One Pair of Hands Read online

  ‘Be a love and put the kettle on, so’s we can have our tea.’ When it was boiling I yelled out to them, and was answered by the usual chorus of ‘Oi-oi’, and Walrus came along with a grubby-looking billycan. I pointedly spread sheets of newspaper on the floor between him and the stove, and he advanced over them like Queen Elizabeth, saying, ‘Pardon me, Duchess.’ I wanted to laugh at him, because he really was very funny, but I didn’t dare let him see I thought so. I controlled myself while he poured water on to the black tea leaves in the can, and stirred the whole lot round with a screwdriver – which he carried in his breast-pocket in place of a fountain pen. He picked his way delicately back over the newspaper crying, ‘Dinnah is served!’ turning at the door to give me a very familiar wink. He seemed to be the leading light of the party next door, because I could hear his voice leading the conversation, interrupted occasionally by the sucking noise of tea being drawn through his moustache. The others expressed themselves chiefly in guffaws.

  They packed up soon after this, having evidently come to the conclusion that they had drunk enough tea for one day. The idea of knocking off seemed rather to go to their heads, and I heard a lot of ragging and shuffling in the passage, and eventually a very fat man was propelled violently into the kitchen and landed on his back on the floor.

  ‘He’s just come to say good night, miss,’ said a grinning face appearing in the doorway. I was beginning to understand how school teachers feel when their pupils persecute them, but I said ‘Good night’ quite politely to the figure on the floor, who, however, thought the whole thing so screamingly funny that he could do nothing but giggle. He scrambled to his feet with a large red hand over his mouth and tottered out, shaking like a jelly.

  I was thankful when the last hobnail boot clattered away up the area steps and I was left in peace. I had been thinking how lovely it was that there were no electric bells in the house yet, but I wasn’t sure that the workmen were not even more unnerving.

  I was looking forward to seeing the second half of the Randalls, and I knew he was due to arrive soon, when I went up to light the drawing-room fire and found her in a different dress with her hair and face carefully done.

  When he arrived she took him all over the house to admire her handiwork, and brought him down to the kitchen to be introduced to me. He was rather embarrassed, as most men are when they have to talk to a domestic about anything that doesn’t concern household matters, but managed a shy ‘How d’you do?’ and a handshake. He was tall, with a good-looking if not intelligent face, and together they really looked the sort of couple that makes old family nurses say, ‘Don’t they make a lovely pair?’

  They seemed blissfully happy and enraptured with everything, even the rather dull dinner I gave them, and when I went up to say good night they were sitting hand in hand on the drawing-room sofa – a charming picture.

  ‘Oh, but my husband must explain about the boiler to you before you go,’ said Mrs Randall, jumping up and pulling him towards the door. ‘You see,’ she said as we all went down to the kitchen, ‘it’s very important for the water to be hot by half past eight for his bath, otherwise it makes him late for work.’

  He seemed to know a lot about the boiler in theory, anyway, and I listened to all the talk about opening dampers, and when to make it draw, and when not to, but I didn’t take it all in – it seemed so complicated. Surely in these enlightened and lazy days they could be made a bit more foolproof. Though not at all reassured myself, I assured them that I understood perfectly and left them, praying that all might go smoothly in the morning.

  My misgivings were more than justified the next day, when the boiler gave me a taste of the vice in its soul. I made a great effort and, getting up early, arrived at the South Kensington house by half past seven. Much to my relief, the chain gang had not yet arrived, so I took the front off the boiler and carefully filled it with paper and wood. It blazed up beautifully, and I thought I would let it burn for a bit before I put on any coke, so I went upstairs to dust the dining-room. When I got back to the kitchen the boiler stared coldly at me and the ashes of the wood and paper lay dead inside.

  I started grimly all over again, and added some coke on top before going up to sweep the carpet. I only stayed away a few minutes this time, but even more depressing results awaited me. Nothing had been burnt except the paper, and the carefully stacked wood and coke had just collapsed, and most of it had fallen out on the floor as, of course, I had forgotten to put the front on.

  The kitchen clock told me it was getting quite late, and as I was on my knees, feverishly making another effort at laying the boiler, I was startled by shouts of ‘Good morning!’ from the doorway. I was much too rattled to answer, so I just waved them away without turning round.

  ‘Hoity-toity!’ said a voice which sounded like the Walrus Moustache’s, and though he said no more I could feel from the way my spine prickled that he stayed in the doorway watching me pityingly. Eventually he departed roofwards with a snort and never saw the blaze-up that suddenly happened for no reason at all and nearly took off my eyebrows. This time I stayed by the boiler, and fed it, like an invalid, with one lump of coke at a time, only leaving it for a minute to take up the early morning tea. I was absorbed for quite a long time, dropping bits in through the top, and was trying to persuade myself that it was only my imagination that made the small red glow inside seem to be getting even less, when my employer came rushing into the kitchen in his dressing-gown with a blue unshaven chin.

  ‘I say, what’s happened? The water’s stone cold.’

  ‘I’m terrible sorry, sir. I’ve had such trouble with this thing.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, let me look. Here, surely you ought to have this little door open, not this one. Look – I haven’t got time now – I’ll skip my bath this morning. You might heat me some shaving water.’ I put the kettle on and abandoned the boiler, which in any case had now definitely given up the ghost, as it was time to start cooking the breakfast.

  When I took up the eggs and bacon they had started on their grapefruit and coffee, and she was reading him extracts from her letters while he was trying to get a hasty glance through The Times.

  ‘Mother wants to come to dinner tonight, darling. I’m longing for her to see the house now we’re actually in it.’

  A mumble came from behind the paper: ‘Oh, Lord, what a day, everything at once. First the boiler, and then your mother –’

  ‘What did you say, Peter?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, darling, nothing, nothing, nothing. I say – poor old Cummins is dead! Stroke on the golf course – who’d have thought it!’

  I went out of the room, leaving her still brooding a little. As she kissed him good-bye in the hall I heard her say: ‘Darling, you do want to have mother to dinner, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, my sweet, if you want her. Good-bye, darling – take care of yourself,’ he called as he rushed off in a great hurry. I wondered what his work was that made him behave like a little boy who is afraid of getting a bad mark if he’s late for school.

  When Mrs Randall had ordered the meals, which consisted chiefly of her sucking a pencil and saying, ‘Um –’ and me sucking my teeth and saying nothing, she said:

  ‘It was a pity about the boiler. I wonder if you could light it now – why don’t you get one of the workmen to help you? They’re sure to know all about it.’

  This had already occurred to me and, though I didn’t much like the idea, I saw that I should have to resort to it in the end.

  The boiler had got to be lit some time, so I screwed up my courage and when the Walrus came padding in to make the first of those frequent brews of tea I said:

  ‘Could you possibly help me to light this boiler? I’ve tried and tried but it’s no good and I must get it lit.’

  I sat down, as he was not very tall, and I wanted to be able to throw him an appealing upward glance. He regarded me with the confident mockery of a man who has women in his power and tosses them aside like broken dolls.<
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  ‘I will ask the second footman to attend to it, your ladyship,’ he said, and minced off over the newspaper. A few moments later the pale youth popped his head round the door and said:

  ‘Fred says I’ve got to light yer biler.’ I welcomed him with open arms, and he took the lid off the thing and peered gloomily inside.

  ‘Cor, what you bin at?’

  ‘I know, isn’t it awful? Can you possibly get it to light, d’you think?’

  ‘Gimme a knob or two of coal, miss, and I’ll soon get her going.’

  I rushed out to the coal cellar and returned with my arms full, blacking my face and clean overall in my excitement. He stacked the boiler up methodically with paper and wood, and twiddled a few knobs, and when it was filled with a magical crackling he put on the coke.

  ‘Must have a touch of coal to start it off like,’ he said, ‘then you can put on the coke when she’s glowing, see?’ I got him to show me what to do with the wretched little doors, once it was going properly, and thanked him warmly. He had missed his tea through it, so I offered him a cup in the kitchen, which he accepted. ‘Got a horrible pain,’ he confided to me as he sat down, holding his pale face in his hands, ‘it’s me teeth. Spent ten pounds on ’em last year, but they don’t seem to fit yet. Ma says they always play you up for the first five years. Ten pounds I spent, and they’re lovely, too; I think they look ever so nice.’ He bared them at me in a false and gleaming grin. I thought it terrible that he should have false teeth at his age; but it seemed more a matter of pride than regret with him. ‘Ah well,’ he said at length, getting wearily up, ‘this won’t buy the baby new clothes.’ He gave the fire a last poke, and shutting everything down on the cheering glow inside, shuffled back to his stone chipping.

  Mrs Randall went out quite early, saying she would not be back till after tea, so I prepared to do a little intensive cleaning. Carpenters and packers had left their traces of dust and shavings all over the house, and I thought that I had better do something before the eye of Mrs Randall’s mother, which I suspected would be a carping one, descended on it. I attended to all the more obvious things, such as the stairs and linoleum in the hall, and after sweating much and grief to the knees I got the place to look fairly presentable. I was in the bedroom making the bed when I heard a sound that made my blood run cold – it was the tramp of boots descending the stairs, and, before I could stop him, Fred had galloped along the hall and out of the front door. I was sure he had done it on purpose.

  There was a heap of rubble on the top landing where he had descended through the trap-door from the roof. A dirty footmark adorned every stair, and my beautifully polished linoleum was a tragedy.

  I was furious and told him so the next time I saw him, but that man had no shame, he just giggled and said, ‘Aw, come off it, Chloë.’ He insisted on calling me that – it seemed to be his idea of a stuck-up name. I was washing some saucepans at the time and, still assured of his irresistible charm, he offered to help me, a suggestion which I didn’t think even worthy of an answer. Lunch-time came with its usual tea-brewing nuisance, and I thought I might try to snatch a little peace to eat an egg or two, and read my morning paper, the dear little Servant’s Delight. Fred, however, had other ideas – the kitchen window looked out on to a tiny strip of garden at the back of the house, and this was where he had taken up his stand, with the walrus moustache spread out against the window-pane. I moved my chair to the other side of the table so that my back was towards him, but it was impossible to ignore the melancholy strains of ‘You’re a sweet’eart hif there ever was one, it’s yew’, which banished all hope of peace and quiet.

  After lunch I started to prepare one or two things for dinner. Fred had given up on ‘You’re a sweetheart’, and was working in the next room to the accompaniment of ‘Ain’t she sweet?’; but I was getting used to it, so it didn’t bother me so much.

  I was feeling quite pleased with life in general, and had made a mayonnaise without curdling it, but a bitter blow was in store for me. I went to the sink to rinse something out and ice-cold water came out of the hot tap. There sat the boiler grinning smugly with the bars of its front door, and saying, ‘I told you so.’ I gave it a sharp clout with a rolling-pin, but it wasn’t really its fault for going out when I had forgotten to make it up all day. I went to look for the young boy, but he was nowhere to be found.

  ‘Gone home wiv toothache,’ said Fred with great satisfaction. ‘Something I can do for you, Chloë?’

  ‘Well, all right, blast you,’ I said. I felt it was rather a climb down, and I had to stay in the kitchen while he relaid and lit the boiler in case his distorted sense of humour led him astray.

  ‘You got a boy, Chloë?’ he said when he had finished, getting up from his knees and dusting his hands. ‘Yes, thank you,’ I replied. ‘He’s a heavyweight boxer.’

  ‘O.K., dearie, you win,’ replied Fred, retreating with a wave of his hand. I recollected my manners and called out, ‘Thanks awfully for lighting the boiler!’

  ‘Think nothing of it, Chloë.’ I thought I had heard the last of him for that day as it was time for them to knock off, but while I was rolling out some pastry I realized that a little scene was being staged outside the kitchen door for my benefit.

  ‘Je-ames,’ I heard in accents of falsetto refinement, ‘would you maynd brushing off my coat? Hit’s a trayfle creased. Her ladyship is sure to pass a remark about it.’

  ‘Ho, certainly, may lord. What a beautiful fit, if ay may say so!’

  They peeped round the door before they left to see the effect on me. I pretended not to have noticed anything, and rolled away like mad, ruining the pastry, as it turned out afterwards, by pressing heavily on it in my efforts to keep from laughing.

  I wished I didn’t have to be haughty with them, but I saw no other way of coping with their peculiar brand of teasing … I really felt quite shy of them; they were quite a different proposition from some of the tradesmen with whom I had made friends.

  Mrs Greene, my mistress’s mother, arrived very early, considering she was only supposed to be coming to dinner, before either of the young couple had returned. She was a small stout widow of about fifty, ambitiously but unsuccessfully dressed in a black satin suit, whose short skirt displayed a great deal of plump leg in shiny orange stockings. A too frisky hat was perched at the wrong angle over her busy little black eyes, which swept over me as I let her in, darted all round the hall, and finally returned to me.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, tottering into the hall in her tight court shoes. ‘You’re Monica, I expect, that’s right. I’ve heard all about you.’ I wondered how she knew so much already, but I soon discovered that she made it her business in life to know all about everything. She roamed all over the house, peering everywhere in the most inquisitive way, giving vent to an occasional ‘Dear, dear!’ or ‘Well, I don’t know’, as she trotted briskly from room to room. When I was laying the table in the dining-room I could hear her rummaging about, opening drawers and cupboards in the bedroom next door. Mrs Randall arrived at this point and they greeted each other fondly. Mrs Greene said: ‘I think the house looks sweet, darling. There are just one or two suggestions – but that can wait. I think you ought to try to get Peter to be more careful of his clothes. This suit will have to go to the cleaners; look here, there’s a terrible stain on the coat, and the trousers want pressing.’

  ‘Yes, mother. Would you like to come upstairs and have some sherry? I’ll ring for Monica to bring some up.’

  ‘Don’t ring, dear, she’s just in the dining-room, I think. I’ll ask her. You look tired, my darling. I hope you haven’t been doing too much. Come and put your feet up on the sofa, I’ll make you comfy.’

  ‘No, really, mother, I –’

  ‘Come along, dear. Goodness, you get thinner every day. I hope you’re eating properly.’

  When I took up the sherry Mrs Randall was reclining obediently on the sofa, while her mother pottered about the room, moving ashtrays and orn
aments. She seemed to devitalize her daughter and sap her of her usual bubbling personality. But the effect on her son-in-law was even more noticeable. He started off dinner making a great effort at a rather hearty politeness, rubbing his hands and laughing at nothing. Mrs Greene’s incessant flow of remarks soon wore him down, however, and he sank into a depressed and glum silence. After dinner Mrs Greene actually had the sauce to come down to the kitchen to see what sort of a hash I was making of things. She arrived just as I was going to have some food, which infuriated me. She was one of those women who don’t realize that servants do anything so human or normal as eating, and my supper stood congealing on the table while she talked to me and poked around in the cupboard.

  ‘My daughter doesn’t know much about housekeeping yet, you know. I’ve taught her a lot, of course. I’ve run a house now for thirty years with no fuss. Do a lot of the cooking myself, too. My daughter always says I give her better food than anybody.’ I murmured false sounds of approbation, but could not bring myself to answer when she said: ‘I’m surprised to see you using self-raising flour; it’s so much better, you know, to use the plain and add baking powder. Still, you’re young. You’ve plenty of time to learn.’ Taking my silence for agreement, she left me, to my intense relief, and went away to see what other improvements she could make in the world upstairs.

  Chapter Eight

  THE NEXT MORNING was catastrophic. I made no attempt to light the boiler when I got there, thinking that I would get False Teeth to do it when he came. The rest of the workmen arrived, and I waited and waited for him, until finally it was getting so late that I had to accost Fred.

  ‘Bert ain’t coming ’smorning,’ he said. ‘What a disappointment, eh, Chloë?’