Nella Last's Peace Read online

  There were about fifty–sixty there, yet so large the room we were not crowded, even when twelve tables were set up for whist, while those who didn’t play sat round talking. We had refreshments – piles of good but dainty sandwiches, with real meat in, no made-up filling, lots of too gaily-coloured iced cakes, Xmas cake in segments, trifles and jellies. My sharp eyes had already said ‘British Restaurant’ when I saw the too-bright-pink icing of the too-lavish ‘hundreds and thousands’ on the cakes, and I heard later it was correct. I don’t believe in British Restaurants. They undercut traders, get preferential treatment and lose money. No other caterer could help Mrs Diss out for this big party and one for the Inner Wheel† tomorrow, and I know well if they had done, there would have been no roast beef sandwiches supplied …

  Mrs Howson sighed all the way home about the ‘lovely big house’, ‘gorgeous silver and cut glass’, ‘marvellous carpets’. She said, ‘That would be my idea of heaven.’ I sniffed as I said, ‘With coal and other fuel rationing, shortage of labour and the cost of keeping up rooms never used unless like tonight, it would be my idea of hell.’ What queer snobbish streaks we all have. I looked at Mrs Diss’s two quite charming young people: Julia, settled now to her ‘domestic science’; Geoff, content in the family jewellery business. And when I recalled Mrs Diss’s horror of and superiority to trade – one would think sometimes she was the daughter of a belted earl instead of a bank manager’s daughter – I thought of all the money and influence in the family, and of my own two, getting there in ‘professions’ unaided. Times were when I’d have given years of my life for money to help educate them and give them a start in life. Things work out queerly sometimes.

  Nella had mulled over these matters of ambition and social status a few weeks earlier (1 December 1947).

  It’s odd, but money doesn’t always help like the will to get on. The Disses are very wealthy people. He is Barrow’s leading jeweller and there’s a lot of money in both families. Mrs Diss always spent hundreds of pounds on expensive boarding schools and brought Julia up with the fixed ambition to be a doctor. She was both a clever and charming girl. We all felt sorry when she failed her prelims – and women don’t get a second chance. The son went to Cambridge and then into the Fleet Air Arm, and Mrs Diss spoke of him going back to train for ‘optics’, which we took to be a kind of eye specialist. He calmly told his people he only wanted to go into the shop, as he wanted to marry and settle down. He is only twenty-three but his wife-to-be is an orphan and doesn’t like Domestic Science teaching. Mr Diss will not mind, but I know the slightly snobbish streak in Mrs Diss will have had a blow. She makes such a sharp distinction between trade and ‘profession’ – she was a bank manager’s daughter. In the WVS office Mrs Diss had said a bit morosely, ‘It’s no use planning for your family.’

  Thursday, 8 January. Margaret came in to have a new dress she is making fitted and a little cut out of the armholes, and we discussed a few dodges to let dresses and skirts down, but Margaret, in spite of her square sturdy shoulders, loves padded shoulders, and I insist they will have to be taken out, or only as they used to be, to hide shoulder defects. The ‘new line’ seems to have ousted points problems, the poor quality of coal and even the weather, when women are talking, and I feel wildly amused when the only ones in fashion, or not caring, are the dowdy old grannies and maiden aunts. It always amused me to see Aunt Sarah’s upswept hair, the latest fashion, but which she uncompromisingly stuck to between the Edwardian and these days.

  Friday, 9 January. I had to wait in the shoe repairer’s, which was full. I felt a bit snooty. I could have given a woman a good dressing down instead of the sympathy her goggle blue eyes, swimming with tears, asked onlookers. She put a pair of dreadful low shoes on the counter and before the shoe repairer’s wife handled them, I saw her shake her head. The soles were worn through the inner soles down one side of each shoe, and the heels were so bad it was a wonder anyone could have walked like that. Big ‘easy’ tears filled the woman’s eyes and she wailed, ‘Can’t you do something? They are the only pair my poor husband has, and I’ve no coupons and he is home ill with a cold now, with getting wet feet.’ All eyes travelled over her really smart get up and then to her little girl, equally well dressed. She sensed the looks and said, ‘My husband said I could have his coupons. He never plans like I do, or buys things he should.’ And she pushed the broken wet shoes in her bag and went out. I bet her ears burned with the remarks passed about ‘silly selfish women’! I had good bone and vegetable soup, and enough potatoes to fry up, with bacon, and sweet apple slices, and enough semolina sweet from yesterday to heat for my husband, and hurriedly tidied round while lunch cooked and heated. My husband was very wet and had to change, but there was the good soup and a warm fire.

  Jessie Holme came in for the afternoon, and Mrs Atkinson came in, so distressed. Her sister-in-law who went back to Canada sent parcels and a whole ham to be divided between Mrs Atkinson and another sister. It looks really perfect but is salty as brine and curiously tasteless. Even Norah and Dick hadn’t eaten two thick slices Norah cooked, and when I tasted a wee piece I couldn’t wonder. I could only suggest she boiled the whole piece after soaking well, with vegetables to add flavour. She had looked forward to it coming so much. It could have been such a grand standby. Jessie was so delighted with a dressing gown we partly dodged up some time ago and finally fixed this afternoon – a few hours’ sewing will finish it. She had a very good but shabby raglan camel-hair coat. The cuffs and collar were worn, and she had only worn it about the garden when she lived in the country. Her sister had a nice wine-coloured one, with an overcheck in fawn, equally good but old-fashioned and worn. Between the two, after we had had them cleaned at cut price, we’ve made a dressing gown both smart and better than money could buy nowadays. It’s got a deep border, wide deep cuffs, and roll collar of the check material as well as the big patch pockets Jessie wanted and made from the fawn front facing which we discarded, with a band of check material. She didn’t want a belt, so I fitted it slightly with darts.

  She is tall and stately. I said admiringly, ‘Jessie, you look as if you had stepped straight out of Vogue’, and she was delighted as she prinked and preened. Suddenly I realised why I had liked her as soon as I saw her. She is ‘my kind of folks’, perhaps because of her country origin, for she has always lived in Broughton, a very small market town just up the coast from Barrow. I gave her a piece of Xmas cake with her cup of tea. I wished suddenly Edith was as friendly and showed signs of liking me. I couldn’t imagine Jessie showing resentment or jealousy in any way. Her husband’s mother is coming to be in the house, and she has a good visiting nurse, and Mrs Atkinson and I will see to anything she needs till her mother-in-law gets here from Whitehaven. I opened a small tin of salmon for tea. Jessie had to go to make her husband’s tea for five o’clock, and I gave her a tin of cheese and macaroni out of a parcel from Australia. She has an appetite like Norah and a good digestion. My goodness but I hope baby Holme is a boy. It’s not that she hopes it will be a boy. To hear her talk, there’s only one sex! I recalled my own calm assurance – I wanted boys myself – so hope she too has boys. She wants two or three children.

  Tuesday, 13 January. Jessie Holme came in. She feels restless and unsettled, now her time is near. She looks very drawn and ill. I looked at her in pity today – thirty-four is not the time to be having a first baby. Apart from the physical side, babies and young children need the patience, or rather the joyousness, of youth, to rear them. Jessie would be sedate, though sweet, at any age. Young wives of today have a lot against them, if even they are born home makers. Jessie has some good bits of furniture from home, but her house has such a cheerless look, so few rugs or carpets, and poor skimpy curtains. The polished lino looks so cold and bare. I thought of the houses that are going up now with concrete floors. Some very nice maisonette type of flats are going up nearby, on the main road. I look at them every time I pass – concrete floors and stairs, and all woodwork eliminat
ed that is possible. I thought of stepping out of the bath, or warm bed, for I cannot see any floor covering making concrete ‘warm’. We sat and talked of babies, and little children and their odd sayings. It was a pleasant afternoon, and after a cup of tea, Jessie went at 4.30. Her husband has such odd hours for work.

  Thursday, 15 January. I didn’t feel too well, but got dusted and vacced and all tidy this morning, including two neglected cupboards and my pantry shelves. I went out into the garden to dig some leeks. The sun shone fitfully and patches of blue sky showed in rents and holes of the sullen clouds. I’ve known an April day feel colder. There was that drop in temperature that could mean snow or storms ahead. The rooks cawed lazily and happily. The thrushes and starlings chirped happily, as if telling each other winter was past, but great black-backed gulls ranged on the roof tiles and chuckled evilly. They knew it was only a breathing space. I have primulas and polyanthus budding and a soft greenness on pansy clumps, and round the dead stalks of chrysanths, new green shoots are thick.

  Mrs Atkinson called over to say her cousin died in the hospital. She has never been really conscious since I went in the ambulance with her. They kept her drugged and free from terrible pain and she died peacefully. She was such a sweet bright person, always so kindly. Things are hard to understand. She suffered so – she who wouldn’t have hurt anyone or anything.

  In 1948, Jessie Holme was to figure prominently in Nella’s diary. Her baby – a girl – was born on 21 January. ‘Even allowing for Jessie’s exhaustion,’ Nella wrote the next day, ‘she was indifferent to it. I asked if she had thought of a name and she shook her head and said, “We never thought of a girl coming.”’ Nella wrote of visiting the following day: ‘I felt concern for her listless, languid look, all vitality and humour drained out of her smiling face. The baby is thriving but she doesn’t take much notice of it.’ On 26 January things were looking up. Nella was ‘really delighted to see the change’ in Jessie. ‘She looked her old self, and quite happy with wee Katherine Ann, as they have decided to call the baby, and she seemed to have got over her deep disappointment.’ On the 29th all seemed well. ‘To hear Jessie talk now, she got her dearest wish when she had a baby girl! She is such a sweet person. I knew she would come round and love it.’ (They finally settled on ‘Kathleen’ as her name.)

  Friday, 20 February. I had a blazing fire of wood backed with coke and kept putting on more wood as it burned down, but it was cold if we moved far from the fire and the shrill wind had the sound of snow. My bones felt they creaked. I relaxed on the settee but could not find ease for long and moved to the fire. I’ve a restless, unsettled, nervy feeling on me, a ‘don’t-know-whatI-want, won’t-be-happy-till-I-get-it’, a feeling of foreboding, as if I was worried about something so deep I couldn’t lift it into my thoughts. Nerves and cold probably. While I do get like this, I wonder if I’ll ever see Cliff again. I wonder how he is, and knowing the dependence under the most forthright independence of men-things, I long to smooth out little household cares, do his mending, etc. A ‘Martha’ complex [a woman devoted to domestic affairs] is a mixed blessing! If I could hear he was married I’d feel different. Sometimes I think of his bad dreams, and wonder if he has them now, if in his work he can find release and peace from hidden terrors. I think of the stiff pompous way he walked when his leg tired and he would have limped, of his determination to put all thought of pain and illness away and not think about it, always my thoughts a montage of thankfulness and relief he has found his own path – God does answer mothers’ prayers – and the deep sadness of never seeing him or hearing his voice. I look at Shan We and wonder if all Siamese have his intelligence, understanding and deep affections, as if Cliff whispered in his little brown ear, and told him he was going far away, and he must be a good cat and try and ‘make up’.

  In late February and March, Jessie Holme’s fragile health was a big concern for her husband, George, whom Nella thought very well of – she said he was attentive and considerate. He ‘is so worried’, Nella wrote on 1 April, ‘when Dr Miller says she is so bloodless, and needs meat, liver and kidneys. When doctors know well it’s impossible for them to give permits for extra, they should be careful about giving orders. Poor George said, “I wish I knew where I could buy some” – and he is a railway detective!’

  Monday, 5 April. I called at Jessie’s but she was not back. George left word with Mrs Atkinson she was coming back this evening. She had been so ill on Sunday they had to bring in a Broughton doctor, the one she always had before coming to Barrow. It was a kind of fainting attack and George was badly frightened. The doctor confirmed Dr Miller’s diagnosis but prescribed some kind of liver tablets as well, and said she was in very poor health and must relax and rest, feed up and have all the fresh air possible. George looks worried to death. I feel they are realising the difficulty of a big rent out of his wage. He is only a plain clothes railway policeman. I don’t think he gets a big wage, and I can tell all extras for the baby and its arrival have been taken from savings.

  Tuesday, 6 April. A cold wet morning. I didn’t feel like going down town for ten o’clock, to meet Mrs Higham at Boots, to buy a few prizes for Thursday, and had to hurry and knead bread and tea cakes and leave them to rise. I’d packed Aunt Sarah’s little fortnightly parcel of odds and ends, and when I missed the bus decided to walk. I wished I hadn’t. Halfway down Abbey Road I heard such a dreadful cry not far away and on reaching a corner saw a man lying in a big pool of blood, and two workmates kneeling by him. I asked a man if they had phoned for the ambulance and he said someone was doing so. Nothing could be done by us standing staring – we walked down the road together. I felt sorry for this man. He had actually seen the poor fellow fall off a fifty-foot roof. In tonight’s Mail it said he died two hours after admission to hospital …

  This Easter I felt my mind go back so plainly to Easter spent at Spark Bridge. Oddly enough, Arthur spoke of the same memories, and on Easter Sunday Cliff wrote, ‘Do you remember when we all used to stay at Spark and walk down the field to church on Easter Day?’ Often a feeling of awe creeps over me, to hear little things I’ve said or done so long ago recalled by my grown men. It’s rather a terrifying thought to realise how a child’s mind can be influenced, but perfectly true. In my child-life, my mother seems a rather vague lonely shadow, my father very remote, till I was old enough to realise he was an unhappy man who had a magic key he was anxious to lend me, into a land of books. Odd vagrant thoughts of life and people. But Gran – my prim-lipped Quaker Gran – at fifty-eight I find my life shaped by her maxims, her faith and never failing kindness, and a goodness that was part of her very fibre. If Gran said a thing, you could steer by it. If she said a thing was ‘not done’, it lost any charm it promised. When you are young you don’t realise this power, or else it would have more importance. I always try to impress young mothers with the power of love, the importance of seeing the good behind the naughty and, most of all, letting a child see good in a mother, never telling them untruths or breaking a promise.

  I had to hurry round when I got home. I’d a nasty feeling of butterflies in my tummy – nerves affect me like that. I knew I’d best keep to cornflakes and milk and have a rest. Pity, it was a nice lunch, tinned tomato soup with onions grated in, bacon and egg, cauliflower and potatoes, and a steamed pudding, made from the surplus mutton fat at the weekend, which I cut out before cooking the bit of meat. My husband said, ‘You don’t look well. Why not go to bed for the afternoon?’ I half agreed, but felt if I did I’d hear that dreadful cry echo and re-echo in my mind. So after I’d washed up and dusted I went as usual to the whist drive …

  It was my day for shocks. I heard the Committee talking amongst themselves about Mr Jefferson, who went back to India last November – he is dead. He has left over £12,000 and has no near relatives. Speculation was rife as to whom it would be left, and hopes he had remembered the Club. It’s a good thing he won’t be unhappy any more. He was of so friendly and kindly a disposition, and when he w
as in England so lost and alone.

  Wednesday, 17 April. Mrs Salisbury is a treasure. Her passionate love of a ‘good turn-out’ far outvies any little odd ways and slapdash methods of ordinary routine. We looked at gleaming walls and ceiling, and she asked anxiously if ‘Everything was OK’. I said, ‘Yes indeed, it’s perfection.’ She said, ‘I said to my boss the other night, “I could take a job anywhere now. I know all the right things to use in cleaning, and the proper way to go about things. Mrs Last is very particular.”’ I said, ‘Not thinking of leaving me though?’ and she shook her untidy little head and reminded me again she had only left me before when little Billy was coming. She said, ‘My boss said if ever you went to Australia we would sell up and go, even if we didn’t live near you. We would feel we had someone, and he thinks with us both being workers and three lads and a girl growing up, we would stand a good chance of getting on.’ I felt a family like the Salisburys was ideal for Australia. I’d lettuce in the fridge, and we had it to corned beef and toasted tea cakes, and there was wholemeal bread and butter, jam and cake. I felt very picky. I wished I’d had some of Cliff’s lovely honey. I hope another tin comes soon.