A Merry Dance Around the World With Eric Newby (21 page)

Owls were beginning to hoot in the forest now. They picked up their instruments, the mule was already loaded, and then they wished me good luck and told me not to stay in the hut all day or I would become
triste
but to take care; and then they went away together down the mountain and I was left alone in the dwelling in which I was to pass the winter – the final refuge, and the triumphal artefact, of the men of the mountains. Some time later, I was joined in it by a great friend called James, and we remained together until we were recaptured.

After reaching the mountains I only saw Wanda once more when she made a hazardous journey to meet me at the Colle del Santo. In the interval her father was arrested and imprisoned in Parma. By the exercise of considerable ingenuity she succeeded in securing his release.

Later she and her parents were all three arrested and it was only by a miracle that they were saved from being sent to Germany.

James and I were recaptured in January 1944 and sent to a prison camp in Czechoslovakia, and later to Brunswick in Germany where we were liberated by the Americans in April 1945.

That winter I flew back to Italy, borrowed a jeep from an ex-POW, who was now ADC to a general, and drove to Fontanellato where I found Wanda. We were married in Florence at Santa Croce in the spring of 1946, and returned to England later that year.

It was then that I became a member of the rag trade – a business in which I was to spend the next ten years without any conspicuous success.

^*
Caterham in Surrey was a training depot of the Foot Guards, where the characteristic high-pitched word of command peculiar to these regiments was taught, practised and perfected.

^*
One of them was Captain Anthony, later Major-General, Dean Drummond, CB, DSO, MC and Bar, captured in North Africa in 1941 and escaped in 1942.

^*
Some of these unfortunate people were taken to Germany, including Signor Baruffini, who died in Buchenwald, and other members of his family.

‘IT’S ALL VERY WELL
your father telling you to stay in the showroom, Mr Eric,’ said Miss Stallybrass. ‘But it’s difficult to know what to give you to do. You’d better sit over there.’ She indicated a small piece of furniture that was more like a prie-dieu than a desk. ‘At least you’ll see what happens. Miss Axhead from Manchester is coming in at ten to put down her season’s order. But I warn you she takes a long time to make up her mind.’

On the first stroke of ten Miss Axhead arrived. She was a powerful-looking woman of about fifty dressed in what I was later to recognize as a buyer’s cold-weather uniform; a Persian lamb jacket that was almost completely square; sheepskin boots worn over patent-leather shoes and an incredible hat with bits of Persian lamb on it, the left-overs from the sacrifice that had produced the coat, and a ‘little’ black dress. Escorted by Miss Stallybrass she sank down on a sofa and, with a good deal of puffing and blowing, proceeded to take off her over-boots. I was introduced by Miss Stallybrass. I then hid myself as best I could behind my inadequate prie-dieu.

‘That’s a pretty brooch,’ Miss Stallybrass said, by way of opening gambit, admiring a hideous marcasite ornament in the form of a sealyham’s head that Miss Axhead had pinned to her little black dress.

‘That’s my little Boy-Boy,’ said Miss Axhead, betraying a depth of emotion that would have been difficult to deduce from her appearance.

An hour later Miss Axhead was still sitting on the settee. During this time she had discussed with Miss Stallybrass the Government and Sir Stafford Cripps; the sealyham which, by the sound of it, was ripe for destruction; the play to which she had been taken the previous evening by one of her suppliers, a rather gentle intellectual who, before the purges, had been a professor at Gottingen University, which she had not enjoyed; Christian Science;
The Robe
, which she was reading in bed and was thoroughly enjoying; several unpleasant ailments from which her friends were suffering; the discomfort of the hotel in which she always stayed when she came to London; and the iniquity of the Dress Buyer, her lifelong friend, who was cutting in on her territory by buying dresses with jackets and with whom she was no longer on speaking terms. Apart from the Dress Buyer there was no mention of business at all.

It was now eleven o’clock. Mrs Smithers appeared with tea and biscuits. She had already produced a snifter for Miss Axhead when she arrived, which had kept her going until the main supplies were brought up. Mr Wilkins, the senior traveller, emerged from his fox-hole to pay his respects to Miss Axhead. Adroitly, he asked a number of questions to which he already knew the answers, having been privy to the entire conversation. ‘Delighted to see you, Miss Axhead,’ he said, and withdrew with the air of a trusted counsellor.

My father arrived. He also discussed the political situation, going over the ground that had already been covered by Miss Stallybrass, but with more conviction, and told her one of his little jokes which made Miss Axhead laugh. He was followed by the head of the Costume Department, who had been hovering anxiously at the door under the impression that Miss Axhead might escape her. Miss Axhead was also the suit buyer. During this time other coat buyers who arrived unannounced, without appointments, were siphoned off into Gowns and Costumes and Rosie and Julie, our model girls, made long and circuitous journeys backwards and forwards between the Coat Stockroom and Costumes, by-passing Mantles completely so that Miss Axhead should not be disturbed.

At twelve-thirty Miss Axhead was offered a gin and tonic, which she accepted gratefully, and at a quarter to one she went upstairs ‘to make herself comfortable’ before going out to lunch with Miss Stallybrass.

Miss Stallybrass was dressed to the nines in a suit with a very pronounced stripe and a large fur cape. The effect was a little top-heavy and when she went to collect some petty cash from the Counting House to pay for the lunch, the head of it, Miss Gatling, asked her if she was ‘bombed out’.

‘I always enjoy coming to Lane & Newby,’ Miss Axhead said as they were leaving. ‘It has such a homely atmosphere. I feel I can really let my hair down.’

At two-thirty they returned. I thought Miss Stallybrass looked a little tired, but she was still game and her laugh was as hearty as ever. Miss Axhead was full of beans and described her summer holiday at Torquay in some detail. At three o’clock Mrs Smithers arrived with more tea and Dundee cake and at three-thirty Miss Axhead telephoned to another supplier, who had been waiting for her since two, to say that she was ‘held up’.

She now began to talk about her ‘specials’. These were customers who were either so rich that nothing sufficiently splendid could be found for them amongst Miss Axhead’s stock of ‘models’ or else were so misshapen that they needed something that was made-to-measure. All the details of these difficult customers were written down on several crumpled sheets of paper and from time to time Miss Axhead looked at them despairingly.

It was obvious that unless Miss Axhead saw the collection very soon she would become bogged down among her specials and we should never get an order at all. Miss Stallybrass sensed it too.

‘I think it would be better if we showed you the collection and then we can put down the specials afterwards,’ she said in her fruitiest voice.

It was a tense moment. I knew that if Miss Axhead decided to deal with her specials first we were doomed.

‘All right,’ she said, finally, after a long pause. ‘Only I must do my specials and time’s getting on.’

We showed the collection. Occasionally Miss Axhead spotted something that would do for a special and the proceedings ground to a halt while Miss Stallybrass hunted for suitable patterns. At the same time Miss Axhead was suggesting alterations.

‘If you could use the collar of “Dawn” and the back of “Snowdrop” that would be just right for Mrs Bean. Then you can do it the other way round for Mrs Woodcock. They can’t have the same style, their husbands belong to the same golf club. You remember Mrs Bean. She’s the one who …’ Miss Axhead’s voice sank to a whisper as she launched into blood-curdling details of the private life of the Beans.

‘Special order “Bean”,’ Miss Stallybrass wrote in her flowing hand. ‘Velour 477 Colour Ruby. Collar as Dawn. Back as Snowdrop. What size did you say Mrs Bean is, Miss Axhead?’

‘Ooh, she’s a size!’ said Miss Axhead, with relish. ‘I’ll have to send you the measures. You’d better send me a sketch for Mrs Bean and for Mrs Woodcock, she’s an awkward shape too. We like our pudding in the North.’ ‘Send sketches,’ Miss Stallybrass wrote. I wondered how she was going to cope with this one. ‘Dawn’ and ‘Snowdrop’ were made by different tailors who detested one another.

At five o’clock the workrooms shut. There was a sound like an avalanche as the girls thundered down the staircase to the cellars where they kept their coats. The model girls left, ostensibly to catch a train.

With maddening slowness the order was written down. When it was complete it amounted to two thousand five hundred pounds, but it was so peppered with codicils inserted by Miss Axhead, all of which necessitated complex modifications of the original models, that it was doubtful if it could ever be executed and still show a profit. A large part of it was conditional on the dozens of ‘specials’ being acceptable to the Beans and the Woodcocks, most of whom appeared to pass their time in playing a grown-up version of ‘I spy with my little eye’ whilst their husbands were on the golf course.

At six-forty-five Miss Axhead was taken into the office for a final little drink with my parents. ‘It will be nice to have a chat,’ she remarked as she rose from the settee, which groaned as if in thankfulness at her departure. ‘I don’t think any of my girls realize what a hard job we have of it.’

‘I entirely agree,’ said Miss Stallybrass. As always it was impossible to tell what she was agreeing with.

‘Are all our customers like Miss Axhead?’ I asked Miss Stallybrass when finally she had been taken away.

‘Some of them are a damn sight worse,’ she replied unexpectedly. ‘Poor old Mary Axhead. As well as that dear little dog she’s got a sister who’s not very well.’

‘I didn’t know you liked dogs,’ I said.

‘Me!’ she said. ‘I loathe ‘em!’

My first visit to Scotland with the ‘Gown Collection’ was as a commercial traveller in the company of Mr Wilkins.

A porter from the hotel was on the platform to meet us.

‘You’re in Number Five, Mr Willukins. Your usual,’ he said, touching his cap. ‘I’ll look after the skips.’

The way to the Station Hotel led through a maze of grubby passages, flanked by large chocolate-coloured photographs of Scottish scenery, all of which looked as if they had been exposed in a steady drizzle. Soon we found ourselves in a part of the hotel not normally seen by the public where we met scullions from the kitchens on errands with covered buckets.

We were welcomed by a senior porter with an air of authority and shiny, quick eyes, like a bird’s.

‘You’re in Number Five, Mr Willukins,’ he said – and to me: ‘How is Mr Newby – I haven’t seen him since the war – and Mrs Newby? I remember they used to have a big sitting-room upstairs. Times change. He was a fine man, Mr Newby.’ He made it sound like a dirge.

In spite of the warmth of the welcome it was difficult to be enraptured by the room to which we were now escorted.

Stockroom Number Five was a tall, narrow room illuminated by a fifty-watt bulb. The decorations had once been beige but the efforts to clean them had resulted in the walls becoming one great smear. The only furniture was a number of cane chairs and two trestle tables which were covered with white sheets that had been neatly patched. The effect was of a mortuary or a place where members of the Reformed Church might pray together before proceeding to England by train.

In addition to these rudimentary furnishings there was a telephone that had once been black and which was now the colour of old bones, and a dog-eared telephone book on which a succession of commercial travellers, made desperate by the inadequacies of the telephone system, had doodled frenziedly as they waited for calls to Kilmarnock and Galashiels that never came through. The view from the window, which was surprisingly clean, took in the roof of Waverley Station and one span of the North Bridge. At intervals the entire prospect was blotted out by clouds of smoke.

‘I thought we were having a sitting-room,’ I said. I felt too wretched to show any spirit.

‘All the sitting-rooms were booked,’ said Mr Wilkins. ‘Let’s have breakfast.’

‘What about a bath and shave?’

‘Time’s getting on.’ He took a gold watch from his pocket. ‘Half past eight. Our first appointment’s at nine-thirty and we have to unpack.’

In spite of not having shaved his face was as smooth as butter. Mine resembled a gooseberry.

Breakfast was like a slow-motion film of a ritual. At intervals waitresses brought food, but with none of the supporting things that make breakfast possible. Butter arrived without toast; porridge without milk; tea without sugar. In obedience to some defunct regulation there was only one bowl of sugar to four tables, every few minutes it disappeared completely. Other commercials seemed better served – they munched lugubriously, immersed in their
Expresses
and
Daily Mails
– a few like ourselves gazed in the direction of the kitchens or half-rose in their seats in an extremity of despair.