Echoes of Yesterday

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Don’t worry, old lady,’ said Boots, ‘we’ll put you and Edwin in charge of the oars.’

  ‘You won’t,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Emily, ‘you used to sail the seas in a merchant ship, Dad, so you can probably sail a boat, can’t you?’

  ‘Probably in a rusty fashion,’ said Mr Finch.

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Boots, ‘we’ll hire a sailing boat and you can polish off your rust, Edwin.’

  ‘I’ll need a crew,’ said Mr Finch.

  ‘That’s us, Grandpa,’ said Tim, ‘after you’ve helped us learn.’

  ‘That sounds all right,’ said Boots.

  ‘That’s it, be airy-fairy about it,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘Nobody’s goin’ out to sea in any boat except over my dead body, unless they know what they’re doin’.’

  ‘Good point, old girl,’ said Boots.

  ‘I’m not old yet,’ said Chinese Lady, who wasn’t going to concede she was until she was ninety.

  ‘Well, as an alternative we’ll buy some shrimp nets, roll our trousers up, tuck our skirts up, and catch shrimps,’ said Boots.

  ‘Fun,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Edwin,’ said Chinese Lady, ‘is that son of mine expectin’ me to tuck my skirts up and catch shrimps?’

  ‘I think he’s saying you’re not old yet, Maisie,’ said Mr Finch, his mind, as it often was, on Hitler’s Germany and the recent horrifying massacre of Brownshirts by the SS under the command of Goering and Himmler, an event that had shocked the world. Nazi Germany had issued a communique for international consumption, detailing criminal treason of a kind that had necessitated the execution of a hundred or so traitors. But reports from reliable sources inside Germany spoke of far more than that. Mr Finch, knowing Germany and knowing Hitler’s excessive attachment to Prussian militarism, was sure that the Nazi leader would eventually lead Germany into war.

  With an effort, Mr Finch brought himself back into the atmosphere of the moment, into the animated discussion on sailing boats. Chinese Lady was saying donkey rides were a lot more enjoyable than being in a boat going up and down on the sea.

  ‘Do they have donkeys at Salcombe?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve got any information about Salcombe donkeys,’ said Boots.

  ‘I had a donkey ride at Southend once, with your late dad,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘My, I never knew anything more lively. Your dad laughed his ’ead off.’

  ‘Why, what happened, Nana?’ asked Tim.

  ‘Yes, what did?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Yes, what, Nana?’ asked Annabelle.

  ‘Never you mind,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘I think we can guess,’ smiled Mr Finch.

  ‘I don’t want anyone guessin’, thank you,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Nana, I bet you showed your legs,’ said Tim.

  ‘Em’ly, box that boy’s ears,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘But, Nana,’ protested Tim, ‘I only said legs, I didn’t say—’

  Emily’s hand over his mouth stopped him mentioning what he shouldn’t have.

  ‘It seems to me,’ observed Boots, ‘that going up and down on a donkey could be more spectacular than going up and down in a boat.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’ asked Chinese Lady.

  ‘Nana,’ said Rosie, ‘it means that if your only oldest son tells you, you’ll want someone to box his ears too.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Here, the doorbell’s ringing,’ said Tim, and away he went to answer it. He came back to deliver a message to Rosie. ‘Rosie, there’s a bloke says he’s come to see you.’

  ‘Tim, you mean Rosie’s got a visitor,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘That’s right, Nana, a bloke. He says his name’s Armstrong.’

  ‘Oh, that’s Alexis,’ said Rosie, and up she got and off she went, a smile on her face.

  Annabelle, who knew about Rosie’s interest in an Oxford bookshop assistant, said, ‘I can’t wait to see what he’s like.’ She thought he had to be pretty special and dynamic, because Rosie had been immune until now.

  ‘What was ’e like, Tim?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Like one of those blokes who stand on soap boxes by Hyde Park,’ said Tim, who’d been taken by Boots to Speakers Corner a couple of times.

  ‘Like what?’ said Chinese Lady, taken aback.

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Grandma,’ said Tim.

  Rosie reappeared, and with her was the young gent in question, lean, lanky and rakish. He was hatless, his black hair thick and smooth, his complexion slightly pale. His jacket was black, his grey gaberdine trousers fashionably baggy by Oxford standards. Just as fashionably he wore no waistcoat. His flannel shirt was striped, his bow tie a brilliant red. With a lock of his hair falling over his forehead, and his pale complexion accentuating the darkness of his eyes, he reminded Boots of James Maxton, the Scottish MP who was a radical member of the Labour Party and a virulent opponent of capitalism.

  Rosie, not at all fazed or sensitive about having Chinese Lady blinking at the sight of the bright red bow tie, introduced her Oxford friend to everyone in turn. Twenty-four years old, the young gentleman shook hands all round. Annabelle hid her surprised reactions by delivering a lovely smile. Heavens, who’d have thought Rosie would fall for someone with a pale hungry look?

  ‘Hello, how’d you do, nice to meet you.’ That was how he greeted each of them in turn. Then he stood back and smiled, showing two rows of white teeth. ‘So you’re all Rosie’s kith and kin,’ he said. ‘I argue a lot with Rosie about kith and kin, has she told you?’

  ‘I daresay she might in time,’ said Boots. ‘Pull up a chair and sit down. And would you like a drink?’

  ‘A nice cup of tea, say?’ suggested Chinese Lady, deciding it wouldn’t be right to be put off by the glaring bow tie.

  Alexis said he wasn’t a great tea drinker. Beer was more his style, he said, if there was any going. Boots said there’d been some going a little while ago, but it was as good as gone now, judging from the nearly empty glasses on the table.

  ‘The bottles aren’t empty, Dad,’ said Tim.

  ‘So they’re not,’ said Boots. ‘How about fetching another glass, Tim?’

  ‘Got you, Dad,’ said Tim, and went to fetch one.

  Alexis received his beer, saying it was the drink of the proletariat, of which he was one. Rosie was watching him with a little smile, and Annabelle was wondering if he knew what his bow tie did to people’s eyes. He went on to say it was odd about kith and kin. You were born, he said, but not until you reached the age of reason did you realize what kind of kith and kin you were stuck with. It could be a shock. He’d had a shock himself, he said, when he realized his parents and his closest relatives were all middle class. They drank sherry, he said. By the way, he said, I always speak frankly.

  ‘So do I,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘And as Rosie knows, I don’t go in for small talk. I regard small talk as a reflection of people’s ignorance about this country’s deplorable social conditions.’

  ‘What brought this on?’ asked Boots.

  ‘I told you Alexis was talkative, Daddy,’ said Rosie.

  ‘So’s Nick,’ said Annabelle, ‘he’s turning me into a dumb listener.’

  ‘I bet,’ said Tim. ‘Crikey, Annabelle, you can talk the hind leg off a donkey, specially over the phone.’

  ‘Now then, cheeky,’ said Annabelle, and looked at Nick, who at once put his grin away. ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘I’m keeping quiet,’ said Nick.

  ‘Wise man,’ said Mr Finch.

  ‘I always think anyone that’s got something to say, should say it,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘Mind, I sometimes feel it’s best if Boots doesn’t say too much, what with his habit of not always saying what he means.’

  ‘And not always meanin’ what he says,’ remarked Emily.

  Alexis looked slightly pained.

  Rosie, still showing a little smile, said, ‘I t
hink there’s some small talk going on.’

  ‘Oh, I can sit through a middle-class gathering,’ said Alexis, speaking frankly as was his wont and preference, ‘I survived a surfeit when I lived at home.’

  Boots, not a man of prejudices or fixed first impressions, nevertheless took a sudden dislike to the idiot. If Rosie’s serious about this politically-minded adolescent, he thought, I’m going to suffer a father’s worst headache.

  Chinese Lady asked, ‘What does Mr Armstrong mean by what he just said, Rosie?’

  ‘Oh, he means he’ll be happy ever after when the middle classes have been done away with and everyone goes to work in a flat cap and we all earn the same as each other,’ said Rosie.

  ‘But what’s he saying it to us for?’ asked Chinese Lady.

  ‘Well, we don’t wear flat caps, Nana,’ said Rosie. ‘Mind you, all kinds of other people would say things if we did.’

  ‘Did he say some people ought to be done away with?’ asked Chinese Lady.

  ‘Yes, it’s all part of the grand design,’ said Rosie.

  Alexis said conditions of desperate deprivation, deliberately brought about by capitalists and their governments, could only be alleviated by the destruction of the class system, the setting up of workers’ councils and central governmental control of all industry and all resources.

  Alas for the sociable nature and the summer evening peace of Chinese Lady and her kith and kin, and Nick too, for once fully mounted Alexis Armstrong could not be pulled from his saddle or held back from his gallop. On he went, his flaming red bow tie his badge of uncompromising revolution, and eventually, when Annabelle had a glazed look and Tim was thinking Rosie had really done it on the family by letting a crackpot into the house, he reached out for the spirit of Lenin and planted it figuratively on the table.

  ‘Lenin knew he couldn’t compromise; the corrupt bourgeois had to be swept away by a total revolution. But look what that and his pure socialist teachings have done for Russia, and consider what they might do for this country.’ He paused for a bit of breath and to finish his proletarian beer.

  No-one said anything. What could be said when the talking gasbag was Rosie’s young man? If he hadn’t been, someone could have hit him over the head, of course. Nick glanced at Boots, a man he had come to know and like. Usually, whatever was being said, he looked as if a smile was about to surface. He had a wicked sense of humour. But for once he didn’t seem at all amused, there was almost a look of irritation on his face.

  The gasbag was off again.

  ‘There’s no argument, you know, this country needs a revolution to clean it up. If only—’

  ‘Stop,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Oh, he can’t stop, Nana,’ said Rosie.

  ‘If only the workers can be given the right kind of leadership and the right kind of incentives to bring down the forces of oppression represented by the monarchy, the capitalists, the middle classes and the parasites—’

  ‘Stop,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Then the revolution would be victorious, and the Utopian nature of Lenin’s Soviet Russia could be enjoyed by the workers of this country, and bread and milk brought into the mouths of their starving children—’

  ‘Stop!’ Chinese Lady smacked the table with the flat of her hand. Glasses jumped. Alexis stopped, glancing at her with a frown, his lock of hair going almost stiff with annoyance.

  ‘You have a point to make?’ he said.

  ‘I think my grandma has several,’ murmured Rosie.

  ‘I never heard the like in all my life,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘I’ve heard a lot from my only oldest son, Rosie’s dad, and most of it misunderstandable, but I never heard more downright foolish talk than now. Nor such bad manners. I don’t know what your parents were about, young man, lettin’ you teach yourself to come into people’s ’omes and tell them that if you don’t like their faces or their way of livin’, you’re goin’ to do away with them. Young man, all I know about Lenin is that his Bolshevists went about killing everyone who didn’t agree with him so that he could sit in his Bolshevist castle bein’ Lord-I-Am. The last thing me and my fam’ly will stand for is havin’ Lenin walk into our parlour and start doin’ away with us—’

  ‘Be of good cheer, old lady, he’s been long dead,’ said Boots.

  ‘Well, no-one told me, and don’t interrupt, and don’t call me old lady in front of strangers,’ said Chinese Lady. Strangers. That was it. Whatever Rosie’s feelings were for this tiresome young man, he was never going to be allowed to darken Chinese Lady’s doorstep again. ‘I should think it’s a good job Lenin is dead, ’e was a lot more trouble than he was ever worth, and if you go into any more homes, Mr Armstrong, and talk about doin’ away with people you’ve never met before and other people you never will meet, you’ll be so much trouble to yourself you’ll come to a sorrowful end. People that do away with other people get done away with themselves. And I don’t know what you mean about middle classes and workers and para-what-was-it?’

  ‘Parasites,’ murmured Mr Finch, now thoroughly enjoying himself.

  ‘I informed everyone at the beginning I always speak frankly,’ said Alexis, ‘and I claim the right of a free man to—’

  ‘Stop,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘I won’t be—’

  ‘Never mind what you won’t and will,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘I don’t know what all that meant about middle classes and workers and parasites, whatever they are. There’s aristocrats, yes, but all the rest of us are workers. My fam’ly’s been down to the soles of their feet, I’ll have you know, and why you’ve got the impertinence to call us a middle-class gatherin’ because we’ve now got our own ’ouse and garden, I just don’t know. I never heard anything more daft. And it’s not your place to do away with our King and Queen, we don’t hold with people takin’ it on themselves to chop other people’s heads off.’

  Alexis, glancing at Rosie, looked as if he thought she should have told him her grandmother was due to be certified.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Rosie, ‘I think it’s your turn again, Alexis.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘consequent on a successful revolution, we the workers will decide the question of—’

  ‘I wouldn’t let anyone who works in a bookshop decide things for anyone in this fam’ly,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘By the way, Mr Armstrong,’ said Mr Finch, ‘Lenin never did a day’s manual labour or held down any kind of job from the day he was born until the day he took office. He lived on what he could scrounge. He was, alas, a parasite, never a worker.’

  ‘I’m used to misguided remarks of that kind,’ said Rosie’s talking gasbag.

  ‘Well, you’ve made a very good speech, Alexis,’ said Rosie, ‘and I think you can say goodbye to everyone now. Then I’ll see you to the door.’

  ‘I’m willing to throw open the subject for discussion, Rosie.’

  ‘Not now,’ said Rosie, ‘I think you’ve come a bit of a cropper. Never mind, I’ll still come and buy books from you. Say goodbye now.’

  Mr Alexis Armstrong, accepting that he was probably among people with the fixed minds of potential counter-revolutionaries, said his goodbyes and Rosie walked back into the house with him to see him out.

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Boots to Emily.

  ‘Boots, you’d best leave those two to each other,’ said Emily.

  ‘Shan’t be a tick,’ said Boots.

  He caught Rosie in the hall. She had just closed the door on the departing revolutionary.

  ‘Hello, Daddy,’ she said brightly. ‘My word, I bet you thought he was a caution, didn’t you? And didn’t Nana let fly?’

  ‘I’d have let fly myself if he hadn’t been your guest,’ said Boots.

  ‘Daddy, are you grumpy?’

  ‘Yes, I am. He’s an idiot.’

  ‘But I thought you’d laugh at him.’

  ‘Because he’s your idiot, Rosie, we all bit our tongues, except your grandmother.’

  ‘Stop b
eing cross with me.’

  ‘Rosie—’

  ‘It hurts,’ said Rosie.

  ‘Well, I’ll suffer fifty painful fits myself if you’ve got serious feelings about that political clown,’ said Boots, and Rosie stared at him, astonishment showing in her blue eyes. Then she smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Daddy, you silly, you don’t really think I’d fall for someone like him, do you? Heavens, when he was doing all that fiery talking, weren’t you glad, as I was, that all our families don’t go in for using dotty politics to upset our friends? Look, I use his bookshop, that’s all, like other students. I’m not saying he doesn’t have ideas about making me his own Comrade Adams when the revolution arrives, but those aren’t my ideas. He said he’d call on me during his holiday, and I told him he might get a flea in his ear. He’s got two, one from Nana and another one from me. I gave it to him on our doorstep. So there.’

  Boots looked wry, inwardly acknowledging he’d shown the fault of a father wanting too much of a say in the affairs of his daughter. But in his relief at the dismissal of the political animal as suitor, he was able to laugh.

  ‘Well done, poppet. Let’s rejoin the others, but get your fiddle first.’

  ‘My fiddle?’ Rosie had a violin, which she could play with a fair amount of talent. ‘What for?’

  ‘A celebratory jig,’ said Boots, and Rosie, laughing, went to fetch her violin.

  ‘Have you been talkin’ to Rosie?’ asked Chinese Lady when Boots reappeared.

  ‘Yes,’ said Boots, ‘and we’ve no worries. As far as Rosie’s concerned, that young man is a freak.’

  ‘Well, I’ve never heard a more relievin’ piece of news,’ said Chinese Lady.

  ‘Nor me,’ said Annabelle. ‘Crikey, I had a feeling I was one of those he wanted to do away with. Me, imagine. I mean, is there anyone nicer?’

  ‘There’s me,’ said Tim.

  ‘And me,’ said Emily.

  ‘I’ll pass,’ said Nick, ‘I think I’d better.’