Pilcrow (54 page)

I could only open my legs the merest crack. I was having a good day in terms of flexibility, and I expect I managed a few inches, but of course a few inches at floor level isn’t the same distance when you work up to the knee. A rolling pin could hardly have fitted between my upper legs, let alone the neatly trousered leg of this strong thirteen-year-old boy.

We were in a school for the disabled, everything in the establishment catered to our difficulties and our special needs, but in the heat of secret-agent fantasy it had slipped my mind that I had Still’s Disease and that he had polio. I hadn’t forgotten, exactly, but at that moment I didn’t remember. I knew perfectly well that Julian wore callipers, but this too had disappeared from my consciousness at this point.

The progress of his braced left leg towards a tryst with my taily and dependent scallywag was sharply arrested by my knees. Instead of warmth and love I felt the hard press of metal and leather. The flash of pain was produced by his heavy callipers scraping against my legs. I winced, he lurched backwards and the exchange of secret
information
was over before it could begin.

My attempt at seduction was foiled by a double mechanical
impossibility
. My hips were immobile while his legs were floppy, needing to be braced mechanically for him to walk. What made me feel even more stupid after the event was that I’d so often watched polio boys having their callipers put on. Some of them needed help from the
little
matrons, others learned to fend for themselves. Julian pretty much put them on for himself. The contrast between strong upper bodies and wasted legs made those boys seem like mythical beasts, minotaur colts.

I had even examined Julian’s callipers in the early days of
secret-agent
fascination, while he explained the various modifications HQ was going to install. I tried to hold one when it was off, but it was too heavy for me to lift for more than a moment or two. I liked the idea of being close to a boy who had switches and hinges on him, as if Professor Branestawm had had a hand in designing him.

Each calliper consisted of two parallel metal bars which ran down each side of the leg. The bars were hinged at the knee and could be set to lock or unlock. To hold the calliper in place a series of leather straps and buckles ran crosswise and round the leg. It was vital that the hinge of the calliper coincided with the hinge of each knee, in order to avoid terrible pain when Julian wanted to bend his legs. For
walking
, the bars were set at lock. There was a release catch on each side of each knee, so in order to bend his knees for sitting down at meals or lessons Julian – and all the other boys with callipers – had to set four release catches, and then repeat the process in reverse for standing up.

Julian’s jeans were able-bodied items of clothing, but I could see that they didn’t wear out in the normal way. His legs weren’t mobile enough to manage much in the way of scuffing, but the hinges of his callipers were always nipping the cloth round the knees.

He’d told me often enough that putting the callipers on was an elaborate business. Gillie Walker and Biggie were the best ‘
putter-onners
’ – the love they had for their work meant their hands became sensitised to the boy’s requirements. All the straps had to be set at the right degree of tension. If the strap was set too loose the leg would wobble and shift inside the cage, making it dangerous or impossible for him to walk. If the strap was set too tight, then the circulation of blood would be impaired. An already difficult job was made even more taxing by the fact that the boys were growing fast, none faster than Julian, and the weather played its part. A boy’s leg would be smaller on a cold day and so need more strapping. It would expand in warmer weather. Additionally the leg would be much colder (and smaller) at the beginning of the day and hotter and larger at the end. So Julian and the other polio boys could often be seen fiddling with their callipers at various points in the day.

All this had gone out of my mind while I waited for the embrace of knowledge. I hadn’t yet learned that there are points in the body where energy gathers in debased forms unless it is released by the proper procedure. Julian and I were alarmingly clogged in our
adolescent
chakras with thickly sedimented desire, but ankylosis was my chaperone and Julian’s polio was his chastity belt.

Life became easier for calliper users a little later, when Velcro started to replace leather straps. Velcro had been around for some time, but its use in callipers came as a separate little break-through.

When I’d first seen this new material which mimicked couch grass, I’d fallen in love with it. I’d not personally had any great problem with manipulating zips. I even fancied myself something of an expert, but it had been an easy matter to convince Mum, who was always a dab hand at needle-work, that Velcro would be easier for me. She got to work with a vengeance. When the magic closures had been installed, I spent hours opening and closing the gap at my groin. I thoroughly enjoyed the tearing sound as the male and female surfaces were torn apart. In time, as the novelty wore off, I would forget to close the flies before the trousers were washed. After only a few
adventures
in the maëlstrøm of the washing machine, the male component of the Velcro would be festooned with stray fibres, bonded into unorthodox unions which allowed no divorce. There was no getting rid of the fluff once it had become embedded. The initial sharp rip of the tearing when the fly was opened would soften to a dull scrape.

Mum would scold me on the eve of my regular returns to Vulcan. ‘You must make
sure
that you join the Velcro zip before it gets washed – just see what fluff and what-not has got in!’ It was already too late. Gaps appeared in the fly opening as the male hooks lost interest in the arranged marriage intended by the manufacturers. They preferred to hook up with the low-life denizens which flaunted themselves in the vortex of the washing machine’s drum.

When I learned the circumstances of this material’s invention, it was a shattering disappointment. It was so obvious that it should have been me that made the break-through.

George de Mestral, Swiss engineer and outdoorsman, got the idea for Velcro from cockleburs caught in his clothes and his dog’s fur. How could a seed-case show the same affinity for his tweeds and for his dog’s coat? He detached a bur from his trousers and examined it under the microscope. It was covered with tiny hooks.

That’s all it took – ingredients which I also had to hand: dog,
cockleburs
from the burdock that grew so plentifully round the Abbotsbrook Estate, microscope. An eye that noticed oddities and a mind that followed them up. How many significant inventions are born so painlessly? It should have been me – surely it would have, if George de Mestral hadn’t beaten me to it by taking that fateful walk the year before I was born.

I had looked to chemistry as my medium for making a mark on the world, not entirely foolishly. Joseph Priestley and John Dalton, after all, were amateurs without laboratories or extensive materials. William Perkin was only eighteen when he discovered a wonderful new dye while experimenting at home with his own chemicals.

An invention, though, was a greater achievement than a discovery. It could have been me, looking up with a smile from the microscope and murmuring to my select audience (a dog with matted fur, trying in vain to remove its infestation of hook-balls), ‘I tell you, Gipsy, I will design a unique, two-sided fastener, one side covered with tiny stiff hooks like these burs and the other side with soft loops like the fabric of my trousers. I will fund and research the whole enterprise myself. I will call my invention “Velcro” by combining the words
velour
and
crochet
. It will out-shine the fallible zip in the excellence of its fastening ability. Shortly I will be selling six million metres a year.

‘On second thoughts, since I don’t think in French, and therefore have no particular reason for devising a portmanteau name combining the words in that language for
velvet
and
hook
, I will select a
trade-name
which will enshrine my name in glorious company. The Cromer Cocklebur Closure. The Cromer for short. Accept no substitute. In the future, when people want to get out of their clothes, they will simple undo their Cromers …’

I suppose this scenario would have benefited from Peter being present, pushing the wheelchair. And since the burs would be unlikely to leap up onto my clothing, perhaps it would fall to Peter to say, slapping ineffectually at his trousers, ‘Drat these bally things! They’re not sticky when you touch them, but they stick like mad to fabric and pelt! I wonder how that comes about?’ He was a Cromer too, after all. He could share in the glory, before he got down to the chore of brushing Gipsy’s coat. Leaving me to say the fateful words, ‘Hold on a minute. I’ve got an idea. Let’s take a proper
scientific
look at one of those things …’ Though of course I’d also have to invent a time machine, so that I could pop back in time and steal a march on M. de Mestral, before he could steal a march on me.

For quite a time Velcro was the sole possession of the disabled, who loved it and were grateful for it. Then it was adopted as a fad by
people
who could manage zips and buttons perfectly well.

Installing Velcro in my trousers was elementary. It didn’t stretch Mum’s abilities as a seamstress. By now she had got to know Dorothy Foot a little better. Dorothy was a wonderful dressmaker, who started holding actual classes, and Mum told Dad she wanted to join.

He wouldn’t have it at first. ‘Mm. Bet that’s going to cost a packet, and where d’you think the money for it will come? From muggins here. What’s wrong with knitting? You’re good at that – go and buy some more balls of wool, and I’ll treat you to a new pair of needles. We can run to that!’

Mum shed actual tears at his callousness. ‘A little sewing and dressmaking class would be a perfect opportunity to meet people,’ she said, ‘and I know I’d be good at it. You know, I might get good enough to make shirts. Dorothy says that’s really hard, but she feels I’ve got it in me to do it. It would make such a difference if I could make shirts that really fit.’

‘Mine fit fine,’ said Dad.

‘You’re not the only person in the world, you know,’ Mum said, and I imagine she tipped her head towards me. I pretended not to be
listening
.

Later she poured her heart out to me. She still did that then. ‘It’s true I’d need a sewing machine and material and all sorts, so I suppose Dad is right. We don’t really have the money. It’s always there for his cigarettes, though …’ By now Dad was just starting to smoke his way through his second house.

Then he gave in after all. Perhaps it was the prospect of her being able to tailor shirts to my short arms which made him relent. When the sewing classes started, Mum found herself in a happy period of her life. In the end, those classes led to us acquiring a sort of house guest, even (if only in Mum’s eyes) a new member of the family.

She would come back into the house proud of what she had learned, bubbling also with the gossip that went with the sewing. She was newly plugged in to the grape-vine. It was as if she had been on a long holiday, rather than to a neighbour’s house for a few hours. All of us in the house felt the benefit.

It wasn’t long before Dorothy announced that Mum had learned all she needed to make clothes for other ladies. There was more involved than skill, however. ‘I knew it,’ said Dad when Mum passed this on.

If Mum was to do herself justice, she couldn’t just take her tape to make measurements, write them down, and come back later with the garment. That would be slap-dash and amateurish. To set herself up as any sort of professional she needed a proper dressmaker’s dummy. There may have been a fancy dressmakers’ term for such contraptions, to justify their vast expense, but if I was told it I have forgotten.

Mum showed Dad the catalogue and he went red in the face when he saw the prices. He said she could have the cheapest one there was, and half the money would have to be repaid when she started earning from the new hobby, if that day ever dawned. Mum hankered after one rather better than the basic model, though she wasn’t competing with Dorothy, who owned one which was very much
de luxe
. In the end I think she took a deep breath and ran down to the Post Office with her savings book and drew on that slim reserve.

Mum was very excited after placing her order at last. I could
sympathise
, remembering my own Ellisdons frenzies. She would phone up the catalogue headquarters on a regular basis to see if it had come in. When she was told at last that it had, she asked the man to be sure to hold on to it. Her cheque was on its way. The man told her not to worry. ‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ he said. ‘To put your mind at rest I’m going to get a special marker pen, and I’ll write
Mrs Cromer
on your model.’ ‘Oh would you? That would be so kind.’

Mum was very happy. At last the box arrived. I was in the next room when she opened it, and I could hear from her voice that
something
was wrong. It was obviously not the one she had ordered, after all. ‘Oh for Heaven’s sake!’ she called out to me. ‘You’ll never guess what they’ve done, JJ. They’ve sent me one with someone else’s name written on the back, and not “Cromer” at all. This one should have gone to “Miss Pearce”, whoever she may be.’

Mum seemed to be in a sort of agony. There was obviously
something
she wasn’t telling me. She picked up the phone and asked Dorothy if she could come over straight away. Mum didn’t say much on the phone, but Dorothy got enough of a whiff of emergency to drop everything and come over.

As she came in Dorothy called out politely, ‘How are you, John, keeping well?’ but then she went very quiet when she saw what was in the box. She said, ‘Would it be all right if I sat down and had a cup of coffee and a biscuit, Laura dear?’ This escalation to refreshments made me realise that I was eavesdropping on some sort of summit conference, even if I still had no idea what it was all about.

I punted the wheelchair round as gently as I could, so I could catch a glimpse of what was going on in the kitchen. I had made a little progress since the Bathford days. I wanted to know what was
happening
right away. I no longer had the patience to wait until later, when I could peck at Mum’s beak and be fed a meal of regurgitated gossip.

‘What do you think has happened, Dorothy?’ Mum was asking in a troubled voice. ‘And what should I do about it? I’m in a frightful bind.’

‘I don’t see that you are, dear, And it’s perfectly obvious what has happened. You ordered a Morris Minor and they delivered a
Rolls-Royce
instead! That’s what has happened. There’s nothing this model won’t do.’ I could see it now, a headless torso of wire and struts. Dorothy Foot started adjusting handles and pulling little levers. ‘It’s a marvel. Every single part of it adjustable. With this to work with, there’ll be no holding you – you’ll be the top dressmaker in the county!’

‘It is so beautiful,’ said Mum. ‘I think it’s almost as good as yours.’

‘Nonsense, dear. I know what I’m talking about. Mine is a Bentley at best – a Bentley that has seen better days!’

‘But what am I to do? I can’t keep it.’

‘I don’t see why not. If it
was
a Rolls-Royce when you had ordered a Morris Minor then you wouldn’t have much joy of it. It would have to stay in the garage and you’d never do more than gaze at it. But this never needs to leave the house. Hang on to it for dear life! It’ll be the making of you.’

‘But I can’t!’ Mum wailed. ‘I have to send it back. I could never afford to pay the difference. I’m putting my neck out even to get what I ordered.’

‘At least wait for them to ask for it. Promise me that. It’s not your mistake, it’s theirs. For all we know this Miss Pearce is a perfect
horror
and they’ve done this to put her nose out of joint. In any case, you’re storing their property for them – you should charge them by the day! Just sit tight and wait to hear from the catalogue people, that’s my advice. Don’t go to meet trouble half-way.’ Going to meet trouble half-way was usually Mum’s method, but for once she seemed to be wavering.

‘And if you take my advice,’ Dorothy went on, ‘you won’t mention this to Dennis until it’s settled one way or the other. Men choose the strangest moments to be righteous citizens.’

So Mum tucked Miss Pearce away in the spare room and said
nothing
. How Dad failed to notice her state of high excitement over the next few days I’ll never know. Her flesh burned with the suspense of it all. If she had an actual corpse concealed in that room, rather than an innocently headless form which could assume every curve and
contour
of the female state, she could hardly have radiated guilt across a broader spectrum.

After two weeks, when the coast seemed to be clear, Miss Pearce emerged from the shadows and took her place in the front room. Dad was introduced to her at last, though he wasn’t altogether taken with her. ‘It’s an ugly thing, really,’ he said, with his practised unawareness of Mum’s feelings. ‘Is this going to be out in full view the whole time, m’dear? Couldn’t you tidy it away when you’re not using it?’ He
didn’t
see Miss Pearce’s beauty. But Mum couldn’t bear to let Miss Pearce out of her sight.

At first I couldn’t see what the fuss was about myself. Miss Pearce was an amorphous nothing, a headless cage of wire with some
prominences
in front. But Mum’s state of rapture was contagious.

The newcomer was always ‘Miss Pearce’. Mum broke one of her own rules, which was that cherished possessions were known by the names of their manufacturers. Granny wasn’t exactly unmaterialistic, but it would never have occurred to her to think that her consumer choices said anything about her. They wouldn’t dare. Her things were the best simply by virtue of her having chosen them, but Mum
agonised
over every purchase. She was an early subscriber to
Which
?
magazine
, which came to play a huge part in her mental life. Proust had the Almanach de Gotha and Mum had
Which
?
.

When the household acquired a sewing machine, it was always ‘The Bernina’. On hot days Mum made iced coffee in the new ‘Kenwood’. The oven was always ‘The Rayburn’, though she was
anxious
for it to be known that ours was the model which burned solid fuel, not the electric one.

Finding brand-name fuel to load into it was less easy. ‘Coke’ soon got the thumbs-down, and for a while she raved about the wonder fuel anthracite. Finally she said that removing the clonker (she always said ‘clonker’ rather than ‘clinker’) simply wore her out, and why on earth couldn’t ‘they’ invent a fuel which simply burnt away to
nothing
?

Dishes had to be washed up with Squezy, elevenses was more
relaxing
with a cup of ‘Nescafé‘. The pronunciation soon shifted to ‘Nescaff’, which was what Muzzie had said, Muzzie being posh enough to play the game of common. Mum would slake her thirst with ‘a Kia-Ora’, and replenish her energy with a couple of ‘
Yeast-Vite
’. And when she felt like a good gripe, she’d complain about our lawn mower, which was always going wrong. ‘Your Dad never listens to me’, she would say. ‘If he’d bought an AtCo right from the start, as I advised, life would have run much more smoothly. Arthur Grant over the road has had one for years, and never had any trouble at all with it.’ Only disgraced products forfeited their right to the maker’s name, but Miss Pearce was never disgraced, and Miss Pearce was always ‘Miss Pearce’.

Soon pretty ladies began to call to see Mum, and she would take them to a private place and come back with a full set of
measurements
. Then Miss Pearce would creak and grind as Mum winched and cranked her into the shape of the pretty lady. ‘I can wind her all the way down to the size of Miss Susan Small,’ she said, ‘and all the way up to Bessie Braddock!’ These were the Alpha and Omega of the womanly form post-war, a famous model whose waist measured eighteen inches and a portly and truculent Labour MP.

As the dress took shape she would come in with it every so often to show me the tricks of the trade. ‘See here,’ she would say, ‘I don’t have to call Alison to come in for a fitting. I’ve made this exactly to the correct measurements but see –’ and here she would drop the dress onto the form ‘– it doesn’t look quite right, does it? We have to have more of a tuck just here …’ Then she would take the dress away for adjustments. The next time the dress met Miss Pearce the fit would be perfect. It showed what a good worker Mum was that the dress draped just as flatteringly on the satisfied customer as it had on Miss Pearce. Soon another lady would be told about Laura, how clever she was and how reasonable, and it wasn’t long before Mum had a little clientèle all her own.

Miss Pearce was certainly the most precious thing in Mum’s life at this point. She was dove-grey and cream – Quaker colours. She was a Quaker missionary sent into our home to dispense her sober joy. She was a frame on which Mum could drape her dreams. In fact we all felt warmly towards her, for bringing contentment into the house, though our feelings were more casual.

There’s no doubt that if the house had burned down, it was Miss Pearce that Mum would have rescued from the flames. I’m not saying that she would have neglected her family duties. She would have got me and Audrey and the pets out of there somehow (there were cats by this time as well as Gipsy, no longer young), but then she would have gone back in for Miss Pearce. Everything else was replaceable, but not the mistaken delivery which had brought so much happiness. On the whole Mum might have preferred to stay in the house with Miss Pearce, as the curtains caught and blazed, resting her head on that unrejecting breast.