Authors: Monica Dickens
Dick rested both hands on the belly of the crankcase, breathed heavily and said : “I don’t mind.” He had not been so enthusiastic about anything for years.
“Good,” said Edward. “I’ll send off the advertisement tonight, then.”
Dick called ,” he saidan alonghim back as he was walking away. “We’ll pay for it,” he said importantly, “out of funds, when we get the first subscriptions in. Let me know how much it is meanwhile, so I can enter it on the books.”
As he came off the track into the Inspection Shop, Edward’s eyes went at once to his bench of girls. He was beginning to feel quite possessive about them. They were in his charge, and if the A.I.D. threatened to make trouble for one of their mistakes, Edward would cover up for them and make excuses and even put the blame on himself, if necessary. After all, you had to make allowances for girls. It was not like working with men. Girls had nerves, which were always playing them up. He knew that from Connie.
“Edward!” called Paddy, sighting him. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve been wanting you for hours. You are a—pest,” she added when he was close enough for her to lower her voice. He didn’t mind them abusing him. It was all in fun, really, and meant that they felt they knew him so well that they didn’t mind what they said to him. It was funny, but they talked to him more familiarly than Connie—his own wife. Not that he wanted her to swear ; it would sound wrong on her lips, but these girls somehow made it sound friendly. His eye took in the whole benchful of them as he approached, smiling. It always intrigued him to think of the ten of them, day after day, clocking in and clocking out, their factory life running like a machine irrespective of the course of their private life. Anything might have happened to them the night before, yet there they were, perching on their stools at seven-thirty, caught up in unsought intimacy until the bell scattered them to their separate fates at six o’clock. Sometimes Edward used to make up little stories about them, imagining what their real lives were like. He was as intimate with them as sixty hours a week could make him, and yet the part of their life he knew was only an interlude. One day he was going to write a story about them. They intrigued him.
He didn’t go straight home that night. He had an idea.
Don Derris’s barrage balloon was tethered on Collis Common. Don and the boys lived in a semi-circular tin hut, ridged like a sandwich loaf, surrounded by a narrow area of cultivation. It was this allotment
that had given Edward his idea. If the balloon’s crew had time to dig and hoe, they also had time to keep rabbits, and furthermore the cabbages and potatoes with which to feed them. Allan Colley had said that it was the duty of the initiated to inspire the uninitiated, so Edward was going on a trolley bus to inspire Don and the boys. It would make an interesting little letter for “The Fancy’s Forum” :
“Dear Sir,
“I wonder how many Domestic Clubs can claim as members the crew of a barrage balloon? In the Collis Park Club, whose membership incidentally has just reached the so-and-so mark. Etc., etc.”
Collis Common was a stretch of dingy grassland between three arterial roads. Besides the balloon site, it held two football fields, one of which was now cut up into allotments, several wooden benches, a couple of shelters facing the wind and a shallow pond, gradually silting up with leaves and sodden refuse. Getting off the trolley bus at the corner, Edward struck across the grass in the waning light, turning up the collar of his mackintosh, for it was windy on the open ground. The balloon was not up, and he could just see it, straining and wallowing like a sick elephant trying to rise in its stall. Two squares of light fell on the ground from the windows of the tin hut, but as Edward approached, skirting the white rail of the pond, first one and then the other was blowww.bloomsbury.com/MonicaDickens. btted out. The little settlement wore an air of desolation ; the tethered monster struggled and moaned in an agony of abandonment.
As Edward approached the barbed wire, a grey figure detached itself from the greyness on the other side and began to loaf towards the hut. Edward kept pace outside the wire, peering to see who it was. It was too fat for Don, and had not his swaggering walk. Edward cleared his throat.
“Excuse me,” he said diffidently—he never knew whether these visits were officially allowed——” excuse me, but could I possibly speak to Corporal Derris, if he’s there?”
“Sure,” said the stout figure, “he’s inside. Hang on and I’ll give him a shout.” Edward had not yet thought what he was going to say to Don. He would be sure to laugh at first, because he laughed at Edward’s own rabbits, but he might eventually take to the idea out of boredom, especially if the business side of it were made clear. The door of the hut opened and Don came out, dropping casually down the steps and sauntering over to the barbed wire, kicking at the grass.
“Hi, Ed,” he said, facing him across the wire with his hands in his pockets. “You’ve heard the news then?”
“News? What news?”
“Oh, I thought you’d come to offer your condolences. You haven’t heard then that little Don’s all set for the great open spaces? No
more will Collis Common resound to the clink of beer bottles and the gurgle of ale in the airman’s throat. No, everywhere there will be the rustle of skirts, the tantalizing glimpse of a dainty ankle and the exotic scent of perfoom.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“You mean you haven’t heard that the knell has been struck, the last post sounded, the hammer of doom, the finger of fate——”
“Look here, Don.” Edward was cold, and it was difficult enough to talk in the deepening twilight across the barbed wire which made you feel you were visiting someone in prison, without Don putting on one of his nonsense acts. Sometimes he’d go on like this for hours—stuff he’d read in magazines—maddening if you were trying to discuss anything sensibly with him.
“My dear old soul,” said Don, irritably, “I’m telling you that the powers that be have ordained that women—W.A.A.F.S.—tarts—whatever you like to call ’em, are to release men as balloon crews. Corporal Donald Derris, No. 23894, R.A.F., starts his embarkation leave a fortnight Saturday. I’m on duty at the moment or I’d come out and have a beer with you on the strength of it.”
There was not much to say. Edward commiserated and they both agreed gloomily that it was tough luck on Dorothy, and Edward said well anyway, now he had a better chance of having a crack at Jerry, which seemed to leave Don cold.
“Well, no sense hanging about, I suppose,” said Edward. “I’ll be shoving off home to break the news to Connie. Cheer up, Don. Not dead yet, you know!”
Don mumbled something to the effect that he soon would be, said “Ta-ta” and turned to go back to the hut. Edward watched his uniform merge into the dusk, saw the door open and heard a voice from inside before it banged shut and the settlement was once more abandoned to noises of the wind torturing the balloon, more eerie than silence. Edward felt sorry for the W.A.A.F.S. He doubted whether they would feel like keeping to kiss her goodnight, ouaf rabbits.
He walked up Church Avenue in the dark and had to fumble outside his front door before he could get the key in. He would have taken his torch if he had known he was going to be late. Connie would tick him off, but at any rate he had a bit of news that would pin her ears back.
“Connie!” he called, switching on the hall light as he shut the front door. From the sitting-room came the sound of noisy crying, and as he stepped quickly forward to investigate, his mother-in-law came out of the room with a face like the sole of a boot. As far as she was concerned, Don was already dead.
“It’s Dorothy,” she said in answer to Edward’s enquiring glance. “I’m afraid she’s had very upsetting news. We came straight round to tell Connie. We’ve just heard that——”
“I know,” said Edward. “I’ve just been up to the Common to see Don and he told me he’s being sent abroad, if that’s what you mean.”
“Oh, so you know then.” Mrs. Munroe’s face fell another foot. She had been waiting about to be able to break the bad news to Edward. He smiled encouragingly.
“I don’t see what there is to smile about,” she said, “with that poor child in there nearly out of her mind with worry.”
“Oh come on, Mother, it’s not a tragedy.” Edward wondered whether he could bring himself to pat her drooping shoulders. “Lots of people go abroad. It’s the least you can expect. Don’s been very lucky up till now to be so near home, though for his sake I should think he’d be glad to get a bit nearer the fighting.”
“Well, you’re a nice one to talk, I must say,” said Mrs. Munroe, who although she knew that Edward had sought and been refused his release from the factory, always held it against him that he was not in uniform. “That poor Don, so nervous and sensitive as he’s always been. You mark my words, he’ll come back a changed man—if he comes back at all.” Connie came out of the sitting-room looking cross.
“Do go in to her, Mother,” she said. “I can’t do anything with her and she’s getting hysterical. It’s ridiculous to carry on like this just because he’s going abroad. Anyone would think— Oh, there you are, Ted. Where on earth have you been? I never knew anyone so inconsiderate. I might have been worrying about you for all you knew.”
“I went up to see Don. It’s bad luck, but I agree with you, there’s no sense in Dorothy carrying on fit to make herself ill.”
“What do you mean? I never said that.” She took a step nearer to her mother, and they both regarded him balefully. “You can’t expect a man to understand, I suppose,” said Connie. “Come in and have your tea, Mother.” The two women went into the sitting-room together, leaving Edward alone in the hall. He took his torch off the shelf under the hanging mirror and went out to see the rabbits.
It was all very well waking up with a hangover ; it was at least a memory of last night’s gin. But Mrs. Urry felt cheap these mornings even when she hadn’t been near the Prince Albert. That nagging pain, which she used to accept as part of the price you paid for gin, came now after nothing more than a cup of tea. In fact gin seemed to be the only thing that would lay it.
Laying the pain took nearly all Mrs. Urry’s earnings from the Acropolis Dining Rooms. Ma all the same. Ian alongtches were not doing so well these days, unless Urry was up to some trickery with the takings. The demand was there all right, but not the stock to meet it. He could have sold his supply twenty times over, but the little Jew wholesaler was cutting down his allowance every week. Time and again, Mrs. Urry had urged him
to strike out in flints or bootlaces or even cachous, but Mr. Urry was adamant, doubtless because the sooner he sold out, the sooner he could leave his pitch for some warmer retreat, returning to Holborn Circus before his wife came to collect him.
“One day,” she said, “I’m going to stick to beer for a week. Beer! I could put another name to that coloured water if I wasn’t such a lady—and have a real good meal. I owe it to my system, Urry, though I must say I’ve no appetite for it.”
“You don’t need it at your age,” grunted Mr. Urry. He was sitting on the lower bunk, lacing his boots. He kept them on at night, but would not dream of going to bed without unlacing them.
“All very well for you,” said his wife. “I know you gets your bit of fish dinner from that soft Mrs. Ewins. I don’t know what her old man would say if he knew. You can’t run a fish and chip shop on charity and so I’ll tell her if ever I meet her, which God forbid I do, because her face makes me stomach turn over and look the other way. ’Urry up, Urry, it must be getting on. ’Ere’s young innocent coming down already with everything on ’er face but the kitchen stove. ’Ullo, dear,” she grinned at Sheila with her gums. “Just in time. The chauffeur is bringing the car round now.” She cocked her head to the approaching rumble of a train. Sheila made herself smile and say something friendly. Mrs. Urry’s appearance was getting more fear-some every day. Her face, which was like the uneatable kernel of an old walnut, seemed to be shrinking, the yellow hands rolling up the blankets were like roots and her body looked as though it would crumble into dust at a touch.
“Well,” she hitched up the bundle and prepared to follow her husband towards the Exit. “I must go on my way rejoicing. Ta-ta, love.”
“Good-bye.” Sheila stepped into her usual carriage, third from the end. She was glad the train windows were covered with anti-shatter net. The boy with the limp might think her queer if he saw her talking to the Urrys.
The Urrys made for the Cosy Café— “COME AND GET IT. Prop: Samuel Snagge,” who allowed them to leave their bedding there during the day.
The Cosy was a small wooden shack in a street off Theobald’s Road. It stood in what had once been the entrance to the yard of a warehouse, long since dwindled out of existence with the death of its proprietor. Nobody had wanted the yard enough to face clearing it of its unsavoury junk, so the Cosy Café stood propped between two tall shops, its chicken-house roof askew, a curtain over the doorway and above the curtain a board saying : “Teas, Light Luncheons and Minerals” which Sam had picked up cheap at the sale of effects from a teashop foundered through over-gentility. If the Cosy ever foundered, it would not be for that reason.
Inside were four linoleum-covered tables with benches, and the counter behind them, cutting Sam off at the waist and bearing crockery, two urns and a case of stale cakes and pies. The floor was the original cobbles of the yart occasionally, dislodging interesting relics of food between the cracks.
When the Urrys pushed past the curtain, there were already a few regulars browww.bloomsbury.com/MonicaDickens. boding over their tea. Two men who worked on the roads, a man employed by the Borough Council to clean out telephone boxes, but had never yet been seen doing it, the night watchman from the excavations, a rosy old man with split shoes and a bright line in pornographic magazines—the usual crowd.
“Morning all,” said Mrs. Urry perkily. She carried her bundle behind the counter and through a low door into the shed that leant on the leaning café and held two gas rings, a cold tap and a tin bath for washing up.
She rejoined Mr. Urry at the table. Sam reached down two cups from the shelf behind him. He was a long, stooping man with a face that always looked as if he were about to cry. When he laughed, his face puckered up, his eyes watered and his mouth turned down instead of up. His appearance bore no trace of the inward joy that had been his ever since the death of his wife enabled him to sell the goodwill of his vegetable barrow and erect the Cosy. His face would torture itself into a laugh even now when he thought of that murderous trek to Covent Garden before dawn and the windiest corner in Holborn which had been his wife’s idea of a good beat.