by Paul Gallico
And yet - and yet - naturally gay optimist that she was, Mrs Harris could not help harbouring a suspicion gleaned from the precarious task of the living of daily life and making a go of things that it might not be all that easy. To crave something exquisite but useless, a luxury wholly out of one’s reach, to pin one’s faith in getting it on a lottery, and to draw immediately the winning number, this was storybook stuff.
Still, it did seem to happen to people from time to time. One kept reading of such events in the newspapers every other day. Well, there was nothing to do but wait until Wednesday. But there was no gainsaying the facts and figures, or that she was a winner, for she had checked them over time and time again. The Dior dress would be hers, and perhaps much much more, even when she split with Mrs Butterfield. A top pool had been known to yield as much as a hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Thus she dithered for three days until Wednesday morning when the fateful telegram from the pool headquarters arrived. It was the measure of her affection for her friend that she did not tear it open at once to learn its contents, but held back until she was fully dressed and could run over to Mrs Butterfield, who braced herself in a chair for the big moment, fanning herself with her apron, crying: ‘For the Lor’s sake, love, open it or I’ll die of excitement.’
At last, with trembling fingers, Mrs Harris opened the envelope and unfolded the message. It advised her briefly that her coupon had been a winning one and that her share would be one hundred and two pounds, seven shillings and ninepence halfpenny. It was well in a way that Mrs Harris had entertained the possibility of a let-down, for the sum was so much less than what she needed to become the possessor of a dress from Dior that the realisation of her dream was as far away and seemingly impossible as ever. Not even Mrs Butterfield’s Job’s comforting - ‘Well, it’s better than nothing; a lot of folks would be glad of the money’ could help her to overcome her initial disappointment, even though she knew in her heart of hearts that that was what life was like.
What had happened? A list of winners sent to Mrs Harris a few days later made it plain enough. It had been a hard week in the football league with many upsets. While no one had picked all fourteen games correctly, or even thirteen, a considerable number had tied Mrs Harris’s effort, shrinking the share for each one.
One hundred and two pounds, seven and ninepence halfpenny was a sum not to be sneezed at, and yet for several days it left Mrs Harris with rather a numb feeling about the heart and at night she would awaken with a feeling of sadness and unshed tears and then she would remember why.
Once the disappointment was over, Mrs Harris would have thought that the excitement of winning a hundred pounds in the football pool - a hundred pounds to be spent upon anything she liked - would have put an end to her desire for the Dior dress. Yet, the contrary proved to be the case. Her yearning was as strong as ever. She could not put it out of her mind. In the morning when she woke up, it was to a feeling of sadness and emptiness as though something unpleasant had happened to her, or something was missing which sleep had temporarily obliterated. Then she would realize that it was the Dior dress, or a Dior dress - just one, once in her lifetime that she was still craving and would never have.
And at night, when after her final cup of tea and chat with Mrs Butterfield she joined her old friends the hot-water bottles in her bed, and pulled the sheets up about her chin, there would begin a desperate struggle to think of something else - Major Wallace’s new girl, introduced this time as his niece from South Africa (they were always either nieces, wards, secretaries, or friends of the family), or the latest oddity of the Countess Wyszcinska who had taken to smoking a pipe. She tried to concentrate upon her favourite flat, or upon the language Miss Pamela Penrose had used because she had broken an ashtray. She tried to invent and concentrate upon a flower garden. But it was no use. The more she tried to think of other things the more the Dior dress intruded into her consciousness, and she lay there in the darkness, shivering and craving for it.
Even with the light out and no more than the glimmer of the street-lamp filtering into the basement window, she could look right through the cupboard door and imagine it hanging there. The colour and the materials kept changing, sometimes she saw it in gold brocade, at other times in pink or crimson satin, or white with ivory laces. But always it was the most beautiful and expensive thing of its kind.
The originals that had started this strange desire had disappeared from the cupboard of Lady Dant and were no longer there to tantalise her. (Later there was a picture in the Tatler of Lady Dant wearing the one known as ‘Ravishing’.) But Mrs Harris did not need to see them any longer. The desire to possess such a thing was indelibly embedded in her mind. Sometimes the longing was so strong that it would bring tears to her eyes before she fell asleep, and often it continued in some distorted dream.
But one night, a week or so later, Mrs Harris’s thoughts took a new tack. She reflected upon the evening she had made out the football coupon with Mrs Butterfield and the curious sense of certainty she had experienced that this would win her the coveted dress. The results, it is true, had been in line with what she knew by experience. They were the disappointments of life, and yet, after all, were they? She had won a hundred pounds, no, more, a hundred and two pounds, seven shillings and ninepence halfpenny.
Why then this curious sum, what was the message or the meaning it held for her? For Mrs Harris’s world was filled with signals, signs, messages, and portents from On High. With the price of a Dior dress of four hundred and fifty pounds, three hundred and fifty pounds was still wholly out of her reach. But wait! A flash of insight and inspiration came to her and she snapped on the light and sat up in bed with the sheer excitement of it. It was not really three hundred and fifty pounds any longer. She had not only her hundred pounds in the bank, but a start of two pounds, seven shillings, and ninepence halfpenny on the second hundred, and once she had achieved that, the third hundred pounds would no longer be so difficult.
‘That’s it,’ said Mrs Harris to herself aloud, ‘I’ll ’ave it if it’s the last thing I do and it takes the rest of me life.’ She got out of bed, secured pencil and paper and began to work it out.
Mrs Harris had never in her life paid more than five pounds for a dress, a sum she noted down on the paper opposite the utterly fantastic figure of four hundred and fifty pounds. Had Lady Dant named some such sum as fifty or sixty pounds as the price of the marvellous creations in her wardrobe it is quite possible that Mrs Harris would have put the entire matter out of her head immediately as not only a gap in price she was not prepared to consider, but also a matter of class upon which she preferred not to encroach.
But the very outrageousness of the sum put it all into a wholly different category. What is it that makes a woman yearn for chinchilla, or Russian sables, a Rolls-Royce, or jewels from Cartier, or Van Cleff and Arpels, or the most expensive perfume, restaurant, or neighbourhood to live in, etc.? It is this very pinnacle and preposterousness of price that is the guarantee of the value of her femininity and person. Mrs Harris simply felt that if one owned a dress so beautiful that it cost four hundred and fifty pounds, then there was nothing left upon earth to be desired. Her pencil began to move across the paper.
She earned three shillings an hour. She worked ten hours a day, six days a week, fifty-two weeks in the year. Mrs Harris screwed her tongue into her cheek and applied the multiplication table, reaching the figure of four hundred and sixty-eight pounds per annum, just the price of a Dior gala dress plus the amount of the fare to Paris and back.
Now, with equal determination and vigour Mrs Harris initiated a second column, rent, taxes, food, medicine, shoes, and all the little incidentals of living of which she could think. The task was a staggering one when she subtracted debits from credits. Years of saving lay ahead of her, two at the very least, if not three unless she had some other stroke of luck or a windfall of tips. But the figures shook neither her confidence nor her determination. On the contrary,
they steeled them. ‘I’ll ’ave it,’ she said once more and snapped out the light. She went to sleep immediately, peacefully as a child, and when she awoke the following morning she felt no longer sad but only eager and excited as one who is about to embark upon a great and unknown adventure.
The matter came out into the open next evening, their regular night to go to the cinema, when Mrs Butterfield appeared as usual shortly after eight, wrapped against the cold and was surprised to find Mrs Harris in her kitchen unprepared for any expedition, and examining some kind of prospectus entitled - EARN MONEY IN YOUR LEISURE TIME AT HOME.
‘We’ll be late, ducks,’ admonished Mrs Butterfield.
Mrs Harris looked at her friend guiltily. ‘I ain’t going,’ she said.
‘Ain’t going to the flicks?’ echoed the astounded Mrs Butterfield. ‘But it’s Marilyn Monroe.’
‘I can’t ’elp it. I can’t go. I’m syvin’ me money.’
‘Lor’ bless us,’ said Mrs Butterfield who occasionally, herself, submitted to a temporary economy wave. ‘Whatever for?’
Mrs Harris gulped before she replied: ‘Me Dior dress.’
‘Lor’ love you, ducks, you ’ave gone barmy. I thought you said the dress cost a ruddy four hundred and fifty quid.’
‘I’ve already got a hundred and two poun’, seven and ninepence halfpenny,’ Mrs Harris said, ‘I’m syvin’ up for the rest.’
Mrs Butterfield’s chins quivered as she shook her head in admiration. ‘Character, that’s what you’ve got,’ she said. ‘I could never do it meself. Tell you what, dear; you come along with me. I’ll treat you.’
But Mrs Harris was adamant ‘I can’t,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t be able to treat you back.’
Mrs Butterfield sighed a heavy sigh and began to divest herself of her outer clothing. ‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘I guess Marilyn Monroe ain’t everything. I’d just as soon ’ave a cup of tea and a quiet chat. ’Ave you seen Lord Klepper’s been arrested again? Syme thing. It’s ’is nephew I do for in Halker Street. As nice a lad as you could ever wish to know. Nothing wrong about ’im.’
Mrs Harris accepted the sacrifice her friend was making, but her glance travelled guiltily to the tea caddy. It was full enough now, but soon would be inhospitably empty. For this was one of the things on her list to cut down. She put the kettle on.
Thus began a long, hard period of scrimping, saving, and privation, none of which in the least interfered with Mrs Harris’s good humour with the exception that she denied herself the occasional pot of flowers in season and more than ever watched over the health of her beloved geraniums lest she be unable to replace them.
She went without cigarettes - and a quiet smoke used to be a solace - and without gin. She walked instead of taking the bus or the underground and when holes appeared in her shoes she padded them with newsprint. She gave up her cherished evening papers and got her news and gossip a day late out of the waste-paper baskets of her clients. She scrimped on food and clothing. The former might have been injurious, except that Mrs Schreiber, the American woman, where she was usually working around lunch time was generous and always offered her an egg or something cold from the fridge.
This she now accepted.
But the cinema saw her no more, nor did The Crown, the pub on the corner; she went, herself, almost tea-less so that there might be some in the canister when it was Mrs Butterfield’s turn to visit her. And she came near to ruining her eyes with some badly paid homework which she did at night, sewing zips on to the backs of cheap blouses. The only thing Mrs Harris did not give up was the threepence a week for the football pool, but, of course, lightning had no intention whatsoever of striking twice in this same place. Nevertheless she felt she could not afford not to continue playing it.
Through discarded six-months-old fashion magazines she kept up with the doings of Christian Dior, for all this took place before the sudden and lamented passing of the master, and always before her eyes, buoying her up and stiffening her backbone, was the knowledge that one of these days in the not too distant future, one of these unique creations would be hers.
And while Mrs Butterfield did not change her opinion that no good could come from wanting things above one’s station and somewhere along the line Mrs Harris would encounter disaster, she nevertheless admired her friend’s determination and courage, and stoutly supported her, helping her wherever she could, and, of course, keeping her secret, for Mrs Harris told no one else of her plans and ambitions.
MRS HARRIS jangled the bell of Mrs Butterfield’s flat one mid-summer night during this period in a state of considerable excitement. Her apple cheeks were flushed and pinker than usual, and her little eyes were electric with excitement. She was in the grip of something bigger than herself, ‘an ’unch’, as she called it. The ’unch was guiding her to the Dog Track at White City, and she was calling upon Mrs Butterfield to accompany her.
‘Going to take a plunge are you, dearie?’ queried Mrs Butterfield. ‘I don’t mind a night out meself. ’Ow’re you coming on with your savings?’
The excitement under which she was labouring made Mrs Harris’s voice hoarse. ‘I’ve got two hundred and fifty quid laid away. If I could double it, I’d have me dress next week.’
‘Double it or lose it, dearie?’ said Mrs Butterfield, the confirmed pessimist, who enjoyed looking upon the darker side of life.
‘I’ve a ’unch,’ whispered Mrs Harris. ‘Come on then, the treat’s on me.’
Indeed, to Mrs Harris it seemed almost more than a hunch - in fact, like a message from Above. She had awakened that morning with the feeling that the day was most propitious, and that her God was looking down upon her with a friendly and cooperative eye.
Mrs Harris’s Deity had been acquired at Sunday school at an early age, and had never changed in her mind from a Being who combined the characteristics of a nannie, a policeman, a magistrate, and Santa Claus, an Omnipotence of many moods, who was at all times concerned with Mrs Harris’s business. She could always tell which phase was uppermost in the Almighty by what was happening to her. She accepted her punishments from Above when she had been naughty without quibbling, as she would have accepted a verdict from the Bench. Likewise, when she was good, she expected rewards; when she was in distress she asked for assistance, and expected service; when things went well she was always prepared to share the credit with the Good Lord. Jehovah was a personal friend and protector, yet she was also a little wary of Him, as she might be of an elderly gentleman who occasionally went into fits of inexplicable tantrums.
That morning when she was awakened by the feeling that something wonderful was about to happen to her, she was convinced it could only have to do with her desire to own the dress, and that on this occasion she was to be brought nearer to the fulfilment of her wishes.
All that day at her work she had attuned herself to receive further communications as to what form the expected bounty would take. When she arrived at the flat of Miss Pamela Penrose to cope with the usual mess of untidiness left by the struggling actress, a copy of the Evening Standard was lying on the floor, and as she glanced at it she saw that the dogs were running at White City that evening. That was it! The message had been delivered and received. Thereafter there was nothing to do but to find the right dog, the right price, collect her winnings, and be off to Paris.
Neither Mrs Harris nor Mrs Butterfield was a stranger to the paradise that was White City, but that night the mise en scène that otherwise would have enthralled them - the oval track outlined in electric light, the rush and roar of the mechanical hare, the pulsating ribbon of the dogs streaming behind in its wake, the bustling crowds in the betting queues and the packed stands - was no more than the means to an end. Mrs Butterfield too, by this time, had caught the fever, and went waddling in Mrs Harris’s wake from track to stands and back again without protest. They did not even pause for a cup of tea and a sausage at the refreshment room, so intent were they upon attuning themselves to the work in hand.
Crushed in the crowd at the paddock where the entrants for the fourth race were being paraded, Mrs Harris listened to the conversation of two sporty-looking gentlemen standing just beside them.
The first gentleman was engaged in digging into his ear with his little finger and studying his card at the same time. ‘Haute Couture, that’s the one.’
The other gentleman, who was conducting similar operations on his nose, glanced sharply along the line of dogs and said: ‘Number six. What the devil does “Haut Coutourie” mean?’
The first gentleman was knowledgeable. ‘She’s a French bitch,’ he said, consulting his card again, ‘owned by Marcel Duval. I dunno - ain’t Haute Couture got something to do with dressmaking, or something like that?’
Mrs Harris and Mrs Butterfield felt cold chills run down their spines as they turned and looked at one another. There was no question, this was it. They stared at their cards, and sure enough there was the name of the dog, ‘Haute Couture’, and her French owner, and some of her record. A glance at the board showed them that her price was five to one.
‘Come along,’ cried Mrs Harris, making for the betting windows. She, like a tiny destroyer escorting the huge battleship of Mrs Butterfield, parted the crowds on either side of them, and arrived breathless at the queue.
‘What will you put on her, dearie - five quid?’ panted Mrs Butterfield.