Dolly's War

by Dorothy Scannell

  There was no comfort from the family, either. Mother giggled and Amy inspected herself in the mirror, her look confirming, yes, Dolly looked even older than her older sisters. The hairdresser’s remarks really cast me down so that when I went to the station to bid farewell to my youthful warrior, I looked and felt like crying and Chas departed beaming like the sun. This was his last departure, his next homecoming would be permanent. How different from his first departure, then I was smiling radiantly and he almost in tears. His leave had not made me impatient for the future and I had to learn all over again that some things cannot be planned. I addressed my next letter to him ‘Dear Son,’ and his speedy reply was a passionate apology for his laughter at the hairdresser’s remark. He had only been laughing because I had taken it seriously. The hairdresser was of course mad, his officer, whom I’d met at the station had been very smitten with me. ‘I had no idea you had such a striking-looking wife,’ he had said to Chas, ‘and what a brilliant sense of humour.’ I wished I could have remembered what I had remarked to the officer; I remember I thought him quite a dish. I cheered myself up by deciding that I was one of those people with a ‘fixed age’ when I reached the age people assumed I was, those around me would grow more ancient while I stayed the same.

  Some time after Chas’s final return he was offered a position with a shipping company. He possessed the necessary qualifications, there were excellent prospects with this company, and never having been one hundred per cent keen on canvassing or salesmanship, he took the position with the S.S. Co. And we installed a telephone – the first members of the family to arrive at such affluence! We longed for it to ring after the engineer left. But silent stayed the bell. Until we were asleep that night. Chas answered it and returned to me white-faced. A ‘dreadful’ voice had said, ‘Your life is in danger.’ ‘I must phone the police,’ said Chas agitatedly. ‘Whatever can they do?’ I asked, and persuaded him to come back to bed. I started to laugh when I thought of his terrified expression and he was a bit sulky about my laughter. Suddenly, just as I was dozing off he sat up in bed and said in a delighted tone, ‘The man didn’t say “Your life is in danger”.’ ‘Oh, good,’ I said, happy for him. ‘No,’ he went on. ‘I realise now what he did say.’ ‘What was that then?’ I said, now quite interested, ‘Your Wife is in danger,’ he said triumphantly. Now he went to sleep with a smile and I lay awake quite worried.

  Chas liked his job, Susan liked her school, our neighbours were friendly and life was pleasant while I was waiting for my next baby to be born. After the miserable intervening years we seemed to have enough to smile at. We had two girl neighbours whom I liked very much. They were real characters. Ivy and Nell. They had been lifelong friends, had married two brothers, both quiet and gentle fellows, and now they shared a large house half a dozen doors away from us. Nell had a voice mightier than an ‘Ada Larkins’ and whatever part of the district her young son Peter was playing in, her ‘PETER’ always reached him. Their day’s work finished, the girls would station themselves on the wall of the front garden, the railings of all gardens in the road having been removed ‘for the war effort’. Here they would sit and pass the time of day with a joke to the homecoming men, most of whom were a little bit shy at the evening’s public greeting, but Chas always had a smile and a ready word for them and when I was preparing his meal at evening-time I always knew of his approach before he reached our house because of Nell’s sergeant-major’s, ‘Evening, Charlie – had a good day, boy?’ They were cockney girls of the old school, with no shyness or fear of anyone.

  They gave me hours of amusement and I was ‘Dolly’ to them before I’d been in that area more than a few hours.

  Nell’s son was in the same class at school as Susan and at the end of the first year after the war the children brought home their school reports. I always met Susan from school and Nell’s son walked home with us. The reports had been rolled out on a green jelly pad and the words ‘Nature Study’ had come out faintly ‘Nature’. As I asked Nell, when we were comparing the reports, ‘And what has he got for Nature Study?’ before I could say the word ‘study’ Nell looked at her son’s report and said, for all the world to hear, ‘Nature? Well, I’ll tell you, Dolly, if he’s anything like his father, it’s bleeding ’ot.’ It took me a long while to explain to her what Nature Study really was. ‘Well,’ said Nell, obstinately, ‘he don’t bleeding well need it, not if he takes after his father!’ His father was so quiet and gentle I could hardly believe Nell’s description of her husband.

  Chas never appeared interested in ‘bank’ books again and we decided to spend the war-time savings on modernising our house. We were fortunate in obtaining the services of a ‘master-builder’, the strangest master-builder I have ever seen. He was small and slight, yet possessed the strength of a Goliath. He was a cultured man with a lovely voice and an Edwardian manner of speech, and with an old-fashioned courtesy. He was the first builder I had met who did not make me feel as though my house was falling down. Whenever I had asked for an estimate for decorating etc., the builder or decorator had always looked round tragically, tutted, making me feel I was asking for a miracle, and finally, while the estimater was ‘hesitating’ on the price to be asked, I would jump in with profuse apologies for daring to invite a real ‘craftsman’ into what they always made me feel was a ‘dump’. But this new man I had engaged was like one of the Three Musketeers in his gallant treatment of me. His first job was to put a picture-window down one side of the kitchen wall and he would bang away at the brickwork singing in a lovely voice or reciting poetry. He would say, ‘If Madam would be so kind as to journey to the front gate we might ascertain as to whether the building inspector approacheth.’ Like a madam I would gaze up and down the road, and on my return would describe a man who might be walking near the house, and my little craftsman would put his hands together and gaze up at the sky in supplication and say, ‘All is still well for that is not he.’ What action would have been taken if‘he’ did ‘approacheth’ I never knew.

  My mother liked my little craftsman, perhaps because he was like a little faun in his leaping and springing movements, perhaps because she liked his singing or poetry. Doubtless he brought out the maternal in her and he brightened visibly each time he saw her. She would make hot scones for his morning tea feeling he needed feeding up. My father, on the other hand, was a little frustrated by my Musketeer, possibly because he couldn’t fault his work. My father, a craftsman of the ‘old school’, would say ‘craftsman’ with such an expression of disgust when workmen were employed by any of the family, but D’Artagnan was perfect so Father avoided him whilst he was working on my house. But as soon as the little courtier had left for home in the evening my father would scoot downstairs and inspect very carefully every inch of the work, and return silently to his books. Finally my father accepted the newcomer as a member of the craftsman fraternity and in a subtle manner eased his frustration through ploys against Chas.

  Chas had decided to cultivate the back garden. It was a mass of trees, lilac, firs, etc., and at the bottom of the garden there were a William pear-tree and a cherry-tree. He removed all the trees with the exception of the fruiting ones and soon had rows of vegetables planted. Chas thought he detected a slight air of coolness in Father’s manner towards him and I was designated to discover why. Of course, Father paid his rent, he was ‘entitled’ to half the garden. It was difficult to apportion now that it was planted and in any case Chas had no idea that ‘the old Adam’ lay unsatisfied in Father’s breast. He couldn’t understand why Father had the urge to dig and plant when he would have been presented with as much of our crop as he needed. However Father was given the piece of garden near the fruit-trees.

  Now Mother had already bought and planted, in the small front garden, a forsythia bush of which she was very fond. Chas, reorganising the front garden, dug this out and laid a lawn. Looking forward to the birth of my second child and the modernising of the house I was not really aware that the removal of this b
ush had upset Mother for she had said nothing to me, always wanting a peaceful atmosphere around her. Whether my father knew this I don’t know, but one of his garden bonfires ‘accidentally’ destroyed the cherry-tree, and I began to feel like Piggy in the Middle for Chas would complain to me one day and then Father mumble about Chas’s gardening capabilities the next. Father, all innocent, would dig and plant where Chas had already ‘put his mark’ and then Chas would return the compliment. Father gave up first, possibly bored with gardening, and filled his whole patch with everlasting spinach. Fortunately this flourished always so his pride was salvaged and an uneasy peace restored.

  Then Chas, always the unsatisfied farmer, bought some hens which caused my father to criticise ‘backyard fowls’ and the disease and pests associated with them. He hated these cackling birds but would have calmed down and probably accepted them peacefully when he saw the lovely brown eggs. But Chas, fired by the success of his first venture into poultry-keeping, bought a cock. This grew into a magnificent bird and Chas was immensely proud of it. He just loved all the chickens and gave them all names which my father seemed to think revealed an unmanly streak in my husband. Now, for some mysterious reason, this cock hated my father, and if Chas had gone to work without locking the run it would take off and fly across the garden towards my father screaming whenever it saw him. My father would not admit that he detested this cock because he was nervous of it, indeed he never galloped into the house when the bird made a bee-line for him, but he did put on a sort of ‘Olympic walking-race’ run, and he always took a stick with him into the garden. Finally Chanticleer’s days were numbered for he flew at Susan one day, and at last I put my foot down. My father ate the roasted cock with happy relish, but Chas sadly refused any.

  All this excitement amused D’Artagnan no end and now my father had become quite friendly with him for the little man had gone so bravely to Susan’s aid at the time of the bird’s attack, and indeed, saved her from a nasty injury. One evening Susan called from the bedroom that someone was sawing underneath her bed. At first I thought she must be dreaming but suddenly I heard it, a sawing and a scrambling, down in the cellar. We had arranged to have a new kitchen floor and in the old wooden floor, by the side of the cooker, was a hole about the size of a penny. And from this hole emerged the nose and teeth of a RAT! I was absolutely terrified. Chas fetched the long carving-knife with the narrow point, sharpened it to razor-like proportions and laid full length on the kitchen floor intending to stab and perhaps impale the intruder and so kill him, but every time the wretched creature poked his nose through the hole Chas ‘jumped’ and always missed it. We had a sleepless night and I longed for the morning when the ‘Rat’ man would call.

  He came, a giant of a man, and whilst, in the manner of a surgeon, he laid out his paraphernalia, he informed us, so very modestly, of course, what a dangerous mission he had chosen in life, only the brave could survive his calling. D’Artagnan, from the top of his ladder, gazed down with sceptical grimaces at this ratty V.C., and we waited with baited breath while our brave hero descended into the bowels of the house. He was wearing a sort of face mask and had thick gloves on his hands and a cudgel in one of them. We waited for the verdict. He led us to believe that we had an influx of the terrible rodents and first of all he must tempt them and reassure them. He would feed them with good food and when they were happy and ‘at home’ with their surroundings and had become trusting creatures, then he would poison the food. The thought of the next few days with a happy family beneath me so terrified me that when the brave man had departed, D’Artagnan went down and inspected the cellar. ‘As I thought, Madam dear, there is only one rat there, I caught a glimpse of it, it is crippled, ill and old, and has probably been turned out by the other rats from some other place.’ We had a small air-hole on the outside wall and my father thought it had probably come into the house that way.

  The next few days were torture to me, although I was very glad I had two men in the house day and night. My father went down the cellar hoping to catch the rat, but he never saw it. At last, after the rat’s repast had been poisoned, came the great day of salvation. The V.C. dressed himself for the battle which he led us to believe, would ensue. Well he convinced me of his bravery under assault, but not D’Artagnan who announced to me that morning he was sure of the rat’s demise, the poison being a deadly one. Sounds of battle and war-like cries emanated from the cellar and presently up came the rat man with his hands behind his back. ‘Don’t look, missus,’ he implored. ‘It’s not a pretty sight.’ I made coffee for this marvellous man and he left with an aura of a job well done. D’A. watched his retreat down the road and then galloped back to the dustbin. Coming back into the kitchen with joy shining from his dear little face he announced, ‘Just as I believed, Madam dear, “rye-goor morteese” had set in.’ It really had been an outcast from its tribe, old and unwanted. My father somehow blamed Chas’s chickens for the arrival of the rat and their days too were numbered.

  Chapter 12

  Saturdays with the Cheggies

  Saturday afternoons at Forest Gate were lovely interludes and red-letter days of the week for Mother and me, for then members of the family, who lived near enough, would come home to visit. The children would find their way downstairs to Susan, and I would find my way up for tea with Mother and my brothers and sisters. My father and Chas were away at their football- or cricket-matches, and we loved their absence for this afternoon. For one thing Chas could never be at home doing anything without wanting me constantly by his side. He could never ‘find’ anything and always seemed to need a mate to pass him various implements for the job on hand.

  Amy couldn’t understand what she thought was my ‘servility’ to Chas and my pacifying replies to him if he was irritable about anything. But, like my mother I would ‘give points away for peace’. I detested arguments over things that didn’t really matter in life, but Amy, to me, seemed to enjoy arguments, or perhaps it was that her pride would not allow, what she thought was subservience, to another human being, least of all man! Her husband, James, was a gentle fellow, warm and affectionate to her. He would never argue with Amy, but just remain quiet and calm at times of stress, and this probably frustrated her. Too, she was not afraid or timid of rows as I was; I always worried that arguments or quarrels might become physical, whereas Amy was brave and would attack the strongest.

  One Sunday morning Jimmy, feeling warm and loving towards his wife, made tentative advances. Amy, anxious to get up and on with the cooking and housework, repulsed him. Thereupon Jimmy began to sulk and Amy, furious at this, picked up her corsets and began to belabour Jimmy with them. ‘No more, Cheggie dear,’ he cried. ‘I am sorry, I won’t sulk again.’ Amy laughed at this incident while the rest of us looked disapproving. ‘I am afraid she’s like Dad’s mother,’ said my mother sadly. Mother wasn’t against a woman standing up to a man, that wasn’t the reason she had disapproved of Grandmother Chegwidden. I learnt from a whispering Agnes that our paternal grandmother, a small and elegant body, like Amy, was not only a spitfire, but an enjoyer of ‘love’! She actually let it be known that Grandfather, another gentle soul, was not ‘satisfying’ enough for her. No wonder Mother was disapproving. Apparently my grandfather, late home for lunch, had registered a mild complaint, or perhaps just a remark, about his meal. It was his favourite, pork chop, roast potatoes, sprouts and celery. Granny removed this instantly from him and sat at the table eating it herself with great relish and enjoyment! Mother used to say to us, ‘And he never complained about anything ever again.’

  I had seen my grandmother once when I was a little girl, before my younger sister was born. She was old and ill and Mother took me to visit her. She lived with my Auntie Dot at Tooting and I thought Tooting was a beautiful name for a place. My mother took with her a large William pear. I had never seen anything so enormous. Mother wrapped it carefully in tissue-paper in a tiny carrier-bag. I knew my grandmother must be very very ill for Mother to take a William pear
with us for it seemed to me my mother treated this pear as though it was somehow different from the fruit on the stalls. It must have had a special significance and although I would love to have taken a bite from the side of this lovely plump fruit, I wouldn’t have liked to have been poorly in bed at the time for it would have told me I was very ill.

  We went into a downstairs bedroom in the Tooting house. In bed was a tiny woman with glittering dark eyes. They looked searchingly at me and a husky voice said, ‘So this is Wal’s youngest, this is your Dolly.’ Just then the sun sent a beam of light into the dark room. It seemed to wrap itself warmly round me and hide me from my grandmother, yet her voice went on, ‘A little golden angel to kiss me good-bye.’ Mother said quickly to me, ‘Run out into the kitchen and fetch Auntie Dot.’ In the kitchen Auntie Dot sat me in a wooden armchair and said, ‘Sit still, there’s a good little girl,’ and she ran out of the room. Mother came to fetch me after a long time and we went home from Tooting on a tram. Grandmother couldn’t have been there, I remembered, as we had passed her bedroom when leaving the house, for the sheet was right up over the pillows. Somehow I knew she hadn’t eaten that enormous William pear, yet Mother didn’t have it with her any longer. My mother would always say there is nothing like a perfect English William pear when someone is ill, and I couldn’t understand this when young, for the invalids Mother seemed to visit with her special fruit always seemed to pass on at the sight of it.