Philippa Carr - We’ll meet again

MARY GRACE HAD TALKED A great deal about her work at the ministry and the people she met there, and she thought I might be interested to meet her special friends.

“Don’t get the idea,” she said, “that we are doing very vital war work—involved in top secrets and such like. This is the Ministry of Labour and our work has a great deal to do with putting papers in alphabetical order and finding jobs best suited to the abilities of the people who are registered with us. Those who work with me are rather like myself—inexperienced. Some have never been out to work before and what we have to do is simply the sort that anyone could do.”

I said I thought she was being modest.

“No, no,” she answered. “That is not so. You will see I am right when you meet my special colleagues. We all sit together at a table, sorting out our papers, making notes of information, watched over by our supervisor. The supervisor is, of course, a bona fide civil servant.”

I realized what she meant when I met the girls. They often lunched together in a Lyons or A.B.C. teashop. There were four of them including Mary Grace. She was what was called a “part-timer” on account of certain responsibilities concerning her mother. The others worked full-time—nine until five.

The Ministry was in Acton, not so very far from the center of town, and I was to meet them in the Lyons teashop at twelve-thirty.

No sooner had I entered the restaurant than Mary Grace rose to greet me. Seated with her were the three I was to meet. They all surveyed me with interest.

“Mrs. Marian Owen, Mrs. Peggy Dunn, and Miss Florette Fields,” said Mary Grace with dignity. “And this is Miss Violetta Denver.”

“Oh, that’s a classy name,” said Miss Florette Fields. “I like that. I was Flora but I changed it to Florette. Professional reasons, you understand?”

“Florette,” I said. “That’s charming.”

She flashed her rather toothy smile in my direction. There was something very friendly about her.

“We’re ordering the Home Pie,” said Mary Grace. “The ingredients may be a little mysterious, but it’s tasty.”

Everybody laughed. I was to discover that they laughed easily and in this they reminded me of the soldiers in the theater.

“You are staying in London for a while then?” said Marian. She was different from the others and I realized that she was eager for me to know this.

“Yes,” I told her. “I shall be going back to my parents’ home at the end of the week.”

“Lucky you,” said Florette.

They were all a little stiff at first but it was not long before conversation was flowing easily. We spoke mainly about the Ministry. There was a Mrs. Crimp, who was called “Curly,” and a Mr. Bunter, who was known as “Billy” for obvious reasons.

Mary Grace, I discovered, had a hitherto unsuspected gift for making people talk. I think she was very eager for her friends to reveal themselves and over Home Pie, which was indeed surprisingly tasty, and coffee, I glimpsed something of the backgrounds of Peggy and Florette, though Marian Owen was quite reticent.

Peggy and Florette were quite different and both had the gift of being able to laugh at themselves. Florette was a girl without guile or pretense. Within fifteen minutes of our acquaintance, I knew of her ambitions. She was going to be what she called a “star.” Peggy admired her as someone she herself could never be. She listened avidly, watching her as she talked, with wondering eyes full of admiration.

“Florette won a competition once,” Peggy told me. “Came first, didn’t you, Florette?”

Florette smiled broadly.

“Tell Violetta about it,” said Peggy. We were on Christian-name terms by that time.

“Well,” said Florette. “There was this talent-spotting competition, wasn’t there?”

I was reminded of Charley and Bert. She was not asking me to recall the occasion. It was just a form of speech.

“There were big posters outside the Music Hall. The Empire, wasn’t it? ‘Try your luck,’ it said. ‘This might be your road to fame.’ Everyone was saying, ‘Go on, Flor, you can sing with the best of ’em.’”

“She’s got a lovely voice,” put in Peggy.

“Well,” said Florette modestly. “It’s not bad. You should have seen me. Practicing for weeks, I was.”

“And she won it,” cried Peggy, impatient for the climax.

“Well, I got up there, didn’t I? Was my knees shaking? You can bet your life. I was like a lump of jelly. I thought, I’ll open me mouth, and there’ll be nothing but a squawk. Well, there I was. ‘Blue skies over the white cliffs of Dover.’ You can always get away with that one, and then an old-fashioned one. ‘After the ball was over.’ My mum always wanted to go on the Halls and she used to sing that one to me. Well, I got in the first six … and then we did it all again.”

“And she was the first,” cried Peggy again.

“Five pounds I got. First prize. Thought it was a fortune. It was a start. Well, I reckon I’d be on my way if it wasn’t for this old war. Where can you get in times like these? Still, I made a start. I’ve always got that. Gave me a certificate, they did, to say I’d won first prize.”

“It must have been wonderful,” I said.

“You wait. You’ll see me in lights. My mum used to talk about Marie Lloyd. That’s what I’ll be. You wait until this war’s over.”

While this conversation was going on, I was listening with earnest attention. Peggy was as excited as Florette herself and Mary Grace was watching me, to see if I were enjoying meeting her friends. Marian Owen was sitting quietly by, with a faint smile on her face. Every now and then she caught my eye, as though to say, “We must be lenient with these people. They are not as we are. They have not had our advantages of education.” At least, that was the construction I put on it. I would share the impression with Mary Grace in due course.

“Then I changed my name to Florette,” went on the owner of that name. “Well, Flora … mind you, it’s a nice enough name. I’m not saying anything against it. But it’s not quite show business.”

“Florette will look better up in lights,” said Peggy.

“It is all very interesting,” I said. “I hope you succeed. I am sure you will.”

Florette nodded agreement and Mary Grace said: “Violetta wanted to meet you all. She thought you sounded so interesting.”

“You won’t find me very interesting,” said Peggy. “Poor old me.”

“I am sure you have had an interesting life,” I said, and I meant it. Peggy was small, thin, and I guessed her to be in her mid-forties. Her face was prematurely wrinkled, and her hair had been dyed—not very expertly—a deep black. Her face gave me the impression of one who had lived through much—mostly tribulation. One only had to look at Peggy to see that life had not been easy for her.

Her past was revealed—if not all at that first meeting, soon after. She had married young—not very satisfactorily—and had had two children. One had emigrated to Australia five years before the war; the other had married and gone “up north.” Her husband had drunk away his wages every Friday night, and there was nothing to do but keep the house going. She had some odd jobs cleaning other people’s houses and so it had gone on. And now, here she was—husband dead, children far away and not really taking much trouble to come and see her; she admitted that it was a great pleasure to her to have this “cushy little job in the Ministry.” I admired her. She was irrepressible. Her wizened little face would light up with a smile and find something amusing in most situations. I supposed life had been so hard to her that she had learned to appreciate what she now had. Florette was her ideal, and she was as certain of her eventual success as Florette herself.

“What I’ll do,” she said, “is stand outside that theater and look up at her name and say, ‘I used to know her at that Ministry.’”

She smiled at Florette blissfully, who said: “Get away with you! I’ll have you back stage and you shall have free tickets for the orchestra stalls. Who knows, I might even introduce you to someone who is looking for a pet.”

This was a well-worn joke, I realized. Peggy had once said she had watched the dogs in the park, and all the fuss that was made of them—little pekes with fancy haircuts, diamond collars—and she had thought, “What a good time these dogs have … nothing to do but be a pet. I wouldn’t mind being a dog like that. I wish somebody would make a pet of me. Do you know anyone looking for a pet?”

That had amused Florette and it had become a joke.

“Peggy’s looking for someone who wants a pet,” she said to me. “Do you know anyone?”

And everyone, including Peggy, laughed hilariously.

Peggy and Florette were easy to understand. It was not the same with Marian. She did not come from the same background as the others. She had made it clear to me from the start that she, Mary Grace, and I were of a kind—and apart from the other two. Marian’s hair was probably touched up, but discreetly so; she wore tailored suits and spoke with the utmost care.

She told me that her husband had been an army man; she had been a widow for fifteen years. She managed, but things were not as those she had been accustomed to. She had a small flat in Crouch Hill and had had to adjust her standards.

I saw at once that there was something rather secretive about her; she was faintly uneasy. I felt sure she was harboring some secret.

When we emerged from the teashop, regaled by the mysterious but tasty Home Pie and two cups of hot coffee, I realized that I had been completely taken out of the doldrums and been absorbingly entertained. This happened to me very rarely.

Mary Grace and I said goodbye to the others, who had to return to the Ministry as they were “full-timers”; Mary Grace and I went to the tube and back to Kensington.

“Well?” said Mary Grace when we were alone.

“Very interesting. Amusing, some of it.”

“I like them all very much. They were strangers to me a little while ago and I see them every day now—far more than I see my close friends. One really gets to know people well in such circumstances.”

“Florette is amusing,” I said. “Poor girl, I wonder how far her dream will take her. And Peggy … well, one should be sorry for her. She must have had a hard life, and yet she is not really in the least downcast. As for Marian, she is something of an enigma.”

“Oh, poor Marian. Seen better days. I am always sorry for such people. They spend so much time regretting the past that they cannot enjoy the present. If only she could stop worrying whether we can see the difference between her and the others. They don’t mind being as they are … nor does anyone else.”

“Well, thank you, Mary Grace. It really was a most interesting lunch.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed the Home Pie.”

“Enormously—but most of all the company.”

When we returned to Caddington, my mother wanted to hear about everything that had happened.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the holiday did you the world of good,” she commented.

When I considered it I supposed she was right. I did feel more remote from Cornwall where the constant murmur of the waves and all the surrounding country reminded me of Jowan. And the days were passing. What hope could there be of news?

Both Dorabella and I were helping our mother with the work she was doing with the Red Cross; but working at the convalescent home was different—a definite occupation, which every able-bodied person should have in wartime.

I supposed I should have to go back there.

When I suggested this, Dorabella protested. Mrs. Canter and Mrs. Pardell were doing our work very satisfactorily. She did not want to go back, of course, but we could not stay away indefinitely. She could not plead immunity because Nanny Crabtree was looking after her child. Moreover, Captain Brent had suggested that she might work in one of the offices connected with his unit. It would be a part-time job, not very significant office work, but she would have to be in London, though she might get down to Caddington for weekends.

“And what of Violetta?” asked my mother.

“Perhaps Mary Grace could suggest something,” I said. “I gather her job is to find suitable places for people to work.”

I spoke half-jocularly. I realized I did not want to go back to Cornwall. They were right when they had said it was better for me to get away. I supposed I could stay at Caddington and help my mother, but I did feel I should be doing something more.