Pam Weaver - A Mother’s Gift

‘That’s nice.’

‘She lives near Swanage,’ Elsie was in full swing now. ‘I can go swimming in the sea.’

‘While your mum’s lying on the beach?’ muttered Peaches, starting them all off again. Desperately trying to keep a straight face herself, Dottie nudged her in the side. Elsie looked totally confused.

The door burst open and a waitress dumped a pile of dirty plates on the draining board.

‘Time to get started,’ said Dottie standing to her feet and straightening her apron. ‘Get that cake and our cups off the table, will you, Elsie? We shall need all the space we can find now.’

The next hour was a frenzy of activity. The washing up seemed endless and they were hard pushed to find space for both the clean and dirty dishes.

At around four thirty, Elsie came running back. ‘They’re all coming out!’

The women gathered by the back door to watch.

Josephine Fitzgerald looked amazing and very happy. Her dress, made of organza and lace, was in the latest style. The V-shaped bodice was covered with lace from neck to the end of the three-quarter length sleeves while the skirt was in two layers. The white organza underskirt reached the ground while the lace overskirt came as far as the knee. The whole dress was covered in tiny pearls. Dottie had studied it very carefully. She knew it had cost an absolute fortune, but with a little ingenuity she knew she could make one for less than quarter of the price.

Malcolm Deery looked even more of a chinless wonder than ever in his wedding suit but, Dottie decided, they were well matched. Josephine would lack for nothing. After a couple or three years, there would be nannies and christenings. In years to come, she’d become just like her mother, going to endless bridge parties, and playing golf. She’d buy her clothes from smart shops in Brighton or maybe go up to London to the swanky shops on Oxford Street and, if Malcolm’s business did really well, Regent Street.

‘Ahh,’ sighed Peaches. ‘Don’t she look a picture?’

‘Must be coming in to get changed before they go off for the honeymoon,’ said Mary.

Dottie didn’t want to think about the conversation she’d had the night before. Had she betrayed that girl? She hoped not, but only time would tell.

‘Second wave of washing up will be on its way in a minute,’ she said to her companions. ‘Better get back to work, girls.’

As if on cue, two waitresses hurried out of the marquee, each with a tray of glasses, followed by a waiter with a stack of dirty plates.

Mary grabbed a small sausage from the top of the pile of dishes and shoved it into her mouth as she pushed more dirty plates under the soapy water.

‘Ma-ry!’ cried Peaches in mock horror.

‘I need to keep my strength up,’ said Mary, her cheeks bulging.

‘Dottie, would you come and help Miss Josephine?’ Mrs Fitzgerald’s sudden appearance made them all jump. Mary choked on the sausage and Peaches put down her tea towel to pat her on the back.

‘Yes, Madam,’ said Dottie, doing her best to steer her employer away from her friend before she got into trouble. Mariah Fitzgerald could be very tight-fisted. Dottie could never understand meanness. Why put food in the pig bin rather than allow a hard-working woman like Mary to have a little something extra? But she knew her employer was perfectly capable, at the end of the day, of refusing to pay Mary if she caught her eating.

Thinking about pig bins, she was reminded of the pig in her hen run. How was it getting on? She’d have to ask if she could take some leftovers for him … or was it a her? How do you tell the difference, she wondered.

As she followed Mrs Fitzgerald upstairs, Dottie decided – nothing ventured, nothing gained. ‘Excuse me, Madam. About the leftovers.’

‘Put them in the pantry under a cover,’ said Mariah without turning around.

‘And the plate scrapings?’

Mrs Fitzgerald stopped dead and Dottie almost walked into her. ‘The plate scrapings?’ She sounded horrified.

‘Only my Reg has a pig,’ Dottie ploughed on, ‘and I was wondering if I could take the scrapings home to feed it.’

Mrs Fitzgerald was staring at her.

‘He hopes to fatten it up for Christmas.’ Dottie swallowed hard. ‘He says it would make a nice bit of bacon.’

‘What an amazingly resourceful man your Reg is, Dottie,’ she said, walking on. ‘Yes, of course you can take the scrapings. And when Christmas comes, don’t forget to bring a rasher or two for the doctor, will you?’

They’d reached the bedroom where Josephine was struggling with the buttons on the back of her wedding dress.

‘I’ve told Dottie to help you, darling,’ said Mrs Fitzgerald. ‘I’ll have to get back to the guests.’

As they heard her mother run back downstairs, Dottie gave the bride a conspiratorial smile. ‘Are you all right now, Miss?’

‘Oh, Dottie,’ Josephine cried happily. ‘It’s been a wonderful, wonderful day, and I know, I just know, tonight will be just fine.’

‘I’m sure it will, Miss.’

‘Mrs,’ Josephine corrected her dreamily. ‘Mrs Malcolm Deery.’ She gathered her skirts and danced around the room, making Dottie laugh.

Between them, they got her out of the wedding dress and into her going-away outfit, an attractive pink suit with a matching jacket. The skirt was tight and the jacket nipped in at the waist. Her pale cream ruche hat with its small veil set it off nicely. She wore peep-toe shoes, pink with white spots and a fairly high heel. She carried a highly fashionable bucket-shaped bag.

Mr Malcolm, who had changed in the spare bedroom, was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. He was dressed in a brown suit and as he waited, he twirled a brand new trilby hat around in his hand. The newlyweds kissed lightly and, holding hands, they began to descend. Halfway downstairs, however, Josephine broke free and ran back.

Dottie was slightly startled as she ran to her, laid both hands on her shoulders and kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you, Dottie darling,’ she whispered urgently in her ear, ‘thank you for all you’ve done.’

‘It was nothing,’ protested Dottie mildly.

‘Oh yes it was,’ Josephine insisted. ‘And if I’m half as happy as you and your Reg have been, I shall be a lucky woman.’ With that she turned on her heel and ran back to her new husband and they both carried on downstairs.

As soon as she’d gone, Dottie went back into the bedroom. As happy as you and your Reg have been? Had they been happy? If they had, it was all a very long time ago. She could hardly remember their courtship, but they had been happy in the beginning … hadn’t they?

Even her own wedding day had been rushed. The phoney war was over by then and Reg was nervous, afraid he’d be sent abroad. Under the circumstances, Aunt Bessie had been persuaded to let them marry by special licence on August bank holiday weekend. The gossips had a field day. She knew the rumour was that she was pregnant, but she was a virgin when Reg took her to bed that night.

Remembering all that the boys had gone through at Dunkirk, when Reg wrote to say he was being posted to the Far East, she’d been pleased. ‘At least he’ll be out of all this,’ she had told Aunt Bessie.

But after he’d gone, she’d felt bad about saying that. She had little idea what happened out there, but if the newsreels were to be believed it looked far worse than what happened in Germany. He didn’t want to talk about it when he came back, at the end of ’48, and he had been a changed man. His chest was bad and he needed nursing. Reg didn’t seem to want her for ages but when he recovered and tried to make love to her, he was so rough she hated it. It was hard not to cry out with Aunt Bessie next door. And that was another thing. He and her aunt didn’t see eye to eye but funnily enough, when she died, Reg had been deeply affected. The shock of it left him with another problem: he couldn’t do it. She wished she had someone to talk to, but it wasn’t the done thing, was it? A married woman shouldn’t talk about what went on behind the bedroom door.