Cider With Rosie
Page 6
She snatched up an oil-can and threw it all on the fire. A belch of flame roared up the chimney. Mother gave a loud scream, as she always did, and went on stirring the porridge.
‘If I had a proper stove,’ she said. ‘It’s a trial getting you off each day.’
I sprinkled some sugar on a slice of bread and bolted it down while I could. How different again looked the kitchen this morning, swirling with smoke and sunlight. Some cut-glass vases threw jagged rainbows across the piano’s field of dust, while Father in his pince-nez up on the wall looked down like a scandalized god.
At last the porridge was dabbed on our plates from a thick and steaming spoon. I covered the smoky lumps with treacle and began to eat from the sides to the middle. The girls round the table chewed moonishly, wrapped in their morning stupor. Still sick with sleep, their mouths moved slow, hung slack while their spoon came up; then they paused for a moment, spoon to lip, collected their wits, and ate. Their vacant eyes stared straight before them, glazed at the sight of the day. Pink and glowing from their dreamy beds, from who knows what arms of heroes, they seemed like mute spirits hauled back to the earth after paradise feasts of love.
‘Golly!’ cried Doth. ‘Have you seen the time?’
They began to jump to their feet.
‘Goodness, it’s late.’
‘I got to be off.’
‘Me too.’
‘Lord, where’s my things? ’
‘Well, ta-ta Ma; ta boys - be good.’
‘Anything you want up from the Stores …? ’
They hitched up their stockings, patted their hats, and went running up the bank. This was the hour when walkers and bicyclists flowed down the long hills to Stroud, when the hooters called through the morning dews and factories puffed out their plumes. From each crooked comer of Stroud’s five valleys girls were running to shops and looms, with sleep in their eyes, and eggy cheeks, and in their ears night voices fading. Marjorie was off to her Milliners’ Store, Phyllis to her Boots-and-Shoes, Dorothy to her job as junior clerk in a decayed cloth-mill by a stream. As for Harold, he’d started work already, his day began at six, when he’d leave the house with an angry shout for the lathe-work he really loved.
But what should we boys do, now they had all gone? If it was school-time, we pushed off next. If not, we dodged up the bank to play, ran snail races along the walls, or dug in the garden and found potatoes and cooked them in tins on the rubbish heap. We were always hungry, always calling for food, always seeking it in cupboards and hedges. But holiday mornings were a time of risk, there might be housework or errands to do. Mother would be ironing, or tidying-up, or reading books on the floor. So if we hung around the yard we kept our ears cocked; if she caught us, the game was up.
‘Ah, there you are, son. I’m needing some salt. Pop to Vick’s for a lump, there’s a dear.’
Or: ‘ See if Granny Trill’s got a screw of tea - only ask her nicely, mind.’
Or: ‘Run up to Miss Turk and try to borrow half-crown; I didn’t know I’d got so low.’
‘Ask our Jack, our Mother! I borrowed the bacon. It’s blummin’-well his turn now.’
But Jack had slid off like an eel through the grass, making his sly get-away as usual. He was jumpy, shifty, and quick-off-the-mark, an electric flex of nerves, skinny compared with the rest of us, or what farmers might call a ‘poor doer’. If they had, in fact, they would have been quite wrong, for Jack did himself very well. He had developed a mealtime strategy which ensured that he ate for two. Speed and guile were the keys to his success, and we hungry ones called him The Slider.
Jack ate against time, that was really his secret; and in our house you had to do it. Imagine us all sitting down to dinner; eight round a pot of stew. It was lentil-stew usually, a heavy brown mash made apparently of plastic studs. Though it smelt of hot stables, we were used to it, and it was filling enough - could you get it. But the size of our family outstripped the size of the pot, so there was never quite enough to go round.
When it came to serving, Mother had no method, not even the law of chance - a dab on each plate in any old order and then every man for himself. No grace, no warning, no starting-gun; but the first to finish what he’d had on his plate could claim what was left in the pot. Mother’s swooping spoon was breathlessly watched - let the lentils fall where they may. But starving Jack had worked it all out, he followed the spoon with his plate. Absentmindedly Mother would give him first dollop, and very often a second, and as soon as he got it lie swallowed it whole, not using his teeth at all. ‘ More please, I’ve finished ’ — the bare plate proved it, so he got the pot-scrapings too. Many the race I’ve lost to him thus, being just that second slower. But it left me marked with an ugly scar, a twisted, food-crazed nature, so that still I am calling for whole rice puddings and big pots of stew in the night.
The day was over and we had used it, running errands or prowling the fields. When evening came we returned to the kitchen, back to its smoky comfort, in from the rapidly cooling air to its wrappings of warmth and cooking. We boys came first, scuffling down the bank, singly, like homing crows. Long tongues of shadows licked the curves of the fields and the trees turned plump and still. I had been off to Painswick to pay the rates, running fast through the long wet grass, and now I was back, panting hard, the job finished, with hay seeds stuck to my legs. A plate of blue smoke hung above our chimney, flat in the motionless air, and every stone in the path as I ran down home shook my bones with arriving joy.
We chopped wood for the night and carried it in; dry beech sticks as brittle as candy. The baker came down with a basket of bread slung carelessly over his shoulder. Eight quartern loaves, cottage-size, black-crusted; were handed in at the door. A few crisp flakes of pungent crust still clung to his empty basket, so we scooped them up on our spit-wet fingers and laid them upon our tongues. The twilight gathered, the baker shouted goodnight, and whistled his way up the bank. Up in the road his black horse waited, the cart lamps smoking red.
Indoors, our Mother was cooking pancakes, her face aglow from the fire. There was a smell of sharp lemon and salty batter, and a burning hiss of oil. The kitchen was dark and convulsive with shadows, no lights had yet been lit. Flames leapt, subsided, comers woke and died, fires burned in a thousand brasses.
‘Poke around for the matches, dear boy,’ said Mother.
‘Damn me if I know where they got to.’
We lit the candles and set them about, each in its proper order: two on the mantelpiece, one on the piano, and one on a plate in the window. Each candle suspended a ball of light, a luminous fragile glow, which swelled and contracted to the spluttering wick or leaned to the moving air. Their flames pushed weakly against the red of the fire, too tenuous to make much headway, revealing our faces more by casts of darkness than by any clear light they threw.
Next we filled and lit the tall iron lamp and placed it on the table. When the wick had warmed and was drawing properly, we turned it up full strength. The flame in the funnel then sprang alive and rose like a pointed flower, began to sing and shudder and grow more radiant, throwing pools of light on the ceiling. Even so, the kitchen remained mostly in shadow, its walls a voluptuous gloom.
The time had come for my violin practice. I began twanging the strings with relish. Mother was still frying and rolling up pancakes; my brothers lowered their heads and sighed. I propped my music on the mantelpiece and sliced through a Russian Dance while sweet smells of resin mixed with lemon and fat as the dust flew in clouds from my bow. Now and then I got a note just right, and then Mother would throw me a glance. A glance of piercing, anxious encouragement as she side-stepped my swinging arm. Plump in her slippers, one hand to her cheek, her pan beating time in the other, her hair falling down about her ears, mouth working to help out the time - old and tired though she was, her eyes were a girl’s, and it was for looks such as these that I played.
‘Splendid!’ she cried. ‘Top-hole! Clap-clap! Now give us another, me lad.’
Meanwhile Jack had cleared some boots from the table, and started his inscrutable homework. Tony, in his comer, began to talk to the cat and play with some fragments of cloth. So with the curtains drawn close and the pancakes coming, we settled down to the evening. When the kettle boiled and the toast was made, we gathered and had our tea. We grabbed and dodged and passed and snatched, and packed our mouths like pelicans.
Mother ate always standing up, tearing crusts off the loaf with her fingers, a hand-to-mouth feeding that expressed her vigilance, like that of a wireless-operator at sea. For most of Mother’s attention was fixed on the grate, whose fire must never go out. When it threatened to do so she became seized with hysteria, wailing and wringing her hands, pouring on oil and chopping up chairs in a frenzy to keep it alive. In fact it seldom went out completely, though it was very often ill. But Mother nursed it with skill, banking it up every night and blowing hard on the bars every morning. The state of our fire became as important to us as it must have been to a primitive tribe. When it sulked and sank we were filled with dismay; when it blazed all was well with the world; but if-God save us - it went out altogether, then we were clutched by primeval chills. Then it seemed that the very sun had died, that winter had come for ever, that the wolves of the wilderness were gathering near, and that there was no more hope to look for. …
But tonight the firelight snapped and crackled, and Mother was in full control. She ruled the range and all its equipment with a tireless, nervous touch. Eating with one hand, she threw on wood with the other, raked the ashes, and heated the oven, put on a kettle, stirred the pot, and spread out some more shirts on the guard. As soon as we boys had finished our tea, we pushed all the crockery aside, piled it up roughly at the far end of the table, and settled down under the lamp. Its light was warm and live around us, a kind of puddle of fire of its own. I set up my book and began to draw. Jack worked at his notes and figures. Tony was playing with some cotton reels, pushing them slowly round thetable.
All was silent except Tony’s voice, softly muttering his cotton reel story.
‘.. . So they come out of this big hole see, and the big chap say Fie and said we’ll kill ’em see, and the pirates was waiting up ’ere, and they had this gurt cannon and they went bang fire and the big chap fell down wheeee! and rolled back in the ’ole and I said we got ’em and I run up the ’ill and this boat see was cornin’ and I jumped on board woosh cruump and I said now I’m captain see and they said fie and I took me ’atchet ’ack ’ack and they all fell plop in the sea wallop and I sailed the boat round ’ere and round ’ere and up ’ere and round ’ere and down ’ere and up ’ere and round ’ere and down ’ere..
Now the girls arrived home in their belted mackintoshes, flushed from their walk through the dark, and we looked up from our games and said; ‘ Got anything for us? ’ and Dorothy gave us some liquorice. Then they all had their supper at one end of the table while we boys carried on at the other. When supper was over and cleared away, the kitchen fitted us all. We drew together round the evening lamp, the vastand easy time… Marjorie began to trim a new hat, Dorothy to write a love-letter, Phyllis sat down with some forks and spoons, blew ah! and sleepily rubbed them. Harold, home late, cleaned his bike in a comer. Mother was cutting up newspapers.
We talked in spurts, in lowered voices, scarcely noticing if anyone answered.
‘I turned a shaft to a thou’ today,’ said Harold.
‘A what? ’
‘He said a “thou”.’
Chairs creaked awhile as we thought about it….
‘Charlie Revell’s got a brand new suit. He had it made to fit…
‘He half fancies himself.’
‘Charlie Revell!..
Pause.
‘Look, Doth, I got these bits for sixpence. I’m going to stitch ’em all round the top here.’
‘Mmmmm. Well. Tccch-tcch. S’all right…
‘Dr Green came up to the shop this morning. Wearing corduroy bloomers. Laugh!___’
‘Look, Ma, look! I’ve drawn a church on fire. Look, Marge, Doth! Hey, look!…’
‘If x equals x, then y equals £ - shut up! -if.risy…’
‘O Madeline, if you’ll be mine, I’ll take you o’er the sea, di-dah…’
‘Look what I’ve cut for my scrapbook, girls - a Beefeater -isn’t he killing?’
‘Charlie Revell cheeked his dad today. He called him a dafty. He___’
‘… You know that boy from the Dairy, Marge - the one they call Barnacle Boots? Well, he asked me to go to Spot’s with him. I told him to run off home.’
‘No, you never!’
‘I certainly did. I said I don’t go to no pictures with butter-wallopers. You should have seen his face…’
‘Harry Lazbury smells of chicken-gah. I had to move me desk.’
‘Just hark who’s talking. Dainty Dick.’
‘I’ll never be ready by Sunday….’
‘I’ve found a lovely snip for my animal page - an old seal -look girls, the expression!…’
‘So I went round ’ere, and down round ’ere, and he said fie so I went ’ack, ’ack…’
‘What couldn’t I do to a nice cream slice…
‘Charlie Revell’s had ’is ears syringed…
‘D’you remember, Doth, when we went to Spot’s, and they said Children in Arms Not Allowed, and we walked little Tone right up the steps and he wasn’t even two… .’
Marge gave her silky, remembering laugh and looked fondly across at Tony. The fire burned clear with a bottle-green light. Their voices grew low and furry. A farm-dog barked far across the valley, fixing the time and distance exactly. Warned by the dog and some hooting owls, I could sense the night valley emptying, stretching in mists of stars and water, growing slowly more secret and late.
The kitchen, warm and murmuring now, vibrated with rosy darkness. My pencil began to wander on the page, my eyes to cloud and clear. I thought I’d stretch myself on the sofa - for a while, for a short while only. The girls’ muted chatter went on and on; I struggled to catch the drift. ‘ Sh!. .. Not now… When the boys are in bed. … You’ll die when you hear…. Not now…’
The boards on the ceiling were melting like water. Words broke and went floating away. Chords of smooth music surged up in my head, thick tides of warmth overwhelmed me, I was drowning in languor’s of feathered seas, spiralling cosily down….
Once in a while I was gently roused to a sound amplified by sleep; to the fall of a coal, the sneeze of the cat, or amuted exclamation. ‘She couldn’t have done such a thing–- She did….’ ‘Done what? .. . What thing? … Tell, tell me. …’ But helpless I glided back to sleep, deep in the creviced seas, the blind waters stilled me, weighed me down, the girls’ words floated on top. I lay longer now, and deeper far; heavier weeds were falling on me….
‘Come on, Loll. Time to go to bed. The boys went up long ago.’ The whispering girls bent over me; the kitchen returned upside down. ‘Wake up, lamb. … He’s whacked to the wide. Let’s try and cany him up.’
Half-waking, half-carried, they got me upstairs. I felt drunk and tattered with dreams. They dragged me stumbling round the bend in the landing, and then I smelt the sweet blankets of bed.
It was cold in the bedroom; there were no fires here. Jack lay open-mouthed, asleep. Shivering, I swayed while the girls undressed me, giggling around my buttons. They left me my shirt and my woollen socks, then stuffed me between the sheets.
Away went the candle down the stairs, boards creaked and the kitchen door shut. Darkness. Shapes returning slow. The window a square of silver. My bed-half was cold - Jack hot as a bird. For a while I lay doubled, teeth-chattering, blowing, warming against him slowly.
‘Keep yer knees to yerself,’ said Jack, turning over. He woke. ‘Say, think of a number! ’
‘’Le
ven-hundered and two,’ I groaned, in a trance.
‘Double it,’ he hissed in my ear.
Double it… . Twenny-four hundered and what? Can’t do it. Something or other. … A dog barked again and swallowed a goose. The kitchen still murmured downstairs. Jack quickly submerged, having fired off his guns, and began snorkling away at my side. Gradually I straightened my rigid limbs and hooked all my fingers together. I felt wide awake now. I thought I’d count to a million. ‘One, two ..I said; that’s all.
GRANNIES IN THE WAINSCOT
Our house was seventeenth-century Cotswold, and was handsome as they go. It was built of stone, had hand-carved windows, golden surfaces, moss-flaked tiles, and walls so thick they kept a damp chill inside them whatever the season or weather. Its attics and passages were full of walled-up doors which our fingers longed to open - doors that led to certain echoing chambers now sealed off from us for ever. The place had once been a small country manor, and later a public beerhouse; but it had decayed even further by the time we got to it, and was now three poor cottages in one. The house was shaped like a T, and we lived in the down-stroke. The top-stroke - which bore into the side of the bank like a rusty expended shell - was divided separately among two old ladies, one’s portion lying above the other’s.
Granny Trill and Granny Wallon were rival ancients and lived on each other’s nerves, and their perpetual enmity was like mice in the walls and absorbed much of my early days. With their sickle-bent bodies, pale pink eyes, and wild wisps of hedgerow hair, they looked to me the very images of witches and they were also much alike. In all their time as such close neighbours they never exchanged a word. They communicated instead by means of boots and brooms -jumping on floors and knocking on ceilings. They referred to each other as ‘’Er-Down-Under’ and ‘’Er-Up-Atop, the Varmint’; for each to the other was an airy nothing, a local habitation not fit to be named.
’Er-Down-Under, who lived on our level, was perhaps the smaller of the two, a tiny white shrew who came nibbling through her garden, who clawed squeaking with gossip at our kitchen window, or sat sucking bread in the sun; always mysterious and self-contained and feather-soft in her movements. She had two names, which she changed at will according to the mood of her day. Granny Wallon was her best, and stemmed, we were told, from some distinguished alliance of the past. Behind this crisp and trotting body were certainly rumours of noble blood. But she never spoke of them herself. She was known to have raised a score of children. And she was known to be very poor. She lived on cabbage, bread, and potatoes - but she also made excellent wines.