Mother Knew Best (15 page)

We played Family Coach, where Arthur told such a wonderful tale that most of us were caught, so engrossed were we with his story. We put the Tail on the Donkey, Mother loved that game. We played All Birds Fly, and laughed when one of the guests raised his hand at ‘elephants fly.' It took ages for everybody to do their forfeits. And there were the super games where you can catch people who haven't played the game, and so it was lovely to have guests, for sometimes they knew games we didn't and vice versa.

This Christmas we played Confessions. Arthur dressed up as a clergyman and in his flat country vicar's hat he balanced a large amount of water. As each person entered the room he had to kneel in front of the priest and confess his sins, and when the priest bent to give him absolution so of course he would be soaked with water. Mother insisted each sinner wear a thick towel round his shoulders, for this game worried her. Arthur told the absolution-seekers the towel was the confessional surplice. Cecil's friend brought the house down because, not knowing the game, he confessed he had been extra sinful and had stolen Aldgate Pump.

We played silent charades, acting charades; Amy and I got together on charades, for it was our favourite game of the evening. I had the good ideas and she could act so perfectly.

In one way Christmas was marred for Winnie, but she never let it rankle. She had wanted a pair of brown boots all her life. Mother had said, when Winifred was little, and pleaded for these brown boots, ‘When you grow up and go out to work you will be able to buy a pair of brown boots, but you will never be able to buy another stomach.' Mother couldn't manage two pairs of boots for Winnie and she had to wear black for school. Well, Winifred had now bought these brown boots, the best quality obtainable, but she had got them soaking wet in the rain, and Mother suggested she place them in the oven by the side of the kitchen fire at night when she went to bed; the warmth remaining in the oven after the fire was out would gently dry the boots.

Alas, many fires were lit before Winnie remembered the boots. Mother drew them from the oven with a cloth because they were so hot. We all looked at Winnie for the boots were perfect pantomime boots and could have done service for a male comic or an Arabian magician. Mother started to laugh, she tried not to, but the boots were so comical and Winnie's face so unusually tragic and out of character, that what with the glass of port wine Father had given us all, even Marjorie and me (well, ours were little glasses), and the boys laughing, Winnie began to whoop with the rest of us. We were calm again until Mother said, ‘It was so strange. All the week I kept smelling something and couldn't trace it,' and we all thought of Father's banished boots at no. 13, and off we all went again.

The oven beside the fire caught Mother out many times, for in a hot summer she would put the butter in the oven, it was cool there, and Father often lit a fire on a summer evening, he always felt the cold. The butter was never thought about until it ran out all oily. Mother was often caught out with her puddings too. Christmas puddings needed hours and hours of boiling and Mother made so many she often went to bed tired and left the puddings boiling with a note to the last one in either to change the puddings over, or to turn the gas out, for we had a gas stove now. Each older member of the family carried out Mother's instructions and the puddings all had to be boiled again for Mother never knew which ones had been changed or not. Father thought women stupid and disorganised, but Mother never knew which member of the family would arrive home last, and so she couldn't put the name on the note. It was arranged in the end that the one who changed the puddings over should write on the note. No one made puddings like Mother and she would not put the mixture in the basins until every member of the family had stirred the stiff mixture and wished. These wishes we all took seriously and knew they would come true, but we little ones had a job to stir the stiff rich-smelling mixture and Mother had to help us.

We never minded going to bed on Christmas night, for one thing we were tired, and for another we had Boxing Day to look forward to. In our house it was Christmas Day all over again.

Joining the public library was a red-letter day for me. It was one department then with no books for small children. Choosing a book was a difficult task for a beginner, for books were entered in catalogues under code numbers, long numbers they seemed to me. Hundreds of corresponding numbers were displayed behind the glass windows on the library walls. There were never enough catalogues and much time was spent in waiting one's turn for a catalogue. Then having chosen a book the glass windows would have to be searched for the number. If the number was blue, one was in luck, but if red, the book was out, and back to the catalogue which of course someone else had then, always such a slow person it seemed to me. At first I did not understand the catalogues, and my reading consisted of
Mistress of the Upper Sixth
,
Fifth Form at St…
,
Terror of the School
, until I discovered different authors. I left my normal world and lived in a world of fantasy. I was deaf to all other sounds and Mother sometimes got cross because I would not put my book down for one moment. We had possessed one dog-eared book that all the family had read and cried over.
Froggie's Little Brother
.

Froggie and his little brother were orphans living in a garret. Froggie had scoured the streets for a crust of bread. His little brother was dying and one knew it wouldn't be long before Froggie, too, breathed his last. He found a stale crust of bread in the gutter and was feeding it to his little brother to save his life, when out of the wainscotting came their only friend in life, a mouse; this friend too was starving and with great emotion Froggie's little brother said, ‘Feed the mouse.' One knew as the mouse was eating this rich repast, Froggie's little brother would gasp his last, followed by a slow dying Froggie. At this point my sobs became uncontrollable. Mother thought she had got used to this torture with my eight brothers and sisters, but my broken heart was one to beat all others and one day she snatched the book from me and fed it to the copper fire fearing I would make myself ill.

Now Mother would be unable to treat the library books in this fashion, for defilement was not allowed and a punishable offence. We read at school, of course, but this was not a real pleasure, for all reading was aloud and as we read paragraphs in turn one had to keep pace with the slowest reader. Many times I tried to dash on secretly, but I could never keep the place in the book with my finger and was always being called out to read; being so many pages ahead, I was unable to discover where the previous girl had left off, to the anger of the teacher. I used to pray they would have examinations in silent reading.

I was very worried about the library fines; if I incurred them, no one at home would pay them and I dreaded what I would do and of course in addition I would be expelled from the library. I read my books on a clean piece of rag and always washed my hands first. One day I rested my book on the scullery table while I went to the shops for Mother. When I returned, the precious book had been knocked down by the side of the parrot's cage and the parrot had devoured a third of the thick cover all down the longest edge of the book. It was a tragedy. I should have taken care of it. I went to the library a broken woman. It was impossible to hide the damage but I still had to go on, for they might send an inspector, I thought, if the book became overdue. Amy had asked me to get her a book, any romance would do. I did not know the young assistant was sweet on Amy and I asked him for a book on love. He asked if it was for Amy and I said, Yes, and I handed him my half-eaten book and he said he was sorry it had been given to me like that! I thought a miracle had happened. I wasn't expelled and I wasn't fined. When I told Amy I had asked for her book on love and the assistant had said she would enjoy the one on love he had specially chosen for me, Amy said, ‘Oh, Dolly, whatever made you mention that word to
him
?' I couldn't see what I had done wrong, but I was glad I had used that word and I forgave the parrot.

I would start reading my book as I left the library. One day there was a terrific wind behind me and an almighty noise as though all the wooden shutters had fallen down from all the shops, and something slid down my back and I stumbled forward. A man came up and told me to run home to Mother quickly. A woman had jumped from the top of a high building as I passed and missed me by a fraction of an inch. A miracle, everyone told Mother. I said I thought the woman should have looked before she leapt and she would have seen me walking underneath. Mother said, ‘Poor distracted woman, if she had looked, perhaps she wouldn't have jumped.' I felt sick.

Twice after that I walked under the heads of cart-horses while reading, and the order went out from home that I must not read while walking in the street. Ever after I ran all the way home.

All my sisters had best friends at this time, and I longed for one too. One of Amy's ‘sisters under the skin' affairs was with a girl called Pearl Hillside. To start with what a beautiful name, Pearl, that glowing, gleaming gem, like cool, clear water, and Hillside, that never ending rise of beautiful green slopes and snowy peaks.

Pearl Hillside lived with her mother who was a widow. Her father had died it was said, with the consumption and Mother didn't really like Amy going to play at Pearl's house because of the terrible galloping germs that would surely be lurking there, but Amy, always obdurate, often escaped to this lovely place. Pearl's uncle was an estate agent, as I remember, and they lived on one of the floors above the ‘shop,' a sort of grace and favour residence. I believe they had a lodger and Amy and Pearl had to play quietly in the afternoons because Pearl's mother and the lodger were resting, contemplating the mountain and Mahomet, perhaps. The mother must have been tired for she cleaned the offices there. She was beautifully dressed in the latest fashion and she dressed Pearl in the same elegant way. Amy worshipped all this. Pearl's mother at one time wore widow's weeds, the smartest weeds ever seen in any pond. The flowing black veil, gloves, jet beads, black silk stockings, tight-waisted gown, beautiful black-buttoned boots, were something to behold, especially when she was followed by Pearl, also elegantly and adultly attired in this sombre colour, but of course it wasn't sombre, it was really startling.

Outside in the yard was a corrugated tin shed on which Amy built a house. She cooked gooseberries over a fire and was proud when they turned out like Mother's. Pearl didn't want to do any of these things but Amy was the dominant partner. She just loved Pearl and all the appurtenances of her family and they were left to their own devices a lot for the mother was always off somewhere.

Amy would squeeze Pearl and hold her hand, just because she thought she possessed such a beautiful friend who loved her and had such an exciting place to live in with these ravishing clothes, but even a worm will turn, and one day the blow fell. Amy received from Pearl her first and last letter. ‘Dear Amy, I cannot be friends with you any more because you are too pashonate.' Amy was heartbroken, but also very, very puzzled, and so were we all, for neither Amy nor the family knew what Pearl meant by ‘pashonate.' Anyway Mother was greatly relieved because of the ‘consumption' which might have galloped into our house. ‘Everything happens for the best,' she told a weeping Amy. But how can one believe even such a truthful person as one's mother when the future was black and, for Amy, so flat without the Hillsides?

Mother had a Jewish friend, Annie, a dark-haired lady who would bring us sheets of hard biscuits with little holes in them. I couldn't stop eating them but Mother said they would dry up my blood. Mother was very proud of having Annie come to see us. She said if a Jewish person is your friend, you have a friend for life. Therefore I thought I must try to get a Jewish friend. This was difficult for there were no Jewish people living in Poplar, that I knew of. They only had shops or stalls in Chrisp Street. We had one Jewish girl in my class, but there was the problem of her name, which was a pity for she was always so nice to me and would have made a lovely bosom pal. Her name was Selina Lipshitz, but the teacher never even liked to say her name and always called her, very firmly and obviously so we wouldn't be mistaken, ‘Lipsips.' So I couldn't take such a name home if even the teacher couldn't speak it because it was rude. Therefore I had to look further afield.

I passed another Jewish girl on my way to school. She looked about my age and I thought this was the answer to my problem, and every day I looked hard at her so that one day we could become friends. Mother said everybody took to us, so I knew it was only a matter of time before this girl I passed took to me. I looked for her every morning and afternoon. One day she was with another girl and as I approached she came over to me and I thought we were going to start our friendship, but she shouted, ‘What do you keep bossing at me for, moggy four-eyes?' I was terrified. This wasn't the beginning of a life-long friendship and loyalty on her part, it was the opening for battle. I turned and ran home to Mother and told her all about it, and she said, ‘Well, now Marjorie is growing up, you will have her for a friend.' So I had Marjorie, but I didn't tell Mother Marjorie was a sister. How could she be my bosom friend?

Mother had another friend who used to visit, but I wouldn't have wanted her for a bosom friend for she was a granny. I don't know where she came from but we called her Mrs Walker. Like all grannies she wore a flat high hat, like a rounded kettle-holder, tied under her chin with velvet and edged with jet beads, a rusty cape with the same beaded border, a voluminous skirt, elastic-sided boots and she carried a little Dorothy bag. This was a sort of grannie's uniform. She trembled permanently and my brothers always waited excitedly for her to upset her tea. She would always nod trembling towards Amy and pronounce, ‘Her's the fairest of them all.' Since Amy was dark I thought granny Walker was so old she had forgotten the difference between dark and fair, or she was colour blind.