Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue (28 page)

My mum was the first pupil Miss Mason entered for a ballet exam, and her teacher was understandably nervous about how her student would perform. When the results arrived – ‘Oh, darling, you've got Honours,' – Joan, her sister Phyllis and their mother
(mother and sister
always
watched the class), gathered Cora in a mêlée of scent and lipstick. Mother and sister were almost as exotic as Joan. Phyllis wore her red hair sculpted in an Eton crop and dressed in a smart tweed suit, with a cigarette showing off her perfect nail polish. Her figure was as square as Joan's was slim; Mrs Mason's came somewhere in-between; her tailored suits were generally set off by a little cocktail hat and, occasionally, a bushy fox fur. Cora's success seemed far less significant than their effusive three-cornered embrace. Public displays of affection were rare.

Annie would have loved to linger after my mum's Saturday-morning class and continue talking with the other mums, but she could not defer the worst moment of her week any longer – worse even than her inquisition by Smithy. Annie's enjoyment of the dance class was all the keener for what came next. On Saturday lunchtimes, my grandma collected the Means Test, the money paid to families on the dole.

This was a moment she detested. Nothing could make this encounter acceptable to her. The walk into town enabled Annie to prepare for the ordeal but, even so, she had to set her face and straighten her back before she could open the office door. Annie's discomfort was palpable. ‘You shouldn't be doing this,' the kindly young clerk told her, making his own assessment of my grandma's status, mentally adding her to the list of ‘respectable' have-nots. ‘Come back at five to twelve when everyone's gone.'

It was a relief to reach the corner shop, and freedom. Following the move to Racecourse Road, Annie and Cora spent the rest of Saturday as well as Sundays at Wheeldon Mill. They returned home overnight, but were very much a weekend fixture.

Cakes were still delivered to the corner shop on Saturday
mornings, but, by the 1930s, Saturdays also belonged to Connie and Pearl: laughing, tripping up the step, still giddy from the previous night's adventures. ‘You should have seen him, Mrs Nash, thought himself cock o'midden,' describing some lounge lizard haunting the edge of the dance floor, tidying his hair with a bit of comb. Then, ‘Ooh, they're nice,' Connie pointing to the latest selection of rings at the far end of the counter, selecting a topaz from its velveteen tray, lifting it to the light and on to her wedding finger. ‘What do you reckon, Mrs Nash?', then twirling in a trill of giggles and private smiles.

Connie and Pearl were near neighbours and inseparable friends. ‘Town topping' was their Friday-night quest, Chesterfield their destination: a rub down with a hot flannel to remove their week-day grime before heading into town for the evening; Connie walking with exaggerated care so as not to spoil the shoes it had taken six weeks to pay for, Pearl dressed in her weekend finery; letting young men buy them drinks and escaping before payment of any kind could be exacted; excited by the good-natured banter and the sense that the evening was theirs.

‘I'll have a lemonade, if you're asking.' Then, half a dozen turns around the dance floor. ‘“I think I've found my feet now,” he tells me. “Can't think how you lost them,” I said. “They've been squashing mine the past half hour.”' Another burst of giggles from Connie. Almost as much fun as their weekly adventures was the chance to relate them to Betsy and Eva the next day.

It was a pair of Connie's cast-off shoes that my mum clomped around in when she played dressing-up at her grandma's. Brown shoes, with high, solid heels and eyelets threaded with ribbon. She hadn't seen any shoes like these before, with laces that were pure ornamentation, and intended to have a pair when she grew up.

Eva was an even more intriguing source of grown-up delights. Sometimes, when playing ‘ladies', Cora was allowed to borrow a handbag from the bottom of Eva's wardrobe. The room Eva shared with Betsy was a feast for curious small fingers. China figurines struck sentimental poses, blue-glass dishes displayed the brooches her grandma liked to wear at her throat; tall dappled vases flashed gold lustre, and everything was reflected twice over in the enormous mirrors Dick had bought. Three hatstands on a small chest of drawers looked exactly like the ones on Swallow's counter, though Betsy's hats belonged to a different era than those on sale in town. Even well into the 1930s, Betsy dressed like the Victorian she was.

Eva's dressing table and wardrobe brought the room up to date. One of my mum's greatest treats (and mine too, years later) was looking for ‘surprises' within Eva's drawers: a parlour suite made from beaded conkers, the kind of toy you looked at on wet days but were not allowed to play with, or a tiny leather purse any doll would love, but which was actually Eva's first purse. The best objects held the promise of adult life: geometric shapes dangling on a ribbon of watered silk; emerald green brilliants in the brooch Eva pinned on her best coat; a jazzy tin of Cuticura talc; soft fur gauntlets Cora was allowed to stroke; and a midnight-blue bottle whose silver stopper released a mysterious scent.

Betsy's things were rarely so inviting but, if she asked very nicely, Cora could lift the lid on the box beneath her grandma's side of the bed and take out her Gipsy Queen shoes.

Early Saturday evenings at the corner shop could be exciting: Connie and Pearl heading off in their glad rags; Charles Parks checking his gloves and cuffs while awaiting change for a couple
of cheap cigars. Another regular, if less welcome visitor, was Dabber Blair, a scruffy-looking chap who lived on Pottery Lane and was rarely seen without his handcart. The thought of Dabber frightened my mum; he had a reputation for being light-fingered (hence the nickname). ‘Eva, there's Dabber,' Betsy would call, if she happened to see him through the sweet window when Eva was in the back with Cora and Annie. This was Eva's cue to jump up and join her mam, if not exactly arms-folded, on guard, then watchful nonetheless. With two women facing him across the counter, Dabber was less likely to try and filch something from the shelves – I don't know that he ever tried, but his reputation preceded him.

‘Hello, Dabber. Now, what do you want?' (two Woodbines was his usual request), Betsy adopting her tried and tested way of dealing with potentially awkward customers, by combining a greeting with a command – her tone friendly, always, while making it clear she'd stand no nonsense.

Saturday nights were also for sing-songs. As soon as the tea things were cleared away, Eva settled herself at the piano, tossed her head (albeit to less effect now that her hair was shorter) and looked over her left shoulder to cue in the songsters. Mr Britt regularly joined them for a chorus or two and a tinkling of the keys before disappearing with Dick to the pub.

Nearly all the family tunes were from bygone days – there were no contemporary songs, nor any from the recent past: no ragtime jazz or Al Bowley. Eva favoured First World War numbers or music-hall tunes with rousing choruses, like those that came courtesy of the
News of the World
, and which enabled her to add trills as abundant as any she could produce with her pen. Pressing down hard on the pedals and keys, Eva flexed her fingers and her voice: ‘Do You See That Boy How He Winks His Eye…' Betsy's tastes
were similar. She still preferred Variety to anything contemporary; an evening's cinema was nowhere near as reassuring. (Cinema gave too faithful a rendition of the world. ‘It's not real, is it, Eva?' she'd ask.) Annie joined in with all the songs, but made no special requests, though she and Willie had once contributed a whole list of favourite tunes. Those days were gone. No point in raking them up again.

The crowning moment of the evening awaited Dick's return from the pub. After thrashing his neighbours at dominoes – he was known locally as the Domino King – and with the benefit of two or three pints inside him, Dick sang for each of them in turn: ‘My Old Dutch' for Betsy, ‘Annie Laurie' for Annie, and ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling', in recognition of Eva's heritage. He'd sung these songs for donkey's years; no Saturday was complete without them. There was no particular tune for Cora, but she was included in the general embrace.

The best sing-songs were at Christmas, when Annie and Cora stayed overnight, Annie squeezing into bed with Betsy and Eva (all three in the same sty), and Cora sleeping in a put-me-up beside them. There was nothing very elaborate about their Christmas preparations – a few coloured trimmings and a small tree – but the house looked festive nonetheless. Everyone had a present, however small, and there were always three or four for Cora: a doll's tea set boxed in cellophane, a Shirley Temple doll with cutout clothes and books, always books, including one or two from George, though Cora was instructed not to tell Willie. If her dad asked, the books were from Annie's cousin, Uncle Walter (though Annie hardly saw that Walter from one year round to the next). The name was convenient and, after all, not such a large fib: Walter was also George's name; he was always Uncle Walter to Cora.

Before going to bed on Christmas Eve, Cora hung her stocking (one of Dick's) beside the kitchen range and, to keep hers company, her grandfather pinned up its partner. The following morning, Dick made a big to-do of guessing what his stocking held, before drawing out – good heavens! – a potato.

As New Year's Eve approached, some of the local lads came knocking on the door: ‘Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green,/ Here we come a-wandering/ So fair to be seen…'

With hardly an overcoat between them, no matter how sharp the wind, they crowded into the back room as soon as they finished singing, big lads suddenly self-conscious, twisting their caps between numb fingers while Betsy found her purse. On New Year's Day itself, they reappeared with anyone they could gather (‘We'er goin Tuppin, a'tha comin?') to perform the Derby Tup outside the Great Central Hotel, with their neighbours a ready-made audience. The boldest lads stood in front, leading the verse and the actions, the others joined in at the chorus, and especially for the rousing finale, before coming forward, cap in hand.

Willie was not part of these jollities. Sometimes he visited friends, or was invited in by a neighbour. If not, he spent Christmas alone.

B
Y THE TIME MY MUM JOINED THE FAMILY, THE
W
HEELDON
Mill Plantation was such a strong feature of my great-grand father's life it was hard to consider him without it. Absorbed by its seasonal timetable and daily routine, Dick blended with the landscape as naturally as the steps fashioned at its entrance. The rhythm of the wood dictated his days: up early to feed and let out his chickens, cast corn, secure their huts and runs; cut hazel switches, plant and protect new saplings. There was always a job to be done: some sawing and repairing, the grass to keep down or a hedgerow to trim. Dick returned home in the middle of the day, and then back to the wood until teatime, and again to fasten the hens for the night.

The accident that propelled him to rent the wood finally enabled my great-grandfather to buy it. Eventually, Dick received compensation and used the £200 to purchase the land outright. On Christmas Eve, 1934, the four acres, three roods and seventeen perches became his. It was the best Christmas gift Dick could envisage. After his family, the wood was his greatest treasure.

My great-grandfather was nearing seventy when my mum was adopted; her memories are of an elderly man. In addition to the cumbersome walk caused by his raised shoe, Dick was becomingly increasingly deaf. At home, this made conversation difficult; in the wood, his loss of hearing did not matter. This four-acre spot was his kingdom.

No one outside the family came to the wood without an invitation, and very few people received one even then, but three of Dick's neighbours visited him there: Mr Britt, Mr Radcliffe and Mr Woolley. Elderly musketeers, these companions in old age liked to debate the changing world over an afternoon pipe full of Twist. But, as often as not, Dick was alone there; restored to beginnings he could only dimly remember, or of which he had no memory at all.

The little that is known of my great-grandfather's origins lends itself to romantic elaboration, especially the possibility that he was Romany, a piece of family lore strengthened by the arrival of a gypsy family at Wheeldon Mill. The summer the gypsies came was the hottest for some years. The shop door seemed to be
permanently propped open; Betsy kept a fan behind the counter so that she and Eva could cool themselves where they stood. The pressed meats sweated in the meat safe; even the wrapped sweets in the shady window began to melt, though no one wanted chocolate in that weather. Fly papers suspended from the ceiling recorded multiple deaths with a constant buzz. Towards the end of the week, the middens, awaiting their visit from the night-soil wagon, stank to high heaven (as did the rag-and-bone yard on Lockoford Lane, if you were unlucky enough to be down wind of it). Children dammed the river, scrawled letters in the rough ground in front of the shop, or played half-hearted games of marbles, hardly bothering to squabble over who'd won. This lethargy carried over into the evenings. Cora listened for the cry, ‘Paling, Paling,' and the repeated tinkling of a bell, as Mr Paling, ice-cream seller, drove over the canal bridge.