tell her that I saw Uncle A’s latest bank statement. He had precisely £309.56 left in the world. No wonder he worried about the price of soup.
Came home to a quick lunch of leftovers. We dipped all the sandwiches in beaten egg and fried them. Delicious. Still tidying up. Found a copy of J. B. Priestley’s Delight lying face down in the bothy. It was a bit rumpled but it had fallen open at a passage in which he said the book was a penitence ‘for having grumbled so much, for having darkened the breakfast table, almost ruined the lunch, nearly silenced the dinner party – for all the fretting and chafing, grousing and croaking, for the old glum look and the thrust-out lower lip’. Uncle Arthur to a T.
Uncle Arthur had a stutter quite as bad as good King George’s. This made chatting rather hard work at first, and I never sat and questioned him in a companionable way. I knew he had followed his father into the egg trade, because he had an obscure relative who marketed eggs on the hoof, as it were, by driving flocks of geese, turkey and hens across Russia, wearing little shammy-leather bootees to protect their feet. He would herd them onto ships, where, safely ‘cooped’ they laid their eggs for weeks all ready to be sold on arrival. And he had a scary aunt Dodie, who taught English to a posh family in ‘Leningrad’ and was paid in Fabergé eggs.
She auctioned them for the Free French and they made a fortune, unlike the eatable variety. I don’t think there was much money in eggs. During the war, of course, they were nationalised. Uncle Arthur remained attached throughout the duration, and enjoyed his business life. ‘He’s a man’s man,’ Mother would say, and ‘What did you have for lunch today, dear?’ There was always ‘lunch with the boys’. Beef olives seemed popular. I’m not sure what they are. Nothing to do with olives.
I met him once, Priestley. He came to the Glasgow Citizens Theatre during rehearsals for one of his plays. Was it Mr Gillie? No, that’s thingummy whatsisname – Bridie. We all had lunch and he seemed really affable. Glorious voice, and the pipe, of course. I nearly ran him over outside Stratford once. He was crossing a country road near his home, Kissing Tree House. You have to love someone who lives in Kissing Tree House.
I’ve got a part in Peter’s Friends. Things are taking shape. Life is beginning to look almost manageable. They are fine about missing the read-through. I’m not the only one, but I shall be three days late for rehearsal. Make-up and Wardrobe will ring me here but I’m not on camera till Monday next, which gives me a bit of breathing space. Mildew will have to take me through lines on the plane. It seems most of my stuff will be shot in one week because of the location. Brilliant. I could be back up here in less than two weeks. Then I want to move Ma downstairs to Uncle A’s room. Much easier for her and a straight run to the loo. I will get rid of the old sad wardrobe, the bed and that distressing chest of drawers. I’ll have to borrow the blue van. The room will need repainting. Magnolia? Boring? Different curtains and decent lampshades. Wish I could start now but that would be rude.
Sleepless night. I’d forgotten about the car. Mother can’t and shouldn’t drive it. There’s still a rusting scrape on the offside door. She was driving home one evening and, thinking the lighthouse was an oncoming car, she pulled over and fell into a ditch. I decided to drive it back to London and get rid of my mine. Now, at breakfast, Mildew points out that I’ll need the car when I get back here. CURSES.
Passed the Glory Hole on my way into Dunoon and, seeing it was open, wandered in to snoop and enquire about what they think they might take from the pile of stuff we’ll need to shift. Anyway, there was Mrs Beggs, the good and glorious.
I think it was the minister’s wife who told me about Mrs Beggs (the good and glorious). Apparently, she ‘looks after people’, and when I timidly sketched out my situation, she understood immediately and offered nights for the week I’ll be away. I didn’t ask, she offered. That means Mother will have Marvellous Marianne in the morning and Mrs Beggs at night. Result! Beggsie can come to tea tomorrow, but Ma knows her well of old when she used to run a bakery in Dunoon, so that doesn’t worry me. What does is that she’ll have to sleep in Uncle Arthur’s gloomy bedroom. I explained. Fine. I love her.
It was a wild morning. Window wide, polish akimbo, Marigold gloves and Frish. I took all the linen, curtains and coverlet to the laundry. The coverlet is really nice and at least the curtains will smell fresh. I’m going to throw away the electric blanket. It’s got a huge brown singed corner where Ma left it on and it caught fire. Pong was frightful, but nobody died.
That white tray-cloth with the crocheted edges will cover the top of the dismal chest of drawers and then a jug of fresh flowers – no, they won’t last. I’ll get a pot of something. An African violet perhaps. Mildew says the dingy drugget is a hazard.
Glory Hole? I’ll clean the carpet. Bex Bissell is on the shopping list. Feathers keep bursting out of one of the old yellowing pillows. I’ll stitch it into a clean pillow case but it should be cleaned. It’s disgusting.
Mother, thank heavens, barely noticed the disruption. We gave her coffee sitting in the doorway of the shed, out of the sun, before her morning walk. I shouted at her as she trotted down the path with Marianne, waving her stick, ‘You haven’t got your distance glasses on, Mother.’
Good word for Scrabble, ‘Drugget’.
Hat on backwards today
‘Don’t worry, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m not going any distance.’
Turning our attention to larder and fridge: we’ll do a basic shop at some point but I think a visit to the Oyster Bar on Loch Fyne would do us good, whatever the weather. Smoked salmon and a piece of Bradan Rost are on the list and they will keep. I could make a kedgeree before I go. It will have to be Dunoon for a piece of ham. If I boil and bake it, I can use the stock for lentil soup and put some in the deep freeze. Lentils go off so suddenly and start to bubble volcanically. I suggested a pot of mince but Ma isn’t keen. Indigestible, she said. She asked for mushrooms on toast for lunch and I made it, with supervision, as she used to do, with cream and nutmeg.
Must get more cream. I’ll get peppers, tomatoes and anchovies for that Delia Smith recipe. And garlic. Uncle A forbade it. Ma used to try and sneak it into everything, tucking it under the leg of lamb or near the bone. ‘He’ll never know,’ she’d say. He always did. He hated it so much I gave him a handsomely illustrated book on garlic for Christmas one year. Lovely photos. That was where I got the tip to push a clove up your bum if you had piles. Nor would he eat avocados. He said they tasted of soap. There are some days when I agree. He thought he didn’t like Brussels sprouts either but Ma used to put them with soft boiled potatoes and create a sort of beautiful pale green mash, which he loved. If he asked her what it was she’d say, ‘A whim-wham for a goose’s bridle’, which was always her lie about rabbit when we were kids.
I’ll buy a couple of packets of Jus-Rol pastry for a ‘perhaps pie’. And two dozen eggs as I bet she’ll make us a soufflé on our last night. It always makes me sad. A soufflé. She always made one for supper the night before I left for boarding school.
