Nella Last in the 1950s Read online

  There’s a queer semi-junk jeweller’s in Millom and I’ve often seen nice oddments – cut glass, bits of Edwardian or Victorian jewellery, like cameos or carved ivory heads, etc. There was a string of cut crystals – maybe topaz – today, and by their clasp looked good. My husband said, ‘They look just your type of jewellery. I’d like to buy them if they hadn’t been so expensive.’ We didn’t bother to ask the price, knowing anything unmarked was high priced. The junk around was a guide to what would be asked for good things. As we walked back to the car I wondered why I’d ceased to long for – covet – lovely things as I used to do. Somehow in the war, I got things sorted out, and have never recaptured that ‘I’d love that’ feeling. Pity. It’s an added spice to a woman’s life if she can shop and think, ‘I’d get that if I had money’. Maybe it’s a sign of age!

  We were back well within two hours. I built up a good fire and snatched half an hour with my book while my husband covered up the car, put in the lamp and put mats to the bottom of the garage door. He has made such a fuss of this car, with it being new perhaps. I made toast and scrambled eggs. There was cake, bread and butter and honey, and warmth to take ache out of bones. When my bones ache so badly I think of homeless people, especially displaced persons, with no hope. I read the paper but my husband wasn’t interested in anything tonight after he had listened half-heartedly to [radio personality] Wilfred Pickles at 7 o’clock. I got out my sewing and just before 9 o’clock there was a ring, and it was Alan Boyd. What a friendly lovely lad he is. He was going to a nearby hotel for the Hospital Dance and had said he would drop some cutting of Cliff’s through the letter box, but rang to let me see him in his uniform because his mother thought he looked better in it than civvy clothes! He does too, like all men and no women, unless they have clockstopping faces and extra good figures, and then it’s figures that matter more than femininity. He sat and talked till I reminded him the dance would be well started. He made me laugh as he said a bit ruefully, ‘Yes, and I’ll have to have a drink to get me in the mood to meet my sister’s friends and dance for the rest of the evening’. My husband said, ‘Don’t you like dancing, Alan?’ and he said, ‘Yes, it’s alright, but nothing beats yarning and listening to folk talk’. I felt he was a kindred spirit.

  Monday, 30 January. The wind howled over the chimneys. More snow is on the way. It’s a dreadful kind of weather for elections to be held [on 23 February]. A bill was put in the door tonight to say we were having a Liberal candidate in Barrow – the first for many years. Mrs Howson and I talked of politicking in general. I said, ‘I think I lean to Liberalism most, perhaps because though my father was a staunch Conservative he had only been so over the Free Trade-Tariff Reform Bill and all his people and most of mother’s were Liberals.’ We had not discussed our political views before, not taking any view of any beyond Labour-Toryism. I was surprised to hear her say, ‘All mother’s brothers and sister are Liberal. Some never voted at all when only Tories put up against Labour.’ It set us wondering if it would be the passive Liberal vote coming out for one of their own candidates that would affect this election. I’ve had a little cynical feeling as I listened to J. B. Priestley and Maurice Webb* that for many waverers and Pollyanna-minded ones the last speaker, provided he or she insists that ‘Everything is ALRIGHT, the worst is over, all our mistakes and spade work finished with, only trust US’, will win. No one realises there will be any bills to meet. I’ve yet to meet anyone with more than a hazy idea that Marshall Aid† will cease, or be paid back. ‘America has all the gold. Why shouldn’t she shell out?’ idea.

  When I sit thinking, my mind often drifts back to 50, even 55, years, for I’ve a good memory for details. I’d not a very happy childhood and knew pain and endurance from five years old to about twelve – to be crippled by an accident those days meant effort to walk straight again.** Partly through love for me, partly because he had a horror of anything marred, my father spared neither money nor effort. All my pleasures were quiet, and the happiest days spent with Gran who in her busy life had little time for sorting out ages. She had the curious attitude of lumping people and animals. Her farm hands were equal to the Squire or her children in some queer alchemy of her own. She never talked down to a little intense girl, who was let see the seamy side of rural life as well as the lighter side. I was always conscious of troubles and strife, ‘sins’ in the way of unexpected babies, shortage of money, bad luck, and all the real life of the countryside. My father always talked and talked of everything. I’ve sat mouse quiet and forgotten while the questions and problems of that far-off day were discussed and ‘settled’. I try and search faithfully so as to avoid that rosy distortion that time brings to people who are lonely and growing old. There was poverty, misery, drunkenness, wife beating, lads running off to sea, dirt, more sickness – or was there now? – little money, such a lot that needed ‘evoluting’. BUT, there was kindliness in need, laughter, that joy in scraping and scrounging for holidays you don’t seem to get from holidays with pay to go to a noisy Holiday Camp as there was from a week in the country ‘keeping yourself’, only paying for rooms and attendance. People moved slower. There was more time for family life and less outside distraction. We’ve got a Health Scheme [the NHS], and less time for doctors to find out what’s wrong with you.

  Mrs Howson and I meandered slowly amongst her memories – at 42, of course, she is a decade behind mine. She began this ‘Where has all the —— gone?’ by grieving about some sixth-form boys she knew who had been found playing for money in the Grammar School Prefects’ room, and the Head had told them, ‘He couldn’t recommend them to the university as he intended’. We wondered exactly what he meant, and if that lack of recommendation would carry weight. She always holds Cliff up as a shining light, neither knowing or understanding the problems and worry I had over that Arab† of a lad. She said in answer to a remark of mine, ‘Boys had to be boys’ – ‘Your Cliff would never have done such a thing.’ I said, ‘Oh yes he would, and any darn fool monkey shine going, if he had had time. But my two always seemed to have so much they liked to do they never got round to antics like that, and as girls as well as boys thronged the house, practising for plays, or talking their heads off on all subjects, girls were never that “mystery” that made for furtive conjectures and daft motives like Dennis Veal’ – another headache for the Head when he found a passionate love letter Dennis had written to a girl of 15 – he is 17. We wondered if there was a deep underlying meaning about idle hands!

  My husband sat back in his chair, never joining in. Mrs Howson said, ‘How we gabble Mr Last. You must be tired of listening.’ He said in a tone of self-pity, ‘Ah, I like it. I wish Mrs Last would be as bright and gay with me.’ I said, ‘No monologue is as interesting as a duet. You have to have some response you know.’ But he only looked at me blankly, in a way that gave me a little sick feeling deep down inside, as I thought how more and more he resembled poor Mother. I try in vain to find out what deep fears he has to cause such dreadful nightmares. I wish he could go to one of those clever psychiatrists seen on the screen who seem to easily bring such fears to the surface and make them lose their terror. Perhaps they only exist on the screen anyway! The trouble lies so deep it’s been there since I ever knew him – when he was only 19. I thought his extreme shyness so attractive, so different. I’d never known what it meant to be shy or out of place. I was so gay and lively, so full of life and fun. That’s what attracted him – and what to him was such an attraction – I could ‘stand up anywhere and recite or tell jokes’. Odd he should so quickly think differently, should think I should keep all and any gaiety for him alone, to show such boredom and aversion to going amongst people as soon as we were married. If I’d not been so young and inexperienced I could have seen the danger signals. If I’d been stronger minded and made a firm stand, perhaps then he would have grown to like company.

  Tuesday, 31 January. I feel so down tonight. My husband had a wild nightmare – huge men with long shining swords were c
hasing him along deserted streets where no one appeared from whom help could be expected, and he had ‘run and run till I dropped’. He looked ghastly, and complained of feeling as if his head had been kicked. I tidied round quietly while he lay back in his chair, and then wrote two letters while he had a nap … [His doctor had advised him to retire.] We sat and talked. I said, ‘Are you worrying about Mother? Do you dread the big change if you really did retire? You know how against change of any kind you have always been. Could it be that?’ I pointed out how, when I’d really got on my top note, Harry had begun to take more on as regards Mother, and made the two daughters do the same, and it had made a great change. I said, ‘I’ll settle the business, and if I cannot, Arthur will come over and do it. Say the word and go to bed if you like for a week. We will see to all.’ I keep Mother out of his way, feeling sometimes the poor dear has a real horror of her and her ways, as if he fears his loss of concentration and memory will worsen and he will grow like her in every way. I wondered if that could be his fear. I scolded gently and pointed out our money would last as long as we were likely to live, that he hadn’t any fear I’d resent any decision. I talked gently and persuasively about the future, though I feel I won’t coax him to give up entirely. It’s a matter he must finally decide for himself. If I did persuade him and he one day wished he hadn’t, I know so well how he would blame me, and there would be nothing could be done about it. I said jokingly, ‘If I win that Irish Sweep I’d whisk you off on a long sea voyage’, and he half smiled as he said, ‘You could do whatever you liked. I’d not disagree.’ …

  I felt desperate with worry as I saw how old and ill he was looking. The doctor has changed his medicine again, saying, ‘You will have to have sounder sleep’. I sat in the fire light, my little Shan We on my lap, and felt so worried, so alone, and so utterly helpless. I made tea when he woke, feeling refreshed. I’d minced the last of the cold meat and we had mint jelly to it, and bread and butter, and there was honey and cake. I tried so desperately hard to talk things over, recalling the brooding shut-in look the boys had had sometimes when things went wrong with their world, how it cleared as little grievances were brought out and talked over, things I’d no ‘touch’ with, and was no help in whatsoever. I’ve heard them say, ‘Things look different when you talk about them’, as if the mere fact of putting things into words made them real enough to face – and fight. It’s so difficult to reach my husband – so impossible. Any subject, person, problem, viewpoint, angle, etc. he feels upsets him and he says, ‘Don’t talk about that’ or ‘I don’t want to see so and so’ or they ‘upset me’.

  I begin thinking and when I go to bed all comes back to me. With the boys under the circumstances we could have made up the fire and drank tea and talked for hours, but we would have found a solution, whether only suffering a thing or clearing it completely away. I stitched and stitched as my mind whirled in a wild montage of ideas and plans. If he only had friends – but he told his brother his visits and phone calls upset him. Granted Harry wanted to talk over Mother and her affairs at the time, and Nellie is one of those feather heads who open their mouths and let every passing thought out – like ‘Ah dear, you do look ill, and how like Mother you are growing’, etc. etc. If he could be told by the doctor, ‘You must have a holiday at a Convalescent Home, by yourself’, or if he had ever been on such friendly terms with the boys as to make me feel he could go to Arthur’s for a holiday – many men could find joy in little Peter, and want to see something of the pet – or if he would write to them and look forward to the postman coming. I felt ‘If only winter was over and we could go out every day – if I could get him interested in the garden’. I had a vision of every day of winter, before warmer days came. Sometimes when things looked dim the boys and I had a kind of fairy story – an ‘If I had £1,000 to spend’ fantasy.

  Wednesday, 1 February. My husband looked so white and strained and said he had slept badly. After lunch and I had washed up and we had settled by the fire, I really pitched into him. I began by asking him, ‘What are you so afraid of? Your wild dreams show a deep hidden fear that is sapping your strength. Try and talk to me dear. I’m sure I could help you if you would let me. You know what I once told Arthur when I’d helped him out of what he thought a scrape and he had said, “You are a pal to understand”. I shocked you when I said, “It’s what mothers are for. And remember whatever you did it would be the same – if you killed anyone, I’d help bury him.” You didn’t see it was a joking remark that was one meant to turn aside Arthur’s concern and make him laugh, but I meant it in truth. I’d do anything to help you.’

  When he said, ‘There’s nothing I can tell you – I don’t feel more worried than usual’, I had that queer clear feeling in my head as I have when I get on my top note and feel facts that have puzzled me grow clear. I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you, you have always been a man to so dread change. I couldn’t move a picture, discard outdated oddments of furniture. You never liked a pair of curtains in my remembrance till they were nearly worn out, and look how you made things so unpleasant when I altered the table and settee. You realise even what interest you take in the business is too much, but you are so afraid of taking the plunge and selling up, and making the rest of the family responsible for Mother. Tell me, don’t you think that could be your bogey?’ He thought for a while and he had to admit it ‘might be’. I said, ‘Well, search your mind and find out – and then quit worrying. I bet I’d settle things in a week, and if I couldn’t, Arthur would help, and you wouldn’t have the slightest worry. And remember,’ I said warningly, ‘things will have to be settled if you don’t stop having these nightmares. I don’t need Dr Miller or anyone else to tell me.’ He looked so piteously at me I could have wept. I went on, ‘We have only ourselves to think of. Our money will last, and you know that I’m adaptable enough to take what comes, country cottage or anything else.’ He nodded, and I changed the subject, and read him bits out of the paper. I felt I sighed as I looked for bits with no ‘worry’, what with elections, hydrogen bombs and ‘snow and ice in most roads’ and the like, there wasn’t much cheerful …

  I feel sure I’ve found his hidden terror that hounds him in nightmares, shocking his whole nervous system. I recalled when Arthur would be about 14 and Cliff 9 and he had a bad bout of sciatica and had to go to Buxton for treatment – nine weeks that time. We seemed to have such a run of bad luck. I’d not had any painting or papering done for some years. I longed to be able to do. We heard of a very clever woman paper hanger, and after we had talked over ways and means we decided if we could do it out of what bit of money I felt I dare spend, we would begin. Our house had never had one thing destroyed or its position moved. After spring cleaning, every picture and ornament had to go back in exactly the same position, for dear peace’s sake. How we planned and schemed, lived on herrings, cheese, vegetables and porridge, never spent money on any amusement, selling piles of oddments we felt wouldn’t fit in with our new décor, even clothes and some bits of jewellery. We painted every scrap ourselves. What paint was not renewed had a coat of flat varnish. The walls were plain cream – no doll-eyed frieze or ‘panelling’. We walked round the house before my husband was coming home and felt in ecstasy.

  I’d not then realised how deep rooted was his aversion to change, that it was so vital a part of his make-up. He got out of the taxi looking so fit and well. His tea was ready and we left the first remark to him. We had written every day and told him how busy we were, but I don’t think he could picture such a change. He looked round the dining room in silence, went upstairs, and came down again, still without a word. I felt vexed to see the bright glow fade from my two boys’ faces. They had worked so hard, planned and schemed and been so delighted with the result. We went to bed. My husband was restless and in the morning had a temperature. I sent word to the doctor he had come home, but wasn’t so well, and I’d like him to call. When he did he asked if my husband had had a shock of any kind, and I said I didn’t know. He had had lit
tle to say of his journey home. He was ill for about a week, and I began to see what the shock was, and though the doctor laughed and said ‘Nonsense’ I was convinced I was right. Beyond a distant ‘You have altered my home so much I don’t feel it is my home’, he never referred to the change, and when friends came in and said, ‘How busy you must have been – everything is lovely’ or words to that effect, he never answered!

  Thursday, 2 February. When my husband came in I felt very glad I’d talked to him yesterday. The accountant wanted to see him about ‘fast drifting into liquidation if you have another year like this’. I’ve known that with one thing and another he wasn’t paying his way, but I’d not realised quite the position. The accountant, a pleasant friendly man who has done the books of the shop and also Harry’s chemist shop for years, advised him to make up his mind to ‘lock the door on it all, pay off the men as soon as existing jobs are through and all worked up, and give all a miss for about a year’. Arthur advised the very same thing but my husband dismissed such a wild impractical suggestion. Now it looks as if he will decide to give up, not selling up till he feels well enough to go into things. I felt things were rushing away with me. I’ve so often pleaded with him. It took a real top note of mine to get him into a reasonable enough frame of mind to agree to the accountant’s suggestion, and not make it a shock!