Dolly's War (26 page)

But not all her school troubles dissolved so easily. At the end of the first year, examinations were held. They were told these examinations would be run on the same lines as the G.C.E. This would give them experience for the future. A different form-mistress attended as adjudicator while the examinations were in progress. Having completed her papers, Susan sitting in the front row sat waiting for the bell to ring. Glancing round she saw that some of her friends in the back row, having also finished, were reading library-books. Her satchel was by her feet and from this she took her library-book. Suddenly the adjudicator rose from her seat and approached Susan. ‘What on earth do you think you are doing, girl?' she demanded. (She had only to examine the book and she would have discovered it had no bearing at all on the examinations.) ‘Do you not know this is dishonest?' Picking up Susan's papers she said, ‘Your papers will be cancelled, your marks nil, and no doubt what you have done will be mentioned on your school report.'

Susan contained herself until she arrived home and as I opened the door she burst into tears. ‘I wouldn't have that,' said the other mothers, for the girls had told of Susan's ordeal. ‘Lots of them were reading, and I am sure they would all say so.' In the end, because I was not brave enough to face her tutor I wrote of our distress at the happening. I received a cool reply. Rules were rules, and this experience would help Susan at the real G.C.E., which was right, but I did need a bit of understanding. It was shortly after this that Susan contracted polio, and while she was in hospital I was told that her headmistress was very disappointed Susan's mother hadn't even let her know of Susan's progress! I wrote to no one fearing I might infect someone.

If the headmistress thought Susan a problem child, me, an over-fond mother, one could hardly blame her considering all the circumstances, and bearing in mind the fact that she didn't know me. Evidence against Susan, albeit circumstantial, seemed to be building up.

Susan recovered from polio and returned to school. It had been snowing and icy cold and some of the girls had made a slide in the playground. The headmistress, naturally, was angry that her girls should have partaken in such a dangerous pastime and the edict went out ‘Any girl sliding...' On her first morning back, because of a visit to the doctor's for a clearance certificate, Susan was a little late and crossing the playground slipped on this ice and hurt her arm. She kept this injury to herself, I don't really know how, for on arrival home she was in such pain we went straight to the hospital. Her arm had been broken and was put in plaster. Because of the icy conditions of the road the doctor thought she would be safer at home until the weather eased. I telephoned the headmistress who said, ‘Well, I am so sorry, but I did warn the girls of the danger of sliding on this ice.' I tried to explain that Susan had not been disobedient, but I knew it was useless.

*

Life continued uneventfully during William's pre-school days. After lunch I would take him into the nearby park to play, and through these regular visits I became friendly with another mother, a girl of about twenty, whose son of eighteen months, her first child, played happily with William. We would chat about everything under the sun, confiding in each other all manner of things we wouldn't have told another soul.

One day I told Vicki that a sister of mine had remarked that I was developing quite a bristly moustache and had the positions been reversed, my sister, rubbing her perfectly bald countenance, had stated ‘she' would definitely have done something about it. Possibly I had always been a downy chick but I had to admit that of late my face was developing a hirsute appearance. Vicki seemed quite pleased at this. Apparently her husband had taken of late to gazing at her more intently than was his wont and she sadly agreed that her downy skin might, when she was old like me (this made me feel like an old shaggy creature) turn as bristly as mine. But, small words of comfort, it would be worse in her case because she was a brunette, whereas my moustache and beard were gloriously golden!

Vicki took from her handbag a newspaper cutting which stated ‘superfluous hair removed instantly and permanently with this new and miraculous invention'. In our low state of mind at that moment we decided we would attend at this miracle-worker's clinic. My mother, very disapproving of the venture, interfering with nature and all that sort of discourse, grudgingly said she would have William for the day. My father inspected my face and said, ‘Don't worry, gel, it's simple, just set light to a rolled newspaper and run it over your face every so often. Why,' he added comfortingly, ‘I knew an old lady once who needed a blow-lamp for her face!'

On a cold winter's day with a vicious east wind blowing, we started our adventure. My heart was beating with fright, but as we had Vicki's extra lively son with us, looking after him at least kept my mind off my forthcoming operation.

Our destination was some miles away in one of those new towns which were springing up. Everything was different, the roads appeared either unnamed or with such strange names. The bus conductors had no idea, and neither did the various passers-by we enquired of, where this ‘beauty' parlour was, so that two hours after we should have been ‘done' and ‘gone', we finally arrived at the scene of our eventual transformation.

There was much new building taking place and our ‘surgeon' was housed temporarily in an old building due for demolition. It had been bought by the Development Corporation and they had installed a temporary canteen. We were gasping for a drink and hungry for something to eat, but decided we would partake of refreshment as new beautiful matrons, not as hairy monsters. We entered a tiny suffocatingly hot room and were surprised to see that our benefactor was not an efficient surgeon in a white coat but a motherly-looking lady in skirt and cardigan. She even possessed the large ‘mum's' bosom of my childhood. She was just completing a session on a most beautiful looking blonde which cheered us up enormously for the blonde rose (treatment completed), with a happy smile; it was obviously a true advertisement, painless.

Vicki's small son being restless and wanting to dash round the small hot room, I motioned her to take her seat in the swivel-chair. I would amuse the little boy and keep him safe for I felt the small room could be a death-trap for an unwary adult let alone a lively youngster. The small electric-fire was placed in the middle of the floor, the lead having been lengthened, in a most amateurish manner it appeared to me, by many different coloured pieces of wiring and lying, nearly atop of this wobbly-looking fire was an enormous poodle dog. Hitherto I had only seen pretty toy poodles, but this one, black, appeared as large as a labrador. I tried to overcome my nervousness of this dog and restrain my charge at the same time so that I really didn't pay too much attention to Vicki in the treatment-chair. The motherly lady chatted away to us telling us of all the hairy clients she had cured. One girl even had treatment for a hairy chest! And we gathered that our lady was in much demand by the hospitals. This was all reassuring and presently Vicki, treatment completed, took her small son from me and said she would meet me in the Canteen after my treatment. ‘Did it hurt?' I whispered to Vicki. She nodded in a negative way. I thought her smile a bit stiff-looking and she seemed to have tears in her eyes. I assumed, as she had smiled, that she was feeling pleased about her treatment, the tears being relief that she would now remain attractive to her fussy husband.

I sat confidently in the chair but at the first jab of the needle I let out a terrific yell, startling my electric ‘mum' and waking the dog who crawled towards me and placed his large hot head in my lap. ‘Oh, God,' I thought, ‘he's been trained to restrain clients like me, the cowardly ones.' I apologised profusely to the lady operator, said I hadn't been expecting any sensation, I would now know what was coming and would not yell out again. Famous last words, but true, well almost, in my case, for instead of yelling I slowly retreated downwards on the swivel-chair. At one time we were both almost supine. ‘Oh my aching back,' said the lady. ‘You really must sit upright, or we'll both be on the floor.' She did add that my roots were tenacious, it was the type I was. I sat upright as she said something to her dog and then she said, ‘I've never known him to take to anybody like he has taken to you.' At this compliment the dog climbed the chair and laid full length on top of me, his head resting on my chest. He was hot, heavy, and a bit smelly but I was too weak with hunger and thirst and perhaps too terrified to request his removal. I placed an arm on top of him and he snuggled down to sleep happily. Tears were running down my face as the hairs round my mouth were treated. The half-hour seemed like years and my good intentions flown out of the window, I flinched, and more easily now because of my heavy load, slowly sunk back-wards. Suddenly there was a terrific crash, chair, Dolly, Dog, and Torturer floundered about on the floor. The dog barked furiously at me, the fire wobbled dangerously and my lady rose painfully and switched the fire off. She brushed herself down and said wearily, ‘I don't know whether you would like to make another appointment, providing I can fit you in. I am so much in demand these days.' For the sake of appearances I made an appointment for two months ahead knowing I would not keep it.

I said good-bye to Dog who now growled at me, and went to find Vicki. The canteen was closing and I said to Vicki, ‘Why didn't you tell me it was so painful?' ‘I daren't, dear,' she said, ‘because if you'd known you would not have had your session.' The depressing thing about it all was the fact that it wasn't one miraculous session as the advert suggested (perhaps we hadn't read it thoroughly) for Vicki, very bravely, attended for almost two years. I never went again, for Chas had said about my furry face, ‘I assure you, it never bothers me.' I arrived home frozen, blotchy, and bad-tempered, and the next day my face was swollen and I was beginning a nasty cold. I felt nature was so unfair. My sisters had no such bother. I blamed Mother for allowing my brothers to play barbers with me as their sole customer in the days of our childhood.

*

Now it was time for my son to commence school. Actually it was over time. The schools were so overcrowded that he had to wait until well after his fifth birthday, then he had an additional two-months' delay because of the fear of infection in connection with Susan's polio. I had no fears for him. He was so adult in his speech, so exceptionally knowledgeable on subjects other children of his age could understand. Modestly, oh so modestly, I thought, ‘He will race ahead, he will be no problem.'

Happily we left to enrol him on his first day. It seemed like bedlam in the little classroom, crying children and mothers loth to leave, ‘prolonging the agony', my father would have said. ‘Welcome to our school, William,' said the teacher, on hearing his name. ‘Is it always like this?' he asked the teacher. ‘No, thank goodness,' she said with a laugh. ‘Oh, that's a relief,' said my William, ‘for the noise is already giving me a headache.' She looked surprised at his manner of speaking and gave him a little squeeze. Happily I left, it was obvious he and his teacher were going to be friends.

Some neighbours and I had arranged to take it in turns to collect the children and I was anxiously waiting at the gate for him at lunch-time. A sad-faced mother handed me my son with a note from his teacher. William's face was white, his eye swollen and his forehead bruised. The note just asked me to call that afternoon if possible. William announced he had a bad headache and putting him to bed I left Mother on guard whilst I went to see his teacher. The teacher was terribly sorry about William's injury, but we both agreed it was ‘just one of those things', a misunderstanding. All types of children make up a school as all types of adults make up life, and the large tough leader, or bully type, boy in William's class had said to him at play-time, ‘Coming to play wiv us?' This invitation was really an honour and perhaps might have made a difference to my son's school life if he had said, ‘Not 'arf.' But always a gentle child he had observed rather rough treatment being meted out by the giver of this invitation, and my son had said, ‘I would like to play if you will avoid physical violence.' It was the last three words of this sentence which caused the breakdown in schoolboy relationships, for immediately on the defensive the large tough boy had replied, ‘You ain't bleeding well calling me names,' and wham, had landed a punch on my son's unready face. Even this blow would have not caused the injuries he sustained, but unprepared, unsuspecting and off balance he had fallen and caught his face and head on the cement piers which supported the school playground wall and railings. The teacher seemed relieved when I agreed no one was to blame, and I hoped it wasn't the first of many misunderstandings. She was a dedicated teacher, with a deep love for all children, and I remember her with gratitude.

Great excitement pervaded the household when our first television-set was installed. 1950! What an achievement and what a popular family we became. I loved every minute of our film-shows. Children in the afternoon, adults in the evening. During the school holidays the children would inspect the TV programmes and after lunch I would place the chairs in a row, make lemonade and cakes, and quiet reigned for two hours. William had to have a seat on the back row near the kitchen door for something about the printed words on the screen seemed to worry him and he would dash off into the kitchen until the words had faded from the screen. Since his ‘visits off' were many, if he sat in the front row there were yells and groans from the other children, ‘Don't keep going across the screen, William.' ‘Mum, look at him now, he keeps getting his head in the way.'

Every evening, promptly at 7 p.m. my parents would appear and take their seats. One evening when Chas was late home and I was feeling irritable at his overcooked meal, I unkindly tutted at my parents' extra-prompt arrival. Immediately my mother said, ‘Come, Walter, we are going back upstairs.' My father who was in the middle of choosing his seat said, ‘What is the matter, has the set broken down, can't they get the man to repair it?' ‘Come, Dad,' Mother said more firmly. ‘I will explain upstairs.' He followed her looking puzzled and getting a bit cross at her slow explanation. I heard her say, ‘We do not go where we are not wanted,' and I felt a real cat. I felt too guilty to face my mother and before he started his meal Chas ran upstairs. I heard him say, ‘You know what Dorothy is like sometimes, she doesn't mean it.'