Climbing the Stairs (4 page)

So I said, ‘I’m not.’

Now on these tours they can’t bear you to deviate. It worries the couriers. You’ve got to be the same as everybody else. By the look on his face I could see that I worried our
courier.

‘Oh, I couldn’t go up there – absolutely impossible – it’s too high,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t leave the ground.’

‘I hope not,’ I said, ‘for other people’s sakes.’

He said, ‘The views up there are marvellous.’

I said, ‘They wouldn’t be any good to me, I couldn’t look at them.’

I simply refused to go. He didn’t like it but he had to put up with it in the end.

So Albert and I wandered through the town on our own. And I think that was the best part of the holiday. We found a lovely little German beer garden where there was a man playing one of these
xylophone things with hammers and we hadn’t been there above ten minutes when he started playing English tunes. And there was dancing. It was very lively.

In the interval this man that was playing came over to us and said, ‘You’re English, aren’t you?’

Of course we lapped this up. It gave us a feeling of prestige. So we ordered him a drink and he joined us.

He said, ‘You know I can tell almost anybody’s nationality now. I’ve been playing in this beer garden for the last twenty years.’

So I asked, ‘How is it you speak English so well?’

And he said, ‘Oh, I was a prisoner of war in England.’

This was in the 1914–18 War.

He chatted with us a bit. When he left I said to Albert, ‘What a charming man.’

‘Yes, charming thirst, too,’ said Albert. ‘Do you know he ordered four beers while he was sitting here and all on us.’

We were certainly paying for our experiences. Still I expect he felt we owed him something, he having been a prisoner of war.

Eventually we went back and joined the coach. Then we drove to Cologne. By the time we got there, with what I’d drunk in the beer garden I was only thinking of one thing and that was the
loo.

There we were in Cologne. There was that lovely cathedral and there was the ladies’ lavatory not far from it. And there were dozens of coaches – all queuing for the loo. It took me
twenty minutes to get in and out and we were only allowed half an hour in the city. Talk about see Naples and die. I tore into the cathedral, looked at some gold plate and tore out again. That was
Cologne for me apart from the loo.

Then we came to the Rhine. Well, the brochure had said a trip down the Rhine. We just went across in the ferry. That was our trip down the Rhine. As we went across we could see one or two
castles – but what a swindle.

A mortifying thing about going in and out of these various countries was that the customs men come in and collect your passport. Yon know what passport photos are like – mine was
absolutely hideous. It made me look an ugly ninety. Yet they look at it, look at you and then hand it back, so you’re forced to the conclusion that it really looks like you. Very
mortifying.

Anyway we got back about ten o’clock, had a hot meal which was good and Albert and I went out on the town again.

The next day was another one of these coach trips. You’ve got to be in the very best of health when you go on a holiday like ours because they’re absolute endurance tests. We went to
Luxembourg which they had said was a charming little country. I admit it was very pretty. I enjoyed it there until the courier had the idea of taking us down into a grotto.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in one of these underground grottoes – shocking things they are. You go down to the bowels of the earth on an iron spiral staircase and the
last bit of it is slippery and slimy. I fell the last four steps into the mud at the bottom. It’s dark down there and there’s an underground river. You get taken in a boat on this river
but you can’t see a thing. And I was worried about my clothes, wondering how muddy I was, which I couldn’t see down there. I think grottoes are very much over-rated things and it stank
to high heaven. Well, you can imagine it, can’t you? I mean it’s been there since time immemorial. Everybody says ‘Oo’ and ‘Ah’ – I’ve never seen
anything so daft. I mean you might as well put the light out and sit in your own room. At least you could sit in comfort, couldn’t you?

The next day we went into Belgium which wasn’t interesting at all because they took us to Brussels, and I didn’t think much of Brussels. It seemed such a dirty town to me. Apart from
that there was nothing special about it at all.

Then we had one day at leisure in Walkenberg – getting our strength up as it were for the trip to Paris. This we were both looking forward to. The very name Paris conjures up images and
does things for you.

The hotel we stayed in there was a good one. Mind you there was trouble from some of the party who didn’t like being on the top floor. I almost felt sorry for the courier when he said to
me, ‘You know, it doesn’t matter what party you go with, you always get people who moan and groan the entire time. You’d think that they were on a luxury tour the way they go
on.’ Though incidentally I noticed that at mealtimes the courier always sat at a separate table on his own and he never had the same kind of food as we did. He did far better. He was on a
luxury tour by comparison.

The next day we went out shopping in the morning. Albert was going to buy me some perfume – something he’d never bought me in his life – and he asked the courier whether he had
an arrangement. He had – and he directed us. Albert bought me a little tiny bottle of scent. Two guineas it cost. And when we got back to England I found we could have bought it here for
forty-five shillings. Three bob we saved – on the carriage I suppose. I don’t see where the arrangement came in. Let’s face it, the only thing was, never in this world would
Albert ordinarily have spent two guineas on perfume for me. So at least I got it, and it was marvellous. I used to use it very sparingly, a spot at a time. I hadn’t used half the bottle
before the scent went out of it. It doesn’t always pay to be too careful.

Of course we wanted to go to a nightclub. Some people that I was doing for at home had said that we should go to the
Folies Bergère.

‘Don’t pay for a seat,’ they said, ‘you can stand at the back for the equivalent of ten shillings and it’s just as good because not only are you near the bar but
you can see everything that’s going on.’

So I told this to the courier.

‘Oh, no,’ he said ‘you’ll never get in the
Folies Bergère,
you have to book months ahead to get in there.’

We should really have gone and found out for ourselves, but we didn’t. We thought, he must know doing these trips every year.

Then this courier said, ‘I’ve got a better idea. I’ve got an arrangement with a nightclub called Eve’ (and the way he said Eve made it sound ever so salacious) ‘and
for two pounds ten each you can sit at a proper table and share a bottle of champagne between four of you.’

We hesitated. Five pounds for two of us seemed an awful lot of money. But then to go to Paris and not be able to say you’ve been to a nightclub? After all, to us they seemed the main
feature of Paris life. So I said, ‘Oh let’s do it. That’ll be our last big expenditure. Let’s go.’

Albert was keener than I was. Naturally it would be more interesting for a man than a woman. I couldn’t see what there was going to be in it for me. If there were any turns on I
wouldn’t understand the language. But Albert wanted to go back and say that he’d seen a bit of nudity, so we decided to go and we gave the courier our money. When I look back and think
of the money that man made I could pass out. I must admit we had taxis there – though we had to make our own way back. I’m certain he wanted to make sure we got there.

When we got inside the place it was so small. There were only two rows of tables and a bar at the back, but by the time we’d paid two pounds ten each we couldn’t afford to buy any
more drink anyway. Four of us sat at a table with a tepid bottle of champagne in the middle. I’d had champagne when I was in domestic service and I knew what it should taste like. This stuff
was absolute rubbish. We sat there sipping it and then the first turn, if you could call it a turn, came on.

It was twelve girls nude from the waist up with very fancy dresses below the waist. There were gasps from most of the men. One man belonging to our party went as red as a beetroot. Albert sat
there all nonchalant looking as though he saw such things every day. He didn’t. You’ve never seen such a collection in all your life. Talk about twelve raving beauties – they must
have gone out on the highways and byways and scoured the lot in. They were short and fat and tall and thin. And the shapes of them! Some had appendages that looked like deflated balloons –
others had got them about the size of footballs which looked as though they’d blown them up before they came on the stage. Some had got such a little that you couldn’t tell what sex
they were; they might have been men for all we knew. And they didn’t do a thing – they just kept walking round and round. There was a notice up saying ‘Do Not Touch The
Girls’. Even Albert said, ‘Good God I’d have died before I would have touched one of them with a barge-pole.’ If I tell you that Albert was bored to tears in less than five
minutes you can understand what they were like.

Then came a sort of quick-patter act. Some people laughed – presumably they were French and understood what was being said. We didn’t understand a word.

Then the girls came on again with different dresses from the waist down – paraded round again with their inane giggles. I said to Albert, ‘Have you ever seen the female sex looking
like that?’ He said he hadn’t and I believed him. Of course it was nothing to me – it was like bread and bread. I spent the time studying those who had pimples and where they had
them.

We were there an hour. Just turns interspersed with these girls. It was dreadful. When we got up and went we left by the back stairs and as we passed a paybox I saw that we could have gone in
and stood for the equivalent of twelve and six. When I told all the others they were furious and they ostracized the courier for the rest of the trip. We didn’t. We wrote it down to
experience. We put ourselves in his position. If we were taking a pack of greenhorns around we’d have had to have had very good characters not to have made a bit out of them.

Anyway apart from that we enjoyed Paris hugely. We saw the Louvre, the Palace of Versailles, all those kind of places – and Paris is a beautiful and interesting city. We’d wander
around on our own then sit outside the cafés watching life go by.

Twice at our hotel they served us with something like meatballs, tasty but mysterious. I was intrigued with them. And I’ve always been a bit pushing. I’d read in the papers about
Lady So and So or the Duchess of Something or Other being abroad and coming back with the most marvellous recipes. They’d been down to the kitchen and the chef had given them these recipes
which they printed.

So I said to Albert, ‘I’ve a good mind to ask for the recipe of these meatballs.’

He said, ‘I wouldn’t bother. I don’t want any of them when we get back home.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘neither do I but I just want to go back with some sort of recipe.’

So I said to the waiter – he spoke perfect English – ‘Will you please ask the chef for the recipe for me?’ in a nice sort of way. I thought that he might even invite me
down in the kitchen.

The next day I inquired of him, ‘Did you ask the chef how these meatballs are made?’

He said, ‘Yes, I did, and the chef said, “God knows, I don’t.” ’

I expect they were like those resurrection pies that the cook used to make us sometimes when I was in service. All the bits of meat that you thought had long departed this life would appear
again with a pastry crust on and we used to call it resurrection pie. But did I feel deflated by that waiter. Talk about
entente cordiale.

On the way back home we were booked to have lunch at Antwerp at a luxury hotel. And it was a luxurious place, not a bit like the hotels we’d stayed in.

We arrived at Antwerp an hour before lunch and we wandered around the town; we were then to meet in this hotel. As we went up the steps we felt like the poor relations, we’d hardly any
money left by that time. It was a huge palatial entrance with a grand staircase all thickly carpeted. I was dying to go to the lavatory and I said to Albert, ‘I wonder where it is?’

He said, ‘Ask somebody.’

It was the sort of place where you imagined the people that went there didn’t go to the lavatory.

And I said, ‘Oh, I haven’t got the nerve to.’

Eventually I discovered it was downstairs. You’ve never seen such toilets. I suppose all posh hotels are like it. It was lovely there. You didn’t have to put money in and there was a
whole row of basins, gold-plated taps and a separate towel at each basin. So I washed my hands. And then from nowhere sprang an old harridan holding a plate and I looked at this plate and there was
nothing less than the equivalent of half a crown in it. Of course I hadn’t the nerve to give her less. I should have stuck it out but she looked so intimidating.

The general run of toilets in France are something too terrible for words. They may be better now – since de Gaulle, I mean. But I’d never seen anything like the sanitary
arrangements. Those awful ones they have in the street where the men’s legs show below and their head and shoulders above, and you can visualize what the middle’s doing. I think
they’re revolting.

We were on a tram once and I could see a man sort of leaning on his elbow in one of them – for all the world as though he was there to have a rest. And we went in a café on our own
the first day and when I went to the toilet I stood outside waiting and a man came out. Embarrassed? I went the colour of a beetroot. Then another one I went into was just two toilets and a sort of
half-tiled wall and I discovered there were three men sitting with their backs to me. They’ve got no reticence at all. Talk about all friends together. The funny thing is that after
you’ve been there a couple of days – you keep drinking that awful beer that runs through you – you don’t take a bit of notice. It just shows what a thin veneer civilization
has really.