One Young Fool in Dorset (19 page)

“Everything okay?” asked the driver, climbing out of
his car. “Need any help?”

“
Ach
, thank you very much,” said my mother.
“We drove through the ford without a problem, and then the engine
just stopped.”

The man looked at the water still dripping off Ivy
and making puddles on the road.

“Did you drive very slowly through the water?” he
asked. “It’s deep at the moment. If you drive through slowly, like
I did, you will keep the engine dry.”

“No,” admitted my mother, “I drove as fast as I
could.”

“She drove like a bat out of hell,” whispered my
brother, making us snigger in the back.

“Well,” said our advisor, “I’m afraid that’s what’s
happened; your engine is soaked. Everything, including your spark
plugs, got wet.”

“So what do we do?”

“Nothing. You’ll just have to wait until it all
dries out, then she’ll start up nicely again.”

With a cheery wave he climbed back into his car and
drove off, leaving us stranded. My mother propped up Ivy’s bonnet,
“to let the air blow through,” and dabbed parts of the engine
nervously with her headscarf. Obviously she wouldn’t have
recognised a spark plug even if it had bitten her on the end of her
nose. We amused ourselves by racing sticks down the stream, and
eventually, the engine dried.

My mother turned the key in the ignition and Ivy
burst into life.

“Hooray!” we shouted, and clambered back in.

“Quick! Before Ivy stops again!”

Off we bucked and chugged and reached the bluebell
woods without further mishap. We returned home via another
route.

Back home, we filled the house with glorious
bluebells until the air was heavy with their perfume. When we ran
out of vases, we used jugs and milk bottles.

My father arrived home and we told him all about our
day.

“Didn’t you check how deep it was?” he asked my
mother.

“Well, I got out of the car and looked at the
water.”

“So what made you decide to drive through?”

“
Ach
, don’t be silly, you
know
I never
reverse. And anyway...”

“Yes?”

“The water only came halfway up some ducks.”

A second’s silence, then we all roared with
laughter.

To this day, I’m not convinced whether she was
serious or not.

* * *

I still had my chamber-maiding job and had managed
to work just hard enough to keep it out of Janice Parry’s clutches.
My boss then asked me if I’d like to take on a little waitressing
now and then, particularly at wedding functions. I happily agreed,
although being rather shy and clumsy, I wouldn’t be the best of
waitresses.

Around that time, another girl from my school moved
into Wareham. As we travelled every day on the train to Poole
together, we became friends, although she was younger than I.

Marion Ford was a policeman’s daughter and a bit
‘fast’ as Auntie Jean might say. We all wore mini skirts, but
Marion’s were micro minis. We all wore loons and platform shoes,
but Marion’s loons were slung lower on the hips, and her platform
shoes were higher.

Marion taught me a lot. She talked about boys
incessantly and I listened with wide eyes. She showed me how to
turn the waistband of my school skirt over and over to make it
shorter. She showed me how to hide my sensible school shoes in a
bush and change them for much more unsuitable, strappy shoes,
changing back before I got home. She showed me how to apply thick
pancake make-up to my face and neck, and blend three colours of
purple eye-shadow. She taught me how to moisten a cake of mascara
and apply it with a brush.

“And look, here’s how you curl your eyelashes. Take
the curlers, grab the eyelashes and squeeze hard. Like this…
See?”

She admired the result in her omnipresent little
round magnifying mirror.

“And now for the false eyelashes. A line of glue,
then stick, and press.”

I wasn’t a willing student. I found the strappy
shoes uncomfortable, and applying the make-up was a pain, and it
turned my towel orange when I washed it off. Marion’s eyes were
made up like Twiggy’s, with black outlines, but I never mastered
that. Neither did I master the false eyelashes, though I tried. How
could girls wear them? They were so uncomfortable.

“Do you know anybody who might like to work a few
hours waitressing?” asked my boss. “We’ve got a big wedding coming
up and we could use an extra pair of hands.”

I racked my brain, desperate to come up with
somebody before my boss contacted Janice Parry.

“Um, I have a friend called Marion Ford,” I said
reluctantly. “I could ask her.”

I wasn’t sure how Marion would fit in really, with
her pancake make-up and fluttering false eyelashes.

“Ah, is she the policeman’s daughter? Yes, I know
her father. If she wants the job, bring her along with you a bit
early.”

I asked Marion, and as she was keen, we both turned
up on the afternoon of the function.

My boss looked at Marion as I introduced them, and I
saw his eyebrows twitch. He showed her the kitchen, and explained
how we worked, how the top table would be served first, and who
would look after which area of the dining room.

“Well, that seems straightforward enough,” she
said.

“Right,” said my boss. “Here is your uniform and
this is your apron. Please go and change and report back to me. We
don’t have much time. Oh, and could you please remove some of your
make-up. It’s a little heavy for our establishment…”

Marion looked affronted, but accepted the
uniform.

“I’m not taking it all off,” she said to me as we
changed. “I’ll wipe some of me eyeliner and eyeshadow off, but I’m
not taking off me false eyelashes for anybody.”

Marion’s false eyelashes were so thick and sweeping
they almost created a breeze every time she blinked.

The wedding party and guests had arrived and were
already seated.

“Good,” said my boss as he looked us up and down at
the inspection. “You both look tidy and presentable. Just one
thing, Marion, take off the eyelashes, please.”

Marion opened her mouth to argue, then thought
better of it. She pouted and turned on her heel to head for the
restroom.

“Time to get serving!” called Dawn, the head
waitress, picking up her tray of starters. “Victoria, Marion, are
you ready?”

“Yes, Dawn,” I said and picked up my tray. “Marion,
you don’t have time to go to the restroom,” I hissed.

“Yes, Dawn,” echoed Marion, quickly tearing off the
false eyelashes and throwing them aside. She grabbed her tray and
followed me through the swing doors into the dining room.

It was a lovely wedding. Sunshine streamed through
the big windows and onto the top table. In the middle sat the
groom, handsome in his grey three-piece suit. The bride glowed, and
the bride’s and groom’s parents beamed proudly. The tablecloths
were crisp and white, decorated with a centrepiece of blue violets
and snowy gypsophila, or baby’s breath.

Soft music played in the background and the guests
seemed to be enjoying their prawn cocktail starter. I made my way
back to the kitchen when a little gesture caught my eye.

At the very end of the top table sat an ancient
lady. Looking at her, I guessed she must be the bride’s
grandmother. The old lady caught my eye and quietly beckoned me
over.

I stood at her side, smiling, but she beckoned me
closer. I leaned over, straining to hear what she was saying, and
caught that distinctive old-lady smell of lavender.

“I don’t want to make a fuss, dear, and I know it’s
not your fault.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s that time of year, of course,” she said.

“I’m sorry?” I was baffled.

“I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but it’s just so
big!”

“I’m sorry?” I was so close now that I could see the
fine down on her papery cheek.

The old lady lifted a bony finger and pointed at her
prawn cocktail.

“I wonder if you could possibly take it back to the
kitchen and get me another? That insect looks as though he’s there
to stay. I tried to shush him away but he hasn’t moved at all since
I noticed him. Actually...” she leaned even closer, “I think he may
be dead.”

I followed her gaze and saw to my horror what she
was looking at. Perched atop the green shredded lettuce and pink
mayonnaise of the prawn cocktail, was a very large insect with
numerous legs.

Except it wasn’t an insect.

“I’m terribly sorry,” I breathed as I whipped the
prawn cocktail away. “I’ll bring you another immediately.”

Unfortunately, my eagle-eyed boss was lurking just
inside the kitchen.

“What’s that?” he asked. “Has somebody sent their
food back?”

“Um…”

Too late. My boss was already peering closely at the
offending dish. With great precision, he picked out the ‘insect’
with his finger and thumb and held it aloft.

“How,” he said heavily, “just
how
did one of
Marion’s false eyelashes end up in a guest’s prawn cocktail?”

It wasn’t my place to say, so I grabbed a
replacement prawn cocktail and sped it out to the old lady.

“I’m so sorry,” I said again.

“Oh, don’t worry!” she whispered. “I expect it just
flew in. It’s our little secret.”

I didn’t tell the nice old lady the truth. And my
boss didn’t require Marion’s assistance at any more weddings. I
just hoped that if he found himself short-handed, he wouldn’t
consider employing Janice Parry.

* * *

My sister had been accepted to Exeter University,
where she thrived. My wardrobe diminished because she took all her
clothes with her. My brother was still at boarding school, so I was
the only one at home.

I was supposed to be studying hard for my ‘O’ Levels
but actually I was doing very little studying. I either had my head
in a book, or in the clouds, daydreaming.

18 Money and Work

I
f only we could see into the future. At
school, I was so quick to drop French and Latin, and I never even
considered taking up Spanish, although I was given the opportunity.
If only I’d known that in the future nearly all my friends and
neighbours would be Spanish and I would be living in a Spanish
village. Had I been offered a peep into what lay ahead, my school
decisions wouldn’t have been so hasty.

Instead of languages, I decided to take up Greek
Mythology. A fascinating subject with wonderful stories, but, dare
I say it, not really terribly useful?

I had to persevere with Maths, although there was
very little point. Numbers confused me and still do. I could manage
stuff like Venn diagrams because it was a picture, and even
equations were kind of logical, but simple and compound interest
defeated me. And questions like:
If a man can dig a four foot
hole in two and a half hours, how long will it take eight men to
dig a ten foot hole?
left me bewildered.

My Maths teacher, Miss Crowe, had given up on me a
long time ago.

“Victoria! You’re day-dreaming again! Get this
question wrong and I’ll ssssstring you up by the heelssss.”

When it came to the mock exams, I failed miserably.
Taking the same paper again, my result was even worse the second
time, even though the questions were the same. The school decided
that I shouldn’t take Maths ‘O’ Level and I heartily agreed.

It was 1971, an exciting time. The Range Rover had
been introduced, making Ivy the Land Rover look like something from
a museum. We saw the first electronic calculators, massive things
with blinking LEDs. Hot pants appeared, shocking the older
generation. And Great Britain was preparing to make a monumental
change.

Back in 1824, Lord Wrottesley proposed an utterly
crazy idea in parliament. He suggested that Britain’s currency
should be decimalised. Such a foolish notion was roundly rejected,
of course. What? Lose the guinea, shilling, half-crown, sixpence,
ha’penny and florin? Unthinkable!

But now, more than one hundred and forty years
later, Britain was on the verge of doing exactly that.

At first, three new coins were introduced into the
old system: the 5p, 10p and 50p coins. That meant that on Decimal
Day (or ‘D Day’), the general public had already learned three of
the six new coins.

Banks were closed on Wednesday, 10th February, until
the morning of Monday 15 February, to enable everything in the
clearing system to be processed. Customers’ accounts were converted
from pounds, shillings and pence, to decimal. These conversions
were carried out manually, as most bank branches were not yet
computerised.

Then, on February 15th, 1971, it all happened. I
remember it was quite a smooth process as the government had done a
good job of educating us before the day, and prices in shops were
displayed in both new and old prices for a long time before and
after ‘D Day’.

However, some of the old folk complained bitterly,
and I even overheard my mother asking my father, “
Ach,
yes,
but how much is that in
real
money?”

A menu
showing both prices