House Mother Normal
Page 3
yet, have I?
What’s she going to give her to do?
Nosy. I should mind my own. But she’s
got bottles, too. Little bottles. They look snug
in their little cardboard compartments.
Messy. Glad I
haven’t got a messy job. She’ll get all
messy doing that. I shan’t, just pouring.
I am a very careful pourer. That’s why she
chooses me to do these special jobs.
Let us apply reason to this job. If I stand a line
of empty bottles up, with a line of full ones in
front of them. . . . No, that wouldn’t be
very efficient because I’d have to keep moving the
full ones anyway. Try again.
If I fill the empty
ones a quarter-full with water, then I can pour
from three full ones to top it up. Yes. A dozen
at a time might be a suitable number to – Now
what’s she want? No, Sarah, you know
I haven’t got a cigarette. Disturbing my
reasonable deliberations. Now then, let’s try
filling a dozen empties a quarter-full with
water. When Sarah’s finished at the sink.
Line the dozen up, and a dozen full in front, and
pour . . . yes, a quarter each from three full
ones and I’ve got a finished
one. But what does she want me to do about
the corks? Does she want them corked? I haven’t
enough corks to go round. Still, that’s her problem.
She’d have told me if she’d wanted them corked. Now
another – no, wait a minute, mate, here’s a better
way. If you pour water from three of the quarter–
filled empties into the three you quarter-emptied–
better still if you’d filled the empties right to
the top with water, but for one or two. Then you
could have. . . . That’s it, Charlie
boy, you’ve got a scheme now. It’s all sewn up. Off
you go, back to the sink for more water.
Easy now. Filling and pouring. Straightforward
for a careful person with at least some intelligence.
Like I am. Straightforward. I can do it
without thinking after a short while. Even might get
to like it without too much trouble. Same as during
the War. Soon learnt to get on with it and
like it. Got out of being sent on one draft
because I was the aerodrome pianist, but couldn’t
dodge the second one. The first one I actually
left Dover aerodrome and was at Walmer
preparatory for leaving for the Front. But the
officer at Dover rang up and said Have you got
Edwards there? And they said Yes, he’s doing a
good job clerking. Well, he’ll do a better job
playing the Joanna here, he said, send him back
at once. So I went back in a staff car. Just
as we arrived there was a general alert throughout
the whole Dover Patrol and everyone leapt about.
Either bombs or shells were exploding as we drove
across the approach roads. But no one got hurt.
It was remarkable like that. So I was back to
organising socials and dances and concerts. By
the end of ’15 I was pianist and leader of an eight–
piece. The personnel changed, of course, as people
got drafted, but somehow our officer always avoided
sending me until the autumn of ’16, when I had to go.
But the year and a bit I was there stood me in good
stead. If it hadn’t been for the experience I got
then I don’t think I would have become a pro after
the War. I found I was better at it than I thought
I was. And I was making a tidy bit on the side
from it, too. It was then I first realised that
there was money to be made in this music game, far
more money than in the clerking I had been doing
up to then in the Civil Service. My disability
pension wasn’t much when I came out, but it was just
enough to keep me going until I got myself a job
playing in a cinema. A white sheet hanging up by its
four corners in a church hall in Kingsland High
Street. They didn’t listen to what the pianist was
playing. They only heard you if what you played
didn’t fit in with what was on the screen. I’d
never really been to the pictures until then. But
I soon enough picked up what was wanted. You had
to keep on playing no matter what. They noticed if
you stopped. Sometimes they would applaud. Since
I was the only one live who had anything to do with
it it used to amuse me. I would take a bow as if
I were Paderewski or someone like that. Sometimes
we had a drumkit and other sound effects. The new
films came in twice a week or sometimes oftener.
I did not usually get any chance to see them before
the first house. That was the worst house, too.
They booed and yelled as if they were at a prize
fight. There. That’s the first
dozen. Put them into their crate.
Suppose this must be liquor of some sort. My sense
of smell is nearly gone. I’d be lost in a fire. But
don’t ask questions. That’s why she puts her trust
in me. But can’t help wondering to myself what it
is. Or where it’s going. Perhaps it’s going to one
of those clubs like I used to play in in the twenties.
Before the rift came with Betty. Like the famous or
notorious Mrs Marshall’s All-Up Club in Frith Street.
All that dust-up in the papers over bribing a
police sergeant. They were all taking. It was not
only the sergeant. Mrs Marshall was just the type
who would buy watered whisky. Or stolen whisky. Then
she’d water it down herself. The customers were
always complaining about the drink. She was very firm
with them. She tried to run it as she would her own
home, silly as it may sound. That’s what she said
to anyone who complained, however. One night the
place would be full of gangsters, and the next you
might even have royalty there. There was no telling.
And it was all Mrs Marshall’s doing. She was that
kind of powerful phooooooor . . . rt! that’s better,
woman. No man could dominate her, no indeed. She
had her man, or rather men, of course. But one at a
time. I’ve seen that woman set a man quivering with
fear just with one look. That was enough. And he
went sneaking out of the door just like a whipped cur.
Yet she was kind enough when she wanted to be. She
was very kind to me in her way. She could see that
I was dotty about Betty at the time, so there was
never any question of my wanting to make advances to
her. So really right from the start it was purely
a business association. I could get her the quality
players she needed for a place like that. And at
the same time those boys were the souls of discretion
itself about who they might see there and what they
might see going on. And they needed to be.
To people like us she was a good payer, too. I had
no gripes. The only bandsman I really had trouble
with was Ronnie Palmer. Later he made a name for
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br /> himself, of a sort, on the wireless as a kind of
poor man’s Harry Lauder. But then he was violin
doubling saxes for me at Mrs M’s All-Up. Ronnie
was ill-bred anyway, and a bit too fond of the
ladies with it. So fond that he was arranging for
them to be available during band breaks and other
odd times. Mrs M. wasn’t keen on this on her own
premises, especially when it involved several of
the girls she had as cashiers and so on. But
when she spoke sharply to him about it, he answered
back. But he only just began to say something
that I think meant he could blackmail her in some
way and she was on him. First of all she thumped
him, and how he knew he’d been thumped, too,
then before he could think what he was doing she’d got
an arm-hold on him and had bounced him all the way
to the back, where one of the kitchen porters took
over and bounced him out to the dustbins. We
had to get through that night without Ronnie. It
was too late to find anyone to dep. for him.
Perhaps it did him a good turn in the end. Next
I heard of him he was in the BBC’s own dance
orchestra. Perhaps I should have tried to get
into the wireless end of the business then. If I
had had foresight. Then I’d have had all the trouble
and all the jealousies and a hundred to one I
wouldn’t have lived to be the age I am now. I should
count my blessings. Where’s Ronnie Palmer now?
Dead, I should think. And he was younger than me.
It would have pleased Betty though if I’d managed to
be on the wireless. She was a great one for
that kind of thing. Finished them
just in time. All full. What about corks?
Here she comes, down.
What shall I do for corks for these, Miss?
Yes, I put those back afterwards.
Right, Miss. I don’t know about the lifting, Miss. . . .
She’s not listening. After that so-and-so dog again,
hairs everywhere.
Cork up. Dozens here in this box. Where does she
get them? Anyway, they fit, won’t
take me long to finish this lot.
Fingers can do this easily enough. I still hear
pieces in my head, but I couldn’t play them
even if she had a piano here.
Now she’s having another go at
that poor old soul. Though she asks for it in some
ways, I’ll admit. There, that’s
the lot. I won’t lift them. I don’t want to strain
my gut.
Praising that Sarah. I’ve done
just as well. What about me?
I should think so, too.
Now what is it she’s going to get us up to?
Pass the Parcel. Pass the
Parcel. This is stupid. Who wants to play silly
games? But we all do. We all do as she says.
Always. Stupid.
A lovely surprise. I can imagine.
For me?
Pass it on to Ivy.
Mrs Ridge She’s about
half opened it.
Coming to me Now to me, it’ll come to
me! Not quite.
Sarah’s got it. Not fair. Injustice again.
What’s in it? There, she didn’t have time to win.
Hold on in case it stops now. Have
to pass it now. Not fair.
Pass it on!
Ron. It’s that Ron.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha! Ha ha I shall
choke! That serves him right! Ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha! Oh dearie me, dearie me, ha ha!
Ha ha! ha ha ha ha ha!
It’s like in Verdun. That fellow who couldn’t
speak Flemish, or French was it. He was having
dinner in some café. Lamb he thought it was. He
enjoyed it so much that he tried to say how pleased
he was to the proprietor by pointing at his plate
and going “baa-baa” with a pleasant, questioning
look. But the proprietor grinned, shook his head and
said “bow-wow!” It’s just a story. It must be just
a story. Though anything could happen out there.
You could believe anything. And though they said
that cities were bad places to live, they certainly
produced the best fighters. That’s what I found.
Paris, too. They had more guts. They had had to
fight all their lives. It was natural. We were
attached to the French there. Rum once a week if
you were lucky. Once it didn’t get through. Next
day we found the rum rationer dead on the road, not
dead drunk as we thought at first – Travel? I’ve
done enough of that in my time, if you don’t mind.
Her name for the exercise session. Stretch my
legs Could do with a stretch.
Ah. Mrs Bowen,
shall I give you a turn round?
Yes, I feel fine, Just for a few minutes,
eh? I’m sure she won’t want to keep us at it too
long tonight, eh, Mrs Bowen?
It was the guns all night. Then over the top at
dawn. Why wasn’t I killed like most of my mates?
It’s a mystery. No one can know. I had the new
shrapnel helmet on for the first time anything
came near my head. Left me a little concussed,
that’s all. Another time a Jerry got me across
it with the butt end of his rifle. But it didn’t
affect me and I got him with my bayonet while he
was recovering from the swing. I’d got used to the
noises people made, by then. It was him or me, I
knew that.
I saw a Jerry using
his spiked helmet as a weapon. Hand-to-hand it
was by then, in some attacks. When there were
gas shells about you tried to get a Jerry’s gas–
mask off.
Some of those old songs still turn me over.
March, march, left, right, left right, left right,
left! Don’t feel nervous on the corners, do you
Mrs B? Good.
I also saw gunners chained to their pieces to
stop them running for it. I saw officers urge
their men on from the rear with revolvers in their
hands. A man shot dead for answering back one of
the officers. Two weeks before the Armistice my
own cousin told me his officer had it in for him
and would certainly see to it that he got sent up
to the Front right to the last. He was blown
up with his gun. Serving his gun bravely to the
end, that so and so wrote to my poor Auntie.
Sent her the bits and pieces left, his brass
numbers all buckled, a tiny wineglass not broken, a
present for his daughter, she decided. And there
amongst the – Tourney? Right.
Right, Mrs Bowen,
sport now. You won the tourney last time, didn’t
you? You can do it again!
Thanks, Ivy.
Take the soggy mop.
Oh, this is a right
lark!
Off! Thunder
off! Better start than Sarah,
faster top speed, better knight, harder IMPACT!
Very good, Mrs Bowen, right in the face!
Round we go. And back again,
we’ll have another go.
BOMPF!
Right in the shoulder, Mrs Bowen!
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br /> And again. We’ll be the winners,
two-nil up.
Tiring. THUMP! Well done us, Mrs
Bowen, we deserve a rest, eh?
Well done!
I don’t want to listen to
all that rubbish again. Who does she think I am?
Bill and Glory asked
me to come and play in their pub in the city. I’d
never played in pubs before that. Because of my
disability I could not be called up. I was too
old anyway. But I had to go into industry, everybody
had to do that. I had nothing to do at night
times only go down the shelter or hide out in the
suburbs. So I was quite pleased to have something
to do. Shortly afterwards America came into the
war, and they used to pour out of Liverpool Street
station straight into this pub right opposite.
Somehow it seemed that the way I played was just
their handwriting. The word got around the
aerodromes in East Anglia and the pub did a roaring
trade. They would come in there with their five
days’ leave and lots of lovely money in their
pockets and say ‘Sing us the songs the old man sang in
the last war.’ They used to have a good time, I
was better off than I had been for a long time.
Nothing comes from nothing, I was
taught. But what about plants? The space occupied
by the growth must have left a space behind?
A field of wheat must surely have sunk by the volume
of the growth? If not, why not? These questions
should be answered. House
mother up on the dais again. Surely she’s not going
to tell us all those jokes again?
Yes, she is.
Groan, not laugh.
Heard it before. Shan’t listen. The
places I can’t reach. They must be getting very
dirty. Can’t scratch them properly, either. They
might be festering. They get wet when I bath, but
not washed. I am not allowed to be as fastidious
as I was. Or rather I am unable – Laugh! On the
word Laugh! you will laugh as ordered. Ha Ha Ha!
I went too far after the
rift with Betty. I just walked out on a job the
day after, and walked and walked all over, not knowing
– Groan, groan! I didn’t
care whether I lived or died. As it happened, I
lived. I don’t know how, at first. We had met too
many well-to-do people on our tours, and the girl