Dolly's Mixture (3 page)

Ade was now a machinist in a sweat shop where she earned good money, for she was a power machine operator and did specialised work. She became a regular customer of ours quite by accident. Chas, the perfectionist, was always criticising me either for something I had neglected to do in the shop or for something I had done in a dilatory or careless manner. Ade got her weekly shopping at another corner shop, near her work, but one Friday evening she realised she had forgotten an important item and popped in to us in passing. We were busy and I suppose Chas was nagging me about something or other. His nagging and my replies kept our customers permanently amused, they loved every minute of it. Ade stood waiting for the item she had forgotten, all the time secretly annoyed by Chas's treatment of me; for Ade, the mother, was always on the side of the helpless and unprotected, which she always assumed I was.

Our shop knives, long and as sharp as the Samurai-sword bacon slicer, were always kept near the weighing machine in order of size; safe in this niche, no child could take them down unawares. The trouble was that, when we were extra busy, I had the habit of putting them down anywhere, just as I did with my pens and pencils. This sort of thing infuriated Chas. While Ade was patiently waiting on this busy evening, on her first visit to our shop, a dreadful thing happened. I had put my knife back with its fellows but the wrong side round and in the wrong order and Chas, rushing past the scale to another part of the counter was suddenly trapped with his back against a shelf and a long, sharp knife poised menacingly over his chest. ‘Dorothy!' he yelled in terrible tones, his eyes popping out and an expression of acute terror on his face. I rushed out from the back room to see him standing there with the razor-like blade touching his white overall in the heart position, while the handle of the knife had got tightly wedged beneath the scale. I had created a perfect murder weapon!

The customers fell silent at Chas's tragic cry, then suddenly came Ade's strong and sceptical voice. ‘
You
wouldn't bleed' – her accusing shout to Chas. Chas, Dolly and the customers were convulsed with laughter.

So as the months wore on Mrs became Ade to us, I became Dolly to her, Chas was ‘Charlie boy', Susan, our daughter, was ‘Sue-gel' and William, our seven-year-old son, ‘young Bill'.

She was my friend.

‘Would you like to go out one evening each week?' Chas thought I was bored, my life was definitely without any social dates on the calendar. ‘But where?' Chas meant me to have a sort of bachelor night out. By the time he'd cashed up and had a meal the television was enough socialising for him.

Then Ade came up with a suggestion which at first seemed outrageous, for her especially. Ben had joined a men's club attached to a church some way away and there was a Church Ladies' Guild too. Should we join, with Ben's introduction? ‘What's the vicar like, Ade?' ‘Oh, a cross-eyed Christ.' But she wasn't being profane or unkind, the vicar to her was not an ordinary man, and this one
was
cross-eyed. ‘I should go,' said Chas, anxious to have a night alone without my chattering. ‘Churches these days have all sorts of interesting things going on, it won't be just hymn singing and psalms.'

So, accompanied by another unlikely worshipper, I went. I blushed for Ade once or twice, feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself, but I needn't have done so. I wasn't the only one, apparently, to see beyond her rough voice and cryptic manner to the true-blue gem beneath. We made quite a name for ourselves, I tend to think, as a couple of real characters, even though once or twice I was sure we were regarded as a pair of eccentrics. Ade always made me giggle, for she had a knack of nicknaming people immediately after her first appraisal of them and the nicknames were always so apt.

The vicar popped in each week to open the meetings with a short prayer. Sometimes he made a jocular remark or two at which the ladies, with the exception of Ade and Dolly, laughed heartily. He was a kindly man but one of nature's bores. His misplaced eyes did not help any charisma he might have developed over the years. His wife, a tiny, shabby little woman, nicknamed ‘The Sparrer' by Ade, chirped constantly of her Clement's marvellous attributes. Possibly thinking Ade and Dolly were human and worldly, she confided in us one evening that her Clement was a ‘bit of a lad, a real boy, in his private moments'. ‘Gawd,' said Ade to me, ‘he ought to be, he sees everything twice over.'

We had raffles and competitions and were surprised at the intense competitiveness amongst the ‘Guilders' for the oddest shaped potato, the funniest man's tie, the prettiest display of flowers in an egg cup, etc. One lady got so excited that her bouquet of ferns in an egg cup had received a ‘mention' from the speaker, who always had the difficult task of judging the competition, that she proceeded to the platform to thank the speaker and to say it was the happiest evening she had spent for many a long day. We didn't go in for the competitions usually, but Ade did enter for the oddest shaped potato competition with a beauty she found in the greengrocer's.

Of course Ade didn't expect to win but, always a down-to-earth person, she probably wanted to challenge the air of sweet simplicity which governed all the proceedings. Her potato, an immense object, gazed obscenely from the platform table at the congregation. Ade knew the committee members would not dare refuse her entry, for that meant that a reason for the non-acceptance would have to be given. Ade said, ‘It's not me, Dolly, that thinks my potato is rude, it's them refined ladies that think it is. Why can't they just say, first prize to this unusual specimen?' The competition had been innocently held on the right night. The lecturer, a male speaker this time, and voted by unanimous consent the best speaker the ladies had ever listened to, spoke on the subject of ‘Knockers I have known.' At this point Ade made a hasty exit to the ladies'. Thankfully, I was in the back row. As Ade returned the man was saying, ‘I knew, ladies, you would be delighted to see my rare knockers. I have brought them for you to inspect.' He also told us of his great joy when, walking one day, he espied a lady who possessed an unusual knocker. He offered her £3 for this collector's item and she was thrilled to be able to unscrew it on the spot for him. He said he happily left a knockerless lady holding in her hand his three £1 notes. Did we think he had robbed the lady?

The following week the Guild's speaker was a lady musician speaking to us on percussion and rhythm. ‘What's percussion, Dolly?' ‘I think it's drums and cymbals, Ade.' She was a tall, leaping-about lady, great fun, for she divided us into sections for a roundelay. We had to sing a sort of ditty, or pastoral, in the same tones as our designated musical instruments. I was a violin, Ade a horn. I think there were several violins, as there were horns, so that my vocal breakdown didn't seem to be noticed, for I mimed my part. However, when the baton was pointed at the horns the whole group became shy and silent, but not Ade. She stood up and manfully bellowed, ‘Welcome to the horn in the morn, oh welcome horn, I love every morn.' I think she'd got the words wrong but her bellow was like a real alpenhorn and the lady speaker insisted Ade stand up and take a bow, while we all clapped and cheered her.

‘We're like a lot of bleeding kids, you know, Dolly,' said Ade on the way home. ‘Well, I thought you sounded like a frustrated sea-gull in search of a mate, Ade.' ‘Something else to tell me boys tonight, Dolly. They'll like the sea-gull bit.'

Ade and I shared the same doctor – well, perhaps shared was the inoperative word, for she never went to the doctor's, never appearing to think about the state of her health. However, she was insistent that I should go whenever I complained of anything, and she usually accompanied me. Our doctor was such a busy man I was usually in and out instantly and I often wondered why I ever bothered. I had suffered with a painful lump in a calf muscle for some time and, after I had adopted the stance of a stork and tripped Chas up several times behind the counter, he insisted I should go to be examined, much to Ade's pleasure.

I came out of the surgery to an eager Ade. ‘Well, what did he say?' ‘It's my imagination.' ‘Silly old sod,' was Ade's comforting reply. ‘Well,
I
can feel it, Dolly.
I'll
come back in with you.' ‘The doctor knows best,' I assured her and promised to keep an eye on it. ‘I don't like lumps,' said a worried Ade.

Some months later we went with my lump again. This time the doctor acknowledged he
could
feel it. ‘It's only a bit of gristle, you must not make a fuss over small things.' He must have noticed I looked a bit disappointed, for he asked me what I thought it was. ‘A cyst?' suggested Doctor Dolly. ‘Very well then, if it will please you I will mark your record accordingly. Will that send you off happily?' I came from the surgery knowing myself to be a neurotic woman. Ade was furious but I insisted on leaving things as they were. She, however, had lost faith in our regular medico and immediately moved the whole of her family from the doctor's list.

When I broke out in a dreadful-looking rash, therefore, I hardly liked bothering my doctor again but faithful Ade took me along. My own doctor was on holiday and we were seen by a visiting foreign gentleman. He examined me from a distance as though I was leprous. ‘Well, at least I have something this time which is more than imagination,' I thought. ‘It's even frightening this man who must be used to treating virulent tropical diseases.' He might have been Peter Sellers in disguise, but in my blistered state I was definitely not a Sophia Loren. I waited for an unusual medical term to be applied to my rare state of hideousness.

The locum resumed his seat, glancing at me every now and then with a look of revulsion tinged with what I hoped was pity. Slowly he pronounced his verdict. All I could hear in my ears was the song of the film, ‘Oh doctor, I am...' ‘Madam,' announced the doctor, ‘we all possess bacteria, but you, madam, possess your
own
private
bacteria. [I thought I sounded all exclusive as though I was superior enough to own my private executive jet.] You, dear madam, fight a constant battle with your own bacteria. [I didn't know that!] But now you have, I am sorry to say, lost the battle you wage permanently. Your skin has erupted in defeat.' I would have liked to burst into ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers', as a warning to my bacteria to be ‘up boys and at 'em', but I was weak in defeat. However, this dear man put me on penicillin. It was the first time I'd had this drug and my bacteria cried ‘Alleluiah' and stamped their little hob-nailed boots. They'd won a second battle. I came out in a secondary rash, a penicillin rash, worse than my own private bacteriological one.

I agreed with Ade, life is hit and miss. Not every doctor is a miracle healer.

Chas threw himself heart, body and soul into our business and we were busy from morn till night. With no time for a mid-day meal, we lived on rolls and tea, taking our main meal in the evening with our children, Susan and William. Susan, nearly thirteen, was at a girls' grammar school. She had homework to keep her busy in the evenings but was a girl who made friends easily, and kept them. She had a happy social time at weekends, so, although she would have preferred our previous life at Forest Gate with mother always there to greet her, she settled down quite happily. For my son the changeover was not so easy, although he did not complain. We were on a busy main road with no children as neighbours. Here he could not go out to play. He sorely missed his two dear friends, George and Harry, who had lived nearby at Forest Gate. They had kind parents and William had joined in their happy childhood life, starting their own ‘archaeological' dig in their back garden! Their father owned a dolly mixture factory and he would make ‘meals' for the children's games: pork chops, chips and peas, or fruit and custard, all made out of sugar on little plates.

William had been happy at his infants' school, too. He seemed to have been born with an adult manner of speech but this was accepted as being William. It was a modern school for those times and each child was treated as a separate individual. They were taught to play together in order to live together. The mothers in my road had been my friends, our husbands serving soldiers; we had worried together, cleared up our bomb damage together, and together we watched over our children, taking it in turns to collect them from school, checking that they had not absent-mindedly left any of their belongings behind in the school cloakroom. The children played happily and safely in our quiet road, mothers were not far away if needed.

At his new school William's manner of speech caused great amusement among the other children. For instance, at a time of argument, dissension or playground battles, he would suggest ‘taking the matter to arbitration'. My instinct told me his verbal literacy was not appreciated by the head or his teacher.

‘Surely William would complain if things were not all right? He seems happy enough to me,' declared Chas hopefully, probably wishing that I was as conscientious with regard to the shop as I was about William. My son never complained that he was unhappy, although his body did, for he too developed a severe rash which would just not respond to treatment and in the end he had to attend hospital.

Susan, on holiday from school, took him to the hospital and arrived home again almost in tears. The lady specialist had enquired where
was
the child's
mother
, she
must
attend. I spent an uncomfortable half-hour with this sincere and earnest lady. She dismissed my reasons for previous non-attendance with a wave of her hand. ‘A busy shop!' (I'd have liked to see Chas's face at that juncture.) She was extremely beautiful, with shining black hair, enormous, emerald-green eyes and alabaster skin, her beauty marred for me only by her large, unfeminine ears, which she had accentuated with golden hoop ear-rings.