Coronation

by Paul Gallico

  The gentleman nodded his head reflectively. ‘Yes, your ambition must always be kept alive within you; the last thing you think about at night before going to sleep, the first thing when you awaken in the morning. Then you will succeed. Luck plays a part, of course, but then you have already been touched by luck.’ He sighed, replaced the regimental badge on the table and with the point of one finger edged it towards the boy, but his gaze still rested upon it.

  For all of his happiness at what seemed like a prophecy, a forecast already almost fulfilled, once more something of the emotions experienced by the gentleman communicated itself to the boy.

  The waiter came scribbling bills. The gentleman reached into his wallet, paid, and the waiter passed on. Johnny Clagg edged the badge back across the median line of the table into the gentleman’s territory. He could not for the life of him understand why he was doing it, or why he was saying, ‘Would you like to have it, sir?’ He only knew that he must.

  The gentleman stiffened and looked at the boy with what might have been taken as an expression of horrified severity, but only because he was so shaken by the gesture. What had led that child to something so generous, loving and touching? He picked up the regimental badge, weighed it in his palm for a moment, and the mistiness was in his eyes again. ‘Thank you, no,’ he said. ‘Yet I think that this is perhaps the finest gift ever offered to me. No, no, keep it, and some day wear it.’ And then he arose from the table to his full and grandiose height, and yet not quite as tall; it was as if he had aged just a little. His last words were, ‘Keep it polished, lad,’ and he turned and walked away.

  Granny Bonner called over from the other table, ‘Have you wiped your mouth, Johnny?’

  *

  None of them had ever dined in a restaurant car before and they were all on edge not to show it and to orient themselves as to how this might differ from tea at the café to which they sometimes treated themselves on a Sunday afternoon. Violet and Gwendoline had the window-seats, Will Clagg sat opposite Granny on the aisle, his back to the engine. As father of the family and organiser of the treat he had gathered to himself all of the literature on the table, the menu and the folder, which was a combination wine-list and prose paean describing the virtues of British Railways.

  Granny’s small eyes were darting hither and thither, taking in the table set-up, the fish forks and knives by the side of the plate, the paper napkins which grew out of the glasses, and she remained unsubdued. ‘Waste, that’s what I call it,’ she muttered, ‘after all the money we’ve squandered.’

  ‘Now, now, Granny,’ Will Clagg soothed, ‘what’s a few shillings more or less? It’s been a hard day. What’ll it be, roast pork or steak and kidney pie?’

  Violet said, ‘Sit up, Gwenny,’ for fatigue had set in and the child had begun one of those descents into her chair which threatened to wind up under the table. ‘Do you mean they have both?’ she asked of her husband.

  ‘It’s a proper feed,’ said Will. ‘Listen to this—’ and he read off the menu, item by item.

  Gwenny sat up and said, ‘Can I have ice cream?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ acquiesced her father, which brought a prompt two pennies’ worth from Granny.

  ‘Ice cream before going to bed! When I was a girl we weren’t allowed any foolishness like that.’ She turned upon Will. ‘And what’s all this going to cost us, I’d like to know? A fortune, I’ll wager.’

  Clagg consulted the menu again. ‘Seven and six each,’ he replied. ‘Not too bad. Thirty-seven and six for the five of us.’

  ‘Well, I only hope you’ve got it,’ Granny snapped, ‘and what we’re going to do until you’re paid again goodness knows.’

  Will’s hand stole quietly to an inside pocket, there to separate and feel the crackle of three one-pound notes, a fund they didn’t know about, saved up and held out by him for emergencies. Every penny of the expedition had been weighed and calculated, but Will was a careful man and no fool. The reason he was foreman of the No. 2 furnace was because he did think ahead to possible difficulties and took his precautions in advance so that they should not occur, or if they did he was ready for them. For this reason Clagg had amassed his secret fund and here it was coming in handy.

  ‘What’s grapefruit?’ asked Gwendoline. ‘Can I have grapefruit, Mummy?’

  ‘I should think not,’ vetoed Granny. ‘Makes the stummick sour. Hot soup is what she needs.’

  To Gwendoline the thing called grapefruit, whatever it was, suddenly became highly desirable. ‘Mummy,’ she wailed, ‘I want grapefruit.’

  Violet would have liked the child to have had her wish but didn’t have the energy or the gumption to fight against Granny’s dictum. ‘No, luvvy,’ she said weakly, ‘don’t fuss. Hot soup’s better for you.’

  Will Clagg looked aside for an instant in irritation at her submission. Must she always be giving in to her mother? Would she never show any stand-up spine? It had always been like that ever since Granny had come to live with them. Why shouldn’t the child have what she wanted, just once? It was a party and a treat, wasn’t it? Why did they have to go about spoiling it, then, and nagging and disciplining the way they did at home? He was on the point of reversing the hot soup and then decided against it. It just wasn’t worth the fuss and the natter, and besides Granny was annoyingly right. After the chill of the rain, hot soup was more like it. But to hide his exasperation he turned his attention once more to the folder in his hand, and saw something which surprised him greatly.

  It was the wine-list, where he read: Champagne, Mumm’s, – half bottle 15/-, quarter bottle 8/-.

  Eight shillings for a drink of champagne! Who would have thought it! Champagne, the best of which one knew cost you two quid a bottle, suddenly was within reach!

  Will Clagg stole another sidelong glance at his wife, but this time there was no longer irritation, but instead sympathy and understanding. The name of the champagne on the menu had brought home to him again the personal disappointment she had suffered at the collapse of their day.

  For all of the fact that Will was a heavy, thick-set, powerful brute of a man who had fought his way up from the ranks of men to command them, he had learned something of the little things that tickled women, an extra ribbon on a dress, or some chintz at a kitchen window. They were not like men; they were more like children. And from the very beginning he had understood that the item which had sold Violet on the whole Coronation scheme and had overcome whatever scruples she might have had, or dissents she could have cooked up, was the champagne, the drink of bubbly advertised with the lunch. He had not, of course, been able to get wholly into her mind and visualise how she saw herself holding the special glass in her hand, the little finger cocked most elegantly, while she contemplated the bubbles rising in the yellow fluid before knocking it back, but he did appreciate that somehow this was to be the focus of the day for her, just that little extra something which sells or captivates a woman.

  As he looked now at her features, lined and again pathetically slack after another surrender to her mother, he found his heart touched and filled with a further understanding. In one sense life was an endless string of defeats, frustrations and disappointments. She had never tasted champagne. Her heart had been set upon it and he remembered the wail of anguish that had been torn from her lips as they had faced the empty hole of No. 4 and the grim facts confirmed by the police, ‘Then there won’t be any bubbly!’

  And now beyond the expectation of himself or of them it suddenly lay within his power to remedy this, to rescue something of the shattered day for her with this small delight. Laboriously and yet with commendable speed Will Clagg performed some mental arithmetic within his broad head, based on the prices in the wine-list and a half-a-crown tip at the end, and the answer, double checked, came out right.

  The decision coincided with the sudden appearance of the waiter at their table. ‘Will there be anything to drink, sir?’

  ‘A quarter bottle of Mumm’s champagne.’

&n
bsp; The lineaments of the waiter’s countenance rearranged themselves to acknowledge the nobility of this order. ‘You’ll want it iced for a moment, sir, of course.’

  ‘Will Clagg!’ Granny almost shouted, completely aghast. ‘Have you gone out of your mind?’

  He looked at his mother-in-law almost sheepishly as he said, ‘What’s wrong with a bit of the bubbly for Violet? She’s had her mind set on it.’

  ‘Oh, no, Will, I couldn’t,’ said Violet, almost in terror, for it did seem as though her husband had been robbed of his senses.

  ‘Shut up, luv,’ he said, not unkindly, and then, turning to Granny, fired an armour-piercing shot at her, ‘What about a drop of gin for yourself, Gran?’

  This was her weakness. She loved her nip of gin. The sudden offer threw her completely out of her stride. It was one thing to protest a useless extravagance proposed for her daughter, it was another to argue against a drop of something which she knew would do her the world of good at the moment. Yet she could not accept it without acquiescing in this champagne folly.

  Clagg watched the struggle taking place within her with unconcealed delight, and to increase her dilemma added, ‘Double, if you like.’

  Granny succumbed, for a moment looking just as weak and foolish as her daughter. ‘If you’ve got the stuff to pay for it, Will, I could do with a bit of warming.’

  ‘A double pink gin,’ ordered Clagg. ‘I’ll have a Bass, and bring the kiddy a ginger-beer and same for the boy over there.’

  The waiter wrote it all down carefully, his lips silently forming the words of the order, ‘One quart. bott. Mumm’s. One doub. pink gin. One Bass. Two ginger-beer,’ and sailed off, leaving behind him a table in the throes of a sensation.

  The dining-car filled up, the train rattled, roared, swayed and bounded, the sounds occasionally augmented from far ahead by the shrill shriek of the engine. In what seemed like even less than a trice, the wine waiter, performing a most graceful and exquisite pas seul down the aisle, was back at their table with the tray of bottles. On it was a proper thin-stemmed, wide-mouthed champagne glass and a miniature silver-coloured ice-bucket filled with water, in which floated two discouraged lumps of ice knocking gently against the quarter bottle of Mumm’s. Everything was dwarf size, yet a hundred per cent. The cork of the bottle was foil-wrapped and wire-bound; the label was gay and French.

  The waiter looked a question at Clagg, who waved a stubby-fingered hand in the direction of his wife. Glass and bucket were set on the table by her. A healthy-looking dollop of angostura-coloured gin was put before Granny and diluted to her taste with water, and then, with a motion like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat and the blinding speed of the prestidigitator, the waiter decapped the bottle of Bass and the bottles of ginger-beer, poured them half full to allow for the sloshing about they would get from the movement of the express train, and served them. ‘Shall I open the champagne now, madam? It was iced before.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ replied Violet. Her eyes were like saucers, her lips parted with excitement. She was sitting bolt upright now. Fatigue had departed from her, as it had too from Gwendoline, who, likewise ramrod stiff, had buried her nose in the ginger-beer.

  The waiter was a wise, wry, trained man. He had catalogued the group at the table in an instant, twigged the festive champagne, and meant to stint nothing of proper ceremony.

  He had a napkin over his arm. Plucking the tiny bottle from the bucket, he swadled it like a child in the cloth, then his nimble fingers twisted the wire until it was loose enough to remove and laid it carefully on the table next to the bucket. He knew it would vanish from thence as a souvenir. He tested the cork once secretly with strong fingers, and hoped for their sake that it would pop. So often these little splits were flat and the cork came out as from a medicine bottle. No, there was some tension there. He screwed twice and then pulled, and even above the noise of the train there was an adequately gratifying explosion, and several heads were turned satisfyingly in their direction, as happens irresistibly anywhere champagne is opened.

  A bubble of froth at once appeared at the mouth of the green glass bottle, but the experienced and knowing waiter was too quick for it. In less than an instant he had snatched up the goblet and, holding the bottle six inches away, let the wine foam into its cup, yellow and charged with bubbles. He set the glass once more before Mrs Clagg, returned the champagne to the bucket, shrouded with the napkin, just as Violet had so often seen it done on the films, said, ‘To your good health, madam,’ and disappeared. It was to Violet the most glorious and wonderful moment.

  She sat for a few seconds contemplating the silvery bubbles leaping to the surface of the golden wine, and for the moment all the pieces of the day’s shattered edifice reassembled themselves again. She was warm, about to be fed, dining in a restaurant car, and before her was her very own bottle of genuine champagne. She was a happy and contented woman.

  She saw, then, that they were all watching her and waiting, and realised that since it was there she must taste and drink it. She almost wished, now that her great desire had been so generously fulfilled, that she didn’t have to do so. The taste would be unfamiliar; she might not like it. If she didn’t, three pairs of watchful eyes would know it at once.

  She raised the glass to her lips, saying ‘Cheers all!’ and tasted it bravely. She didn’t sip it timidly, but completed her initiation with a good hearty swallow.

  She had not expected the acid taste, or the sting of the bubbles, but before her features could react to the unforeseen sourness the dose arrived at her middle, where it immediately set up its warm and friendly glow. Instead of a pucker a smile stole over the countenance of Violet Clagg.

  ‘That’s the stuff, eh, Mum?’ said Will.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Violet.

  The first wallop of gin had set up a similar glow in Granny’s tummy. ‘Really French, is it?’ she asked.

  Violet unveiled the bottle enough to peek at the label. ‘It’s from Reems,’ she said, and then to all, ‘Taste?’

  Granny was the first to stick in a tentative tongue. She shook her head, ‘I’ll take me gin every time.’

  ‘Oh, Mummy, I want to!’ Gwendoline cried. No one protested; the glass was passed to her. She wet her lips with the liquid and made a face like the one Violet had wanted to at first. ‘Ooh, ugh,’ she said, ‘sour,’ and quickly got her nose back into the ginger-beer to get rid of the flavour.

  Clagg laughed. ‘What I say is, let ’em try it and then they won’t be wanting it afterwards.’

  Violet handed him the glass and he took a sip and wrinkled up his nose. ‘Not a man’s drink,’ he said, and turned it back to her. Now it was all hers and hers alone. She knew its secret – sour at the top, warm and fuzzy inside. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said once more. ‘Cheers again!’ She took a bigger swallow and was rewarded with an even greater glow.

  A waiter arrived with food. ‘Soup for the young lady?’ he asked and prepared to set a dish before Gwendoline. Granny looked at him sharply. ‘Why can’t she have grapefruit?’

  ‘Sorry, madam. Of course.’

  The rest had soup. Gwendoline clapped her hands over her grapefruit, but when she tried it she made the same face as with the champagne. ‘Ooh, ugh!’ she cried again. ‘Sour!’

  ‘That’s how you learn, young ’un,’ her father said.

  All of them had smiles on their faces now. The dinner was going to be a success.

  *

  It was just on midnight when Will Clagg inserted his key into the door of No. 56 Imperial Road, Little Pudney, and they trooped into the vestibule of the house, shutting the door behind them to be immediately overwhelmed by the silence that reigned there, an all-engulfing stillness through which the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece sounded as startlingly loud as pistol-shots. Celebrations might still be going on elsewhere, but No. 56 Imperial Road was on the outlying fringe at the end of the bus-route and here everyone had gone to bed. There was not so much as the blat of a radi
o or the barking of a dog.

  It was only then they realised that all through the long day their ear-drums had unceasingly been assaulted by noise and clamour.

  There had been the sounds of the shuffling feet of spectators and the marching feet of men, the rolling thunder of military hardware, the roar of aircraft, blare of bands, shrill of fifes and keening of pipes. There had been train sounds, bus sounds, traffic sounds, the great roars of cheering, the clash of dishes from the jammed, packed restaurants they had tried to enter. Now the quiet was shocking in its intensity. To Will Clagg it sounded louder somehow than any of the uproar through which they had wandered that day, and to his surprise he found himself leading his family into their living-room almost on tiptoes.

  They came in and sat down around the table, for it was also necessary for them to become re-acquainted with their own home, to relax in the security of its walls, to reopen themselves to its contours and its possessions. It seemed as though they had been away journeying through vast distances of space and time. They had been subjected to buffets and shocks of the mind as well as the body. They had suffered in spirit and had lived through a day more strange, and in a sense exciting too, than any dozen holidays at the sea could provide.

  The little house in Imperial Road was the same as it had been when they left it – the worn carpet, the chair with the damaged leg, the Toby jug that Johnny had won at a fair, the photographs on the wall, the mantel clock and their own Coronation decorations, the red, white and blue paper ribbon criss-crossing the room from its four corners to the chandelier with the colour print of the Queen hanging over the fireplace. All was indeed the same, only they were not. They were changed drastically by what they had been through, and this was why they now found themselves sitting so uneasily and silently, a part of that great and surrounding quiet, trying to adjust themselves from the persons they had been to those they now were.

  Violet Clagg was the first to re-enter the safe, snug cocoon of her home, the first to yield to the embrace of familiar things. She sighed and said, ‘We’d better be getting the children to bed. Goodness knows how I’ll ever be getting Johnny up and off to school in the morning.’