The Commonplace Day

by Rosemary Friedman

  I could see it was going to be one of those mornings. Somebody had parked his car not two inches from my front bumper and there was a van about eighteen inches away behind. I was sure Tim would have managed, he was wonderful about that sort of thing, but I might just as well attempt to jump over the moon. I put the Betterfare stuff in the boot and noticed I had Diana’s pleated skirt, I would have to drop that into the cleaner’s, and decided that by the time I had been to the greengrocer’s the person who had been so inconsiderate might have finished shopping and moved his car. If not I should just have to sit there and hoot.

  Of course you could get vegetables in the supermarket but when we needed potatoes and heavy things I gave an order once a week at Smart’s. Mr Smart had very large false teeth and was always grinning trying to keep his end up as a small shopkeeper gradually being driven to the wall by Betterfare and Brown’s Self-Service and others in the village gradually converting. It was only his mouth which smiled ingratiatingly though, you could see his eyes were tired. There was a greyness about him and you knew he had to get up about half-past four in the morning to go to market.

  “Good morning, Mrs Westbury.” Grin. “And how’s Mrs Westbury today? Order?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I’ll get a book.”

  His window was set out temptingly, the apples polished. Anticipating experiments, our cosy dinners for eight or ten, he kept a stock of artichokes, aubergines, avocado pears, saving us a journey to town.

  “Potatoes,” I said, “ten pounds…”

  “Edwards or Whites?”

  I looked at him doubtfully.

  “Whites are a better peeling.”

  “Whites then. Two pounds of onions, a pound of carrots, a pound of tomatoes, a quarter of mushrooms, medium cabbage…”

  “Oranges? Bananas? Grapefruit?” Pencil poised.

  I picked up a grapefruit from a stack feeling the weight of it and caught sight of myself in the mirror that ran along the side of the shop. All dressed up in black for Dobbie with my mink tie, holding aloft a grapefruit like the Statue of Liberty.

  “Very juicy,” Mr Smart said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Juicy. Thin-skinned.”

  “Oh yes. I’ll have two.”

  “And the next?”

  The car was still wedged. I hate anything mechanical feeling completely inadequate. It was fairly new, blue and white with plastic-covered seats. I got in, you could still smell the newness, and hooted twice hoping that the owner of the red Mini in front would hear. We were outside Stapleton’s and I could see several little queues, they always made you line up for butter and cheese and bacon separately which was why I seldom went, so perhaps she was in there. I was sure it was a woman because no man would have been so stupid. A few people turned round at the noise, mildly curious. There was a tap on the window and it was Heather Skinner and for once I was quite pleased to see her feeling rather alone in my embarrassing situation.

  I lowered the window by the passenger seat. “I’m stuck.”

  “What a rotten thing to do,” Heather said. She had on a purply tweed suit, red stockings and no coat and was carrying what looked like a mop, just its head wrapped in brown paper.

  “A new mop,” she said holding it aloft. “Binkie chewed the head off the old one, little terror.”

  Heather had no children but a succession of cats and dogs which I’m sure were far more trouble and certainly received more attention; meat cooked twice daily and liver chopped up, the smell was revolting when you went into her house, and all that sort of thing.

  “Look, you start backing and forwarding,” Heather said heartily standing there with the mop like Boadicea, “and I’ll see you out.”

  “I think it’s impossible.”

  “Not at all. Little by little and easy does it.”

  Older than most of us I remembered that Heather had been a driver in the W.A.A.F I turned on the ignition and put myself in her hands.

  Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Apart from being exhausted and hot and uncomfortable I was fed up with the whole affair. There was quite a little crowd on the pavement, most with shopping baskets, all offering advice.

  “One more and you’ll make it,” Heather said looking professionally at the front bumper.

  An elderly man with a brown paper carrier came out of Stapleton’s. He poked his head in my window smelling of tobacco.

  “I’m terribly sorry, am I in your way?”

  I opened my mouth to let forth the stream of abuse I had been preparing which was peppered with words such as inconsiderate, foolish, incompetent, and selfish.

  “I’ll move it straight away,” he said taking out his keys. “I was going to the Victoria Wine Company for a bottle of stone ginger but I’ll move the little bus first shall I?”

  I pulled out into the High Street feeling stupid in a way for having got so worked up. I hated the car feeling it was my enemy and often out to make me look ridiculous.

  People were crossing to and fro in the High Street standing on the islands with parcels or baskets on wheels and spilling over the zebra crossings which always gave me nightmares in case I knocked somebody down. Reaching the traffic lights, hemmed in by a bus on one side and a petrol lorry on the other, I turned right and joined the stream of miscellaneous traffic going to town.

  Six

  The holiday in Italy had been a success, paradoxically, I suppose, because knowing that I had Dobbie at home waiting for me I had gone out of my way to be pleasant to Tim. Nothing annoyed me. I had something so exciting to go home to that I could afford to be magnanimous, and the three weeks passed in a kind of expectant limbo. We hired a car and toured for a bit then finished up to recuperate at Venice Lido. I stood with respect in St Peter’s admiring the hideous baldachino and thought of Dobbie. I thought of him crossing the dusty Piazza Santa Croce hand in hand with Tim. I lay face down on the sand on the scorching Lido listening to the shouts of Robin and Diana in the water and wondered how it would be.

  I’d told Dobbie when we’d be home and he’d made a note of it in his diary saying he’d be in touch.

  We came back at the end of August to find the garden overgrown, Tim hadn’t been there to see to it, and everything looking rather dehydrated because there had been no rain.

  In the house the first thing I did was to make a quick tour to see if Mrs Mac had been in and doing all she should. The net curtains looked clean and fresh and I smelled them to make sure they were. She’d washed the carpets and the paint work everywhere and seemed really to have been hard at it while we were taking it easy, although the sightseeing had been hard work in Italy. I had brought her a bag from the straw market in Florence and a silk scarf I thought would go well with her winter coat. Mrs Mac had done a coach tour of the Bavarian Alps in the spring and had brought me back a wonderful wooden nutcracker made by hand and a large bottle of Eau-de-Cologne which still stood embarrassingly unused on my dressing table; if there was one smell I couldn’t stand it was that. I hoped she would find her presents adequate. The post was piled neatly on the dining-room table and with the cases still in the hall Tim was sorting it. The children were prowling round looking at everything and leaving a trail of comics, which they’d read in the plane, and opened tubes of wine-gums and the straw hat Diana hadn’t let go of since Milan. Soon the house, which had seemed a bit strange and expectant when we arrived, began to get the familiar lived-in look.

  Tim finished the post, there were a few for me, Harrods’ catalogue and notices of a Bring-and-Buy Sale and a Luncheon and a Fashion Show all in aid of various charities and which I supposed I would support, but nothing of any interest.

  Tim collected up all the envelopes in his methodical way and said what’s to eat, and Robin who was pulling his underwater goggles out of one of the cases said yes I’m starving and I realised it wasn’t a question of sitting at a laid table and reading the menu but of preparing something myself and that we were really home. />
  The next day was Tuesday and Tim went off to the office looking brown and fit and the children to the swimming pool, it was still hot. I was left among the debris of dirty sports-shirts and shorts and light dresses feeling let down and resentful that the Adriatic was no longer outside the window, and waiting to hear from Dobbie.

  He rang while I was beating the eggs for the Norwegian Cream I was making for dessert. I hadn’t heard the phone because of the mixer and Mrs Mac answered it and said Mr Dobson. I switched off the beaters and ran to the telephone in the hall then decided I had better take it upstairs. I asked Mrs Mac to put the receiver down, then thought that was a stupid thing to have done. Dobbie often phoned after all and now she might think something was up but it was too late.

  I said “Hallo Dobbie” and waited for the click. He said: “Hallo, Liz. Have a good holiday?” Then I heard it and the bedroom door was shut so that was all right and the sound of his voice made me disintegrate.

  “When can I see you?” he said.

  I said: “Any time.” And then thought that was ridiculous because the children were still on holiday and I’d promised to take them to Kew Gardens that week, and shopping for winter uniform which they’d grown out of and shoes, a nightmare with Diana. There were a hundred and one other things too which had piled up while we had been away.

  “What about lunch on Thursday?”

  Thursday was to have been Diana’s shoe morning and I’d promised her lunch in town but it would have to be Thursday because Wednesday was uniforms and Friday was the day we’d settled on for Kew.

  “Thursday would be fine,” I said. I would have somehow to square it with Diana and make it fine.

  “One o’clock then at Overton’s?”

  “Not Overton’s, Dobbie.” Everyone went there and I was sure to bump into someone I knew.

  “Where do you suggest then? I’m at your disposal.”

  I tried to think. All the restaurants I knew the girls in the village knew too.

  “You could come up to the flat if you like,” Dobbie said. “I can have something sent in.”

  But I wasn’t ready for that.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “there’s a place in King’s Road. It’s called ‘the Porterhouse’ and it isn’t bad at all. It’s right by Kinnerton Street and there’s usually somewhere to park.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “Thursday then.” He sounded busy.

  “Goodbye.”

  Downstairs in the kitchen I looked at the eggs I had been whipping but they seemed not to have sunk. I switched the mixer on once more and took the castor sugar out of the cupboard and thought how difficult it was all going to be. I was prepared to go through with what I had planned but I wasn’t prepared for Tim to find out. I loved and respected him too much. Suddenly the whole of London seemed too small and I couldn’t think of a single place where I was unlikely to bump into someone I knew who would say to Tim I ran into Dobbie and Liz having lunch… Not that there was anything wrong in my lunching with Dobbie and Tim would never dream anything was amiss but of course if it happened more than once… The eggs were dry and left the side of the bowl clean. I added the sugar slowly. It was not going to be easy.

  Thursday’s problem was resolved more simply than I had expected. Diana was invited to spend the day with Penelope Haynes from school. Penelope lived in Knightsbridge so it was all quite convenient. I could drop her there after the shoes and the Haynes’ would bring her home later.

  I have said it was a nightmare buying shoes for Diana. In actual fact it was worse. It was a kind of three-point pitched battle between Diana, myself and the salesgirl, who tried hard to please us both and ended up, through no fault of her own, by pleasing neither.

  The trouble was that both Diana and myself had fixed ideas about the shoes we were to buy and the ideas did not tally. In Diana’s mind were pointed-toed court shoes, bad for the feet, with a tiny heel; in mine were sensible light-weight weekenders with a single strap suitable for a girl of twelve. It wasn’t that Diana was unreasonable. She was quite an amenable child. She was afraid though of looking (a) a nit, (b) ten or eleven instead of twelve, (c) unfashionable.

  At 11.30 we entered the large store where we usually bought Diana’s shoes. We went up in the lift which from its wall advertised the services of Mr Wart, chiropodist, and always made Diana giggle, and got out on the first floor for the children’s department. This in itself was a bone of contention. At twelve Diana resented sitting with rows of restless youngsters, some of whom were quite tiny, before the dolls’ house and the rocking horse in order to select her shoes. In another year she would be in the women’s section but at the moment her feet were quite small and she had to suffer this indignity with which I sympathised.

  We waited nearly fifteen minutes for attention and I looked at my watch anxiously not wanting to be late for Dobbie. The girl who finally came couldn’t have been a day over fifteen and had bouffant hair and her slip showing and spots. I said navy blue, light-weight for the weekend for this young lady. Diana said with a tiny heel and I said no and the girl looked from one to the other of us and measured Diana’s foot in its white sock and said she would show us what she had.

  We waited another five minutes while a baby next to us screamed and refused to have the red shoe the assistant brought put on its fat foot. It was not to be pacified either by Mother, or Nannie in grey uniform hat and coat which was becoming a rarer and rarer sight.

  Our girl came back with three shoes and sat down facing us on her little stool. Diana at once turned them over to examine the heels. One was raised a little but fortunately the shoe itself was piped in red and Diana’s winter coat was navy blue with a lightish green trimming. I said that one’s no good dear, you couldn’t possibly wear a decorated shoe when you’ve two colours on your coat already. She insisted it didn’t matter and tried the shoe on and said it was super whereas in fact she hadn’t even stood up in it to see if it was comfortable. She looked at her foot with her head on one side and said of course you have to picture it with stockings. That was another battle but one I was willing to concede, having to admit to myself that times indeed had changed and that girls of twelve now wore nylon stockings albeit thirty denier.

  The other two shoes were quite suitable but Diana hardly looked at them cradling the one with the heel and the red piping in her hand. It was not that she particularly liked the red she said but the actual shoe; as if I was unaware that all she saw was the inch of heel, completely blinded to the rest. I made her put the other two on. They looked very suitable, but one she said pinched her little toe and the other slipped at the heel. The girl ran her fingers over the front of the first shoe and said there seemed to be plenty of room and the other she said Diana could try in a smaller size. She disappeared to track it down while I begged Diana to walk in the one she said pinched to make sure. She hobbled a few steps with an expression of agony on her face clutching the shoe with the red piping all the while. The girl came back eventually with the smaller size of the one that slipped but that, as I had thought it would be, was too tight. We were left with the one that pinched and the red piping. Isn’t there something else I said and the girl went into a trance then got up and walked away and stayed away another five minutes. I was just about to call the supervisor, who was standing importantly doing nothing except direct traffic with a green band round her bosom and a pencil in her hand, when she came back with three more shoes, one beige, one brown, and one pale blue.

  I looked at my watch and said come on Diana but she still clung to the shoe with the heel, and I might have relented if it hadn’t been for the red on it, and said please Mummy, tears in her blue eyes as only Diana can. I said good day firmly to the sales girl who declared she was sorry and made Diana give up the shoe and went down the escalator this time and into the street.

  We battled our way along Oxford Street everyone in print dresses and no stockings like Brighton beach and I said Marshalls have a children’s shoe depa
rtment we could try and felt Diana’s resentment oozing out of her. On the way there was a window with a stunning black cocktail dress and I said isn’t that gorgeous Diana? She looked at me pityingly thinking what on earth do you want to dress up for, your days are numbered, exactly as I had thought at her age when asked to admire an outfit of my mother’s.

  In the window of Marshalls they had gold evening pumps with diamante buckles and Diana said aren’t they super? I had to remind her we were looking for shoes to wear with her winter coat. In the department an intelligent assistant asked what we wanted then disappeared, but not too far, I could see her in the background looking pensively at boxes. She came back with just one shoe saying this seems to be the nearest, Madam. It was navy blue with a nice toe and just a fine strap and the tiniest little heel that wasn’t really a heel at all but was a compromise we could both accept. Diana said it was terribly comfortable and put her head on one side to picture it with a stocking again and I asked casually how much and the superior lady explained that it was Italian, hand made and cost five pounds seventeen-and-six which was more than I paid for my own shoes which I did not grow out of in three months.