Our Spoons Came from Woolworths

by Barbara Comyns

  When we had finished, Charles’s uncle, who was not quite so frigid as his wife, asked us if we would like to see over the ‘estate’ (the estate consisted of a medium-sized garden and an orchard). I refused, but Peregrine, who had been looking most sinister, agreed to go after we had exchanged glances. I felt we should be as polite as possible even if they were pretty grim.

  I asked Charles’s aunt, who was a very plain woman with a flat chest and hair on her chin, if I could see Sandro now. I had asked before, but she said he was resting after his lunch, but this time she said she supposed I could. The night nursery was upstairs on the right. I found it easily because the door was open and I saw the nurse lifting him out of a cot. He was still only half awake and when he saw me he started to cry. The nurse said children don’t like to see strangers when they first wake up. I told her I wasn’t a stranger, but his mother. Then I had another shock. I saw they had cut his hair off unevenly. His skin showed in places. His beautiful red-gold curls had all disappeared. I asked the nurse what had happened. She said ‘Madam’ liked short hair for boys and had cut it herself. Poor little boy! he was only two and looked like a convict.

  When he had woken up properly and been on the pot, he recognised me and climbed on my lap and was most affectionate; but I still felt like there was a great lump in my chest. Charles came in, and after looking at him for a few moments, Sandro remembered him and started to laugh. He had always thought Charles rather funny. The nurse said it was time for his walk and dressed him in his coat and a horrible white tam-o’-shanter. I said, ‘He can’t wear that; he has never worn a hat in his life. He didn’t even wear a bonnet when he was new,’ but she said ‘Madam’ insisted he wore one. Instead of the brown hardy little boy we had sent away, we now had a polite, white-faced child smothered in clothes and lacking hair. The nurse was dressing the little girl cousin. She was quite a pretty little girl with rather a pert, pug-like face. The nurse curled her hair carefully round her fingers. I noticed she didn’t have to have a beastly tam-o’-shanter stuck on her head.

  We took him out into the garden, although the nurse was worried about him missing his walk. Peregrine was shocked when he saw him, too. I told him I wouldn’t use the camera after all, so Sandro showed us the garden. He took us to the orchard, but Charles’s aunt hurried after us and said he wasn’t allowed in there because of the hens. Apparently he had once taken an egg out of one of the nests and eaten it raw. It seemed a queer thing for him to do. I thought she must have made a mistake, but we didn’t go in the orchard. I wondered if she thought I would steal eggs; perhaps that was her real reason for not wanting us to go there.

  The afternoon wasn’t a great success. Sandro was sweet, but Charles was bored and cross, and Peregrine was very angry and nervy because these people were so rude to us. We decided it would be better if we went home directly after tea. I discovered the children were not allowed to have it with the grown-ups under any circumstances, so I went upstairs and had a nursery tea. Before I went I begged Peregrine to keep his temper, however objectionable they were to him. I felt bad about letting him in for such a dreary day.

  I quite enjoyed the nursery tea. The nurse was really rather a sweet old thing; but I was shocked to see Sandro was only allowed watered milk and bread-and-jam without butter, because ‘Madam’ said he wasn’t used to butter and it would make him sick. The little girl said ‘Pardon’ every time I spoke to her and put her head on one side. I got so tired of repeating myself I left her alone. The nurse said she wasn’t really deaf; it was just a habit she had.

  After tea I went down to the drawing-room, taking both children with me. The atmosphere was particularly icy. I gathered Charles had mentioned how frightful Sandro’s hair was, all tattered and torn like that, and his uncle had said, ‘There are enough long-haired people in your family,’ and had given him a shilling to get his hair cut. I said I had come down because it was time we went home because we had such a long journey before us. As soon as we started to put on our coats, Sandro began to cry, and say ‘Don’t go, Mummy, don’t go’, which made it very hard to leave him. I suddenly remembered there was a bar of chocolate in my pocket which I’d forgotten to give him, so I gave it him in the hope it would stop his sad crying. But the aunt saw and pounced at once. She said: Surely I knew chocolate would give him a temperature, and was almost as bad as poison for a child. So we went away and the last thing we heard was Sandro crying and I cried, too.

  Charles and Peregrine exchanged views about the relations, but I just sat in the car feeling numb. It was raining now, and the windscreen wiper made a depressing noise. Suddenly Peregrine stopped the car and said, ‘This is where you have a drink, my dear. I think we all need one.’ We did and after a double whisky in the small country pub we had stopped at, I felt much better and laughed to think how shocked our late hosts would be to see us now. Charles and Peregrine had a game on an antiquated pin-table, and I looked at the fish in glass cases that were hanging from the walls. There was even a flying fish. Then we had another whisky for the road and went back to the car.

  I spent the rest of the journey planning how to get Sandro home again. If I gave up my present job we would have no money to live on at all. Charles had not earned a penny since Christmas. Maybe I could start sitting again, but that was so irregular, and Charles didn’t like looking after Sandro while I was out. The only answer to the problem was for Charles to get a job in some studio, so I thought to-morrow, when he had got over this dismal day, I would try to persuade him to look for something. It was a very long time since he had tried to find something. Perhaps jobs were better now the depression was lifting, but in my heart I knew Charles would never take a job in a studio, however attractive it sounded.

  23

  The next day when I met Peregrine I told him how unhappy I felt about poor Sandro, and he agreed that he would be much better at home than with those dreary people. He said he thought Mr Karam might give Charles a job going round country sales buying Chinese works of art. I couldn’t imagine Charles bidding at sales, but it sounded quite interesting, so I asked him to get into touch with Mr Karam about it.

  I told Charles about this when I went home, but he didn’t seem at all pleased. He said now he was just finding his way as a painter he couldn’t waste his time hanging around country sales. He said Sandro was quite all right where he was. He knew at the time it was a great mistake for me to go and see him. If I hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. How could I think he was better off in London when he had such a good country home with every comfort. We talked and talked, but Charles was determined not to have Sandro back if it meant getting a job. His painting came before anything else. In a way, he was quite right. Maybe, the only way to get on is to be ruthless, so I just felt it was useless to continue arguing.

  A few days later Mr Karam called. I had rather a sinking feeling in case he mentioned jobs or anything to upset Charles, so I hurried into the kitchen to make coffee, but while we were drinking the coffee he said his friend, Peregrine Narrow, told him Charles was very anxious to get some work and went on to offer him this job of buying Chinese stuff at sales.

  Charles looked so angry I felt even more of a sinking feeling. Then he stood up and said, ‘Tell Peregrine Narrow to mind his own bloody business,’ and after that Mr Karam left, and in his hurry left all his books behind on the table. So I ran after him with them and told him how grateful I was for his kind offer, but he still looked stern and I knew we would never see him again.

  Just at this time Charles’s mother wrote and suggested paying us a visit. She had never stayed in the new flat. She had made friends with a woman who had a very nice flat in Baker Street, and had stayed with her every time she visited London, but she must have stayed too often, because they had quarrelled and the Baker Street friend was ‘that woman’ now and drank like a fish and was cruel to her dog and was perfectly dreadful. I suddenly felt I couldn’t face having her to stay now. Somehow being in love with Peregrine gav
e me new courage, so I wrote without telling Charles and I told her it would be most inconvenient to have a guest at the present time. I was out working all day and had no time for visitors. I suggested she stayed in a hotel; if she cared to look around she would find there were plenty in London. She answered with a very fierce letter full of things like ‘after all my kindness’ and ‘ingratitude’ and ‘that I’d dragged her son down to my own level’. But she didn’t come and that was the main thing.

  We made it up over the telephone, and on Sunday evening she came to dinner, bringing a peace offering of a pink silk pleated skirt. I wondered if she would find out if I cut it up and made it into a nighty. After dinner, Peregrine came. I hadn’t seen him for two days, so he didn’t know Eva would be there. At first she was quite pleased to have an interesting-looking man to talk to, and I left them together while I washed up, but when I came back with the coffee he was just saying Sandro looked far from well, and he didn’t think her sister fed him properly, and it was about time Charles found some work and kept his wife and child. I was horrified. Of course, Peregrine was pretty cross about the way Mr Karam’s offer had been received, and perhaps he thought he was sticking up for me or something, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good, only make a lot of trouble, and it did. Eva drew herself up and said, ‘Sophia had no right to marry my son, but as she forced herself on him, she deserves all she gets. She worked for her living before she was married and it won’t hurt her to work now. My son is a genius and deserves some consideration.’ Peregrine said, ‘Who on earth gave you the idea that Charles is a genius?’ But before she could reply, I put the coffee down and seized a dirty piece of tangled knitting from under a cushion and pushed it at Eva and asked if she could show me how to knit a polo-neck for a jumper I was knitting for Sandro. She was so angry she was kind of gobbling like a turkey cock, but she loved telling people how to do things properly and took my knitting in her shaking hands and told me it was the most uneven and dirty knitting she had ever come across. While she was telling me how to make polo-necks, Charles came in and Peregrine said he must go. I walked to the door with him and held his hand against my face for a moment to show I wasn’t cross, and he was gone.

  Eva was telling Charles what a dreadful man he was when I returned. She gave me a reproachful glance and said, ‘I’m sure that man is in love with you. He is a snake in the grass. He is the man with a load of mischief.’ Charles and I couldn’t help laughing, but I had a silly thought that perhaps he was the man with a load of mischief. That was why his back was rather humpy.

  Eva returned to the country quite soon, so there was no more trouble of that kind, but things became very strained between Charles and me. Sometimes I thought he must know about Peregrine and I being lovers, but nothing was said, and he usually seemed quite pleased to see him when he visited us, but I was fretting for Sandro all the time and blamed Charles for him being away. I wrote him long letters, but I am sure no one bothered to read them to him. I kept telling Charles I must have him home, and he would go all remote and say he was better where he was, and I would hate him. But when Ann asked when Sandro was returning and said ‘Isn’t Charles ever going to get a job?’ I pretended I wasn’t worried and that Charles would be selling his paintings again soon and Sandro was much better where he was. Although I criticised Charles myself, I couldn’t bear other people to do so, even Peregrine. It was queer because I didn’t love him; in fact, I almost hated him now.

  Peregrine and I still met for lunch nearly every day. He would sit gazing at me over the luncheon table and wouldn’t eat his lunch at all and made me feel un-romantic eating. Often he met me in the evening and came in the bus with me as far as Abbey Road. Once Charles spent the weekend with James and I stayed the whole weekend with Peregrine. I was afraid the other people in the house would say something to Charles about us both being away or he would ’phone and find me not there; but nothing happened.

  That weekend was my highest peak of happiness with Peregrine. The only sad part of it was, when I returned home, I discovered Greedy Min had somehow got out of her bowl and died of thirst. I felt it was a kind of judgment from God.

  After that weekend I was not so happy with him. It was not his fault, but I sometimes found him oppressive, kind of stifling, like a thunder-storm, and I would get irritable with him. I was feeling very nervy and depressed because it was five months since Sandro had gone away, and there was still no hope of him coming back. I told Peregrine I would leave Charles and live with him, if he would take Sandro and me to another country where Charles’s family would never find us. He said he would make enquiries about jobs abroad. For some reason we picked on Jamaica and I got some books from the Free Library all about life in Jamaica; but that is as far as we got. So it was just a lot of talk and I felt disappointed in Peregrine for taking the matter no further. He seemed to love me so much, but would do nothing about the future. He often said he wished we would have a child, but how could we have one if I was still living with Charles? Now, looking back, I realise he was very romantic and sentimental, but at forty-seven he hadn’t the energy or initiative to take on new responsibilities.

  24

  One evening early in June Ann came round looking important and mysterious. I thought she had either got a lover or a new and better job; but it was neither of these things. She had received a letter from a lawyer to say we had each been left one hundred and fifty pounds — a Great-Aunt Nelly had died and left the little money she had to her nieces. It was years since I’d been in touch with her; in fact, I had forgotten she existed. Now she didn’t exist any more. Ann had written her every Christmas and sent a present from the box under her bed. I could just remember her, a little old woman with a face like a fox and an umbrella with a parrot’s-head handle.

  When Ann told me the great news I was so overcome I put my head in my hands and cried with awful tearing kinds of sobs. She thought I was being a hypocrite, pretending I was mourning Aunt Nelly after neglecting her for all those years; but it was the wonderful relief. Now I could get Sandro home and all our petty debts could be paid. I could buy new shoes instead of always wearing Ann’s cast-offs, which were half a size too small for me.

  Ann said it would be about a month before we received the actual money, but that didn’t seem to matter much. Charles came in just as I was wiping the tears off my face with my skirt. His thin face became rather set when he saw I’d been crying. He thought there was going to be more trouble about Sandro, but when Ann and I together told him the news, he completely changed. He said we must all go to the Café Royal to celebrate. I asked if he had anything to celebrate on. He said, of course he hadn’t, but he was sure Ann would lend him two pounds, and to my surprise she did.

  We had a lovely evening and Charles and I were happy together for the first time for months. Ann enjoyed herself, too. We had chicken and strawberries and a bottle of red wine — quite cheap, but it tasted nice.

  As we were leaving the Café Royal, we saw Peregrine sitting with some men at one of the marble-topped tables. He looked so surprised to see us coming from the part where you dine; I could tell he was a little annoyed. Just coming on him unexpectedly, I couldn’t help noticing how old he looked and rather yellow, too. I suddenly thought perhaps it was just as well we hadn’t gone to Jamaica; he would have got older and more yellow there, maybe.

  The next day I told him my good news, but he didn’t seem very enthusiastic, and said one hundred and fifty pounds wasn’t much money, and would last a very little time. Then he asked if I was coming to the studio that evening, as it was one of Charles’s evenings at the sketch club, but I said I couldn’t, because I was so busy. For one thing I was going to paint Sandro’s cot and high chair, because he would be home quite soon now, and I must give the paint time to dry. He looked very black and reproachful, and I knew I was unkind, because I could have easily put the painting off one more day.

  But it was fortunate that I hadn’t arranged to go to the studio because when I arrived home
Charles was still there, and had cooked supper all ready for me. He had cooked some fish and mashed potatoes and had decorated the dish with parsley and lemon. It was so nice to come home to. I told him while we were eating that I was planning to give my job up and fetch Sandro home as soon as I received the money, and he said if I couldn’t be happy without Sandro I had better have him home. It wouldn’t be so bad now I would be home to look after him. So I wrote to Charles’s relations that evening, telling them I was leaving my job and would like to have my child home again. Of course, I thanked them very much for looking after him all those months.

  A few days later I had a reply. They seemed very annoyed that I wanted Sandro home. I can’t think why. They didn’t like him except for a kind of foil to their child. They said it was most selfish of me to want him when the only home I had to offer was a pokey little London flat. As a matter of fact, both the rooms in our flat were about three times the size of any room in their house. They also said we led a very ‘Bohemian’ life, not at all suitable for one of tender years; but if I was so rich I could afford to give up my work, the least I could do would be to pay them something for all the months they had kept Sandro.

  I didn’t know how to answer this letter, but Charles, to my great surprise, said he would write them a ‘stinker’. This seemed to work, because it was eventually arranged that Charles would go to Birmingham and they would meet him there with Sandro in about two weeks’ time. After this I began to feel really happy, and Charles and I began to go out in the evenings together again. Often he would meet me from work and we would go to a theatre or film, or just have dinner in a cheap Italian restaurant.