Mother Knew Best (24 page)

He ran with me up a little side turning where we knocked the lid off a dustbin, startling but pleasing some thin-looking cats, until finally tired with running I followed him like a squaw to the 23 bus stop, and he was silent until we reached my house. By the twitching of the lace curtains I knew that Mother (ostrich-like she always thought herself invisible and I never told her otherwise), was already ensconced in the public gallery. My caveman began utterance. ‘Everything is an almighty joke to you isn't it? You knew I wanted to be alone with you and you humiliated me by inviting all the crowd. Well that's it, I will not put myself in this position again.' Humbly (that would annoy Mother but she could only see not hear in her theatre box), I said, ‘This is so sudden,' which was the wrong reply. But finally I reassured Charles that I really had no idea how he felt and that I would be very happy to meet him alone on our next date.

Thus it came to pass, my fate was decided, and I was certain that from then on our love would run a smooth course.

Chas had worked all his working life at an exporters in Farringdon Street, but had progressed, if he had progressed at all, very slowly. He had been conscientious, attending night school regularly and was the proud possessor of all the shipping certificates necessary for him to become an import and export clerk. His firm, however, were connected through the management with a church at Purley in Surrey, the organist at this church also holding a position of trust with the firm and it seemed to be staffed by members of the congregation. Since we were serious there seemed no prospects for my future bride-groom at his firm and he looked elsewhere for a job in shipping. Luck was against us for there was a slump on at the time and a friend of his suggested he learn to be a waiter. The work was hard and long, the wages twelve shillings per week but the tips could be very worthwhile, and so, for love, he took this terrible job which I thought was tantamount to slavery.

He had very little time off for courting and I would go to his restaurant and spend a few hours there two evenings a week. I resented having to pay for my courting, although I enjoyed the food, and I was getting fatter through eating it. Chas was getting thinner, if that were possible. He was long hours on his feet, and the staff food was vile, quite different from what was served in the restaurant, but he was a good waiter, deft and handsome in his uniform. Things that happened to him there amused me greatly, but were tragedies to him, and it was difficult not to laugh at the expression on his face when mishaps occurred.

One night a man ordered a baked apple with syrup sauce and when Chas arrived at the table, the plate was on his tray, but there was no baked apple. Just like Charlie Chaplin he searched everywhere, but had to go back for a replacement. He would have had to anyway because he could hardly dust off a syrupy baked apple. The man finished his meal, I watched Chas help him on with his overcoat and as the man put his hand in his overcoat pocket, I knew where the baked apple was. The man was led off expostulating to be de-syruped, Chas was nearly in tears, and I pretended I had dropped my gloves under the table. Poor Chas, he also had to pay for the baked apple. It had slid into the open pocket as Chas made his great swing round from the service door.

Another evening a girl was sitting at a table with a young man. They were engrossed in each other, obviously in love, and I watched them enviously. She was wearing a beautifully embroidered muslin blouse, transparent-looking where there was no embroidery. It was gorgeous. Chas came in with their salad and as he bent down over the table the bottle of oil tipped up, and down this girl's blouse went the oil. She burst into tears, she could have done nothing worse for a man like mine, he was nearly in tears too; he started to wipe her bosom with his white cloth and then leapt back startled at his near immorality. She too was led off in tears.

One night a very red and tottery man sat at my table and ordered whitebait. I thought he was having whiting and when this multitude of tiny grey fish with large closed eyes was served up he must have seen my surprised expression for he began to toss them in the air with his fork laughing and saying, ‘I love them little fishes, them little fishes, my dear, I love.' He was led away by Chas and the supervisor. They apologised to me and said they wouldn't have served him if they had known he was inebriated, but I think it was my expression which started the man off on his childish pranks.

Well, someone had to lay the foundation of the family fortunes so I obtained a better paid job nearer home. It was with a large food firm and considered to be a plum job. Such jobs were never advertised, going to families who ‘spoke' for each other, but I happened to write in at a time when no relation of the office staff was available. The factory foreman took on the staff. Since no office staff had been taken on for years and years, and there was no interviewer specially for them, whereas factory staff were large in number, I was interviewed by this foreman. He was very sensitive about his baldness and lived permanently in a large grey cap. He wore a white overall and we sat in a grimy little waiting-room for the interview. Progressively, it had been decided that future staff should undergo an intelligence test, an innovation, and this foreman was to test me. The trouble was he didn't understand the test himself, and the cards which should have gone in order were so jumbled up by him that the questions made no sense, in any case I doubt if he was bright enough to recognise the answers. In the end, for he didn't seem to know whether I was employing him or he me—he was asking me the answers to the questions—I suggested I sort the cards out for him. He was so relieved when I told him which questions to ask me and in which order, that he happily told me I was employed if I passed my medical. I passed the medical, but when I finally started work I felt the medical was to see whether I could survive such conditions.

It was like working in a hot damp cellar. The electric light was on all day, and outside the area window hung a dirty-looking glass reflector. I was being paid an enormous wage but didn't work at all until about three o'clock when the invoices came in and these took me a couple of hours. The senior shorthand typist did a couple of letters each day, or so it seemed to me. In the main office men appeared to be working but the girl in that office spent her time in close, whispered conversation with one of the married clerks. The engineer brought me orchids from his greenhouse, and the little orchid in the tumbler on my desk kept me going. We had lovely lunches in the director's dining-room, and only the fact that I was to be married kept me there. I was bored. They didn't need me to do a few simple invoices. I was getting money under false pretences and so, in my opinion, were the rest of the office staff, though there were a few male exceptions. I thought the owners and directors were on the millionaire side and I felt the waste of money and time acutely and wondered if what they sold could not have been made cheaper for the populace.

Until the Friday of my wedding, I had not purchased my bridal outfit. I decided I would not be married in white, with bridesmaids, the money would be better spent on our home. Chas and I had nearly broken up at the time of flat-hunting. He was tired, for he said the thick carpets at the restaurant wore his feet away, and I felt very shy about living in a house with a landlady. Finally we obtained a flat for 22s. 6d. per week at St Johns, near Lewisham, and purchased a walnut bedroom suite, with a his and hers wardrobe—my wardrobe was immense with huge bevelled glass doors—an oak dining-room suite, two leather arm-chairs, lino, one large rug for the sitting-room, a coffee table, a kitchen table and chairs, and two rugs for the bedroom. Our beautiful home cost £56.

Amy came with me to Ilford to choose my wedding suit. I could find nothing I liked and finally settled for a very expensive frock in heavy turquoise marocain. I wasn't really enamoured with it but it was so well cut it made my figure look very attractive. Passing the hat shop I saw in the window a beautiful Java straw picture hat with a turquoise ribbon band and binding, and this, with the dress, made a wedding outfit.

On the Saturday morning my father appeared all innocent and got ready for cricket saying he didn't know I wanted him to give me away. This upset me and he said he would give me away, but it would be the last time. Mother said he didn't want to give any of his daughters away as it upset him too much. I knew it was because he preferred his cricket matches, but I didn't want any further arguments.

As we set off for the church, everyone else having gone, my father began calculating at what time he would arrive at his cricket match if the clergyman hurried it up, and in this mood we arrived at the church to find the vicar had also gone into Kent to a cricket match. My father brightened visibly at the verger's information and was about to make off with a clear conscience when the new curate appeared. I felt like making off somewhere myself and would have done if it hadn't taken so long to arrange my hat. I wanted to get a bit of wear from it in public. The curate restrained my father, apologising for the vicar's absence, and said I had been omitted from the book in error; he had never yet conducted a marriage service but he would do his best for the young people.

We walked down the aisle following the curate, now garbed in his wedding regalia. I felt something strange flapping against my leg and looking over my shoulder saw two inches of my new blue petticoat hanging down. I had a large safety-pin in my knickers, so they were safe; perhaps people would look at my hat. We reached my bridegroom and his brother. They had come out of the front pew and were standing with their backs to us as we approached. I thought Charles seemed to be swaying a bit and then I saw his face. He was as white as a sheet and his brother was supporting him with his hand on his arm. I thought, my goodness, what with one thing and another and now this, I'm the one who is supposed to be white and trembling, not him, and through my smile I felt I was clenching my teeth. I remember nothing of the service and then we were kneeling at the altar being given advice on our future life by this saint-like boy. It was the wrong advice as it turned out, we should have been given a hint on other hazards—though perhaps not in a holy place.

As we came out of church I saw my father haring it up the road to the bus stop, and thought he shouldn't be galloping like that on such a hot day. It really was sweltering. My husband had revived now that the worst was over, or he thought the worst was over, and catching sight of an old friend in the crowd he gave an enthusiastic wave, knocking my Ascot hat sideways. In a wave of pent-up emotion I gave him a mighty thump on his arm. He should have been leaning over me in a state of great love and joy and not waving to one of his old football mates, and to my utter horror and the amusement of the spectators, he gave me a fiendish look of hate and thumped me in return. That is why we have no photographs of my wedding. The thumping one I destroyed and wished many times I had saved it for future evidence. ‘And you see, this, Judge…'

We had organised sherry, spirits, light wine and refreshments at no. 13 but against all advice I refused to have beer. Beer to me was common and on this sweltering hot day all the men guests, and some of the ladies, wanted only a cool beer. It would have been ice cold in the cellar. Fortunately for them we left early and then I heard there was a rush round to Chas's house for the crates his people had ordered unknown to me. What a cat I was really.

Chas's brother Robin saw us off at the main line station and I felt quite flat and miserable and wished I could have been going home with him. I suspect poor Chas felt the same. We had a late lunch on the train but I couldn't eat mine because the perspiration was dripping down the waiter's nose on to the food.

We had booked at a hotel on the honeymoon Isle of Wight. I did not know it catered for religious conventions; a girl at the office had given me the address informing me it was a heavenly place in which to embark on the sanctity of married life. I discovered later she was a religious fanatic.

We took a taxi from the station. I thought the driver looked surprised, and the next day we were too, for in the dusk we had not realised our hotel was bang slap up against the taxi rank. The driver did run us round one or two streets first though.

We were greeted by the proprietress with the information that she was full to the ceiling with a religious convention and had been forced to put us in the annexe. It had only thin asbestos walls and she warned us, or thought we would like to know, that everything, just everything could be heard through these walls. So with that cheerful beginning we washed and came down to dinner, the object of many staring eyes.

The dining-room was full of dark-suited whispering clergy-men. At the next table to us was a large red-faced bishop. The waitress called through a hatch, ‘One gent's, one lady's dinner, please.' The lady's dinner was minuscule, the gent's small. I was absolutely starving and finished it as though it were an appetiser. My husband couldn't touch his, the ferry had made him sick. I saw his dinner being removed sadly, for I was too shy to start on his after devouring my own. I whispered that if my meal was to be smaller, my bill should be smaller too. This worried my husband and he made a large shushing noise and the clergymen looked over and ogled us. Unfortunately because Chas left his dinner, for the rest of the stay his meals were minuscule too; they obviously kidded themselves they had been giving him too large a meal for a man.

We went for a walk on the front and sat on a seat not knowing what to say to one another. I got up and put some pennies in a fun machine. This brought my husband to life for he thought it was a sheer waste of money, and I wondered if he thought I was going to squander the housekeeping when I received it.

Finally we went back to the hotel to commence our nuptials. We had been very modern, or so we thought. We would get some capital behind us before commencing a family. He, being the man, it was left to him to arrange the non-arrival of a family. He was as green as I was and had visited a seedy shop in Villiers Street. All this I learned many moons later. The man behind the counter had a ‘Do you want to buy a dirty picture' look about him, and when my husband enquired about sheaths, the man asked, ‘How many?' This shocked my husband and he said he only required one, a good one. Then the man surprised Chas further by asking, ‘What size?' Now, my darling had no idea that such things came in sizes, and he had to admit that he didn't know the size. The man then scrutinised him closely and said, ‘You'll want small' and sold him what I thought was only to be compared with a Michelin X tyre.