Dolly's Mixture (11 page)

When I was young and people said anything derogatory about an influx of foreigners to this land, my father always said, ‘Why do you worry, how can we complain, aren't we
all
mongrels in England?' He would roll off a string of nationalities and I was sure that nowhere could there be found an Englishman who, way back, did not have a ‘foreign' ancestor. My brother Arthur said the name of Chegwidden is mentioned in the Domesday Book, but I knew we were still not pure.

If the Continentals worried the butcher, then the opening of another new grocery store near us worried Chas. I didn't think it should have and, conveying my opinion of this competition as, ‘Nothing for us to lose any sleep about,' I was greeted with, ‘You don't understand the implications, you are no business woman.'

Along the road from us was a tiny, old shop, if ‘shop' could describe it accurately. Just a small room up three stone steps, always closed and shuttered, it was like the midget parlour of an old country cottage. I was surprised one day to see it open and the window full of oddments. Bootlaces, faded reels of cotton, washing-up mops and various bits and pieces such as one would see in an old rag shop. I went into the shop one day for a reel of cotton. The proprietress had the appearance of a fairground assistant. I could imagine her saying, ‘Come on, gents, knock the lady out of bed.' She had well-dressed, reddish hair, good features, a plumpish figure, but it was her eyes which held me. They were such watchful, wary eyes, eyes which one knew would not smile even when the rest of her face did. She was very pleasant, yet I felt that, had I been a dog, the hairs on my spine would rise. I wondered how she would make a living with the rubbish she had for stock. Her name was Chloe.

Some time later a male companion appeared in Chloe's shop, a husband, it was presumed. He was an enormous fellow, unkempt in a way, but only unkempt as though he'd decided to laze about the house for the weekend. He, too, possessed the features for good looks, but his eyes, too, let him down – they did not look at one for more than a glance. He had a drawling, transatlantic accent and the walk I remembered from my wartime days, the swaying sort of glide of the American soldier from Texas. His soft, brown laceless boots were similar to the footwear I recalled seeing at the American Military Hospital where I worked during the war. He appeared to be a slow-thinking man, as though it took a long time for his brain to register what was happening. ‘I bet he's a deserter from the U.S. or Canadian Army,' I said to Chas, who was furious that I could think such a thing, let alone say it. ‘I have never known anyone who allows her imagination to run riot as you do. You'll find yourself in trouble one day if you don't keep your thoughts to yourself,' he advised. I thought it a bit hard that I couldn't even confide my thoughts to my husband.

Happily my friend the butcher shared my feelings about Chloe and her Ed, but for a different reason. Chloe had returned some chops to our butcher, with some complaint or other, via her large Bruin of a husband who always did the shopping, and he had made known his wife's complaints in a bullying and browbeating manner. The butcher, though a slim, delicate-looking man dealing with a giant twice his size, was fearless. He slammed and locked his shop door, turned round for an implement of some sort and, in vocabulary choice as only he could choose, ordered the bear either to depart in peace, or stay and fight. Ed left, according to a laughing butcher, with his tail between his legs.

A year later, however, the advent of Chloe and Ed was no laughing matter to the rest of the shopkeepers in our vicinity. Chloe took over large premises opposite. Modern shop fitments arrived, refrigerators, equipment of the latest and best quality, and, with ‘free gifts for all', one Monday morning Chloe's Grocery and Provision Store opened (with a frozen
meat counter
!). Sadly, we all realised that Chloe and Ed had come to stay and for months her busy shop held sway. Strangely,
we
really felt no startlingly adverse effects, although we could not possibly compete with Chloe. Our prices were competitive in the normal way, thanks to Chas's buying in bulk, but Chloe sold at under cost price, which was a mystery to all. Our accountant used to say that, had Chas started in business when he was young, he would have been a tycoon by his present age. Provided, I always thought, that he hadn't been trapped by Dolly, for I would have been no consort for a go-ahead Marks and Sparks – well, at least not for an embryo tycoon's struggling years.

One Sunday morning, after a sleepless night suffering from toothache, I decided to get up early and take a walk into town for the newspapers. I would then return and take tea to my slumbering family. This, accompanied by the newspapers, would be a pleasant surprise, if not shock, for them. I hoped it wouldn't set a precedent.

Not a soul was stirring and I began to enjoy the solitude – but what was this activity outside Chloe's? Her house was one of three set back from the road by enormous front gardens, so that the airport van being loaded with trunks could have been servicing any one of the three houses. Mysteriously, all the front doors appeared closed and, except for the van men, there was no civilian in sight. Indeed, as I did not see the trunks actually leaving any of the houses, although I slowed down to a crawl, I wondered why I
knew
they were Chloe's trunks. I had no private vantage point from which to view the proceedings, and by the time I had rushed with all speed to the newsagent's and returned the van had gone.

When I took Chas his morning tea I said, casually, ‘I have just seen Chloe and Ed doing a moonlight flit!' ‘I dread waking in the morning,' said a worried Chas, ‘for that is the time you get all your hare-brained ideas.' I said no more. He was no audience for a gossiping wife with a choice bit of news to impart.

The following morning I casually left our shop and sauntered past Chloe's. Her shop was closed and the windows and shelves somehow looked curiously empty. Then the excitement began. Chloe and Ed were missing. Tales were rife. They'd obtained a large loan through a trusting finance company. They owed money to all the big wholesalers. Chloe had purchased furs and jewellery during the last few months and had even borrowed that week from the loan club run by one of her customers. If that was so, I was very sorry for the poor loan-club collector and members, all working class.

The gossip went on and on and Chloe and Ed returned no more to the district. I did not say ‘I told you so' to the sad salesmen who called on us with their tales of woe. When the ghastly thing happened I was suddenly ashamed of my previous suspicions of the missing pair. Chas nearly choked when I suggested that their going coincided with an amnesty declared by the U.S. for soldiers who had not returned after the war. He closed the sitting-room door, looked furtively round in a Jimmy James manner and said in a hoarse and frightened whisper, Tor God's sake, Dorothy, do be careful what you say, please, for my sake.' ‘Your Charlie's an innocent boy scout,' stated Ade. ‘I could have told you them two were bleeding crooks, it stuck out a mile. I wouldn't have touched their shop with a barge pole, and all them people who trusted them want their brains tested.' Ade wished she had been with me to witness their departure, for she said she would have called out, ‘And a soldier's farewell to you.'

Until I went to North London I had been nervous of strange dogs, particularly large ones. Here, through customers and friends, I came to know many lovely specimens of the larger canine breeds and, once warily introduced, I became interested, amused, and even fond of some of them.

One of our customers owned two Great Danes, magnificent creatures. Royally they would stand outside our shop, their eyes glued on their master within. I was amazed to learn that each Great Dane possessed his own individual, three-foot, interior-sprung mattress to sleep on.

Marjorie's large animal was a brown, rough-haired mongrel. He had been named after a brand of tobacco, Bruno, and I believe they came by him by accident, having no intention at the time of acquiring a pet. He was brought into their shop one day as being ‘surplus to requirements', and Marjorie, her husband Alfred and son Richard, fell in love with the cuddly puppy. He grew into a very large dog and, although a mongrel, was always a perfect gentleman.

One of our customers went through a depressing period after the last of her three children left home to get married, and to cheer her up her husband brought home a beautiful spaniel puppy. On this she lavished all her maternal feelings. The puppy, however, proved more demanding than any of her children had been. He possessed immense capacities for expressing himself by howling and refused to sleep peacefully anywhere except in the master bedroom. This would have been acceptable for the sake of a quiet night for themselves and the neighbours, but he still would not quieten down unless his mistress held one of his paws. He lay on the carpet while she dangled an arm out of bed. Woe betide her if she dozed off and let go of his paw. She told me her arm went dead in the night and was positively frozen in the winter. In the end, as Master Puppy did not improve with age, Mr and Mrs obtained sleeping-tablets, not for the strong-willed insomniac spaniel but for them-selves.

Another customer of ours, a dear old man, a widower, was inseparable from his large, black labrador. One Saturday afternoon, however, the widower came alone into our shop. ‘Where is Blackie?' I asked, hoping that the dog was not ill or, worse, lost. ‘Oh, it's impossible to drag him away from the television when there's a football match on,' he explained.

A beautiful poodle puppy entered the lives of a charming family – mother, father and daughter. It was a present from the parents to the daughter and she adored the dog. Alas, he did not stay as sweet as he was when they first had him. No toy dog he, for he became one of those large, magnificent poodles. I remember my father telling me that the poodle was originally the true hunting dog. This chap was a member of that indomitable breed. He could not bear to be parted from any member of the family and eventually refused to let them leave for work in the morning.

In the end the family hit upon a clever plan to escape from their beloved pet, although the manner of their going was, to say the least of it, unorthodox. On retiring, father would take into the bedroom sandwiches and a thermos. In the morning he would leave for work by climbing from the bedroom window. Mother and daughter would rise normally and go about their duties until the time came for their departure. There was only one thing their pet hated more than their leaving and that was the telephone. Whenever it rang he would tear across the room to attack it. On his way to work, therefore, father would telephone his house and, while the dog was attacking the telephone, mother and daughter managed a hasty exit.

Although Chas said any dog we had would be thoroughly spoilt by us, and did I realise the extra work such a pet would entail, I still thought I should ask William if he would like to have a dog. He said he would love to have one, but only if he could have a long-haired, shaggy animal. At my surprise he said it would be useful for entertaining, for people could wipe their sticky fingers and cutlery, etc. on the dog's long fur. When I said ‘Ugh! William!' he laughed and informed me that this was the origin of the shaggy-dog story. A Victorian hostess worried by the complaints of her guests (sticky fingers and cutlery) actually bought a shaggy dog and trained it to walk among the guests at dinner time for this very purpose.

William was, however, very fond of our shop cats which we had inherited from the old accountant. We had two originally. Min, the mum, was the tiniest adult cat I had seen, a cat with the soul of a tigress. Bob, her son, was an enormous fellow, castrated, slow, lazy, happy to spend his days on the window-sill outside, where he basked in the sun and purred at the many strokings and pats he received. Chas remarked, ‘I don't think I've ever seen a cat walk so slowly as Bob does. I don't think anything would ever make him move.' He was to regret those words.

One day we were waiting for the electrician, as the cellar lights had fused. Bob was on the window-sill, and across the road was a small child holding a large Alsatian dog on a lead. Suddenly this dog sighted Bob and swooped across the road to our shop. I fled upstairs just as lightning entered into Bob's soul and he shot down to the cellar. Chas was transfixed by Bob's speed as the Alsatian dog shot into the shop. By now I was in the bathroom and, as I opened the door a chink, up the stairs came the mad, barking dog. I pushed the door to as the dog tried to get in. I screamed down to Chas; he couldn't hear me with the bathroom door closed, he hadn't seen the going of Dolly, and I was furious he hadn't come to rescue me. Then I heard dreadful noises from downstairs, crashing of bottles and cases, yells, and I thought the dog was attacking Chas. I crept half way down the stairs as the dog came up from the cellar. I yelled at it, ‘Get off, get off.' Fortunately the garden door was open and the dog tore out into the garden. I slammed the door, bolted it and went in search of Chas. He was sitting on the floor nursing Bob. There was blood on Chas's hands but this had been caused by Bob scratching in a panic. In the dark cellar Chas had somehow rescued Bob and had managed to scare off the dog. ‘I thought you would have come upstairs to rescue me,' I said reproachfully. ‘Do you know,' said Chas wonderingly, ‘it never occurred to me!'

Min's daughter, Maudie, was also one of our brood. Not yet old enough to be a mother, she was very maternal. She once discovered on a bombed site a bag of kittens which some cruel person had thrown there. The poor little things were still in the eyes-closed stage and she rescued them one by one and brought them home, depositing them in an empty box in the cellar. She got frantic trying to suckle them and I never heard a cat purr so loudly. Of course they were too young to be hand fed and we had to take them to the vet to be put down.