A Time to Love

by Beryl Kingston

  Aunty Dumpling was already on the balcony two floors above them, stouter than ever in her sacking apron, and with her sleeves rolled up above her elbows, ready for action; and Aunt Rivke and her daughter Becky were waiting at the foot of the stairs to kiss them all welcome and assist with the chairs. Her two solid sons were following with the second cart, so they were all eager to get the first one unpacked before they arrived.

  Rivke began to give orders before her kiss was dry, brisk and forceful as always. ‘So, you take the table, Manny! You help your father, David! Becky! Rugs! Ve on our vay up, Dumpling!’ And they all obeyed her without question.

  As he struggled backwards up the narrow staircase, and was pinned into corners by the rigid length of the table, David watched his father’s long anxious face and thought yet again how very odd it was that he and his two sisters should be so very dissimilar. Aunty Dumpling was as fat and easy as a cottage loaf, and much the same shape, with her roly-poly bosom, her wide hips, short rounded arms and little fat fingers. There was so much extra flesh on her face these days that her brown eyes seemed to be sinking and her mouth looked ridiculously small between the mounds of her two folded chins and the rough red balloons of her cheeks. But she was so loving and chuckly, her eyes were so bright and full of life, and her curls so plump, you forgot how fat she was and expected her to laugh and cry and romp as though she were a child.

  Aunt Rivke, on the other hand, could never have been mistaken for a child. She looked as grown up as anybody possibly could be, dour and rather hard done by, with her pear-shaped face and her pear-shaped body, and her air of indomitable effort. Being exceedingly froom, she wore a black curly wig under her shawl whenever she went out, but in the buildings she went bareheaded, and bare was really the most accurate word for her appearance. Her hair was so sparse and grey it was no more than a thin covering for her skull, even though she parted it just above her left ear and did her best to spread its inadequacies over as much of her forehead as she could. Beneath it, her features were lopsided too, the left eye bigger and lower than the right and the left side of her narrow lips turned down as though she was sneering. She looked like a woman who bore the world a grudge, and for most of her waking life she behaved that way too, attacking the most trivial chore with such energy and aggression it was quite alarming to watch her. Herring would be slapped onto the table, bread thudded onto your plate, chairs crunched into position. Now it was the turn of the rag rugs which were being burled before the stove as though she had just defeated them in battle. And yet she never actually complained about anything, and was always most willing to help. ‘There, bubeleh,’ she said lovingly to her sister-in-law. ‘Ve soon be settled.’

  Rachel was in the scullery and tearful with happiness. ‘Oy, oy, oy, a scullery all to myself!’ she said enraptured. ‘Such luxury! My own tap, Emmanuel! My own sink! No more I should carry vater! Oy, oy, oy!’ She touched the tap reverently, lifting a drip of water onto her forefinger. ‘Vater ven ve vant it!’

  David and his father stood outside the scullery door, looking in at her delight. The little room was too small to hold them all at once, but she was right about how convenient it was. It had a sink, and a tap, and standing in one corner a fine fat copper to heat water and wash the clothes in. True, the brick walls were clammy, and there were flies crawling across the whitewashed ceiling, but what of that? It was their scullery, opposite their W.C., inside their front door.

  ‘Ve don’t share vid anyone ever again,’ she said rapturously. ‘Oy, Emmanuel, bubeleh, you are so good to me!’

  He bent his head towards her shining face, smiling quietly. ‘I vould give you the vorld, my Rachel, if I had it to give,’ he said. And the look that passed between them was as close and loving as a kiss.

  Watching them, David felt his heart contract with an odd almost painful pleasure, because they were so fond of one another, and so happy. And yet he knew his father hadn’t really done anything to get this flat. It was Aunty Dumpling and Rivke who’d done all the work, fretting and worrying until they got their own way. He’d been too timid to make demands. If it had been left to him they would still have been in Fashion Street. And Mama must know it too, and yet here she was behaving as though it had been all his doing, and here he was basking in her love as though he completely deserved it. It was all very puzzling and complicated, like so much about life these days.

  ‘Vhat you vaiting for?’ Rivke asked. ‘You think you stand here vid beds in the yard? Oy, such a boy!’

  As he sped off down the iron staircase he tried to sigh his doubts away. Whatever else, it was wonderful to be in the Buildings at last, with all his friends, and particularly now with the Jubilee coming. There’d be some sport in London this summer and no mistake.

  And sport there was.

  It was one of the best summers anyone could remember, with perfect weather, just as though the old queen had commissioned it The decorations were put up early and by the end of May every high street in London was twittering with bunting and forested with thick ropes of evergreens. It was a month for elaborate parties and glittering parades, and that meant new clothes and nonstop work for the tailors of Whitechapel. Emmanuel and Rachel worked as long as there was daylight to see by, and David helped them whenever he could, even though he was aching to go out into the streets and join in the fun. On his way to school he stopped to watch the trams and buses as they passed, packed with sightseers, and noticed that the draymen had taken to wearing buttonholes, like lords at a wedding. ‘Sixty glorious years,’ the banners triumphed. Sixty glorious years of peace and prosperity in the biggest empire the world had ever known. It was something to celebrate. If only he could.

  ‘There’s three hundred and twenty million people in the British Empire,’ he told Aunty Dumpling one evening, very much impressed by the Graphic’s latest dazzling statistics.

  ‘So you ask me, there’s three hundred tventy million here in London,’ she said, biting off the last thread of the day. ‘You never see such crowds!’ Then she made him an offer that made his heart leap. ‘Ve go see ’em tonight, after supper. Vhat you think! I done enough vork for vonce.’

  ‘I should have to ask Mama,’ he said dutifully but his face was shining at the mere thought. And at last Mama gave her permission, ‘seeing he vas vid Dumpling’.

  So they put on their Shabbas best and went.

  London was unrecognizable. It had become a hanging garden. Every street in the City was draped with ropes of evergreen, looped and twirled and intertwined, or woven into shields and crowns, and the Mansion House was lit up like a palace in a pantomime, with ‘God Bless our Queen’ written right across the front and a huge Star of India hung above the pediment.

  In the West End, the scent of potted palms and crushed foliage was almost as strong in the sultry evening air as the usual aroma of horses, and St James’s Street was so closely overhung with greenery that strolling along it was like walking through an arbour. Aunty Dumpling said she felt quite done in by it and was glad to be out in the air again in Piccadilly but David thought it was marvellous and had half a mind to go back and experience it all over again. There were buskers everywhere, and men selling everything and anything you could possibly want, ice creams, paper flags, baked potatoes, Jubilee programmes, anything.

  In Trafalgar Square an impromptu party had begun. The crowds were singing ‘Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay’, and a circle of cheerful characters was inventing a leaping dance that almost fitted the words and required an exhilarating display of frilly petticoats and buttoned boots. So they joined in at once and danced until Aunty Dumpling was completely exhausted and had to sit down on the pavement to recover. Then she said her feet were killing her, so the two of them limped off along the Mall to the lake in St James’s Park, where to David’s delight she took off her boots and stripped off her stockings and dabbled her swollen feet in the water. And nobody seemed to mind. Not even the coppers, two of whom strolled by and only grinned at them. Things had changed this season, and
no mistake.

  ‘Vhat larks ve have, bubeleh!’ she chuckled, her face rosy in the evening sunlight.

  And David, watching her with love and admiration, wished he’d brought his sketch book with him. ‘I can’t wait fer the Jubilee,’ he said. ‘D’you think this weather’ll hold?’

  ‘Ain’t nothink von’t stop it,’ she assured him, beaming at him from the water’s edge.

  And she was right.

  From then on they went to the City or the West End every evening, to see the sights and enjoy the entertainment, and David grew steadily more excited. Sometimes Aunty Rivke came with them, with Becky or the boys, and sometimes they took Hymie along, but David’s parents stayed at home, saying they still had far too much work to do, which was true enough, for they were even working by candlelight now.

  ‘You will come Jubilee Day,’ David begged. ‘You mussen miss Jubilee Day.’

  Jubilee Day was promised. ‘Vork be over by then,’ Emmanuel said, smiling at his son’s breathless excitement. ‘Ve come vid you. If only to keep you calm!’

  Jubilee Day dawned in a blaze of hard-edged sunshine and patriotic fervour. By six o’clock in the morning the sky over the Buildings was pale lilac, the drains smelled really strong, and David and his parents were already sticky and uncomfortable in their Shabbas best Aunty Dumpling arrived with a canvas bag full of biscuits and pancakes, protesting that she was melting away, and at that her sister-in-law wondered whether it wouldn’t be more advisable to stay at home, and was laughed to scorn. ‘This,’ Aunt Dumpling said with the solid determination of fourteen stone, ‘I vouldn’t miss for all the vorld.’

  Then Rivke knocked on the wall to signal that her family were ready and off they all went down into the bubbling courtyard and out to the excited streets.

  Whitechapel was quite unlike its usual work-a-day self for there was no trade, and cleared of stalls and carts and custom the streets looked peculiarly empty and a great deal wider, especially as the crowds walking along them were all going in the same direction and with the same cheerful purpose. The trams were all running in the same direction too and there were plenty of them, and more horse-buses than David had ever seen, but even so it took a very long time and three separate buses to get to the City. But eventually they all arrived at the corner of Ludgate Hill with a fine view of steps of St Paul’s and a line of dismounted Hussars already in position beside the kerb.

  Rivke wasn’t at all pleased. ‘So vhat ve vant vid the soldiery?’ she asked, thwacking her basket down onto the pavement behind the blue legs of the six-footer immediately in front of them.

  ‘Pertection, missus,’ the Hussar said cheerfully. ‘Crowds can get werry wiscious, believe you me.’

  ‘Humph!’ Rivke snorted. ‘I never see a crowd more better behaved then this one. Soldiery!’

  The Hussar turned his head slightly, so that he could grin down at her. ‘Tell the truth, missus,’ he said, ‘I come ter see the percession. Best way ter get a front seat, this is.’

  ‘Just vhat I thought, young man,’ she said and suddenly cracked her dour face into a grin. ‘Vhat a day ve got!’

  The crowd around them grew by the minute and soon they were so tightly packed together there simply wasn’t room for anybody else. The road was completely empty except for three piles of horse dung and the occasional mounted policeman who clopped along as casually as if he were out riding in the countryside. They seemed to have been waiting for ever, squashed in behind the giant Hussar. Even the distribution of Aunty Dumpling’s biscuits only occupied them for a very short time, and left David feeling hotter than ever and very thirsty.

  But at last there was a muffled roar from the crowds in Fleet Street and looking back David could see that handkerchiefs were fluttering all along the street like white petals in a gale, even though the road itself was still completely empty. A few minutes later they could hear the clatter of hooves and the rattle of accoutrements. Then, to great excitement, the first contingent swung into view, Canadian Mounties, stiff-spined in their red jackets and grinning at the crowds. ‘Fine body a’ men,’ the Hussar said. ‘Mounties. Always get their man, so they say.’

  ‘Same as me!’ Aunty Dumpling said, rolling towards the kerb to get a better view. ‘So vhere’s the ol’ Queen?’

  ‘Do me a favour!’ the Hussar said. ‘That percession’s six miles long. Troops from all over the Empire. You won’t see the Queen fer hours an’ hours. You ain’t seen the like a’ this anywhere in the world.’

  David was amazed to see his own Aunty Dumpling flirting with a soldier, but there were so many amazing things happening on this amazing day that perhaps the rules for proper behaviour had been suspended. He glanced at his father and was relieved to see that he was smiling as he watched the passing troops.

  ‘So vill you look at that!’ Rivke said, excited and awed. There’s a load a’ blackies next.’ And so there was, their brown faces surprising above the green and gold of their elaborate uniforms: the Jamaican artillery, no less. Behind them came Maoris and Malays, Sikhs in crumpled turbans, Chinese soldiers wearing white caps like inverted pudding basins, and a formidable troupe of lancers from India with stern unsmiling faces and fierce beards. The parade went on and on and on, scarlet and gold, emerald and gold, turquoise and gold, black and gold, bright and loud and larger than life. Band vied with band, their drums and trumpets echoing in the stone canyons of Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill, while David cheered himself hoarse, dazzled and overwhelmed.

  Standing safely and happily among his family, thrilled by the throbbing noise and the extravagant colours of the parade, he was a boy bewitched. Everything about this day was totally unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. He’d never seen horses so fat and sleek, or carriages so impressive, or men so tall, or women so magnificently gowned. The dazzle of their diamonds made him blink, and their smiling well-fed faces were visions from another world. Even the buildings were splendid here, with their columns and pediments and their high decorated windows full of faces, and red, white and blue flags draped over all the sills. St Paul’s Cathedral was simply overwhelming, blocking the sky before his eyes, like some huge stage set, its blackened columns a foil to the blaze of colour below them. Scarlet barricades had been erected like a bright skirting all round the edge of it and on either side of the steps, and the steps themselves were crowded with extravagantly costumed extras, troops in red, black and gold, choristers in white robes and clergy in magnificent red academicals. It took his breath away just to look at them, they made such a marvellous picture.

  There was a sudden decline in the volume of sound around them as one by one the thousands in Ludgate Hill stopped cheering long enough to say ‘There she is’ and crane their necks to get their first glimpse of the Queen. Then, and at an appropriate distance from the flamboyant coaches of the other royals, a red-wheeled landau appeared, drawn by six cream coloured horses caparisoned in gold and scarlet and purple. And sitting in the middle of that splendid coach like the black centre of an exotic plant was a short, fat, ordinary old woman, with a plain black hat on her sparse white hair, and an old-fashioned black crinoline belling around her over the seat. He couldn’t believe what he saw.

  ‘Is that the Queen?’ he asked. So plain and ordinary in the middle of all this?

  ‘It is. God bless her!’ the Hussar said, and David noticed that fat tears were coursing down the man’s brown cheeks, even though he was smiling. Then there was no possibility of hearing anything that anybody might be saying, because the Queen’s coach was immediately in front of them, and hands and handkerchiefs were being waved with total abandon and the cheering was a full-throated nonstop roar, and he simply had to join in. The old lady, flushed and uncomfortable in her bulky black clothing, nodded and smiled as she passed, and he cheered and wept with the rest, caught up in a sudden upsurge of emotion that he wasn’t expecting and couldn’t understand. Then the coach swung round behind Queen Anne’s statue and he lost sight of her, and knew he was sighing with
disappointment like everybody else.

  ‘I vill draw this,’ he said, his upturned face shining with passion and tears. And even though nobody could hear him, it was a solemn promise. Somehow or other he had to catch this moment, the colour of it, and the noise, and the crowds, and the glorious weeping emotion.

  Over on the other side of Ludgate Hill, squashed among the crowds that ringed Ludgate Circus, Ellie Murphy was wiping the tears from her eyes too, surreptitiously, of course, and right on the edge of the sleeve of her special green coat, because she didn’t want to stain it. It was very hot in the green coat, but she couldn’t have worn any other garment, even if she’d possessed one. For this was a special occasion. She’d been up since four in the morning and had walked all the way to her chosen spot, because she hadn’t any money for a bus fare and she wanted to be certain of a good position. Her mother was still hard at work with those dreadful matchboxes and she knew that by now her father would be in the nearest pub, ‘drinking the old Queen’s health’, but she was having a day off, on her own, and glad of it, her brothers and sisters left behind to plague someone else.

  The parade had been a giddy marvel. She’d tapped her feet in time to the bands, and cheered the troops, and drunk in every detail of all the ravishing gowns that had passed, shimmering and glittering, before her eyes. And she’d cheered the old Queen too, even though she hadn’t seen very much of her because she’d opened up a large white parasol just as her coach was passing. It was a day an’ a half an’ no mistake.