The Complete Short Stories (35 page)

Everyone admires our
flat, because Mum keeps it spotless, and Dad keeps doing things to it. He has
done it up all over, and got permission from the Council to re-modernize the
kitchen. I well recall the Health Visitor remarking to Mum, ‘You could eat off
your floor, Mrs Merrifield.’ It is true that you could eat your lunch off Mum’s
floors, and any hour of the day or night you will find every corner spick and
span.

Next, I was sent by the
agency to a publisher’s for an interview, because of being good at English. One
look was enough!! My next interview was a success, and I am still at Low’s
Chemical Co. It is a modern block, with a quarter of an hour rest period,
morning and afternoon. Mr Marwood is very smart in appearance. He is well
spoken, although he has not got a university education behind him. There is
special lighting over the desks, and the typewriters are the latest models.

So I am happy at Low’s.
But I have met other people, of an educated type, in the past year, and it has
opened my eyes. It so happened that I had to go to the doctor’s house, to fetch
a prescription for my young brother, Trevor, when the epidemic was on. I rang
the bell, and Mrs Darby came to the door. She was small, with fair hair, but
too long, and a green maternity dress. But she was very nice to me. I had to
wait in their living-room, and you should have seen the state it was in! There
were broken toys on the carpet, and the ashtrays were full up. There were
contemporary pictures on the walls, but the furniture was not contemporary, but
old-fashioned, with covers which were past standing up to another wash, I
should say. To cut a long story short, Dr Darby and Mrs Darby have always been
very kind to me, and they meant everything for the best. Dr Darby is also short
and fair, and they have three children, a girl and a boy, and now a baby boy.

When I went that day for
the prescription, Dr Darby said to me, ‘You look pale, Lorna. It’s the London
atmosphere. Come on a picnic with us, in the car, on Saturday.’ After that I
went with the Darbys more and more. I liked them, but I did not like the mess,
and it was a surprise. But I also kept in with them for the opportunity of
meeting people, and Mum and Dad were pleased that I had made nice friends. So I
did not say anything about the cracked limo, and the paintwork all chipped. The
children’s clothes were very shabby for a doctor, and she changed them out of
their school clothes when they came home from school, into those worn-out
garments. Mum always kept us spotless to go out to play, and I do not like to
say it, but those Darby children frequently looked like the Leary family, which
the Council evicted from our block, as they were far from houseproud.

One day, when I was
there, Mavis (as I called Mrs Darby by then) put her head out of the window, and
shouted to the boy, ‘John, stop peeing over the cabbages at once. Pee on the
lawn.’ I did not know which way to look. Mum would never say a word like that
from the window, and I know for a fact that Trevor would never pass water
outside, not even bathing in the sea.

I went there usually at
the weekends, but sometimes on weekdays, after supper. They had an idea to make
a match for me with a chemist’s assistant, whom they had taken up too. He was
an orphan, and I do not say there was anything wrong with that. But he was not
accustomed to those little extras that I was. He was a good-looking boy, I will
say that. So I went once to a dance, and twice to films with him. To look at,
he was quite clean in appearance. But there was only hot water at the weekend
at his place, and he said that a bath once a week was sufficient. Jim (as I
called Dr Darby by then) said it was sufficient also, and surprised me. He did
not have much money, and I do not hold that against him. But there was no hurry
for me, and I could wait for a man in a better position, so that I would not
miss those little extras. So he started going out with a girl from the coffee
bar, and did not come to the Darbys very much then.

There were plenty of
boys at the office, but I will say this for the Darbys, they had lots of
friends coming and going, and they had interesting conversation, although
sometimes it gave me a surprise, and I did not know where to look. And
sometimes they had people who were very down and out, although there is no need
to be. But most of the guests were different, so it made a comparison with the
boys at the office, who were not so educated in their conversation.

Now it was near the time
for Mavis to have her baby, and I was to come in at the weekend, to keep an eye
on the children, while the help had her day off. Mavis did not go away to have
her baby, but would have it at home, in their double bed, as they did not have
twin beds, although he was a doctor. A girl I knew, in our block, was engaged,
but was let down, and even she had her baby in the labour ward. I was sure the
bedroom was not hygienic for having a baby, but I did not mention it.

One day, after the baby
boy came along, they took me in the car to the country, to see Jim’s mother.
The baby was put in a carry-cot at the back of the car. He began to cry, and
without a word of a lie, Jim said to him over his shoulder, ‘Oh shut your gob,
you little bastard.’ I did not know what to do, and Mavis was smoking a
cigarette. Dad would not dream of saying such a thing to Trevor or I. When we
arrived at Jim’s mother’s place, Jim said, ‘It’s a fourteenth-century cottage,
Lorna.’ I could well believe it. It was very cracked and old, and it made one
wonder how Jim could let his old mother live in this tumble-down cottage, as he
was so good to everyone else. So Mavis knocked at the door, and the old lady
came. There was not much anyone could do to the inside. Mavis said, ‘Isn’t it
charming, Lorna?’ If that was a joke, it was going too far. I said to the old
Mrs Darby, ‘Are you going to be re-housed?’ but she did not understand this,
and I explained how you have to apply to the Council, and keep at them. But it
was funny that the Council had not done something already, when they go round
condemning. Then old Mrs Darby said, ‘My dear, I shall be re-housed in the
Grave.’ I did not know where to look.

There was a carpet
hanging on the wall, which I think was there to hide a damp spot. She had a
good TV set, I will say that. But some of the walls were bare brick, and the
facilities were outside, through the garden. The furniture was far from new.

One Saturday afternoon,
as I happened to go to the Darbys, they were just going off to a film and they
took me too. It was the Curzon, and afterwards we went to a flat in Curzon
Street. It was a very clean block, I will say that, and there were good carpets
at the entrance. The couple there had contemporary furniture, and they also
spoke about music. It was a nice place, but there was no Welfare Centre to the
flats, where people could go for social intercourse, advice and guidance. But
they were well-spoken, and I met Willy Morley, who was an artist. Willy sat
beside me, and we had a drink. He was young, dark, with a dark shirt, so one
could not see right away if he was clean. Soon after this, Jim said to me, ‘Willy
wants to paint you, Lorna. But you’d better ask your Mum.’ Mum said it was all
right if he was a friend of the Darbys.

I can honestly say that
Willy’s place was the most unhygienic place I have seen in my life. He said I
had an unusual type of beauty, which he must capture. This was when we came
back to his place from the restaurant. The light was very dim, but I could see
the bed had not been made, and the sheets were far from clean. He said he must
paint me, but I told Mavis I did not like to go back there. ‘Don’t you like
Willy?’ she asked. I could not deny that I liked Willy, in a way. There was
something about him, I will say that. Mavis said, ‘I hope he hasn’t been making
a pass at you, Lorna.’ I said he had not done so, which was almost true,
because he did not attempt to go to the full extent. It was always unhygienic
when I went to Willy’s place, and I told him so once, but he said, ‘Lorna, you
are a joy.’ He had a nice way, and he took me out in his car, which was a good
one, but dirty inside, like his place. Jim said one day, ‘He has pots of money,
Lorna,’ and Mavis said, ‘You might make a man of him, as he is keen on you.’
They always said Willy came from a good family.

But I saw that one could
not do anything with him. He would not change his shirt very often, or get
clothes, but he went round like a tramp, lending people money, as I have seen
with my own eyes. His place was in a terrible mess, with the empty bottles, and
laundry in the corner. He gave me several gifts over the period, which I took
as he would have only given them away, but he never tried to go to the full
extent. He never painted my portrait, as he was painting fruit on a table all
that time, and they said his pictures were marvellous, and thought Willy and I
were getting married.

One night, when I went
home, I was upset as usual, after Willy’s place. Mum and Dad had gone to bed,
and I looked round our kitchen which is done in primrose and white. Then I went
into the living-room, where Dad has done one wall in a patterned paper, deep
rose and white, and the other walls pale rose, with white woodwork. The suite
is new, and Mum keeps everything beautiful. So it came to me, all of a sudden,
what a fool I was, going with Willy. I agree to equality, but as to me marrying
Willy, as I said to Mavis, when I recall his place, and the good carpet gone
greasy, not to mention the paint oozing out of the tubes, I think it would
break my heart to sink so low.

Quest for Lavishes
Ghast

Lavishes ghast! — this phrase haunted me
for years. When I first came to London I worked for a man who was always losing
his papers. Hours I would spend, looking for those bits of paper, until
suddenly he would say, ‘Lavishes ghast.’ After a while I got used to this man.
Northerner though I was, and with only the short ‘a’ of lavishes and the long ‘a’
of ghast to work on, I came to understand that lavishes ghast stood for ‘I have
it at last.’ And in spite of his habit of talking hand-over-fist and disdaining
consonants, it became possible for me to decode an irrelevant statement like ‘Clot
on the brain’ into the relevant ‘Lost it again!’

I have kept coming
across people like him. As a rule I have managed to fill in the missing letters
and guess the whole. As a rule; but lavishes ghast remains an exception. In the
same way that the yellowhammer chirps continually, ‘A little piece of bread and
no cheese,’ and the cuckoo croaks nothing but ‘cuckoo,’ so, I swear, does
everyone at the usual crowded party say ‘lavishes ghast’ all the time.

At the beginning of my
quest I was quite unnerved by it. The phrase meant something different each
time, but plainly it stemmed from a general, perhaps mystical meaning. Lavishes
was so substantial and ghast so evanescent; all the anxious ingredients of
Pavlov’s nasty practical jokes were there in essence. Were people talking of
radishes vast? Did they hang from the mast? Once I met a soldier in the train
who was trying to dodge the military police. ‘They’ll ask me to lavishes ghast
and I
lavishes
ghast, can’t be done,’ he explained through his teeth.
With due cunning I inquired, ‘Why not?’ The question goaded him to articulate
speech. ‘How,’ he demanded, ‘can I hand ‘em me pass if I haven’t a pass?’ And a
girl I knew told me, ‘I lavishes ghast to marry him.’ Ungenerously, I took this
to mean she hadn’t been asked, but it turned out she hadn’t the heart. I
recall, too, a visit to the country… a rabbit in the grass… ‘Yes, he does
look happy at his task,’ I said to my host, who had seemed to point at a
ploughman as he spoke.

There was also the
earlier and more deranging occasion when I stayed overnight with a friend’s
mother. At breakfast she was reading a letter from her son. She put down the
letter, and, gazing wistfully at a bowl of flowers, murmured, ‘Lavishes ghast,
don’t you think?’ Well, of course I thought Anthony was fast. I could have told
her a lot about Anthony, but after all, she was the mother, so I said, ‘Oh, not
really!’ She paused, and, keeping her eye still on the flowers, repeated
firmly, ‘Well, my dear, I think they
are
ravishing flaahers.’

I entered the
obsessional phase. L. G. became meaningful, threatening. I began to suspect
that it was a person. I didn’t want to meet Mrs Ghast, for at the time I
decided it must be a woman, a widow, formerly married to a Mr Ghast who was
seen only once with his wife, on a desolate cliff top in the Orkneys or Land’s
End, before he disappeared. Mrs Ghast would be very lavish at first. She would
be ever so hospitable, to start with. At times I speculated whether Ghast might
be a thing, a powerful magnetic mineral to which I alone was allergic. But
pondering the question at the dead of night, I felt sure again it was a person.

The situation had
reached Gothic proportions. I decided to pursue the monster, hunt it down
before it hunted me, and thus I came to do so. I took to frequenting the sort
of place which is not my sort of place at all: cosy tea shops in Hampstead,
Kensington, and even Ealing, with names like Araminta’s Kettle or The Ginger
Jug. Here, in these Jugs and Kettles, lavishes ghast flourishes most. And it
rages most between the afternoon hours of four and five-thirty. My plan was
simple: all I had to do was sit and listen, take notes of everything I heard by
way of lavishes, do it into English and, when my collection reached a decent
size, extract the common factors of sense. In this way I would locate lavishes
ghast, its origin, nature, nationality of parents and present address.

The first afternoon,
this seemed easy. I fixed on a mother and daughter having tea. ‘They’re very
lavish here,’ said the mother, beaming on the cakes as the daughter replied, ‘But
the tea’s ghastly.’ I took this to be a good omen. But within a few days
sinister complications like ‘lavishes ghast lavishes’ began to set in. A
creature comprising Alex’s car, aspects of art, anarchist bard, amorous chars,
hand on my heart, Battersea Park, masses of stars, passion aha! remained beyond
my comprehension.