make-up to cover the results. But I had hoped that I looked clean.
Mother’s face flooded with angry colour. For a moment she looked like Avril in a tantrum. She cast a scornful glance at the shopkeeper, who staredback at her with her chin thrust upwards, quite unabashed.
‘Good afternoon,’ Mother snapped, as she swung round and opened the street door. The little bell tinkled crossly at being so forcibly disturbed.
‘Helen, this way.’
It was an order, and I slouched out through the doorway, closely followed by my wrathful mother.
CHAPTER NINE
Mother scolded sibilantly all the way home, and blamed me for wasting her time. I was too crushed and disappointed to respond.
Back I went to the kitchen and little Edward, who trotted patiently by my side, while I fumed miserably. In saner moments, I acknowledged that Mother had saved me from savage exploitation. But her motives in doing so were, to me, suspect. And as the years went by I felt that my increasing efficiency at home was daily making more certain that I stay there. Probably a few pennies of pocket money or a modicum of praise would have done much to soothe me. But everything I did was taken for granted. Failures were bitingly criticised. There was no one to turn to for consolation, except, occasionally, to Fiona.
And yet I yearned to love my parents and be loved in return, to have with them the tender relationship I had had with Grandma during the long months I had frequently spent with her during my childhood. But Grandma had vanished with the rest of my friends. In my innocence, I did not understand that my parents’ fast and extravagant life in the post World War years had alienated every relation they had. Father’s widowed mother – the last to desert them – had left her son to learn the hard way the teachings she had failed to inculcate in him when young. She probably had no conception of the depth of our sufferings.
There is no doubt that Mother never forgave her friends for deserting her after Father went bankrupt; it was as if she declared a silent, ruthless war against her own class. The depth of her bitterness was immeasurable.
I remembered well the doll-like creatures who used to frequent our drawing room and dining room. In short, beige georgette dresses, their Marcel-waved hair covered by deep cloche hats, they teetered on high heels in and out of our old home in considerable numbers. Afternoon tea or dinner were served by a parlour maid in a black and white uniform. Sometimes well-tailored young men, who also had time to waste, came to drink a cocktail or have a cup of tea.
Several times, a man vanished from the usual circle. One of the ladies would say, between puffs on a cigarette held in a long holder, ‘Gas, dahling – his lungs couldn’t stand it,’ or ‘He was loaded with shrapnel – a piece moved round to his heart. Too utterly devastating.’
I was allowed to attend the tea parties. Edith would dress me in my best frock, usually shantung silk, long white socks and brown lace-up shoes, and I would sit and nibble a piece of cake and watch the prettily dressed visitors. I soon learned that most of the men were unemployed, ex-army officers; they usually had some private means left them by more enterprising forefathers, but as prices rose their money shrank. They had no special qualifications and sought jobs as car salesmen or vacuum cleaner salesmen. One of them regularly allowed me to reach up and touch the silver plate the doctors had implanted to replace the top of his skull; another had an artificial leg which creaked when he walked. Father himself had trouble with his hands, which had been frost-bitten during his service in Russia. He also got chest pains, forerunners of the heart attacks to come.
So, perhaps my parents’ friends, bereaved, disillusioned, wounded in a war of frightful, unnecessary suffering, had so many troubles of their own thatthey were unable to help one of their number who had failed largely
Mother’s face flooded with angry colour. For a moment she looked like Avril in a tantrum. She cast a scornful glance at the shopkeeper, who staredback at her with her chin thrust upwards, quite unabashed.
‘Good afternoon,’ Mother snapped, as she swung round and opened the street door. The little bell tinkled crossly at being so forcibly disturbed.
‘Helen, this way.’
It was an order, and I slouched out through the doorway, closely followed by my wrathful mother.
CHAPTER NINE
Mother scolded sibilantly all the way home, and blamed me for wasting her time. I was too crushed and disappointed to respond.
Back I went to the kitchen and little Edward, who trotted patiently by my side, while I fumed miserably. In saner moments, I acknowledged that Mother had saved me from savage exploitation. But her motives in doing so were, to me, suspect. And as the years went by I felt that my increasing efficiency at home was daily making more certain that I stay there. Probably a few pennies of pocket money or a modicum of praise would have done much to soothe me. But everything I did was taken for granted. Failures were bitingly criticised. There was no one to turn to for consolation, except, occasionally, to Fiona.
And yet I yearned to love my parents and be loved in return, to have with them the tender relationship I had had with Grandma during the long months I had frequently spent with her during my childhood. But Grandma had vanished with the rest of my friends. In my innocence, I did not understand that my parents’ fast and extravagant life in the post World War years had alienated every relation they had. Father’s widowed mother – the last to desert them – had left her son to learn the hard way the teachings she had failed to inculcate in him when young. She probably had no conception of the depth of our sufferings.
There is no doubt that Mother never forgave her friends for deserting her after Father went bankrupt; it was as if she declared a silent, ruthless war against her own class. The depth of her bitterness was immeasurable.
I remembered well the doll-like creatures who used to frequent our drawing room and dining room. In short, beige georgette dresses, their Marcel-waved hair covered by deep cloche hats, they teetered on high heels in and out of our old home in considerable numbers. Afternoon tea or dinner were served by a parlour maid in a black and white uniform. Sometimes well-tailored young men, who also had time to waste, came to drink a cocktail or have a cup of tea.
Several times, a man vanished from the usual circle. One of the ladies would say, between puffs on a cigarette held in a long holder, ‘Gas, dahling – his lungs couldn’t stand it,’ or ‘He was loaded with shrapnel – a piece moved round to his heart. Too utterly devastating.’
I was allowed to attend the tea parties. Edith would dress me in my best frock, usually shantung silk, long white socks and brown lace-up shoes, and I would sit and nibble a piece of cake and watch the prettily dressed visitors. I soon learned that most of the men were unemployed, ex-army officers; they usually had some private means left them by more enterprising forefathers, but as prices rose their money shrank. They had no special qualifications and sought jobs as car salesmen or vacuum cleaner salesmen. One of them regularly allowed me to reach up and touch the silver plate the doctors had implanted to replace the top of his skull; another had an artificial leg which creaked when he walked. Father himself had trouble with his hands, which had been frost-bitten during his service in Russia. He also got chest pains, forerunners of the heart attacks to come.
So, perhaps my parents’ friends, bereaved, disillusioned, wounded in a war of frightful, unnecessary suffering, had so many troubles of their own thatthey were unable to help one of their number who had failed largely
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