Laurie Graham - The Future Homemakers of America

‘I shall soon have the hang of this,’ she said. ‘You could go anywhere you pleased in a motor like this. You could go to Ely.’

‘You should see where I just went,’ Audrey whispered to me on our way back into the house. ‘It’s a seat over a bucket. And get this. There’s two of them, side by side. His ’n’ hers.’

Kath kept bringing things out to show us. Her best tablecloth, and a badge she got for fen-skating in 1936, and a magazine with pictures of Ava Gardner, and then more tea, though God knows none of us wanted any. She seemed so proud to have us as her guests.

‘You must be getting peckish,’ she said, when she’d run out of treasures to show us. ‘I could find you a bit of something. Slice of bread and butter? We’ve got a tin of pineapple, sent from Canada, only he’s gone and lost the opener. John? Do you look again for that tin-opener these ladies can have a bite to eat.’

But John Pharaoh was more interested in Lois’s legs.

Lo was always ready to eat, but I caught her eye, managed to stop her before she took their last crust. I don’t believe she ever heard of war rations.

‘No, Kath,’ Betty said. ‘We really have to be making tracks. I’d just have loved to talk with you some more, but we have our girls to pick up from school. But you know, you should come and visit with us some time. I have so many picture albums I’d love to show you. Princess Margaret is my favourite, and I’m just longing for her to find a beau.’

Of course, it was my fault. Headlights left on, engine won’t turn over, who else you gonna blame but the driver?

‘Dead as King George,’ Lois said and John Pharaoh laughed. He stood looking under the hood, but I don’t think he’d have known a spark plug from a poke in the eye.

Audrey said warming it up might help, so Kath brought the teapot out and stood it on the battery, but I still couldn’t get a murmur out of it.

Betty said, ‘We have to get the battery inside, connect it up or something. You know what I mean. I’ve seen Ed do it.’

Ed was always tinkering with their car. First time I noticed she had sump oil the same place as her bruises was the day I realised how things stood between Betty and Ed.

Anyway, all that talk about connecting up batteries, there was a basic fact of life on Blackdyke Drove Betty was overlooking.

Even after Audrey told her, she didn’t really get it. ‘Heck,’ she said, ‘ everyone has electricity. Well, we’ll just have to call the base. They’ll send out a ground-pounder, tow us in.’

Audrey shook her head. ‘There’s no telephone, Betty,’ she said. ‘We’ll just have to set fire to Lo’s windbreaker. Send smoke signals.’

She said, ‘Whaddaya mean? This is plum crazy. There has to be a telephone. Supposing they were to get a peritonitis or something?’ Her voice was real tight. She wanted to smack somebody, preferably me, I could tell, but Betty never smacked anybody in her life, more’s the pity.

‘Well, Peggy Dewey,’ she said, ‘you got us into this fix so I hope you’re gonna get us right out of it. I have my girls to pick up at fifteen-twenty and I don’t intend on letting them down.’

John Pharaoh said he’d go, fetch help. He had to walk back along the drove, cross the water by the sluice gates, take the highway into Brakey and find someone willing to drive out and rescue us. He set off, real willing and cheerful, and we all went back inside for a long, long wait.

Lois whispered, ‘Aud, where’d you say the john was?’

Audrey said, ‘It’s round the back. There’s no lock on the door, and no flush, so just follow your nose. And you probably won’t want to make contact with the seat. There’s wildlife out there, got heat-seeking equipment.’

Audrey was looking round at the room. There was a postcard thumbtacked to the wall, some place called Cromer, and a broken clock, with no minute-hand.

‘Jeez, Peg,’ she said, ‘did you ever see anything like this?’

‘I did,’ Lois said. ‘Herb’s folks’ place. I married beneath my station. Now I’m gonna have to take a leak, wildlife or no. Where’s Kath?’

She was outside again, standing by the station wagon, just looking at it, so downcast.

‘Is it my fault?’ she said. ‘Did I brek it?’

Kath lit the oil lamps and put more fuel on the range.

‘There,’ she said, ‘now we’re snug.’ But I reckon that yellow dog had the only warm seat in the house.

Audrey said, ‘How long have you lived here, Kath?’

‘Born here,’ she said. ‘Born in that bed.’

Lo bounced upright when she heard that. ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘You ever think of moving away?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve told John Pharaoh. We ever come up on the football pools, I should like to move up to Brakey. Be nearer the bus stop.’

Betty was having a little blub about Deana and Sherry, like she was never gonna see them again. I wished she’d stop. I didn’t like letting Crystal down neither, and I’m sure Lois was worried about Sandie too, she just never showed it, making herself at home on John and Kath’s bed.

‘Don’t you fret about your young ’uns,’ Kath said. ‘They’ll be right as ninepence. They’ll be larrikin about somewhere.’

Which, of course, was the last thing Betty wanted to hear. Whatever larrikin was, it sounded dangerous.

‘What time is it?’ she kept asking.

‘Big hand’s still on the five,’ Audrey kept answering.

‘Kath?’ Lo said. ‘You go outside to that bathroom in the middle of the night?’

‘No,’ Kath said. ‘I hold on till morning.’

We heard the toot of a horn. John Pharaoh had come back, riding in a General Post Office van, looking real proud of himself. A guy called Dennis Jex was driving, and two others, both Jexes too, had come along to give their advice or eyeball four American chicks, or maybe just to get a ride. One way or another, they seemed happy to be there. They all looked under the hood, but Dennis was the one really knew what he was doing. He jump-started us, while Audrey held the flashlight, and then he offered to escort us back to where the road was metalled, save us running off the track and disappearing into the swamp.

He said he was glad to help. He said there was no doubt in his mind, if it wasn’t for America he’d be living under the jackboot.

‘When push come to shove, you Yanks done the right thing,’ he said. ‘Even if you did take your time about it.’

Betty was in the car already, anxious for us to be on our way.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’ll pull round. I’ll take it nice and steady and you can follow my tail lights. And when I put my winker to go left, do you go right you’ll be set fair for the base. That’s straight on, about seven mile. You can’t go wrong.’

John Pharaoh was pacing up and down, eyes shining, like he’d had a real exciting time. Kath looked kinda sad to see us go.

I said, ‘Would you like to come out for a drive some time?’

‘Oh, I would,’ she said, ‘I’d like that very much.’

So I promised we’d do that, just as soon as the ice thawed. Then Dennis Jex moved off, and I nosed along right behind him, and Kath and John faded away into the mist.

Audrey said, ‘That was the right thing to do, Peggy. We should always try to build cordial relations with the locals.’ Audrey had the kinda enthusiasm for good works that could take a girl far at the OWC. If Lance was aiming to be a brass hat, he couldn’t have picked a better wife.

I said, ‘I didn’t do it to be right, Aud. I did it because I wanted to.’

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Doing the right thing accidentally is better than doing the wrong thing. Now, I have an idea.’