Mother Knew Best (20 page)

Miss Wilkie suddenly shook off her distress, as a dog shakes off water. She sat down at her desk, and, although holding her head, she said calmly, but wearily, ‘Go now Chegwidden, and do try to curb your impetuosity.' I left, happily relieved to be gone from that room for ever—yet a few hours before I felt I should leave it regretfully in tears.

I was still hot and trembling when I passed the little sweet shop on the corner opposite the school. I had lost my desire to spend my half-penny there for the last time, in spite of the lovely selection the shop contained. Soap sugar (dirty off-white misshapen lumps of soapy acid sweetness), tiger nuts (tiny shrivelled ‘dried peas' with very tough outer skins which made one cough), locust (dried, dusty, broken, sugary brown pods), Chinese coconuts (round, brown, billiard balls, hard as steel, which took days of sucking before the thin brown skin came off to reveal an ivory ball which could never be eaten but only sucked, tastelessly, for ever). My father said, ‘It's not confectionery, it's bloody cattle fodder they sell the kids.' But we loved it all.

I walked slowly home, deep in thought. The future was a kaleidoscope—I could not know what would evolve, or even what pattern I wanted. The past already seemed like a misty panoramic landscape, yet special happenings, happy and sad, seemed to stand out as distinct shapes—tableaux. I knew this day would be one of stark remembrance.

When I finally arrived home I told Mother nothing of my burning activity of the afternoon, although she put her hand up to my forehead and remarked I musn't get ill now, for I had to be up early in the morning to choose a job from the
Daily Telegraph
. I handed her my character which she read silently, without emotion, until she came to the last paragraph, about my attractive personality, and then she became happy and excited. ‘That is so true, Dolly, and I've always said it' (praise from mother at last, something salvaged from the wreck of my day) ‘people always take to us.' At long last I was included with the others.

I could never remember what I did with that ha'penny.

No time must be lost between school and work, and I got up early the following morning to buy the
Daily Telegraph
for Mother said the best office jobs were advertised in that expensive paper. The house was quiet and Mother left me alone in the kitchen to search through the columns of small print. No one seemed to want an office girl that Monday morning, and Mother was not surprised for Tuesdays and Thursdays were the lucky days. There was, however, an advertisement in it for trainee telephonists. ‘Call at Snow Hill between ten o'clock and two o'clock,' it said. Leonard was home on leave from the Navy and Mother thought it a good idea for me to apply, as Leonard could take me there. It poured with rain while we were waiting for the bus and we arrived at Snow Hill looking like two drowned rats. I completed my application form, did a test of spelling and sums, quite simple, and so I was one of the lucky applicants to obtain the final interview.

Len insisted on coming into the interview-room with me. He had promised Mother to look after me, although I felt I was looking after him. Behind a desk sat a very severe elderly-looking woman, with black hair scraped tightly into a bun on the top of her head. She wore a lace collar round her neck, stiffened with whalebone up to her chin. Her face was yellow, long and thin, her eyes very black, and dangling on her immense bosom were gold pince-nez spectacles. I knew when she looked at us she didn't like us, and the way she said Poplar, I knew she didn't like that place either, but she said I passed my test with full marks. That's it, I thought, I'm a telephonist, won't everyone at home be proud of me. No one had reached such heights, success had come to me only a few hours after leaving school. I was miles away in my lovely dream world when the supervisor said, ‘Say, round the ragged rock the ragged rascal ran.' I said it beautifully for no one could catch Dolly. I was the champion tongue twister sayer, we played tongue twisters every Christmas. Amazement and disgust on the supervisor's face. ‘You have had fourteen years in which to roll your R's,' she admonished, ‘and cannot do so, I'm afraid I have no vacancy for you, all my girls roll their R's.' I was on the point of tears, I hadn't expected such a thing, I was a dismal failure at the start. Len was so upset for me he said belligerently, ‘She's only just fourteen, she can learn, can't she?' What could she say to this? I was to have six weeks in which to accomplish this art, and then return for a test. I sat up in the front room at home and rolled my R's all day. Father said I would drive him mad, I got a sore throat, but finally trilled like a canary. I went by myself to Snow Hill at the end of six weeks, but all vacancies had been filled.

I was an unemployed failure, a drain on my family. I decided I would walk part of the way home to save Mother some money, and I passed a large building in a turning near Ludgate Circus, outside which stretched a long queue of girls. I joined on the queue and waited hours, for the queue stopped moving when the interviewer went to lunch. Then I was on top of the world again, out of those many, many girls I had won the job. ‘That's because of your lovely smile,' said Mother.

It was a boring office, the staff played practical jokes on each other all day long, at least when Captain Nicholson wasn't there. He was the owner, an irritable-looking man, tall, thin, with a military moustache. My desk was by the glass entrance doors and I would glance up sometimes when people entered. One morning, I had been there about a week, Captain Nicholson stopped at my desk instead of sweeping through without looking at anyone. Everyone looked over surreptitiously, Capt. Nicholson never spoke to the staff. I gave him a bright smile, I knew he was going to praise me for my work. He put his face close to mine and hissed, ‘If I see you smile again, I shall pay you orff.' I was so frightened I laughed hysterically into his face and was despatched with my cards, and sent home in tears. Father said, ‘Don't let that miserable old bugger upset you, gel, I know what some of them are like. I've had to nurse a lot of them and show them what to do,' and he gave such a comical imitation of some of the officers he had ‘nursed' that Mother and I were soon laughing. ‘Cheer up,' said Mother. ‘Don't make your unhappy life miserable, you'll soon get a job.'

I got a job the following week with wholesale grocers in Spitalfields. I was happy as a sandboy there. The warehouse men, like twins, in brown overalls and grey caps, Bert and Fred, would plunge the cheese-tasters into a big cheese and give me a long stick to have with crusty bread and huge lumps of butter from their slabs. I answered the phone, stamped the letters, learnt to type with two fingers, and was the office pet. Work was lovely. The office manager was a dear old man. One day he asked me when my birthday was. I said it was that very day and he gave me a huge box of chocolates tied with a big red ribbon. I had stupidly been joking, I never thought anyone would give me a birthday present. I told him of my dishonesty and he allowed me to keep the chocolates on the understanding I realised that in life honesty was the best policy. It didn't sound quite right to me in view of the fact that I was allowed to keep the chocolates. Mother was proud that I was thought of so highly. But all good things come to an end, I knew that by now, and into the office came another office manager, a Mr Wilson, an old sergeant-major type with no sense of humour in the whole of his Gallipoli bosom. He ousted the kind office manager, and brought his niece in ‘to help me.' Since I had so little to do I should have seen the red light. His niece was a jolly girl and we had great fun together. One day we were being merry when Mr Wilson said if I had nothing to do I should take myself off to the warehouse and clean out ‘the desk.' This desk had been the lying-in home for all the warehouse cats from time immemorial and I cheekily said I was not employed as a warehouse-cleaner. Instant dismissal and sad arrival at no. 13 Grove Villas. It was amazing how my father was always on my side in these crises. ‘Bloated capitalists,' he yelled. ‘Write for a week's money, it's your entitlement.' I wrote and received a letter to the effect that if I desired another week's money (12s. 6d.) I must do another week's work.

My next job lasted one day. It was very strange and I never knew what it was all about. It was in an office above a shop on Ludgate Hill. I was told to sit in a tiny office, without a window and look at some old magazines while the man who engaged me went into an inner office with a woman of about thirty. I sat there all day and got fed up looking at these old magazines, all about engines, then the man came out, gave me three shillings and said my services were no longer required. Again I made a written request for one week's money. This time the letter was returned marked ‘Not known at this address.' Mother seemed to think I had had a lucky escape from some dark mysterious terror.

She was getting worried about me now. My career, was to say the least of it, erratic and she asked Amy, who worked for a local engineer if she would speak for Dolly, which Amy did, and Mother helped me get ready for the interview. She wanted me to be specially presentable for she wanted Amy to be proud of me. She had bought me a beige woollen jumper suit through a friend who obtained it at wholesale price. Mother thought it looked both good and ladylike and the colour suited me well. I had a little beige hat from the ‘jumble,' beige gloves, beige stockings and beige shoes. Father said I could ‘take the biscuit' and laughed. Mother called me back when I reached the front gate and said, ‘Wait a minute' and ran upstairs. She came down with a look of delight on her face and I thought she was the most unselfish person in the world. One of my sailor brothers had brought her home a pale lavender scarf, hand-painted with orchids in purple, white and yellow. It was known as Mother's scarf and kept in tissue-paper in a little box in the small drawer of the mahogany chest-of-drawers. It smelt of lavender as she placed it round my neck and I felt very proud and honoured and said I wouldn't even crease it. Mother said it ‘made' the outfit, and off I went followed by the admiring glances of Mother, Father and Marjorie.

As I went past the library I wished I had been getting a book out for I could have surprised the assistant into thinking I was a lady. Finally I reached Pennyfields, the Chinese quarter. I thought I would make a detour. For one thing I might be taken for the white slave traffic in my best clothes, and for another, I was always afraid a Tong war would break out. I had a friend who lived in Oriental Street which was next to Pennyfields and she remembered the Tong wars. They weren't allowed out to play while the war was on but they looked out of their front room behind the lace curtains to see all the little Chinese men running along with their wounded. They wheeled these men on covered hand carts. The carts looked like Chinese dhows on wheels. But the Chinese only fought each other. They had puckapoo shops and lots of people who lived near there bought a puckapoo sheet each week. It had Chinese lettering on it so I thought they were clever to know when they had won. My mother thought it was terrible to gamble at puckapoo.

Charlie Brown's was near Pennyfields. It was a big public house and he had a lot of unusual curios the foreign seamen sold him. My friend said Charlie Brown had a pickled baby in a jar. He was her landlord and he came to collect the rents on a white horse. She said he was a lovely landlord and if he knew it was a child's birthday he would give the child 6d. from the rent. She said when it was her birthday her mother would give her a nudge when she was paying the rent to remind her so she would get her sixpence. I wished we'd had Charlie Brown for a landlord, just to see his white horse, but I knew I wouldn't get sixpence, my mother would never nudge me. Why she wouldn't even have let me go to the door on my birthday if Charlie Brown was our landlord. Mother was so funny not wanting people to give us things I thought.

Finally I arrived at the Lion Packing Factory and rang the bell in the little waiting-room, for it said on it, ‘Please ring.' A spotty young man with a pencil behind his ear came in and when I said I was Miss Chegwidden and I'd come for an interview, he blushed and said, ‘Follow me, please.' I followed him into a large office where there were a lot of spotty young men sitting at a counter on high stools. They all had pencils behind their ears, and they all looked at me trying not to let me know they were looking. As I passed a thick green curtain, I was startled out of my interview feeling, for Amy's head popped out and she hissed, ‘You've got Mother's scarf on.' I felt awful that she had accused me, in front of all these strangers, of taking Mother's scarf without permission. She must have known it was a thing I would never do, and I started to tell her how I came to be wearing it, but she said,  

‘Go on, don't stand gossiping here, Mr Bartlett's waiting for you.' I was so upset by Amy's accusation and by her informing the office I was wearing borrowed finery, that I don't think I answered up very brightly at my interview, but I got the job, I suppose really because Amy was a wizard with figures.

I worked for a Mr Ablett. Acid tablet the boys called him. He was very kind to me, but he and Amy disliked one another. She thought he was always gazing at my legs and he was disdainful of Amy, because although she had a fiancé, the rich Swiss in charge of the foreign office was head over heels in love with Amy, and showed his feelings not only to Amy but to the world. Mr Ablett, a religious man, thought Amy was playing fast and loose. I tried to leap on to the stool like the young men did. I thought in this way I could hold my skirts down and not expose my legs, but I overshot the stool and had to be assisted from the floor to a chair and smoothed down by Mr Ablett.

I went to Buszards in Oxford Street and purchased handmade chocolates for Mr Ablett to put in the Christmas boxes the firm sent to customers, and he gave me a diamond-shaped velvet bag with home-made chocolates in it because I had got everything correctly. I would have been happy for life there and would have done well, I feel, but the firm moved to Surrey, and it was back to the City again as there wasn't much locally in the way of vacancies for office girls.