Dolly's Mixture by Dorothy Scannell

Amy lemon, David’s wife Lydia was in powder-blue, Dolly in pale green, and David my brother, always an immaculate chappie, in pin-striped trousers with appropriate jacket. To all passers-by Amy extended the royal acknowledgement, the ‘bending of the elbow’. They stood and stared in amazement. Four handsome young men in a car going our way, dressed for dining at some exclusive rendezvous, kept pace with us for much of the time, thoroughly enjoying their repartee with Amy, now on top of her form. If her James had not already been dumbstruck I would have said he grew more ominously silent as we bowled along.
    By the time we reached my house at Forest Gate we were all laughing (except Jimmy, naturally) and Mother suggested Amy sponge her face and take some strong tea before going home. Hardly a wise suggestion, as it turned out. Amy, loath to go home to ‘life ordinaire’ again so soon, wanting this ecstatic reunion with the Cheggies to continue, entered the house with alacrity and promptly fell up the stairs. We Cheggies talked eagerly about the wedding, but when it dawned on Amy that her spouse was not entering into the spirit of the occasion she fixed him with a stern and awful stare and, to his horror and ours, began a recital of her beloved’s shortcomings, commencing from years back. Some of the accusations, I felt, were a bit on the intimate side. Her recital was distinct, eloquent and organised. She could have been doing Portia’s speech – without the mercy, of course.
    I would have been profuse with apologies to a dear husband had I been the merry wife, but Amy has always believed that the best way to defend is to attack, and attack she did. She was deaf to Mother’s entreaties to ‘Drink your tea, Amy, do drink it while it’s hot,’ and her indignant words swept on and on. When Amy paused for breath James rose with dignity and said, ‘I will leave you with your mother until you come to your senses, then perhaps you will return home.’ This would have worried me but Amy called out gaily, ‘Coward,’ to Jim’s retreating back. She wasn’t a bit worried about being left but just annoyed that she had been stemmed in the flow of her Shakespearean diatribe.
    James must have thought I was a steadying influence on Amy, for on the occasion of a luncheon on board a posh passenger liner he invited me along, no doubt to keep her in hand. Because it was a business affair and not a Cheggie one, Amy and I behaved with dignity and decorum until at the end of the meal, when Amy lit a cigarette. One important lady guest leant over and said to Amy in haughty tones, ‘Are you smoking? I have suffered virus pneumonia.’ ‘Irish pneumonia!’ cried a surprised Amy, mishearing the lady (it might have been due to the luncheon wine) and always interested to learn. ‘I have never heard of that strain of pneumonia, have you, Dolly?’ ‘Oh, yes, Amy,’ I said. ‘It’s a national illness, like German measles, and Asian ’flu.’ Then, the wine taking effect, I said, ‘Then there are the venerable diseases and saints disorders.’ The haughty lady turned to the guest at her side and whispered something, whereupon this gentleman gazed at us sternly, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
    If I refer to the ‘streptococci lady’, Amy knows immediately to whom I am referring. It’s a sort of code between us. We had a very smart friend who used long words to impress us, though sometimes it took a little while to puzzle out what she meant. A dear relative of hers suffered a ‘celestial’ condition. We thought he had passed on but found he had a cholesterol condition of the blood: and after her first holiday abroad she informed us that she was in ‘perjury’ with sunburn. Purgatory?
    However, I was so grateful to Amy for the benefit of her advice as an experienced shop assistant and her reassurance that