The Future Homemakers of America (4 page)

First impression was, they only had one room. Later on, when I knew them better, I saw the place where he kept his eel traps. Another little room that could have been fixed up, for a bedroom or something, instead of them carrying on the way they did, sleeping in the kitchen.

That's where he was, the first time we saw him, just getting up off the bed. Kath gave him the Juicy Fruit gum. She'd had it in her hand all the time, since Lois gave it to her.

‘Straighten that counterpane,’ she said, ‘we've got company.’

John Pharaoh was a good-looking devil. He wasn't tall like Lois's Herb or brawny, like Ed Gillis. He was soft-looking for a man, but there was something about him. Black curly hair. And a real winning smile. I guess it was the dimples. One of his eyes wasn't quite right, though, and sometimes it gave him a crafty look, but it had a kinda awful fascination about it, drew you to keep looking at it. Then you felt sorry for staring at a person's affliction.

He slid off the bed and he waved his fingers, like we were invited to sit down, only I couldn't see where, there being just the one easy chair and that was occupied by a old yellow dog, size of a hog.

Kath was running around, still in her coat and her boots. She brought cups from a rack by the sink and extras from a cupboard, with saucers that didn't match.

‘You'll like these,’ she said to Betty. ‘Coronation saucers. King George the Fifth. A course, the cups have all gone west. Pull up a seat.’

There were three wooden chairs around the table, and my God, that room was cold. Either you stood close, enough to the range to get scorched, or you froze. Betty gaye me a brave little smile, this whole excursion being her idea after all. She was trying to show her appreciation, being a great believer in the importance of politeness, but there was one thing she did care more about than manners, and that was standards of hygiene, and I doubt those cups had ever seen hot water.

Kath made tea in big brown pot and pulled a woolly cover over it, so just the spout and the handle were free. There was no sugar, and the only milk she offered was Carnation, straight from the can.

I declined. Never did take to tea.

Kath said, ‘I can do you a Bovril?’ but I didn't care for the sound of that neither. It made me realise Audrey was right. Travel gives you the opportunity to understand foreign ways of life. It can make a wiser person of you. And when I seen how those poor English lived, it made me want get down on my knees and give thanks for being born in God's own country.

Kath brought out photos, from a drawer. They were faded and creased, but Betty loved them. Picture-postcards of some old king and queen, done up in their fancy orbs and sceptres.

Betty said, ‘Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Kath, but isn't this Queen Mary?’

‘That's right,’ Kath said. ‘She was Mary of Teck. And she was fixed up to marry one of the princes, but he dropped dead, so they passed her along to his next brother.’

I said, ‘That's terrible. I wouldn't have stood for that.’

Kath said, ‘Me neither. That's like handing on a dead man's trousers, still got a bit of wear left in them.’

‘Well,’ Betty said, ‘I guess you can't let a princess go to waste.’

Lois was scratching the old dog behind its ears and slurping up that disgusting brew. ‘What I don't understand,’ she said, ‘is why that king had to go outside for a smoke. No wonder he caught his death. What kind of milquetoast was he, didn't just light up any place he chose? All he had to do was pass a edict or something.’

John Pharaoh seemed disposed to find everything Lois said highly amusing. There were some snapshots of poor folk, too. They all seemed to be kin to Kath's friend May Gotobed, or some kinda relations to the Pharaohs themselves, only it was too complicated for me to follow. There was one of them standing with genuine princes, posing in front of a mountain of ducks they just helped shoot, but you had to be in the know to tell which ones were which. When they're not wearing their crowns those princes just look like any ordinary Joe.

Audrey had asked for the bathroom and Kath had taken her, to show her the way, but Aud came back alone, beckoning me from the doorway to come and see something.

Kath was in the car, making believe she was driving. She was sitting at the wheel, window down, arm leaning out, making revving noises like she was barrelling down Route 66, next stop the Rio Grande. She laughed when she saw us watching her.

‘I shall soon have the hang of this,’ she said. ‘You could go anywhere you pleased in a motor like this. You could go to Ely.’

‘You should see where I just went,’ Audrey whispered to me on our way back into the house. ‘It's a seat over a bucket. And get this. There's two of them, side by side. His ‘n’ hers.’

Kath kept bringing things out to show us. Her best tablecloth, and a badge she got for fen-skating in 1936, and a magazine with pictures of Ava Gardner, and then more tea, though God knows none of us wanted any. She seemed so proud to have us as her guests.

‘You must be getting peckish,’ she said, when she'd run out of treasures to show us. ‘I could find you a bit of something. Slice of bread and butter? We've got a tin of pineapple, sent from Canada, only he's gone and lost the opener. John? Do you look again for that tin-opener these ladies can have a bite to eat.’

But John Pharaoh was more interested in Lois's legs.

Lo was always ready to eat, but I caught her eye, managed to stop her before she took their last crust. I don't believe she ever heard of war rations.

‘No, Kath,’ Betty said. ‘We really have to be making tracks. I'd just have loved to talk with you some more but we have our girls to pick up from school. But you know, you should come and visit with us some time. I have so many picture albums I'd love to show you. Princess Margaret is my favourite, and I'm just longing for her to find a beau.’

6

Of course, it was my fault. Headlights left on, engine won't turn over, who else you gonna blame but the driver?

‘Dead as King George,’ Lois said and John Pharaoh laughed. He stood looking under the hood, but I don't think he'd have known a spark plug from a poke in the eye.

Audrey said warming it up might help, so Kath brought the teapot out and stood it on the battery, but I still couldn't get a murmur out of it.

Betty said, ‘We have to get the battery inside, connect it up or something. You know what I mean. I've seen Ed do it.’

Ed was always tinkering with their car. First time I noticed she had sump oil the same place as her bruises was the day I realised how things stood between Betty and Ed.

Anyway, all that talk about connecting up batteries, there was a basic fact of life on Blackdyke Drove Betty was overlooking.

Even after Audrey told her, she didn't really get it. ‘Heck,’ she said,
‘everyone
has electricity. Well, we'll just have to call the base. They'll send out a ground-pounder, tow us in.’

Audrey shook her head. ‘There's no telephone, Betty,’ she said. ‘We'll just have to set fire to Lo's windbreaker. Send smoke signals.’

She said, ‘Whaddaya mean? This is plum crazy. There
has
to be a telephone. Supposing they were to get a peritonitis or something?’ Her voice was real tight. She wanted to smack somebody, preferably me, I could tell, but Betty never smacked anybody in her life, more's the pity.

‘Well, Peggy Dewey,’ she said, ‘you got us into this fix so I hope you're gonna get us right out of it. I have my girls to pick up at fifteen-twenty and I don't intend on letting them down.’

John Pharaoh said he'd go, fetch help. He had to walk back along the drove, cross the water by the sluice gates, take the highway into Brakey and find someone willing to drive out and rescue us. He set off, real willing and cheerful, and we all went back inside for a long, long wait.

Lois whispered, ‘Aud, where'd you say the john was?’

Audrey said, ‘It's round the back. There's no lock on the door, and no flush, so just follow your nose. And you probably won't want to make contact with the seat. There's Wildlife out there, got heat-seeking equipment.’

Audrey was looking round at the room. There was a postcard thumbtacked to the wall, some place called Cromer, and a broken clock, with no minute-hand.

‘Jeez, Peg,’ she said, ‘did you ever see anything like this?’

‘I did,’ Lois said. ‘Herb's folks’ place. I married beneath my station. Now I'm gonna have to take a leak, wildlife or no. Where's Kath?’

She was outside again, standing by the station wagon, just looking at it, so downcast.

‘Is it my fault?’ she said. ‘Did I brek it?’

7

Kath lit the oil lamps and put more fuel on the range.

‘There,’ she said, ‘now we're snug.’ But I reckon that yellow dog had the only warm seat in the house.

Audrey said, ‘How long have you lived here, Kath?’

‘Born here,’ she said. ‘Born in that bed.’

Lo bounced upright when she heard that. ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘You ever think of moving away?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I've told John Pharaoh. We ever come up on the football pools, I should like to move up to Brakey. Be nearer the bus stop.’

Betty was having a little blub about Deana and Sherry, like she was never gonna see them again. I wished she'd stop. I didn't like letting Crystal down neither, and I'm sure Lois was worried about Sandie too, she just never showed it, making herself at home on John and Kath's bed.

‘Don't you fret about your young ‘uns,’ Kath said. ‘They'll be right as ninepence. They'll be larrikin about somewhere.’

Which, of course, was the last thing Betty wanted to hear. Whatever larrikin was, it sounded dangerous.

‘What time is it?’ she kept asking.

‘Big hand's still on the five,’ Audrey kept answering.

‘Kath?’ Lo said. ‘You go outside to that bathroom in the middle of the night?’

‘No,’ Kath said. ‘I hold on till morning.’

We heard the toot of a horn. John Pharaoh had come back, riding in a General Post Office van, looking real proud of himself. A guy called Dennis Jex was driving, and two others, both Jexes too, had come along to give their advice or eyeball four American chicks, or maybe just to get a ride. One way or another, they seemed happy to be there. They all looked under the hood, but Dennis was the one really knew what he was doing. He jump-started us, while Audrey held the flashlight, and then he offered to escort us back to where the road was metalled, save us running off the track and disappearing into the swamp.

He said he was glad to help. He said there was no doubt in his mind, if it wasn't for America he'd be living under the jackboot.

‘When push come to shove, you Yanks done the right thing,’ he said. ‘Even if you did take your time about it.’

Betty was in the car already, anxious for us to be on our way.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘I'll pull round. I'll take it nice and steady and you can follow my tail lights. And when I put my winker to go left, do you go right you'll be set fair for the base. That's straight on, about seven mile. You can't go wrong.

John Pharaoh was pacing up and down, eyes shining, like he'd had a real exciting time. Kath looked kinda sad to see us go.

I said, ‘Would you like to come out for a drive some time?’

‘Oh, I would,’ she said, ‘I'd like that very much.’

So I promised we'd do that, just as soon as the ice thawed. Then Dennis Jex moved off, and I nosed along right behind him, and Kath and John faded away into the mist.

Audrey said, ‘That was the right thing to do, Peggy. We should always try to build cordial relations with the locals.’ Audrey had the kinda enthusiasm for good works that could take a girl far at the OWC. If Lance was aiming to be a brass hat, he couldn't have picked a better wife.

I said, ‘I didn't do it to be right, Aud. I did it because I wanted to.’

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Doing the right thing accidentally is better than doing the wrong thing. Now, I have an idea.’

Betty said, ‘Audrey, would you please allow Peggy to concentrate on driving? Charity begins at home, remember?’

Audrey ignored her. ‘My idea is,’ she said, ‘we could take them things. You know, we have so much and they just have
nothing.
They have a can of fruit there and they don't even have an opener. And did anybody notice an icebox?’

I said, ‘I believe they're living in it, Aud.’

She said, ‘Well, I think a food parcel is called for. Little things that I'm sure would be appreciated. And not just food. I mean, did you see the state of her pot holder? Whaddya say, girls?’

But Lois was in a world of her own, humming a little tune. And Betty wasn't in the mood for talking.

Ed was on the doorstep when we pulled up. Didn't matter Sherry and Deana had been just fine, getting milkshakes with Gayle and playing hospitals and helping Crystal and Sandie to eat all of Lois's cookies. Ed Gillis had just got a mean old mood on him, I could tell. That little dint, side of his jaw, was popping in and out.

‘Time you call this?’ he said, and Betty hurried right on in, clutching her pictures of the Duke of Cornwall. She didn't even say ‘Goodbye’.

8

‘Okay, girls. Here's what I got so far.’ Audrey was getting ready to air-drop supplies for Kath and John.

‘Cheez Whizz, Sugar Pops, Campbell's Soup, two cans of franks, can opener, Oreos, nylons, Chesterfield's …’

I said, ‘I don't think they use smokes. All that time we were pacing the floor there, I never seen any sign of cigarettes.’

‘Well maybe they'd like the chance to start,’ she said. ‘Jeez, Peg, I'm just trying to help. Then I got cornflakes and Pepsodent, and I thought we could throw in a fifth of Dewar's.’

Gayle said, ‘How about cupcakes? Can they get Hostess cupcakes?’

She was real keen for us to take her out there, introduce her to Kath and John, ‘cause all she'd heard from us since we got back was about them sleeping in their kitchen and having a open-air privy. Course, Gayle was from Carolina, almost into Tennessee, so she could just have been feeling homesick.

Betty was grounded. The way she told it, it was her own wish to spend more time making their quarters into a real home. She showed me some damnfool thing she'd done with a folding table, General Issue, and a mile of pink cretonne, sent her by her cousin.