertha decided. She and Matthew would do it properly and respectably and everyone would be glad and congratulations would be offered and toasts made and perhaps Dad would pour them all a glass of sherry. And the best part was that Jemima and Ronnie would be there too, because they usually came to Sunday tea if they weren’t doing something more important. And of course she would make it absolutely clear that Matthew had Prospects, that he Owned his Own House and was Comfortable. Ronnie and Jemima lived in a dreary little flat above the butcher’s in High Street. She had only visited the place once. It had smelled of sawdust and fresh meat.

Matthew arrived as the clock on the mantelpiece struck four and Bertha, who had been brazenly studying the wedding announcements in the
Gazette
, looked up and met Dad’s eye.

Dad’s expression said,
Punctual—I like a fella to be punctual
, which was the sort of thing Dad did say, but he could just as easily have said,
Ay ay, this chap’s a stickler, better watch out for him
. Either way, both Bertha and Mum, who was knitting for cousin Janie’s baby (‘poor little mite’) remained in their seats while Dad got slowly to his feet, smoothed down his trousers, buttoned up his waistcoat, flattened his head where his hair had once been, and generally acted as though this was Leadheath Hall and he was still Mr Flaxheed, the butler.

He’s going to call the lounge the ‘parlour’, thought Bertha.

‘That’ll be your Mr Lake,’ observed Mum, as though there were any number of gentleman callers at this time on a Sunday afternoon and she had, by means of clever deduction, surmised which one it was.

‘Of course it’s Mr Lake,’ Bertha replied, and she recalled with sudden clarity the tea with Matthew’s mother and aunt on Friday evening. Did Matthew think of her parents in the same way she thought of his? The idea was unsettling but, once entertained, would not be dislodged.

‘You’ll find us in the parlour,’ Dad was saying in the hallway.

‘Goodness! I’d better see about tea,’ exclaimed Mum, as though she hadn’t been preparing the tea all morning. She jumped up so that wool and needles cascaded in all directions, and Matthew and Dad, entering the room at that exact moment, were met by a particularly rebellious ball of sky-blue wool (‘Bound to be a boy, they always are’).

Matthew stooped to retrieve the recalcitrant ball and held it out to Mum, who looked momentarily disconcerted, as though unsure whether to greet Mr Lake or to thank him for returning the wool. She settled on the latter.

‘Oh you’re too kind, Mr Lake. Isn’t he too kind, my dear?’ she said.

Bertha agreed that Mr Lake was too kind and silently wished her mother would go and see about the tea.

‘Bertha,’ said Matthew, coming to her and touching her hand. Behind him Dad’s nostrils flared, which meant he was shocked to his core that this man had addressed his daughter by her Christian name in his parlour.

‘Hullo,’ she replied, not quite able to return the greeting in full. But still, in a few short minutes the news would be out and they could all relax.

Matthew was shown to the second-best armchair and Dad settled himself in his own armchair. Bertha sat down too. She exchanged a glance with Matthew: they must wait until Mum had returned. And Jemima and Ronnie weren’t here either, though they often arrived late—sometimes by a quarter of an hour.

There was a silence. A bewildering list of conversation topics flashed through her mind—the post office union issues, tea with Aunt Daisy and Mrs Lake, the worsening conditions of the miners—but they were all unsuitable. Something, she felt fairly certain, had just happened with a well-known cricketer, but what, and which cricketer, she didn’t know.

Finally Dad said, ‘You’ll have seen what those daft idiots at the council have gone and done, Mr Lake?’

Bertha sank down a little into her chair. What had the council done?

‘The bus route between Rosemont and Creffield roads?’ said Matthew, obviously hazarding a guess.

‘Allotments!’ said Dad, dismissing the bus routes with an angry shake of the head. ‘Daft idiots are threatening to do away with residents’ allotments
permanently
in order to sell the land to developers.’

Ah yes, the tricky allotment question. Dad had been banging on about it for the best part of a fortnight. Not that he had an allotment or knew anyone who did, but it was the principle of the thing, whatever that principle might be.

‘No, I haven’t seen anything about it,’ said Matthew. ‘I’ve been glued to the cricket news this last week.’ He sat up, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘You saw that Mr Jack Hobbs has beaten Grace’s record of one hundred and twenty-six centuries—and fourteen in a single season!’