Dolly's War (22 page)

Then Chas, always the unsatisfied farmer, bought some hens which caused my father to criticise ‘backyard fowls' and the disease and pests associated with them. He hated these cackling birds but would have calmed down and probably accepted them peacefully when he saw the lovely brown eggs. But Chas, fired by the success of his first venture into poultry-keeping, bought a cock. This grew into a magnificent bird and Chas was immensely proud of it. He just loved all the chickens and gave them all names which my father seemed to think revealed an unmanly streak in my husband. Now, for some mysterious reason, this cock hated my father, and if Chas had gone to work without locking the run it would take off and fly across the garden towards my father screaming whenever it saw him. My father would not admit that he detested this cock because he was nervous of it, indeed he never galloped into the house when the bird made a bee-line for him, but he did put on a sort of ‘Olympic walking-race' run, and he always took a stick with him into the garden. Finally Chanticleer's days were numbered for he flew at Susan one day, and at last I put my foot down. My father ate the roasted cock with happy relish, but Chas sadly refused any.

All this excitement amused D'Artagnan no end and now my father had become quite friendly with him for the little man had gone so bravely to Susan's aid at the time of the bird's attack, and indeed, saved her from a nasty injury. One evening Susan called from the bedroom that someone was sawing underneath her bed. At first I thought she must be dreaming but suddenly I heard it, a sawing and a scrambling, down in the cellar. We had arranged to have a new kitchen floor and in the old wooden floor, by the side of the cooker, was a hole about the size of a penny. And from this hole emerged the nose and teeth of a
RAT
! I was absolutely terrified. Chas fetched the long carving-knife with the narrow point, sharpened it to razor-like proportions and laid full length on the kitchen floor intending to stab and perhaps impale the intruder and so kill him, but every time the wretched creature poked his nose through the hole Chas ‘jumped' and always missed it. We had a sleepless night and I longed for the morning when the ‘Rat' man would call.

He came, a giant of a man, and whilst, in the manner of a surgeon, he laid out his paraphernalia, he informed us, so very modestly, of course, what a dangerous mission he had chosen in life, only the brave could survive his calling. D'Artagnan, from the top of his ladder, gazed down with sceptical grimaces at this ratty V.C., and we waited with baited breath while our brave hero descended into the bowels of the house. He was wearing a sort of face mask and had thick gloves on his hands and a cudgel in one of them. We waited for the verdict. He led us to believe that we had an influx of the terrible rodents and first of all he must tempt them and reassure them. He would feed them with good food and when they were happy and ‘at home' with their surroundings and had become trusting creatures, then he would poison the food. The thought of the next few days with a happy family beneath me so terrified me that when the brave man had departed, D'Artagnan went down and inspected the cellar. ‘As I thought, Madam dear, there is only one rat there, I caught a glimpse of it, it is crippled, ill and old, and has probably been turned out by the other rats from some other place.' We had a small air-hole on the outside wall and my father thought it had probably come into the house that way.

The next few days were torture to me, although I was very glad I had two men in the house day and night. My father went down the cellar hoping to catch the rat, but he never saw it. At last, after the rat's repast had been poisoned, came the great day of salvation. The V.C. dressed himself for the battle which he led us to believe, would ensue. Well he convinced me of his bravery under assault, but not D'Artagnan who announced to me that morning he was sure of the rat's demise, the poison being a deadly one. Sounds of battle and war-like cries emanated from the cellar and presently up came the rat man with his hands behind his back. ‘Don't look, missus,' he implored. ‘It's not a pretty sight.' I made coffee for this marvellous man and he left with an aura of a job well done. D'A. watched his retreat down the road and then galloped back to the dustbin. Coming back into the kitchen with joy shining from his dear little face he announced, ‘Just as I believed, Madam dear, “rye-goor morteese” had set in.' It really had been an outcast from its tribe, old and unwanted. My father somehow blamed Chas's chickens for the arrival of the rat and their days too were numbered.

Saturday afternoons at Forest Gate were lovely interludes and red-letter days of the week for Mother and me, for then members of the family, who lived near enough, would come home to visit. The children would find their way downstairs to Susan, and I would find my way up for tea with Mother and my brothers and sisters. My father and Chas were away at their football- or cricket-matches, and we loved their absence for this afternoon. For one thing Chas could never be at home doing anything without wanting me constantly by his side. He could never ‘find' anything and always seemed to need a mate to pass him various implements for the job on hand.

Amy couldn't understand what she thought was my ‘servility' to Chas and my pacifying replies to him if he was irritable about anything. But, like my mother I would ‘give points away for peace'. I detested arguments over things that didn't really matter in life, but Amy, to me, seemed to enjoy arguments, or perhaps it was that her pride would not allow, what she thought was subservience, to another human being, least of all man! Her husband, James, was a gentle fellow, warm and affectionate to her. He would never argue with Amy, but just remain quiet and calm at times of stress, and this probably frustrated her. Too, she was not afraid or timid of rows as I was; I always worried that arguments or quarrels might become physical, whereas Amy was brave and would attack the strongest.

One Sunday morning Jimmy, feeling warm and loving towards his wife, made tentative advances. Amy, anxious to get up and on with the cooking and housework, repulsed him. Thereupon Jimmy began to sulk and Amy, furious at this, picked up her corsets and began to belabour Jimmy with them. ‘No more, Cheggie dear,' he cried. ‘I am sorry, I won't sulk again.' Amy laughed at this incident while the rest of us looked disapproving. ‘I am afraid she's like Dad's mother,' said my mother sadly. Mother wasn't against a woman standing up to a man, that wasn't the reason she had disapproved of Grandmother Chegwidden. I learnt from a whispering Agnes that our paternal grandmother, a small and elegant body, like Amy, was not only a spitfire, but an enjoyer of ‘love'! She actually let it be known that Grandfather, another gentle soul, was not ‘satisfying' enough for her. No wonder Mother was disapproving. Apparently my grandfather, late home for lunch, had registered a mild complaint, or perhaps just a remark, about his meal. It was his favourite, pork chop, roast potatoes, sprouts and celery. Granny removed this instantly from him and sat at the table eating it herself with great relish and enjoyment! Mother used to say to us, ‘And he never complained about anything ever again.'

I had seen my grandmother once when I was a little girl, before my younger sister was born. She was old and ill and Mother took me to visit her. She lived with my Auntie Dot at Tooting and I thought Tooting was a beautiful name for a place. My mother took with her a large William pear. I had never seen anything so enormous. Mother wrapped it carefully in tissue-paper in a tiny carrier-bag. I knew my grandmother must be very very ill for Mother to take a William pear with us for it seemed to me my mother treated this pear as though it was somehow different from the fruit on the stalls. It must have had a special significance and although I would love to have taken a bite from the side of this lovely plump fruit, I wouldn't have liked to have been poorly in bed at the time for it would have told me I was very ill.

We went into a downstairs bedroom in the Tooting house. In bed was a tiny woman with glittering dark eyes. They looked searchingly at me and a husky voice said, ‘So this is Wal's youngest, this is your Dolly.' Just then the sun sent a beam of light into the dark room. It seemed to wrap itself warmly round me and hide me from my grandmother, yet her voice went on, ‘A little golden angel to kiss me good-bye.' Mother said quickly to me, ‘Run out into the kitchen and fetch Auntie Dot.' In the kitchen Auntie Dot sat me in a wooden armchair and said, ‘Sit still, there's a good little girl,' and she ran out of the room. Mother came to fetch me after a long time and we went home from Tooting on a tram. Grandmother couldn't have been there, I remembered, as we had passed her bedroom when leaving the house, for the sheet was right up over the pillows. Somehow I knew she hadn't eaten that enormous William pear, yet Mother didn't have it with her any longer. My mother would always say there is nothing like a perfect English William pear when someone is ill, and I couldn't understand this when young, for the invalids Mother seemed to visit with her special fruit always seemed to pass on at the sight of it.

I saw very few of my parents' relatives when a child as I was at the tail end of a large family. There were too many of us to pour into an aunt's or uncle's house and of course it would have been impossible anyway for my parents to have afforded the train and bus fares. My mother's relations were all country folk, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire. All sweet innocent folk living a peaceful life working on farms or country-mansion gardens, caring for animals, happy in nature. My father's people, on the other hand, were quite different. On his father's side the Cornish sailors and merchants, but on his mother's side, a different race altogether. My grandfather was Grandmother's second husband, so it was whispered. Her surname was Rose and she was related to Jewish business people. My eldest brother and sister visited many of these exciting people every week-end when they were young, but I was grown up before I really heard about them.

There were family names of Nathan, Levy, Skolinsky, Folingfan (or Pholingphan), Rose, and I did hear once that through the Levys there was a Rothschild! Uncles Nathan, or Levy, had a public house in Cable Street, Stepney. Aunt Temperance (what a combination if it went with Skolinsky or Pholingphan!) had a sweet-shop in the Mile End somewhere and Alftruda, a cousin, had a ‘posh' restaurant at Windsor. We had an uncle Constantine in America and I used to think we may be an ordinary family, but we certainly possessed some unusual names. We gained two more unusual names with Chas's grandmother for she was Miranda Minerva.

But there, although I envied my paternal granny and my sister Amy for their bravery, they both possessed extra gentle husbands. It was all very well for Amy to think I could emulate her retaliatory behaviour. Chas would never raise his hand against me in an argument, but I had the feeling that had I struck the first blow his pride would have been so thoroughly injured that my blow would have been instantly and ‘lovingly' returned. His reactions were so quick he wouldn't stop to think what he was doing.

No, much as I might have wanted to emulate Amy, we were entirely different characters. For one thing I really found nothing ecstatic in life, though I was always wishing to, whereas for Amy, everything was ecstatic and I envied her intense enjoyment of life. Even when she was away in hospital she turned this into a drama. After her first child was born she began to suffer poor health. My mother insisted Amy was not taking care of herself, but her first baby was a large child, always hungry, and it seemed really as though he was too robust for as tiny a mother as Amy was. A friend of mine saw Amy and her offspring out walking one day. Amy, always an expert needlewoman, had made pram-coverings etc. unusually luxurious for the neighbourhood, and her baby's hand-made clothes would have been outstanding even in the West End shops. She, my friend, said the baby, in his lovely perambulator, looked much larger than Amy. ‘Mind you,' said my friend, ‘Amy looked a cocky little bit.' I assumed my friend was jealous, but Amy was getting thinner, Mother was getting worried about her and finally the doctor thought Amy should go away to Brompton Hospital for he thought she might be developing T.B. Mother was horrified, there had never been such a dread disease in any of our families, ostrich-like she was sure it was either a wrong diagnosis, or she blamed Amy's other connections for this shadow which had come upon the Chegwiddens.

Amy left Brompton Hospital. Mother was pleased the doctor had ‘ticked Amy off' by saying, ‘You have a large healthy family. You don't want to spoil your mother's record, do you?' Therefore, according to us all, ‘it was Amy's own fault'. Off she went to a convalescent home in Surrey, where, as usual, Amy had a fine time, chopping down trees and enjoying weekly socials (it was a mixed home). She borrowed my little portable gramophone, the first in the family, which I never saw again. Mother was very sorry for James, because Mother always felt if a married man was denied affection, which was his by married right, he would fall by the wayside, for men, in Mother's mind, were different glandular creatures from women. I think, personally, that Amy was the exception to Mother's rule, and I think Mother was secretly proud of Amy, even though she thought her like our paternal grandmother. Amy said mysteriously, ‘You don't want to worry about Jim.' We thought this just bravado for there was nowhere at the convalescent-home, or so we thought, where gentle Jim could even kiss Amy, except on arrival or departure, but Amy was one day describing to me the lovely church there. Apparently this church had a small chapel in the corner. Solid walls at the bottom, but glass half way up. The chapel was really for mothers with babies so that, as it was sound-proof, mothers could listen to and watch the service through loud-speakers, or ear-phones perhaps, and a restless child would not disturb the worshippers in the main church. Now Amy and Jim would attend the service, but in the soundproof chapel, and Amy once said, ‘No one can see, from the main church, what is “going-on” below the solid part of the chapel walls.' This sentence spoke volumes to me, for as one horrified member of the family said, ‘Surely, no one would “co-opt” in a holy place!'