The Yellow Houses

by Stella Gibbons

‘I felt like a bit of a holiday, so I went with a girlfriend. I’ve always done my work properly, Mrs Levy.’ She hesitated. ‘I like it here – as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Tank you, tank you very much!’ Mrs Levy cried.

  ‘I just . . . felt like a bit of a holiday,’ Mary ended. Her serious dark eyes stayed unmovingly on Mrs Levy’s. She thought, dreamily, that this old thing had once been seventeen years old.

  ‘Und me? Und me und the shop?’ Mrs Levy banged her black woolly bosom. ‘Vot become of us? Suppose I never phone Mr Foster to check if you arrive –’

  ‘But you always do.’

  ‘Of course I do. But suppose this time I haf a stroke or my muder, God forbid. Suppose bugglars, suppose a fire, vandals? No, you don’t care. All the same, 1970s girls. Mrs Cadman already toldt me you respectable. So I should hope. But your friend’ – Mrs Levy sucked in her lips – ‘she’s bad. Mrs Cadman said so.’

  ‘She’s all right.’ Mary glanced out again at the morning. She would walk to St Paul’s and sit there. ‘Shall I go now, or do you want me to work this afternoon? I may as well, now I’ve spent the fare.’

  Mrs Levy stared. ‘Go vere?’

  ‘Well . . . off. I mean, if I’m sacked . . .’

  ‘Who spoke about sacking? You know well, Mary’ – Mrs Levy’s voice took on a note as if it were undulating like a tearful snake – ‘you have advantages. Vy you did not ask me to give you a holiday for Saturday? – Isn’t it enough you have the morninks? No – idle, idle. Und I could have stop the money.’

  ‘Because I needed the money.’

  Mary hung up her coat and unhooked the fun-fur hood. ‘I’m sorry Mrs Bearstein missed The Canterbury Tales. If I’d known she was going, perhaps I’d have come in.’

  ‘Perhaps . . .’ Mrs Levy muttered, unlocking the drawer where she kept her ledger. ‘Yes, you have advantages, Mary. Good education, good home. Perhaps your father a rich man and you do this for a joke, like in film?’

  Mary could not decide if this was asked in sarcasm, or whether Mrs Levy really was wondering if her father were a millionaire.

  He’s better than ten millionaires, she thought warmly, as she bent over the counter and the medallion swung forward gleaming in a ray of sunlight, and I love him.

  When she reached home that night, through the thick, rich, exciting atmosphere of preparations for Christmas, she found her father’s letter.

  She stood by the alarmingly hissing gas fire, slowly waving the letter about, and considering. She had not thought about what she would do at Christmas; at the back of her mind had been a vague idea that ‘they might ask me down’, ‘they’ being Mrs Cadman and Mr Grant. It would be a bore, anyway, three days with the shops shut and nothing to do and nowhere to go.

  But to go back to Torford, home, without Mum (Mary’s eyes surprisingly filled) and see the sad, loving look on Dad’s face, and have everyone asking how she liked London, and how she was getting on – oh, she could not face it.

  ‘’Ullo? Anyone at ’ome? Knock, knock ’oo’s there?’

  It was Sylvie’s thin voice outside the door.

  ‘I’m just back. What is it?’ Mary strode to the door and jerked it open. ‘I’ve got enough supper for myself tonight, and that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t be so mingy. I got liver sausage and cider – bought the cider. It’s an invite.’ Sylvie’s eyes were glittering, as always, at the smallest hint of gaiety.

  ‘Oh.’

  Mary felt slightly embarrassed. This was proferred hospitality, this was a return for her own. Had she been unkind to Sylvie? She felt penitent (it did not occur to her that she had been unkind to Mrs Levy; Mrs Levy was old).

  ‘All right – thanks. Sounds good . . . how did you get on today?’

  Sylvie was helping with the Christmas rush at a local post office, Mrs Cadman having unwillingly recommended her for the job.

  ‘S’like a mental ’ome down there. (Well, it’s the same everywhere, I s’pose.) Come on.’

  Soon they were crouching beside the gas fire in Sylvie’s large, dim, damp basement, to which every piece of furniture in the twelve rooms of the house that was cracked, broken or near-useless had drifted. So solid were Mrs Cadman’s tastes, however, and so settled her habits of cosiness, that the room was not without an air of comfort.

  ‘Come on, let’s boil the cider. Make us drunk quicker,’ suggested Sylvie, unwrapping a long, greasy parcel at a table that must have been all of a hundred and fifty years old; kidney-shaped, with traces of crimson and gilt and black lingering on its battered surfaces.

  ‘Cripes! What an enormous sausage.’

  ‘Whipped it.’

  Sylvie opened a drawer that slid forward smoothly as a dancer, and took out an old, sharp knife. ‘Down on the floor it was, near the door. Some fool never put no address on it. There was a feller arter it but I got it first.’ She began vigorously slicing.

  ‘It would only have gone bad and been wasted,’ said Mary, wishing to give a shade of respectability to the eating of stolen food. Sylvie grinned behind her fringe and said nothing.

  ‘We’ll mull the cider. Mum used to,’ Mary went on.

  ‘What in hell’s that?’

  ‘Heat it with spice. Have you got any? You know – cinnamon or that kind of thing?’

  ‘Catch me. I got something else to do with me money – when I got any. Run and ask old Orange-Face.’

  Mary did so, and returned with a minute pinch of powdered clove carefully put up in a screw of paper. As she ran down the stairs to the basement she again congratulated herself, with the whipped sausage in mind, on having a landlady who seldom asked questions. It did not occur to her that Mrs Cadman, with the aid of Mr Grant, might know all she wanted to about what went on in the house.

  ‘She cough up? Miracles’ll never cease . . . ’Ere, bung it in.’

  Mary put a little of the spice into a saucepanful of cider.

  ‘What you doin’ fer Christmas?’ Sylvie asked, when they had pulled the table close to the fire.

  ‘Oh going home, I guess. Dad’s asked me.’ Mary spoke with her mouth full. She had at that moment decided that she would go.

  ‘You ain’t half lucky.’ Sylvie’s voice took on a whine. ‘S’pose I could go ’ome but . . . there was some boys asked me, said we might go some ’ouse what’s empty back of the ’ospital where there’s all that building goin’ on. They had this groupie, see, and she went off somewhere, so they arst me . . . eight of ’em. Nice Christmas I’d have . . . You like it?’ she ended, sliding her eyes round at Mary.

  ‘Yes, it’s very good,’ Mary answered, lifting a piece of sausage on her fork and misunderstanding deliberately.

  Sylvie let out a screeching laugh.

  ‘Go on! “It’s very good” – when I know you ain’t done it yet. Only asked you for a giggle. There ain’t much to it, ’cept––’ she broke off, stared broodingly at the floor for a second, then added: ‘’Course, there’ll be plenty of nosh at ’ome. Mum’ll see to that. But they’ll only be on at me.’

  Mary dipped a spoon into the steaming cider, blew on it, and tasted. She intended to avoid the subject of Sylvie’s Christmas.

  ‘Here.’ She handed over a handleless cup, and they sipped.

  ‘Tastes a bit funny,’ pronounced Sylvie, ‘but it ain’t bad. S’pose I’ll have to stay ’ere and get drunk’ (she did not say drunk) ‘by meself, then.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake. Of course you won’t have to get drunk by yourself. Mrs Cadman’ll ask you or . . . or . . . something. I know she’s having some friends in.’

  ‘All about fifty. Thanks. And the mistletoe. He’ll be onto that, Christmas time, ’stead of bum-pinching.’

  ‘Now look here.’ Mary set down her mug and raised her voice. ‘I like Mr Grant, and I don’t believe he’s the kind that pinches girls’ bums – I was brought up to think that’s a vulgar word – and what’s more I don’t believe he’s ever pinched yours. So there.’

  She stared steadily a
t Sylvie, and Sylvie stared angrily back.

  ‘Calling me a liar, now. You aren’t half mingy,’ she said at last. ‘All right then, he never. But I bet he’d like to. They’re all the same . . . calling me vulgar, too. Lady Toffee-nose, that’s what you are!’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake! Have some more cider and shut your cake-hole.’

  Mary’s voice was a controlled shout, and suddenly, the mulled cider rollicking through their young veins, they both began to giggle.

  ‘I’ll tell you what –’ Mary leant across and poked Sylvie in the chest – ‘don’t you stay here and get drunk on your own with Mrs C’s old trouts. You come and have Christmas with me.’

  ‘Mrs Wheeby!’

  Wilfred stood at the foot of the stairs, with the telegram in his hand. ‘Mary’s coming home for Christmas!’

  He knew that he should have knocked discreetly at Mrs Wheeby’s door, but he had to shout the news to someone. And a telegram! At the sight of it, his heart had felt as if it stopped, for he belonged in the generation to which telegrams meant disaster.

  The silence that followed quietened Wilfred’s excitement. Perhaps she had not heard. But suddenly her door opened, and there she stood in the Marks and Spencer dressing-gown, looking at him over the top of a cup of something.

  ‘Well Mr Davis, so I should trust and hope,’ she said severely.

  ‘I know, Mrs Wheeby, of course. But I haven’t seen her for three months, you know. I’m – I’m so . . . excited.’

  ‘Very natural, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Wheeby, unmoved. ‘But do I see a telegram? I’m sure I’m glad for you, Mr Davis, and that Mary knows her duty to her father, but do I see a telegram? I must put in a word of warning. I feel it my duty, though not a pleasant or welcome one. A man of your age, Mr Davis (and I take you to be in your middle sixties) should be careful and not get over-excited. There are such things as strokes, and a telegram, too . . . Shall I ever forget my husband’s third younger brother? . . . On the Thursday morning at breakfast, and by tea-time – Gone.’

  Mrs Wheeby lifted and dropped a hand.

  ‘I expect Mary sent a telegram because the posts are so behindhand, Mrs Wheeby.’ He could only wave the telegram to and fro and smile. ‘Look here, you’ll come to us for Christmas, won’t you?’ he went on eagerly. ‘We’ll have a turkey, and a tree. Pat – Mrs Davis – always liked a tree, you know . . . and mince pies, and all the trimmings.’ Kindness shone from him.

  ‘Well as to that, Mr Davis, I won’t say that it isn’t neighbourly of you, but there is one small point I must make clear and when I tell you that all my enjoyment of the invitation depends upon your answer’ (pause, gasp) ‘perhaps you will understand me asking a question no other circumstances – nor wild horses – would induce me to ask. Is the old gentleman to be present with us?’

  ‘The old – oh, my father. No. No, Mrs Wheeby, I’m sorry to say he isn’t. He’s going to – some friends. He feels they . . . might need his company.’

  Mrs Wheeby nodded, managing by the nod to imply that she had difficulty in imagining anyone needing it.

  ‘I shall be pleased to come Mr Davis, and I suppose you will want help with the shopping. It isn’t a job for a man, though I must say that Mr Wheeby could buy a pound of icing sugar with the best, though always careful to point out it was not really his duty. Such a lot to do at Christmas’ (pause, wheeze). ‘I suppose you will get everything from Marks? Really excellent, they are. Except the turkey. I suppose you will go to Dill’s for that. I warn you, there is one thing I cannot and will not do, and that is hurry. You have left it very late. Only two days. But we shall manage somehow. How about setting forth this afternoon?’

  The shopping! Wilfred had completely forgotten that any would be necessary. Turkey and tree and all the trimmings existed in his mind, shining in the glow of Mary’s coming. And shopping with Mrs Wheeby . . .

  ‘Well . . . that’s very kind of you, Mrs Wheeby . . . and . . . and considerate . . . but – er – will you enjoy it? The shops are crowded just now and . . .’

  ‘Oh no. I shan’t enjoy it, Mr Davis. I quite dread the idea, especially with a man. And these new self-service places are so confusing. I’m sure the hunt I had for shrimp paste in Mallock’s last Tuesday would have worn out one of those commandos they had in the war. Oh no, I shan’t enjoy it, Mr Davis’ (pause, long wheeze). ‘But I must earn my Christmas dinner, mustn’t I?’

  While he was wondering what on earth to say next, the telephone bell rang in the hall. He muttered ‘Oh bother – excuse me,’ and ran down to it. It might just be Mary. Oh, don’t let it be that she can’t come.

  ‘Torford 666.’

  ‘Laf Taverner here, Mr Davis. Come and spend Christmas with us, won’t you? All the three days. Do.’

  Over the telephone, the light voice was almost indistinguishable from a woman’s.

  Wilfred felt strong relief – no shopping, no setting forth with Mrs Wheeby – then gratitude.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, and . . . and of Miss Dollette and Mrs Cornforth too. But I’m in a bit of difficulty, you see. It’s my daughter, Mary. She’ll be coming home for the three days. I’ve just heard. And then, I’m afraid, there’s old Mrs Wheeby (my lodger, you know). She’ll be alone. It’s rather an army, three of us.’

  ‘There are plenty of rooms in the house,’ said the voice at the other end of the line – and something in the words touched off an echo – a memory – what was it? – in Wilfred’s mind. ‘So, the more the merrier. And you’ll be able to have Mary to yourself for a talk whenever you feel like it, you know. Do come, all of you.’

  ‘Well, Mr Taverner, I won’t say no. I must just ask Mrs Wheeby. It is so kind of you – of all of you. I was dreading the shops, to tell you the truth. At this time of year they really are hell . . .’

  ‘Not quite,’ Mr Taverner said dryly.

  ‘Goodbye, then, and thank you all again, Mr Taverner.’

  Wilfred replaced the receiver. The thought of describing the Yellow House and its occupants to Mrs Wheeby made him shrink, and then and there he decided to write a note and put it under her door.

  On his way out to buy the ritual slices of disliked liver, it occurred to him that Mrs Wheeby would want to take Dicky to the Yellow House.

  Home again, he put the liver in to bake with a knob of butter, and sat down to write his note.

  Dear Mrs Wheeby,

  Some friends living in Hardy Crescent have asked us all – you and me and Mary – to stay with them over the Christmas holiday. This will save us all a lot of work and bother so I hope you will come. By the way, I have sold the house to Mr Dill the butcher.

  Yours sincerely,

  W. Davis

  In the pre-lunch quietude prevailing at Lamorna, he stole upstairs and slid the note under Mrs Wheeby’s door.

  But the ides of March, so to speak, were not yet gone, and just before tea-time, when he was making himself tea in the kitchen, there came a tap at the door.

  Mrs Wheeby entered, neat and portentous.

  ‘Thank you for your note, Mr Davis. I must say I think the news might have been conveyed by word of mouth, and not pushed under the door, like a greengrocer’s bill. But then, it hardly was news to me, as Mrs Dill and I are old friends, as was proved to me many times in the war with offal when she was having her first’ (pause, gasp). ‘I will not trouble you now by asking whether you have found us somewhere else to lay our heads permanently. “Sufficient unto the day” is what I always say, and always have. As for the invitation, it is very kind of perfect strangers. Who are they? I didn’t know that you and Mrs Davis had any friends in Hardy Crescent – one of the oldest and nicest parts of the town, I think . . .’ She suddenly ran out of words, and sat down on a chair that faced Wilfred’s teapot, into which he now poured boiling water.

  He silently handed her a box of biscuits.

  ‘No biscuits for me, thank you, Mr Davis. I prefer bread and butter with my tea, and always have.’

  10r />
  The desolate place

  The houses that were ‘empty, back of the ’ospital where there’s all that building’, mentioned by Sylvie, were more than empty.

  Some of them were roofless, and some had had their sides ripped out, with streamers of wallpaper hanging down in their shattered rooms, and all were now shut in by barriers of corrugated iron. They stood in a wasteland between the busy prosperity of Archway Road and, on the other side, the quiet avenues of a private estate.

  The pavements of the old streets – Cavell, Manson, Veeley, Arcott and others – still ran between the pallid metal walls, without a name or a shop or a public house left to guide the few pedestrians who made their way through the wilderness.

  At night, with the low red glare thrown up from the Archway Road lights staining the sky, and the surrounding half-darkness through which the barriers glimmered, and the fearful muted roar from the distant traffic, the place was frightening.

  It was also, to some temperaments, exciting.

  But it was not the loneliness and its desolation that had lured into it the boy who was walking slowly along what had been Veeley Street, a few nights after Mary and Sylvie had had supper together.

  No one else was there. Heavy rain had fallen. The barriers shut off acres of churned mud where, during the day, huge machines toiled and lumbered. A small cold rain had replaced the earlier downpour; he picked his way round wide pools, not quite water, not quite mud. The dim air was full of the low, threatening roar of hidden traffic. It was about seven o’clock.

  He walked slowly, with bent head and hands pushed into his pockets. The zip of his jacket was fastened, but his long hair blew in the rainy wind; only softies put on anything to protect the head. It was the most terrible thing in the world – the small, savage, tight world of their gang of eight – to be a softie. He was muttering as he walked, a stream of self-pitying sentences.

  Why was he always the one? Why wouldn’t anyone even listen to him? He paid his share, didn’t he? He did what the others suggested. There wasn’t any reason for his being chucked out, but here he was: alone, hungry, jobless, nowhere to kip down tonight unless he went home, and bloody miserable. He used the word miserable – muttering it over and over again, the word that was never used by the gang.