The Newspaper of Claremont Street (5 page)

Everyone in Claremont Street paid Weekly's fares. She had put up the fares as prices went up. At first they did not know that she lived in the same street and so walked to work every morning and then in the afternoon walked to the next place and after that was quite able to walk home. From every household she now had, in addition to her pay—which was by the hour, and Weekly decided for herself how long certain houses took to clean and charged accordingly—ninety-five cents for fares. Where she lived and how she travelled to work were strictly her own business though they all found out in time, but by then her fare money was established and no one wanted to be the first to refuse to pay it and be the subject of the
Newspaper of Claremont Street's indignation. It would be too conspicuous, and a great many more things would certainly be added. Indignation can spread and grow and include grievances, true and false, of a most personal kind, with the memories of the last fifteen years coming to life keenly and vividly with endless embellishments.

‘Hi Newspaper. How ya goin',' Valerie the larger of the two shop girls nudged Weekly as she went into the shop at the bottom of Claremont Street. ‘What'll you have?'

‘Oh, serve old Muttonhead first.' Weekly sat on the broken chair as if she would never get up again and watched the Doctor come in. She wondered what he had come down for. The shop was still an emporium; it belonged to a time which had gone by. Bolts of cloth were on a wide shelf next to cups and dishes and a glass case of faded haberdashery. The variety of goods enhanced Weekly's pastime of basket watching. Sacks of wheat and laying pellets stood on the floor next to a modern biscuit stand. It was possible to buy an incinerator and a birthday card and a pair of stockings without moving an inch. You could buy kerosene and candles and icing sugar and a box of chocolates all in the same breath, though chocolates were not a wise choice in the hot weather.

‘Well what's going on in Claremont Street?' the Doctor said with a good-natured smile.

‘Val, get cigs for Missis Lucas's order.'

‘I'm serving the Doctor,' Valerie called back. Weekly sucked in her cheeks and peered at the little scribbled list he had.

‘Yer fridge is full of eggs and butter,' she said, ‘you can cross them orf, but yo'm out of toilet paper.' She sat back into her own thoughts, ignoring a second, ‘Well what's the news Weekly?'

She had news but at the moment it was private as it concerned herself. It had given the Kingstons a shock that afternoon when Weekly wanted to buy their old car. It was on their front verge between the box trees, crushing an oleander, with a cardboard notice,
4 SALE,
stuck on the windscreen. Weekly had watched over the car for some weeks.

‘I'll take it orf yor 'ands,' Weekly said as calmly as she could, hiding her excitement, and she began at once to clear the lunch table as if not noticing the confusion she had caused the Kingston family.

‘You Weekly!' Mrs Kingston was unable to hide her surprise. She was an English woman and used to not betraying herself, but her surprise was evident in every well-controlled line of her face.

‘Yers,' Weekly paused at the sink, shrouded in steam. ‘Yers, I could do with a vehicle.' Mrs Kingston smiled as she crumpled with kindness towards Weekly. ‘Well I never!' she said.

A car was not what she was saving her money for but sooner or later she would need one. This one of the Kingstons seemed to be there for her at just the right time.

So of course Mrs Kingston promised to have the car thoroughly checked and various expensive repairs carried out which she had not intended to do. But her reputation in the street was worth a great deal more than selling Weekly a worthless car. Then came the discussion of the price. Weekly took no part in the talk.

she sang, noisily washing up, while the Kingstons talked on in their polished dining room, their voices low in an uneasy mutter. Every now and then old Mr Kingston called out, ‘What's going on?' but no one paid any attention to him. Weekly wanting to buy their old car was something they had not thought of.

Of course they had to give the car to Weekly for how could they, the Kingstons, though they always felt short of money, take her money away from her when they already had two other cars and two properties and a boat. And furthermore, Mr Kingston, in the position he was in,
could hardly take back the charwoman's money.

It never occurred to them that every morning, before leaving for work, Weekly hoisted herself to the top of her money pile, carefully adding to the hoarded sum the extra she had earned the day before. They had no idea that Weekly's bank account, besides filling several bank books, filled her mind every morning. It was a daily vision, and took the form of an exquisite cone-shaped mountain made entirely of money, with a silver scree of coins on its steep sides. Every morning she pictured this shining heap, gilded on the rose-tinted sky of the dawn, before getting up. And when she was walking to work, her nose pointed to the horizon of promise: Weekly's money smelled sweet, it had the fragrance of roses and honeysuckle and fresh country air, and her thoughts of it caressed her face in the long fronds of the trailing peppermint as she walked from one tree to the next. But how could the Kingstons or anyone else in Claremont Street know of Weekly's beautiful fragrant wealth.

No one could have any idea how much money Weekly had; it was no affair of theirs if Weekly chose to spend nothing, and to save for the thing she wanted more than anything else in the world.

The car was a necessity, and it was with a quiet glow of relief that Weekly realised the Kingstons would not expect her to pay for it. She quite understood the delicacy of the
whole situation and it was quite clear that no one else wanted it; it had been there almost seven weeks, sitting on the grass verge with Weekly's watchful eye on it twice, sometimes three times, a day. So she said nothing about it and, as she sat in the shop, she allowed the pleasure of possession to creep over her; she felt too tired to get up and go home.

‘What you smiling at Newspaper? Got somethin' funny to tell us?' Valerie leaned comfortably on the counter. Just then Mr Torben from the flats came hurrying across Claremont Street into the shop.

‘My wife Nastasya is ill,' he bowed to Weekly and to the shop. He had white hair and very blue eyes and beautiful manners. ‘Can you come tonight and help her. Please!' He bowed again.

Weekly did not clean in the flats, except occasionally for the Torbens. For some reason she was sorry for them, a pair of people who were quite out of place in the flats and even more out of place in Claremont Street.

Working, and being on the brink of the possession of the car, had made Weekly terribly tired. She was looking forward to getting home but had remained as if stuck with fatigue to the broken chair propped against the counter.

‘Orl right,' Weekly said. ‘I'll come in about a hour.'

After Mr Torben had gone Weekly sighed. ‘Now why did I say that,' she muttered to no one in particular.

She walked home, her dress swinging because she was hurrying. The old material was beginning to look mauve and silky as the evening came on. She would have to pour some milk for Crazy, have her tea and then go across to the flats. She refreshed herself with thinking about the car, which would be ready quite soon.

There was nothing else for it. Weekly had not been able to find homes for all the kittens. While Crazy lapped greedily on the verandah, Weekly put the remaining kittens in a piece of cloth and carried them through to the backyard where she swiftly, without noise, drowned them in a bucket. She straightened up, pulled a few half-dry garments from the clothes line and went indoors to eat her food, closing the door so that she was not able to hear Crazy's cries.

The small rooms in the flat where the Torbens lived were overheated, and the plain brick walls were covered in pictures in oils and water colour, all painted by Nastasya Torben. Coloured wooden ornaments and handmade jugs and bowls crowded the tops of the bookshelves. The bedroom opened off the living room and Nastasya was sitting in the middle of the bed, which was so big it took up nearly all the space in the room.

‘Veekly my Darlink!' Nastasya stretched out her arms. ‘Mr Torben said yo' was ill,' Weekly said. ‘So I've come to clean up.'

‘Torben say I am ill?' Nastasya cried. ‘Ah! but now I am better. Since you come, Veekly, I am better!' Nastasya
lowered her voice to a mysterious huskiness.

‘But Veekly, he is not Torben really, it is only that his name, our name,' she said proudly, ‘is too hard for you stupid people to say so we change to easy TORBEN,' she snapped her fingers. ‘To us ziss name means nothing!'

Weekly forced her unwilling body towards the kitchen. She had not started yet and already she was wishing she had not agreed to come.

‘Not cleaning!' Nastasya cried. ‘Do not clean. Tonight I am hongry, so hongry Veekly, cook for me tonight.'

‘Oh my Gawd!' Weekly groaned to herself. Full of bread and vegetables herself, the thought of preparing food made her feel quite sick.

‘See my wife's paintings,' Torben pulled out some half-finished canvasses from behind the cupboard. ‘From her paintings you can see what a sensitive delicate creature she is! When she was young, you know, she had long legs like a colt and ran like the wind!'

Weekly paused with the potato peeler in her hand and admired the paintings, a smile frozen on her tired face. She had seen them all before and heard the same things said so often. She would have to sieve boiled potatoes and make a smooth, thick soup just as they liked it; she would have to roast tiny chickens and scrape and boil young carrots and shred lettuce very finely for them. All this would take a long time. Her back ached over the sink and
her weariness was made worse by their talk.

In this weariness the only thing which consoled her was the thought of the extra money for the evening work. She often did work in the evenings. There was hardly a dinner party in Claremont Street where Weekly was not in the kitchen crashing cutlery and dishes in the sink and commenting, ‘Is that the Ridgeways you got in there? Thought I reckernized her larf. Can't stand the Ridgeways, not one of them, never could stand the Ridgeways,' this last in such a loud voice that Mrs Chatham, trying to concentrate on her frozen peas, had to put the telephone directory down behind the kitchen door to stop it from opening all the time. Whatever would Weekly say next for all her guests to hear.

‘I'll boil in this heat!' Weekly threw up the kitchen window, chilling the plates and the vegetable dishes. Mrs Chatham always became so harassed when Weekly was behind the scenes at one of her dinner parties that she invariably forgot to serve either one of the vegetables or a sauce and had to show the guests that there had been peas. Here they were, all dried up in this dish left in the oven. She produced the dish for all to see.

‘Yo'll never carve with that knife.' Every hostess dreaded Weekly in the evenings and yet they could not manage without her. ‘Let me sharpen it for you,' and Weekly would march out past the table of well-dressed
guests, and with a rasping, setting all teeth on edge, she sharpened the knife mercilessly on the laundry doorstep.

Dinner parties, weddings, funerals Weekly often worked back washing up solidly for hours on end while people ate and drank and talked and laughed and wept. And while she worked she totted up in her head the extra money she was making and added it joyfully to her savings.

Here in the flat she had no chance to secretly visit her mountain resort of silver. Both Torben and Nastasya talked at her at once, telling her things about their lives and the hardship of being refugees crossing hostile frontiers in Europe with a few possessions hidden in their clothes, in terror for their lives. And then of their years in Palestine and Lebanon, places quite unknown to Weekly.

‘My wife is, how you say, an aristocrat,' Nastasya's husband said to Weekly. ‘She is so exquisitely sensitive, if only you could read her poetry!' And then he and Nastasya spoke to each other in their own language, complaining about the place where they now lived, insulting people who were kind to them, perhaps even insulting Weekly, but since she couldn't understand what they said it did not matter. Nastasya recited a long poem in this strange language and wept aloud. Mr Torben wept a little too, and then Nastasya suddenly leapt from the bed.

‘Everyone is so stupid here, we have to change our
name,' she cried. ‘But never mind! I am better now and the food smells so good. I will eat at the table,' and with this announcement she drew the quilt about her and came in to the living room.

‘We must set extra place,' she said and began rearranging the heavy silver, a few pieces saved from another world; they looked out of place on the little card table where the meal was to be served.

‘You are our guest tonight!' Nastasya offered a treat and smiled her terrible smile in which her eyes took no part. She insisted on them sitting down and then serving them as if she were a butler, balancing the hot dishes and holding a spoon and fork in one trembling hand, her cigarette ash dropping gently into the food.

‘Not too much, not too much,' Torben begged his wife. Weekly, who had already eaten, looked at her plate in dismay.

‘Eat what's set before you and no word said,' Aunt Heppie's voice echoed somewhere inside her.

Halfway through the meal Torben leaned towards the unwilling guest.

‘May we, Nastasya and I, call you by your first name?' he asked with gentle politeness. ‘We should be so honoured!'

‘O' course yo' can,' Weekly was somewhat taken aback.

‘The only trouble is,' Mr Torben said, ‘we have
forgotten what your first name is. Can you tell us what is your first name please?'

Before Weekly was able to think which of her names she should offer, Nastasya jumped up from the table. ‘We must have a dance,' she cried, the quilt slipping off her leathery brown shoulders. Quickly she pushed the chairs aside, clearing a little space in the overcrowded room. She wound up the gramophone.

‘Torben will dance for us, a Russian dance! You will love it!' And then she switched off the light. In the darkness they all seemed to bump into each other.

‘We must have firelight!' Nastasya's voice insisted.

‘But we have no fire,' from Torben.

‘Oh my Gawd!' Weekly wondered where the light switch was.

Suddenly there was firelight. Nastasya crumpled some newspaper and lit it on the floor. She put on the record and shouted, ‘Put on your tunic!' Torben obeyed and she shouted, ‘Dance!' to Torben and he folded his arms across his chest and began to dance to the music.

‘Faster!' cried his wife as the music quickened. She threw some more paper onto the piece that was almost burned away. ‘Oh the firelight is so lovely!' Grotesque shadows moved on the tiny square of ceiling and Torben danced a Russian dance, bending one knee and then the other and then both, squatting and leaping to the music.

‘Bravo!' Nastasya was delighted, she smoked her cigarette and clapped her hands and the flesh on her arms, flabby, quivered hopelessly.

Suddenly Nastasya stopped the music. ‘My husband!' she screeched. ‘He is ill! Veekly help me put him on the bed.' The fire had started to scorch the boards and the edge of the rug. Nastasya put the bed quilt on it and stamped it out. There was a smell of burning cloth and the room was full of smoke.

‘It is only bronchitis,' Torben said meekly. ‘I have it all the time, it is my weakness, something left from years ago.' He tapped his thin chest; certainly he was very out of breath and his face was quite white. Sweat was in a dense pattern all over his forehead.

The two women, Weekly drawn in in spite of herself, helped Torben to the bed. He seemed frail suddenly and very clean in his pyjamas.

‘Fetch a Doctor pleeze Veekly,' Nastasya asked.

‘But it's after ten o'clock.' Weekly felt uneasy about going for a doctor so late at night, especially as Mr Torben kept saying, ‘It is not necessary to go for doctor, I am ill all the time. I will be all right, certainly I will be all right.'

Between them she did not know what to do. She put the dishes in the sink; if only she had refused to come.

‘Go at once!' Nastasya was severe. ‘He might be dyink! Do you want my husband to die?' she wailed in a terrible
voice. ‘It is a great privilege to fetch Doctor for my husband.'

And Weekly went out into the night. She knew from before there were no doctors near who could or would come to the Torbens. Mostly they had quarrelled with all the doctors, including the two in Claremont Street. Before she left Nastasya pushed a scrap of paper into her hand. ‘These peoples, doctors they call themselves, you cannot bring here,' it was a hastily scribbled list.

Weekly had to trudge the whole length of Claremont Street and then right to the top of the Terrace in the dark. She had heard that a new doctor had moved in above the fruit shop, someone unknown to the Torbens and who had no idea what was involved in going back with Weekly in the night to an unknown patient.

The doctor was already in bed but came down to answer the bell. She was rather young and, if she grudged coming out, she did not show it. She was sympathetic to the elderly woman who had obviously walked a long way on behalf of a sick man.

‘What's wrong?' she asked as they set off together in the doctor's car.

‘I'm not sure which of 'em's worst,' Weekly replied and could not be persuaded to say more.

Nastasya opened the door a crack and took a narrow look at Weekly and at the doctor.

‘Her eye make-up is brown like a moth's wing,' she said, ‘and her eyes look like insects underneath. Do not bring to my place again!' and she slammed the door on them.

Clearly this was a challenge and Weekly could see the doctor was determined to rise to it.

‘I'll manage, you go home,' the doctor said to the old woman. ‘Have you far to go?'

‘No, just acrorss the road.'

‘Goodnight then.'

‘Goodnight.' And Weekly left the young woman banging on the Torbens' door.

The next day Weekly, who felt exhausted in mind and body after the experience—she had disliked dragging the doctor out of bed—felt embarrassed too. The doctor had looked as if she thought Weekly was just as selfish and crazy as the Torbens.

Weekly knocked at the front door of the Torbens' flat to get her money for the evening's work. Nastasya opened the door and listened while Weekly told her what was owing to her.

‘But Veekly,' Nastasya said, ‘remember I invited you for our dinner, remember you were our guest. And no guest comes the next day to be paid.'

And the Newspaper of Claremont Street had no reply to this.