Pam Weaver - A Mother’s Gift

He found the back door open. In the small scullery, Dottie’s pots and pans gleamed and glinted. He wondered vaguely where she found the time. He was well aware that she was in great demand in the village. On Mondays and Tuesdays, she worked for Janet Cooper, owner and proprietor of the general store in the village, and on Thursdays and Fridays she was at his own house. Dottie wasn’t the usual sort of daily help, all frumpy and with wrinkled stockings – she was attractive too. Damned attractive. Her figure was trim and her breasts soft and round. If she had one fault, it was that she wore her copper-coloured hair too tightly pulled back in a rather severe-looking bun, but now and then a tendril of hair would work itself loose and fall over her small forehead. He wasn’t supposed to, but he noticed things like that. And when she laughed, her clear blue eyes shone and she lit up the whole world. He sighed. Oh to have an un complicated life like hers … to have an uncomplicated wife like her … Mariah’s agitated face swam before his eyes.

Dr Fitzgerald cleared his throat. ‘We sent the Prior boy up, but we weren’t sure if you’d got the message,’ he began apologetically.

Dottie gave no hint one way or another. Oh dear, oh dear. He dared not return without her. ‘Um,’ he went on, ‘my wife … that is … we wondered if you could spare an hour or two tonight, Dottie?’

‘I told Billy to tell you I would be there directly,’ she said in her usual unhurried manner.

‘I see …’

‘I had to take care of my husband first.’ Although her tone was mildly reproachful, the doctor envied Reg Cox – not for the first time. When was the last time Mariah put him first in anything?

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ he said hastily. ‘Um … I was just wondering …. um … if you are able to come straight away, I could give you a lift.’

‘Well, that’s most kind of you,’ she said in a surprised tone. ‘I’ll just do this and then I’ll get my coat.’ She picked up the bowl and wandered past him to throw the washing-up water onto the garden. ‘And,’ she added as she walked past him a second time, ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t mind dropping Reg off at the Jolly Farmer on your way, would you?’

If the doctor was annoyed by her presumption, he wasn’t about to make a fuss. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that in her quiet way, Dottie controlled all their lives and for the sake of his own sanity and peace of mind, it was important for him to get their in dispensable daily woman back to his wife as soon as possible.

By the time they arrived at the house, Mariah Fitzgerald was in a complete flap. She’d got Keith running in and out of the house and into the marquee (a large ex-army tent set up on the lawn), with the large dinner plates from her best service, as well as some plates she’d found on the larder floor.

‘Don’t drop them, whatever you do,’ she’d screamed at her already nervous son. Keith tripped over the guy ropes and she almost had a fainting fit.

‘You forgot the china, Dottie,’ she said accusingly as Dottie stepped out of her husband’s car. ‘It’s a good job I went into the marquee to check. The tables were bare.’

Dottie said nothing but she was bristling with anger. Dr Fitzgerald disappeared somewhere in the direction of the surgery and she heard a door closing. She hung her coat on the peg on the back of the kitchen door and looked around in dismay. She’d expected interference to some small degree but not on a scale like this. Her beautifully organised kitchen was in total chaos.

Mrs Fitzgerald had been going through everything, even the tins in the pantry. The lid of the tin containing the strawberry shortcake was on the draining board, the tin containing the brandy snaps had the lid from the love-all cake on the top and vice versa. The tin of butterfly cakes had no lid at all. Dottie couldn’t even see it. When she’d left that afternoon, the dinner plates, on hire from Bentalls in Worthing, had been in their boxes under the shelf in the pantry. They had since been pulled out and the shredded paper used as packing was now strewn all over the kitchen worktops and the floor.

With an exaggerated sigh, Dottie set about putting things to rights. The bread bins were open and some of her carefully counted cutlery was missing from the drawer. What was the point of asking someone to do something and then changing it the minute her back was turned? Mrs Fitzgerald usually trusted her implicitly. What on earth had changed, for goodness’ sake?

Keith came in and bent to pick up some more plates.

‘You can leave them,’ Dottie said tartly.

‘But Mother says …’ he began.

‘I’ll deal with your mother,’ she said, her tone a little less edgy. After all, it wasn’t the boy’s fault. He stared at her with wide eyes. She smiled and said softly, ‘You go and have your bath.’

‘I told her you wouldn’t like it,’ Keith muttered as he turned towards the stairs.

Dottie set off in the opposite direction, towards the garden and the marquee.

‘I shouldn’t have to do this, Dottie,’ Mrs Fitzgerald wailed as she saw her coming.

‘And you don’t have to, Madam.’ Dottie’s tone made her employer look up sharply. There was no insolence on her face, but she needed to let her see she wasn’t happy.

‘There’ll be so much to do in the morning,’ said Mariah Fitzgerald. ‘Why didn’t you think to put the plates out? It would save such a lot of time, you know.’

‘They need to be washed first.’

‘Washed?’

‘I have no idea who had the plates before us, Madam,’ said Dottie. ‘I didn’t think you would want to use them unwashed so I’ve arranged for Mrs Smith and Mrs Prior to come first thing in the morning.’

Mariah Fitzgerald’s jaw dropped slightly. ‘Well,’ she flustered, as she strove to recover her composure, ‘the cutlery needs sorting out.’

‘That’s right, Madam,’ Dottie agreed. ‘And I’ve arranged that Mrs Prior will bring her little niece Elsie to do that. She’ll polish everything for ten bob.’

Mariah Fitzgerald went a brilliant pink. The napkin she was holding fluttered down onto the table. She looked around helplessly. So did Dottie. She should have come sooner. Right now, she was wishing with all her heart that she hadn’t bothered to wait for Reg when Billy Prior had knocked on the door. Now she’d have to collect up all that cutlery, take all the plates back to the kitchen and tidy up at least forty napkins before she could go back home. She might even have to iron some of them again.

Their eyes met.

‘Yes, well …’ said Mariah, patting her hair at the back. ‘I have to be up very early in the morning. The hairdresser is coming at nine thirty.’

Dottie didn’t move.

‘So … so I’ll leave you to it, Dottie.’ Mariah said, mustering what little dignity she could find. ‘As usual, you seem to have everything under control.’

Dottie watched her as she crossed the lawn and sighed. It would be at least another hour before she had everything back to the way it was before.

Reg was all set to spend the evening in the corner of the Jolly Farmer with his pint of bitter. Usually there were plenty of people still willing to buy a pint for an old soldier, but tonight the bar was almost empty. He didn’t mind. It had been a long day – Marney and the station master had had him running from pillar to post.

Marney’s chest was bad again. Too much smoking, everyone said, but Reg reckoned it was something to do with the POW camp he had been in Germany somewhere. You could pick up some weird germs in those places. Marney probably lived week in week out on the verge of starvation as well, and that couldn’t have helped. Reg might not have been in a palace himself, but his ‘rest of the war’ was nowhere near as bad as Marney’s. Even if it were the ciggies that made his cough, who could blame the poor old bugger? He probably only smoked them to forget something.