Dolly (2 page)

At the end of the year—it must have been at Christmas—they came to England. My mother, who had been quite peaceful, was jolted once again into anxiety. This time the anxiety was caused by her desire to entertain them, in a suitably attractive manner, ‘for we must seem very dull to them,’ she explained to me. ‘They go out such a lot.’

‘Why are there no children?’ I asked.

‘Oh, poor Dolly,’ said my mother.

‘Why?’

‘Well,’ she said carefully. ‘There is no room for them in the flat. You saw that.’

I accepted this explanation. I had to: my mother was already making plans.

‘Perhaps we should have them for Christmas,’ she mused.
‘But then Mother would be upset. No, we shall have to go there. We must think of something else.’

The matter concerned her for several days.

‘We must take them out to dinner,’ she announced to my father.

‘Very good,’ he said, courteously laying aside his evening paper. ‘I’ll book a table at Francesco’s.’

Francesco’s was our local Italian restaurant: we always went there on birthdays.

My mother looked shocked.

‘Oh, no, darling, that would be far too dull. They are used to a very active social life, you know.’

‘But we are not.’

‘All the more reason to make an effort.’

‘What were you thinking of?’ he enquired, even more courteously. ‘The Ritz?’

Her face lit up. ‘Of course! How clever of you! We must take them to dinner at the Ritz.’

My father was an honourable man. He did not point out that this would be excessive, that we were not the sort of people who dined at the Ritz. Already he foresaw the agonies of indecision into which the prospect of enjoying herself, and of ensuring that her brother enjoyed himself, would plunge my mother.

‘They don’t dress these days,’ he said kindly. ‘Your blue silk suit will do very well. I had better book the table tomorrow. If you’re sure,’ he added.

‘Oh, quite sure,’ she said, her face a vivid pattern of fear and determination.

‘Will I be there?’ I enquired.

‘No, darling. You wouldn’t enjoy it. Miss Lawlor will be here to give you your supper and stay with you while you are in bed.’

Miss Lawlor was our daily housekeeper and by way of being a family friend. She had been passed down the line from my father’s mother, with whom her own mother had been in service until she retired, when Miss Lawlor took over. My Manning grandmother had sent Miss Lawlor to the marriage of my parents as a sort of wedding present or dowry, evidently doubting my mother’s ability to keep her husband clean and fed. This state of doubt, or more properly speaking incredulity, was inspired by her violent antagonism to my other grandmother, Antonia (Toni) Ferber, whom she considered to be a frivolous and unworthy woman, incapable of instructing a daughter in her marital duties. Her antagonism was warmly returned, to the apparent satisfaction of both parties, who thus had a perfect excuse not to meet. In this, as in everything else, my mother was entirely innocent. It was understood that my father would visit his mother on his own, and that he would accompany my mother to Maresfield Gardens when the occasion could not decently be avoided. In this complicated situation Miss Lawlor was the equivalent of oil poured on troubled waters. She was a tall wistful silent woman, rather like my mother, in fact, and her social life revolved around the Women’s Fellowship at her local church. She lived in Parkgate Road, so that it was quite convenient for her to come in every day to give my mother a hand. I believe that she was unhappy on her own with nothing to do, and looked forward to the company. She seemed to melt into the shadows of our rather dark flat, whose windows
looked out onto the bushes and trees of Battersea Park. Sometimes she sang a hymn in a tentative girlish voice, as, rubber gloved, she passed a yellow duster over the cumbrous sideboard (also a Manning inheritance) in my parents’ dining-room. At half-past midday my mother and Miss Lawlor sat down to a light lunch, which my mother prepared. My mother called her Violet: she was Miss Lawlor to my father and myself. She had been a feature of our household for as long as I could remember.

I did not mind staying at home, although I wanted to see my mother in her ball gown.

‘Oh, no, darling,’ she explained. ‘Nobody dresses these days. It is just dinner, you know. Just to mark the occasion.’

I thought she looked very nice in her blue silk suit. In fact I thought she looked incredibly beautiful, but then I always did. My father wore his mild expression, which, I was later to realise, denoted forbearance. His face softened when he looked at my mother, as it never failed to do.

‘I shall have to wear my old coat,’ she said apologetically.

‘You can leave it in the cloakroom,’ he told her. ‘Nobody is going to examine your coat.’

‘Goodnight, darling,’ she said, embracing me. She smelt, uncharacteristically, of some pungent scent, a gift, no doubt, from my Ferber grandmother, who was always trying to liven her up. There was a contest of wills there too, although my mother never consciously entered into it. Smiling negativity was her tactic with her mother, who recognised it for what it was, and more or less accepted it, perhaps as a just punishment. All in all my parents were a haven to each other, finding in Prince of Wales Drive, and in the largely
wordless company of Miss Lawlor, a peace that neither of them had ever found at home with their contentious parents.

The following day my mother looked preoccupied. Nothing was said to me: no relic of the fabulous meal was smuggled home, as I had hoped it would be, in my mother’s handbag. That evening my father took refuge behind his newspaper, as usual. He was not a man who could stand a great deal of conversation. My mother stared unseeingly at her book, which she eventually laid aside.

‘Well, I think they enjoyed it,’ she said.

‘They should have done. It was not exactly an inexpensive evening.’

‘I’m sure we did the right thing. Of course, they are used to going out.’

‘I gathered that. The champagne alone …’

‘But that was quite appropriate. I think they enjoyed it,’ she repeated, this time a little more doubtfully. ‘Although Dolly was disappointed that there was no dancing.’

‘Thank God.’

‘She looked lovely, didn’t she?’

‘No better than you, my love.’

‘And Hugo is happy when she is happy.’

‘Oh, there was no trouble with Hugo.’

‘Did you notice Dolly’s coat?’ said my mother. ‘That was mink, you know.’

‘Yes, I noticed it,’ said my father reflectively.

‘They are a handsome couple, aren’t they?’

‘They have been, no doubt. A little past their best now, perhaps.’

‘Yes, Hugo looked much older, I thought.’

‘Shall I put the kettle on?’ he enquired. They usually drank a cup of tea in the evenings, a habit which I have inherited.

‘Tea!’ said my mother. ‘I will invite them to tea! At the weekend, before they go back. I should like them to see the flat. You will be here, won’t you, darling?’

My father, who usually went for a very long walk on a Sunday afternoon, winter or summer, a walk which he would be obliged to forego, merely said, ‘Of course.’ I repeat, he was an honourable man, although my mother knew that he thought her brother a lightweight, married to another and lighter weight. I think he merely considered them no business of his. He had not inherited much in the way of family affections, and regarded my mother, whom he loved, as supplying all his emotional needs. ‘They may not come,’ he warned her. ‘We are quite a long way from Maresfield Gardens. Quite a step to take on a Sunday afternoon, when public transport is not exactly at its best.’

‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll come,’ said my mother.

The next day I got a sandwich and milk for my lunch, as Miss Lawlor and my mother made small delicate butterfly-shaped cakes and pastry tartlets ready to be filled with fruit. These were covered with clean tea towels and stored in the larder.

‘Toasted teacakes, I thought,’ said my mother. ‘And cucumber sandwiches.’

‘I’ll come in after church and give you a hand,’ said Miss Lawlor.

‘That is so kind of you, Violet.’

‘Will you want me to hand round?’

‘I shouldn’t dream of spoiling your Sunday afternoon. Jane will help me, won’t you, darling?’

Silver teapots and cream jugs were polished; more clean tea towels laid over more plates. There was enough food for at least ten people.

My main interest in all this was not in the handing round, which I had done on numerous occasions and which I thought I did rather well: my expertise was beginning to bore me. I did not particularly look forward to seeing Dolly again, since, like my father, I thought she had nothing to do with me. But I did look forward to seeing my uncle Hugo, since I thought he might turn out to be a friend. My mother had told me that he was very fond of me, yet how could that be when he hardly knew me, and I knew him not at all?

‘He sent you that lovely coral bracelet when you were born,’ said my mother. ‘You cut your teeth on it. He saw you when you were a baby, you know. He said he thought you were beautiful.’

We are always kindly disposed towards those who have the good taste to think that we are beautiful. Yet Hugo’s actual presence filled me with a vague disappointment. He had perfected the same meaningless smile as Dolly, to whom he delegated the business of greetings and compliments.

‘So this is Jane,’ he said, in a deep, beautiful yet actorish voice. Having said that he showed no further interest, but subsided into my father’s armchair, joined his hands at the fingertips and smiled beatifically into the distance. I examined him carefully, and was not predisposed in his favour.
He seemed to me to be rather fat, or perhaps merely shapeless round the waist. Both my parents were thin and I was used to their more modest proportions. Hugo, leaning back in my father’s chair and gazing at the ceiling, did not show to his best advantage. In addition his hair had receded, and he wore thick, slightly tinted glasses. When he took these off his eyes looked alarmingly naked. He glanced frequently at his wife, who was tremendously dressed up, as if for a wedding. A fragrant mink coat had been deposited on my parents’ bed; what was revealed was an artfully draped silk dress, at which my mother exclaimed in admiration.

‘That is Belgian work, my dear.
C’est fait à la main, tout ça.
’

Again the foreign words, which distanced her from me and from my mother.

‘Not too much trouble getting here, then?’ asked my father genially. He was already bored.

‘Oh, we hired a car,’ said Dolly. ‘The chauffeur will call for us in about an hour.’

‘Oh, but that is far too soon,’ protested my mother.

‘But darling Etty, we are expected out for drinks in Highgate. And how else should we have got here? You live in the middle of nowhere, you know.’ She gave a small annoyed laugh. She seemed as bored as my father, but less able to hide it. She regarded the afternoon as a chore, as it no doubt was, and had no reason to impress my mother with her stoicism now that Hugo was apparently restored to health. She had highly polished social manners which nevertheless released something of her original intentions, so that my mother felt it her duty to express gratitude that Dolly had
bothered to visit her at all. One felt dissatisfaction in the air, and also tiredness, frustration, all covered up by a tremendous show of goodwill, of resolute generosity.

‘Then we’d better have tea straight away,’ said my mother humbly. ‘It’s all ready. Jane will hand round.’

When we returned from the kitchen, having removed the shrouds from the plates of cakes and sandwiches, Hugo was shaking his head ruefully over the disastrous bridge hands he had held on the previous evening.

‘Couldn’t do a thing with them,’ he went on, although my father, who did not play bridge, could not have been interested. That was their way, I was to learn, to trail one entertainment on to the next, so that one always heard a great deal about what had happened on the previous occasion.

‘No thank you, dear,’ said Dolly, as I relentlessly proffered plate after plate of food. ‘I never eat in the afternoon. And you shouldn’t either,’ she warned my uncle, as he took two sandwiches and laid them in his saucer, where they absorbed a little tea.

‘You see what a terror I married,’ he said to my father, who was not used to such playfulness from men. He leaned over perilously, dislodging a little more tea, and pinched Dolly’s cheek. She smiled a small taut smile.

‘At least you can make up for it this evening,’ she said. ‘We’ll be going on later for bridge,’ she explained, in the face of my mother’s constraint. My father turned away and busied himself with his cup. When he turned back towards us his face was entirely serious.

I examined Dolly, leaning against her chair for a better view.

‘Don’t do that, dear,’ she said. I registered the fact that she did not like children.

I could see that she was in the grip of some tremendous impatience, although the journey to Prince of Wales Drive, in a hired car, could not have been very arduous. With the percipience of childhood I sensed that she was struggling against increasing weight or some such bodily discomfort. Women were not yet quite as at ease with themselves as they are today. In 1969 or 1970, when this tea-party must have taken place, they had heard the calls of liberation but had not yet developed into those speedy slimmed-down versions of themselves that they were to become in the 1980s. And then I think that work had a great deal to do with this transformation. Women who did not work, like my mother, or, more conspicuously, Dolly, aged more quickly and along more traditional lines. Dolly must have been in her middle forties at this time and was aware that the age of fading attractions had arrived. More specifically, she was aware of such fading in her husband, who, after youthful good looks, had developed a complacent personality and a saurian aspect, the smile still on his face, his eyes frequently closing behind his glasses. His evident comfort in my father’s armchair, and his absent-minded but constant ingestion of my mother’s food, as if his restoration to the bosom of his family had temporarily effaced his social pretensions, had bred an indignation in Dolly, whether she was aware of it or not. Like an automaton he continued to deal out largely meaningless social noises, none of which was of relevance to my mother or my father, but a loosening of the usual performance had taken place, and he seemed both older and younger
because of it, younger because he looked to my mother with a sort of trust, which might have been quite foreign to him in his usual everyday incarnation, and older because he no longer had the means to charm and to please, as had formerly been his habit, and his right.