The Yellow Houses

by Stella Gibbons

  ‘Sylvie!’

  The familiar sulky look vanished, replaced by the equally familiar one of malicious excitement.

  ‘Look ’oo’s ’ere!’ Sylvie exclaimed. ‘Never thought I’d see you again . . . How’d yer find me? Ma Cadman, I bet. Guess what?’ she ended, on a burst of triumph.

  What of her could be seen behind the counter assured Mary that she was some eight months pregnant. Her purple, orange and green dress ended just below a great bulge. Mary decided to play fair, and shook her head.

  ‘I’m married,’ announced Sylvie. ‘Been married about five months. Mind yer, I wasn’t all that crazy about it, neither, but –’ patting the bulge, ‘’e kep’ on at me, saying it wasn’t fair to the kid, and Mum moaned – so we done it. (’Course, I’d’ve ’ad another abortion, if they ’adn’t kep’ on about it.) Had a smashing wedding, though. Down at St Peter’s. Show you the photos some time . . . You still in the same job?’ she ended, on a patronizing note.

  Mary nodded, but with a smile, and Sylvie looked at her sharply.

  ‘Cor, you are an old dozy! I’d a bin out of that, by this time. You look just the same – I dunno, though. You do look a bit different, somehow.’ She giggled. ‘Haven’t been up to anything, have yer? I bet not – you aren’t the sort.’

  ‘No . . . but I am engaged,’ Mary said at last, and heard her own voice, deep and soft in contrast to Sylvie’s shrill one. She never used to notice Sylvie’s voice.

  ‘Go on!’ screamed Sylvie. ‘ ’oo to?’

  ‘He’s Japanese,’ was the calm reply.

  ‘Go on! I don’t believe it! ’Ooever gets engaged to Japs? Where’d yer meet him? In the shop, I bet.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mary knew there would be no chance to explain anything.

  ‘Where’s yer ring? Lessee it,’ and out shot a hand, fat now, but the nails painted with the familiar green varnish.

  ‘They don’t have them in Japan, it isn’t the custom.’ Mary wished, not for the first time, that it was.

  ‘Saved ’im a bit, that did,’ Sylvie grinned. ‘When you getting married, then? Got yer dress yet?’

  Mary shook her head.

  ‘They don’t have our kind of wedding dress, either,’ she said quickly. ‘Mine’ll be white and scarlet. I’ll probably be married over there, anyway.’

  ‘Goin’ all that way? Catch me!’ Sylvie screamed. ‘I said to Chris, you’re stayin’ right here where I know a few folks, I said. He was all for sellin’ up and goin’ out Barnet way. I soon stopped that, I can tell yer . . . Japan! Sooner you than me . . . Can’t believe it, and you always the quiet sort. I bet you don’t want to go to no Japan, do yer?’ she added, surprisingly. But at that moment, a fat young man came in from a side door, slid an arm round her, and gave her bottom a prolonged pinch, at the same time winking at Mary.

  Imagine kissing him. However, he seemed amiable enough.

  ‘What yer come round fer, then?’ demanded Sylvie, having asked one or two more casual questions. ‘Thought yer’d ’ave me on, I bet.’

  Plainly, she did not believe what Mary had said.

  ‘Just to ask you and er – Chris – to the engagement party. You’ll get a card, of course––’

  ‘“Of course” – get her! Better get a move on, then. They’ll be pulling this place down any day now. Given us another shop in the new block o’ flats. Wot do we live on meantime? Air?’ and she shrieked with laughter. ‘Engagement party – yes, I bet.’

  ‘It’s on December the first, at Rowena Road. In the big front room – you remember,’ said Mary.

  ‘Should have thought you could find somewhere better than that tatty old––’

  Here Chris surprised Mary by saying in a hearty voice, ‘Thanks a lot. We’ll be there – if the Battle of the Bulge don’t come off,’ and he jerked a thumb at his wife.

  30

  The party

  Dear Mr Davis,

  You must forgive me for not acknowledging your very kind letter sooner, but I have had a tiresome toe. After the unavoidable delay I will make haste to reply with all speed.

  I have thought the matter over thoroughly, after receiving the invitation to the engagement party from Mary, and also discussed it with Fred, who has been most kind and helpful, and I hope that you will not take it amiss if I tell you that I must decline. I have already written a brief note to Mary. In the third person.

  There is no point in beating about the bush with an old friend. (I hope I may say friend.) And to you I will admit that my reason for declining is that I never can get over Mary running away like that and taking up with that poor creature. Treating her father so casually. No, I cannot overlook it. I hope she will be happy in her new life, though she will find it strange at first. (No doubt you will remember I always did have a liking, from early childhood, for ‘Things Japanese’). Do as you think best about telling her my reason for declining. I merely said I had a previous engagement. I shall not send a wedding present.

  Concluding in thanking you for your kindness in saying you would like me to be there. I hope we shall meet soon. Perhaps, later in the year, you will come to spend a day here.

  Always yours very sincerely,

  Edith Wheeby

  Wilfred was reading this letter, in the afterglow, as the train thundered its way across the quiet Essex landscape towards London. It was of no use to gaze out at the fields of stubble, and trees already pale in the dying foliage of autumn because the rain snatched him past them. He didn’t want to look at his fellow passengers, and he had forgotten to buy the East Essex Herald at Torford station. He had nothing to do, and so he had taken out Mrs Wheeby’s letter.

  His friends at the Yellow House had also been asked. Mrs Cornforth had showed obvious disappointment when Mr Taverner had said, without explanation, that he was sorry their attendance was not possible.

  Wilfred had felt relieved by this decision; he foresaw that the occasion could be what you might call sticky, though he was pleased that Mary had invited his friends.

  He glanced out of the window. Rows of dark brown brick houses, pierced by threatening whitish towers that caught the last yellow light of day, had replaced the fields of aftermath. The train was running into Ilford; in a few more minutes they would be at Liverpool Street. He stood up, and began to take his case down from the rack.

  Broad Street was a high, dim, echoing cavern, refreshing to nerves battered by the bellowing of the train; and Wilfred settled down in the second, local train to enjoy the twilight going past, with house lights shining through the dusk.

  The party had been going on since half past two. What state would it be in?

  Rowena Road looked forbidding, its grey-and-white houses orange-lit and bordered by a double line of parked cars. But respectable, thought Wilfred as he rang the doorbell of number 20. Respectable.

  The door flew open and there was Mary. (Nice big hall, and no smells.)

  She took his case from him. ‘Found your way here all right, then? Come in, I’ll show you your room. Like a wash? It’s on the landing.’ She was leading the way upstairs, laughing and rubbing her eyes. ‘Don’t mind me, I’ve been asleep.’

  ‘Asleep?’

  ‘Yes. We did start at half past two, but things sort of fizzled out, somehow. Miss Wayne and the other old things always rest in the afternoon, and Sylvie and her Chris can’t make it until their shop shuts at eight, and Mrs Levy may not come at all, she thinks it’s a come-on.’ Mary giggled. ‘So Mr Grant and Mr Cadman and Yasu and me got started by ourselves. We sat around chatting –’ She was leading him across the landing. ‘Yasu started on that old Mishima – need you ask – and I fell asleep . . . Here we are.’ She opened a door, and put his case onto the bed. ‘And you should have heard Mr Grant!’ She was lingering at the door. ‘I shouldn’t think Mishima ever heard anything like that while he was with us – might have done him a bit of good if he had! And Yasu took it. I thought he’d go for Mr Grant with a bit of kendo, but he was just awfully polite. Only he went kind
of greenish (he does, when he’s worked up) –’

  ‘Where is he now, then? I hope he hasn’t gone off somewhere, if he’s worked up?’

  ‘Oh no. It’s only rage. I’m used to it. He’s downstairs, making us some Japanese snacks.’

  Mary had learnt never to say Jap. It implied contempt.

  ‘Well, love, come on down when you’re ready. Right down, into the basement. Gosh, you ought to see the big front – it looks smashing. But not till the others come . . . Hurry up. I don’t want to miss a minute of you.’

  She was gone. He stared at the shut door, glowing with happiness at her last words.

  She looked unfamiliarly older, in a silky dark green dress with a square neckline that showed off a necklace of stones glowing with fire. This was how Yasuhiro’s wife would look, perhaps, the mother of his children (Max, Hugh and Cilla, in that order). The young Tokyo matron. And would the Japanese snacks be raw fish?

  He sighed, and went across the landing to wash.

  She was waiting for him at the bottom of the basement stairs. From behind a door, pluckings and twanglings and nasal chantings came out into the stuffy air: sounds incongruous and foreign.

  ‘That’s Yasu’s favourite group, the Dwarf Trees. I can say it in Japanese but it nearly breaks my jaw.’

  ‘Are you learning Japanese, dear?’

  She shrugged. ‘Picking it up – I’ll have to tackle it a bit harder when I get out there, of course . . . You’ll have to dig into a lot of titchy little pots, I’m afraid, love. He’s set on giving us real Japanese starters.’

  She opened a door, and there was Yasuhiro, managing to look dignified in a striped butcher’s apron over his dark blue ceremonial robe. Open packets, glittering polythene wrappings and bright pink shrimps were scattered on a table in a corner. His wand of office was a wooden spoon.

  He came forward. ‘Welcome, Honourable Mr Davis.’

  Wilfred observed with dismay that his host’s face was faintly greenish.

  ‘Oh . . . hullo, Yasu. Nice to see you again. Are you cook this evening?’ Wilfred said.

  Yasuhiro looked at his spoon with dislike.

  ‘Such is my high position – my job. It was the idea of Miss Wayne. She lodges in the house. She told her idea to Mrs Cadman. I wanted to hire a cook for the evening, you know, but Mrs Cadman and Miss Wayne and old Mr Grant said it would save money if I did the preparations.’ He sighed heavily. ‘It isn’t necessary to save money. But good manners to agree with guests. So I buy a cook-book about Japanese cooking and read it, and now I am making these starters.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t be afraid to eat, Mr Davis. I follow the instructions carefully.’

  While talking, he was gently pushing forward a big armchair, into which he settled Wilfred with light touches of his long fingers, while the spoon waved gracefully.

  Mary was busy at the side table. A faint delicious smell came to Wilfred as the boy moved.

  ‘Understand, Mr Davis, this work is not pleasing to me,’ Yasuhiro murmured. ‘I do it to please Mrs Cadman and Miss Wayne.’

  ‘It’s all right – son.’ The last word was muttered. ‘I never could stand that kind of thing myself – not a man’s job – though I can make a cup of tea now and wash up as well as anyone.’

  ‘My words are spoken in the shadow of the pine trees, Mr Davis.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘In secret, it means.’

  ‘Oh yes – yes of course . . .’

  Yasuhiro smiled, and shot up from his kneeling position, and went over to Mary at the table.

  What it is to be twenty, Wilfred thought, watching the two as they moved about the room. I’m as tired as a dog after that journey, those diesels are enough to kill you – ‘shake you about like a pea on a shovel,’ as Pat used to say . . . Those flowers must have cost a packet.

  There were seventy large dahlias, arranged in those corners where their purple, crimson and white would light up the shadows; the effect of the colours was extraordinary; and after a little while it became impossible for Wilfred to look at anything else. What with the flowers’ still watchfulness, and the sweet scents from Yasuhiro’s robes – and surely Mary had been putting stuff on herself, as well? – and the pungency of some powder smouldering in a little brass pot, he dozed off.

  He was aroused by a triumphant cry of ‘Corn in Egypt!’ and awoke with a start and the confused impression that a female form was about to collapse upon him.

  ‘It’s all right – she’s found her glove. She must have dropped it when she came in from church this morning,’ said Mary’s voice, laughing. ‘Dad! Wake up. Here’s Mrs Cadman.’

  ‘It’s a shame to disturb you,’ said Mrs Cadman, straightening up from almost beneath his chair. Her appearance struck him as agreeable: a mouse in pink and orange. ‘Yes, here I am, Mr Davis, and pleased to see you in the flesh after our chats on the phone.’

  ‘And on such a happy occasion,’ boomed a voice behind her, where Mr Grant stood slightly at attention. ‘Found your way here all right, then?’

  There followed some discussion as to whether Rowena Road was easy to discover ‘amidst the intricacies of Lower Highgate’. (The phrase was Mr Grant’s, Mrs Cadman vowing that she had never heard it used by anyone, before or since.)

  Wilfred became aware that someone was being steered up to him by Yasuhiro: a small, thin, commonplace, elderly person, wearing, despite the fact that it was December, a bright summer dress. An older man hovered in the background.

  ‘Here is Miss Wayne,’ said the host in his most mellifluous voice. ‘Is Mr Davis, Mairly’s father, Miss Wayne. Honoured guest,’ he added, to Wilfred, ‘has said to me it seems a wicked waste of money to have so many flowers when millions of Indians are starving. Perhaps I leave you to dis-cuss this in-ter-esting question,’ and he swept away with a swirl of his robe. (Wilfred saw, with dismay, that the greenish tint had deepened.) The hovering male form remained unintroduced, and drifted into a corner.

  ‘Well so it does,’ repeated Miss Wayne, almost in a whisper, but firmly, ‘doesn’t it, Mr Davis? (It is Davis, isn’t it?) I’m afraid my hearing isn’t quite what it was, and foreigners never can pronounce names properly, can they? Aren’t there a terrible lot about? I declare, sometimes I don’t know if I’m in Highgate or South America. And the price of everything! Is it as bad up your way, Mr Davis?’

  A conversation followed about half-newpence, and biscuits, upon which Miss Wayne appeared to subsist. Wilfred was wishing he were alone with Mary and Yasuhiro, watching them and enjoying the scents and the brilliant flowers.

  The table had been cleared, and there appeared a number of little bowls of white and grey-green porcelain, into which Yasuhiro began rapidly spooning exotic-looking liquids and solids, while Mary, unaided, lugged up four heavy old chairs and shepherded everybody into them, including the elderly male who was now presented as Mr Bailey who-used-to-work for-Camden-Council.

  Miss Wayne whispered to the company at large that she had read that one sat on the floor to eat in Japan, and she was glad they hadn’t got to.

  Mary, rapidly distributing white paper napkins printed with black storks, cast one glance at her betrothed as if daring him to overhear and comment; but he maintained his host’s smile while serving Miss Wayne with cold rice garnished with pieces of lobster.

  ‘Should be oc-to-pus, Miss Wayne, to be truly Japanese,’ he beamed, as he filled her bowl. ‘But not possible.’

  ‘I’m thankful it isn’t,’ she retorted, still in her near-whisper, and valiantly began to pick over the sushi with her fork.

  The interest of identifying pieces of chicken and scrambled egg – (‘This dish is called tamago-dombui ’) – amidst a background of rice quickly promoted discussion; while the warm, bland-tasting liquid with which Yasuhiro filled and refilled the tiny cups led to laughter, and then loud laughter. When Yasuhiro’s thirst for revenge on these peasants was a little slaked, and when he had caught his prospective father-in-law’s eye, the bottles were whisked away and see
n no more until later that evening.

  Nevertheless, they were all unusually cheerful as the little party moved upstairs to the big front room, Mary and Yasuhiro having gone ahead, with Wilfred wondering who would do the washing-up? Certainly not the host. The guests were agreeing that all those little bites of things they had nibbled were tasty enough.

  ‘More like canopies,’ whispered Miss Wayne. ‘What they have at those cocktail receptions. I’ve read about them. Well I never!’

  The door of the big room had opened. There stood Mary and Yasuhiro side by side in the doorway, hand in hand and smiling.

  I feel a right Charlie, Mary was thinking.

  As the five elderly guests approached, the two hosts inclined in a deep bow. Yasuhiro’s ceremonial robe gleamed in its solid splendour, Mary’s necklace glinted soft fire. Behind them could be seen a glow of flowers, and the white cloth of a long buffet table. Blue incense coiled slowly in the soft glow from many large orange-coloured lanterns.

  ‘Well!’ cried Mrs Cadman. ‘You’ve been busy! I wouldn’t know my first-floor front. I did see some men carrying things in, but I kept my promise and I never said a word. The flowers! You naughty boy, you must have ruined yourself!’

  Yasuhiro smiled.

  ‘Quite a fairyland,’ Miss Wayne whispered.

  ‘You like all this, Mrs Cadman?’ enquired Yasuhiro graciously, advancing. ‘British food this time – salmon, tur-key. Mary choose it. Also whisky. And champagne. Correct for engagement party. We eat and drink later, when other honourable guests arrive.’

  At that moment the other guests had arrived, and were standing on the doorstep in what might have been an awkward silence had not Mrs Levy broken it by observing that it was quite a place to find, and no taxis about, and, her daughter’s car being in use that evening to take her to a very smart party, she had not been able to offer it to her mother here. Und so there is a party after all? She had had her suspicions, nodding and smiling meaningly.

  Sylvie, in a yellow and purple dress down to her ankles and scraped-up hair, giggled and said they were chancing their arm, too. Mrs Levy, eyeing the bulge approvingly, said that if there was a party, she hoped it would not go on too late; sleep was zo necessary just now, for Mrs—?