Sons and Daughters (4 page)

‘Your dear ma wouldn’t like that,’ said Ruby.

‘Nor would I,’ said Jimmy, and Ruby answered a call for help from Freddy, whose female customer was insisting she wouldn’t be served by no-one except a lady assistant on account of what she wanted. ATS and WAAF surplus was plentiful. If Sammy had been present, he’d have been reliving his days in his original shop at Camberwell Green.

Out came the posh Mayfair-style girl, the unfolded shirt over her arm.

‘How’d it go?’ asked Jimmy.

‘Over my shoulders,’ she said. ‘You can wrap it up, with another of the same size. How much?’

‘Three bob a shirt, madam, five and eleven-pence for two,’ said Jimmy.

‘Cut the madam stuff,’ she said. ‘But the price doesn’t offend me and the shirts will make history.’

‘History?’

‘Yes, Cornish history,’ she said. ‘I’ll be the only woman making a landing on the beach wearing an RAF shirt.’

Woman? She was promoting herself, thought Jimmy.

‘Well, if that’s going to make history,’ he said, refolding the shirt, ‘I’m rapturous for you.’

‘You’re what?’ The girl looked as if she’d encountered a freak.

‘Yes, best of luck,’ said Jimmy, placing another shirt on top of the refolded one.

‘Rapturous, you said? You’re killing me.’

‘Sell you an aspirin for free,’ said Jimmy, wrapping the shirts on the counter next to the till. The store was still busy, Ruby buzzing about. ‘By the way, I’m off to Cornwall myself next Saturday for my fortnight’s holiday.’

‘Really? I’m thrilled.’ The girl dug into her pretty white handbag, found a ten-bob note and handed it to Jimmy in exchange for the parcel.

‘Much obliged,’ said Jimmy.

‘You’re welcome, put the change in that charity box,’ said the girl, and off she went, heels crisply clicking again. Jimmy was left gawping at the airy way she chucked her money about. Then his grin surfaced, and he put the change from the till into the collecting box for War Orphans. What a caution. In a verbal duel with her, even his Uncle Boots would have trouble coming out on top.

What a stunner. Pity about her haughty nose.

In a handsome house on Red Post Hill, off Denmark Hill in south-east London, Mr Edwin Finch addressed his wife, known to her extensive family as Chinese Lady. The reasons for this went back a long way, to her years of struggle, when she often had her Monday washing collected and done by Mr Wong Fu of the local Chinese laundry. Further, she had an almond tint to her brown eyes.

‘Maisie,’ said Mr Finch, ‘would you like a daily to help with the housework?’

‘D’you mean a servant?’ asked Chinese Lady. She was seventy-two, and still upright, but her dark brown hair was liberally streaked with grey.

‘Yes, I do mean a servant,’ said Mr Finch, seventy-five and silver-haired. His distinguished looks hadn’t yet departed, however. ‘The house, my dear, is large and you aren’t getting any younger.’

‘Well, I’m still not old,’ said Chinese Lady. ‘At least, I don’t feel I am, and we’re not going to move, not while the family still visits. We wouldn’t know where to put everybody if we bought some poky place.’

Mr Finch smiled. That was her chief reason for living, her family. There seemed to be members by the dozen, beginning with her three sons, Boots, Tommy and Sammy, her daughter Lizzy, and their spouses. There were innumerable grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And she always seemed to know what any of them were up to at any given moment, even Alice, Tommy and Vi’s daughter, and Bess, Sammy and Susie’s eldest daughter. Alice, having graduated from Bristol University, was now secretary to the bursar, and Bess was an undergraduate there.

Much to Maisie’s pleasure, her favourite granddaughter Rosie, with her husband Matthew and children Giles and Emily, had moved from Dorset to run a large chicken farm in Surrey. In partnership with Rosie and Matthew were Lizzy’s younger daughter Emma and Emma’s husband, Sussex-born Jonathan. In these post-war years of austerity, the farm was prospering in its sales of eggs and laying hens. Everyone wanted eggs after a war that had reduced the supply to about one per person per week. And many people wanted to keep chickens that would lay daily for them. One didn’t feel austerity was knocking holes in the stomach if one could tuck into fried or scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast every morning. Also, a nice soft-boiled egg with Sunday tea was a traditional treat for many people.

‘Very well, Maisie, only if the housework should begin to be a little too much for you will we think about a daily help,’ said Mr Finch, knowing that
Boots and Polly employed a daily, and so did Sammy and Susie.

Chinese Lady gave him one of her rare smiles. Edwin was a good man, a gentleman, and a comforting, providing husband. Retired from his job with the Government, he enjoyed a generous pension and what she called a respectable bank balance, which was something she had only read about during her years of penury in Walworth. She was comfortable with a respectable balance, because it meant she and Edwin weren’t vulgarly rich, like war profiteers were. She had a warm, enduring affection for her man, and whenever she was out and about with him she could rightly be proud of his distinguished appearance. Boots took a whimsical view of such outings, since he was pretty sure his indomitable Victorian mother liked to let people see she wasn’t married to someone who could be rated insignificant.

‘Well, all right, Edwin,’ she said, ‘I’ll think about a daily if the housework gets too much for me. Mind, as we live on the ground floor, I don’t have to worry about most of the upstairs rooms unless some of the family come to stay for a night or two.’

‘But you do a fair amount of dusting all over,’ said Mr Finch, whose own daily labours were mainly devoted to keeping the garden in order. The front doorbell rang at that moment. ‘I think that’s Peregrine Winters, Maisie. I’ll entertain him in the study, and perhaps you’d make us some coffee in about ten minutes, would you?’

‘But it’s afternoon, Edwin, it’s nearly teatime.’

‘Mr Winters dislikes tea—’

‘Not like tea? It’s not natural.’

‘He prefers coffee at all times.’

‘What a funny man, but all right, Edwin,’ said Chinese Lady as he went to answer the ring. She knew he’d favour her using their latest kitchen item, a percolator. One more new-fangled contraption, that was what a percolator was. Still, it never threatened to electrocute her, like the blessed telephone used to. Full of those kind of threats, that thing had been until it became friendly towards the end of the war.

She hoped her husband’s visitor, a man from the Government, wasn’t going to ask him to come out of retirement and return to his job, not at his age.

Mr Finch, opening the front door, said good morning to the caller, Peregrine Winters, an ex-colleague now in his fifties. The visit had been arranged over the phone.

‘Happy to see you again, Edwin old man,’ said Mr Winters, ‘hope you don’t mind sparing me five minutes or so on a Saturday afternoon?’

‘A pleasure,’ said Mr Finch. ‘Come in.’

The visit actually lasted an hour, for after Mr Winters had explained the purpose of his call they enjoyed some very entertaining reminiscences over the percolated coffee. They had both served British Intelligence for many years. When Mr Finch was finally saying goodbye to his ex-colleague at the front door, he said, ‘I’m not sure how my wife is going to react to what’s on offer.’

‘Most women are unpredictable,’ said Mr
Winters, ‘but I don’t imagine Mrs Finch will actually – um – fall down. A delightfully resolute lady, your wife, Edwin. Goodbye now, it’s been a great pleasure to see you again and to chat over old times. We’re both lucky to have survived intact.’

Following all that, Mr Finch rejoined Chinese Lady who, of course, asked the leading question. Was the Government going to make him return to work? Mr Finch assured her no, not at all. So she wanted to know why Mr Winters had called. Mr Finch coughed, fiddled with his tie, gave her a smile and told her.

True, she didn’t fall down, but she did quiver all over and turn pale.

‘Oh, dear Lord,’ she said faintly, ‘where’s my smelling salts?’

Mr Finch called on Boots and Polly at their Dulwich home later that afternoon. Their daily maid, Flossie Cuthbert of Peckham, opened the door to him.

‘Oh, hello, Mr Finch,’ she said in bright welcome. Flossie was a typical Peckham cockney, perky, cheerful and resilient. With her parents she had endured and survived countless German air raids, raids that had shattered much of Peckham, and reduced many of its older inhabitants to nervous wrecks.

‘Good afternoon, Flossie,’ smiled Mr Finch. It was a daily help like Flossie he had in mind for Chinese Lady.

‘Come in, sir,’ said Flossie, a smile lighting up her prettiness. ‘Mr and Mrs Adams are expecting
you, except they’re in the garden just now, teaching the twins ’ow to play cricket, and them little angels only seven, would you believe.’

‘Cricket at the age of seven is hard going, even for little angels, I suppose,’ said Mr Finch.

‘Not half, sir, specially as Gemma can ’ardly keep hold of the bat,’ said Flossie, and led the way through the house to the garden. There, Boots and Polly were engaged with the twins in the rudiments of how to guard three stumps and two bails with a bat. Gemma and James were willing pupils, although helpful hints and sound advice to Gemma went into one ear and straight out of the other. Well, everything was a scream or a giggle to Gemma, born to regard nothing very seriously, except earthquakes.

‘Am I interrupting?’ called Mr Finch.

‘Well, some interruptions are welcome, old thing,’ said Polly, advancing to meet him. She was fifty-two and still elegant, her body slim, her dress a classical achievement from the gifted hands of brother-in-law Sammy’s designer. Sammy wasn’t keen on any of his close female relatives appearing in the austerity fashions of these post-war years, especially Polly, whom he regarded as a high-class aristocratic advertisement for his best designs.

‘How are the cricket lessons coming on?’ asked Mr Finch.

‘Chaotically,’ said Polly, accepting a kiss on her cheek from her father-in-law. ‘But you know, of course, that our ungovernable pair live on the closest terms with chaos.’

The twins arrived in a rush then, determined to bring a little chaos into the life of their grandfather by trying, apparently, to knock him down in the energetic enthusiasm of their greeting.

‘Steady, monkeys,’ said Boots, coming up.

Mr Finch, staying on his feet, knew there was one certain way of disentangling himself. He gave the twins sixpence each for their money boxes, and away they went, dashing into the house to safely bank the silver coins. Flossie, fearless in the face of their rush, took charge of them.

‘Can you spare ten minutes for a chat?’ asked Mr Finch of Boots and Polly.

‘I suspected from your phone call that there was something on your mind,’ said Boots, and they all sat down at the garden table in the sunshine of the afternoon. Boots, in a white cricket shirt and camel-coloured slacks, looked untroubled by his years, his features firmly masculine, his dark brown hair still thick. No more than Polly did he wear the mantle of middle age, although Polly was fighting faint crow’s feet that were trying to establish themselves at the corners of her eyes.

‘Is this going to be serious?’ she asked,

‘Only in one respect,’ said Mr Finch.

‘Which is?’ said Boots.

‘That off and on since early this afternoon, your inimitable mother has been in need of her smelling salts,’ said Mr Finch.

‘Her smelling salts?’ said Polly. ‘I’m to believe that?’

‘You can believe the bottle is the one she’s had
for many years,’ said Mr Finch, ‘and it’s still effective.’

‘But why is she in need?’ asked Boots. ‘Is she having fainting fits?’

‘No, she’s simply in shock,’ said Mr Finch.

Boots, noting that his stepfather was showing neither worry nor alarm, said, ‘Out with it, Edwin, what’s the reason?’

‘The reason, Boots,’ said Mr Finch, ‘is that an ex-colleague of mine called to notify me well in advance that my name is going forward for inclusion in the New Year’s honours list. I’m to be offered a knighthood for services rendered.’

Boots said warmly, ‘My sincere congratulations, Edwin, and I’m not surprised.’

Polly looked tickled. She knew by now that her father-in-law had served with British Intelligence for many years. She had suspected so, and Boots had at last confirmed her suspicions, while asking her to keep the information to herself. Other facts relating to the life of his stepfather he still held close to his chest.

‘Edwin, old thing,’ said Polly, ‘I’m delighted for you, I really am.’

‘Thank you, Polly,’ said Mr Finch. ‘But it means, of course, that by this time next year your mother, Boots, will be known to her family and friends as Lady Finch. The prospect is alarming her. She’s in shock. Hence her recourse to her smelling salts.’

‘What can one say?’ said Polly, rolling her eyes, while Boots expressed his own reaction by throwing
his head back and roaring with laughter.

‘I’m glad you’re amused, Boots,’ said Mr Finch, a smile showing.

‘He’s a philistine,’ said Polly.

‘Lady Finch?’ said Boots, and laughed again. ‘My dear old mother? Lady Finch? No wonder she’s in shock. I imagine she’s been telling you she wasn’t brought up to be a lady, that a title would be an embarrassment to her.’

‘And make people talk about her?’ murmured Polly, who knew that to Boots’s old-fashioned mother being talked about meant one’s respectability was suspect. ‘Very embarrassing.’

‘Indeed,’ said Mr Finch, ‘and so she’s been asking if I have to accept the honour, if I’m compelled to. I can turn it down, of course—’

‘Edwin, no, you mustn’t,’ said Polly.

Mr Finch mused, then said, ‘Maisie is seriously set on not becoming Lady Finch, so I’ve come to talk it over with you two.’

‘Talk it over with Polly,’ said Boots. ‘I’ll drive round and talk to my mother.’

‘Yes, famous idea, don’t you know,’ said Polly, still given on occasions to using the idiom of the Twenties. ‘Off you go, old scout, do your good deed and wean her off her smelling salts.’