Cotter's England Read Free Page A

to show Bridgehead, me old home town, that I'm respectable. For there's a skeleton in me cupboard. George and I lived together before we were married, pet. A cat and dog life it was; we didn't think we'd be able to stick it out. Eh, what a bloody egotist, love; but what a man! And to meself I said, My lass, you must submit, you must give up the fine free-lance life. And the wonder of wonders happened, Camilla; the perfect marriage, the perfect counterpoint, aye. Well, before that, I had to tell my folks that I was married, for I had my sister down here to visit, and Bob Bobsey, the dear old elf, who's now gallivanting with me boyo, you don't know her, a real pal, who looks as if she was a shriveled soul, but what's inside is as the meat of the walnut. Bob was in Bridgehead and she called upon my family, the Cotters, and she had to answer my mother's thousand questions. What time of day was it? Did it rain or shine? What dress did Nellie wear? For she swore to my mother that she'd been present at the wedding. Bob's a glorious old bohemian, but she's old fashioned and she didn't approve of us living in sin. It would break my heart if a daughter of mine did it, she said to me solemnly, shaking her dear old head, that great old stone face that's like the face of Grandmother Fate—"
    "She must look like a gargoyle," said Mrs. Yates laughing.
    "Ah, no, pet; that's your acidulous nature. She's my standby in storms; loyal and staunch. And she said to Mother, being up against it, Your daughter wore a nice blue dress. Every time since, when I go up home, Mother harps on it. Why don't you wear the nice blue dress you were married in? Because I'm keeping it in camphor out of sentiment, I said. So take the tacking threads out, darling, or you'll ruin me; and I've bought a cake of camphor to rub over it. My mother was always a foxy little deducing creature; that was her compensation for a life of defeat." Nellie, in her long bloomers and cotton shirt, went out the back to get tea.
    There were three rooms on each floor of the little three-story brick house. Down short stairs here on the ground level, was an old-fashioned W.C. with the handle in a wooden seat and a blue flowered bowl. There was no light and no window; so that generally they sat with the door slightly open looking at the grassy back yard. At the side, a long paved kitchen. There were no windows; the door to the yard was usually kept open here, too. The small back yard was enclosed by brick and low stone walls and contained two small trees and a couple of sheds. On the left, dark old terrace houses with long back yards ran at right angles. They were occupied mostly by immigrant workers, Cypriots, Maltese, Greeks, doing sweatshop labor. On the right, along Lamb Street, were big garages, filling the space of houses knocked down by the bombs. The houses in Lamb Street, all low and narrow, like Nellie Cook's, were occupied mostly by machinists and other garment trade workers. Mrs. Yates lived across the street, with her two children, in two rooms over a small grocery shop. She lived separated from her husband. Her lover, a painter, a tall bulky ungainly man, visited her every day, ate there, used her as a model, looked after her children.
    Nellie was a strange thing, her shabby black hair gathered into a sprout on the top of her small head, her beak and backbone bent forward, her thin long legs stepping prudently, gingerly, like a marsh bird's, as she came over the hogback ground floor, stairs up, stairs down, to the front room with her tea tray. The tea tray was neatly set, with a tray cloth; and she had cut thin bread and butter.
    Camilla sat with her head bowed over her work. The hooded daylight came from the areaway into the middle of the room and shone on the bright wiry hair. Her neck and curved strong shoulders, dull and smooth, bent down in the plain blue cotton blouse, gathered on a cord and rather low. Her long thighs were apart to make a convenient sewing lap. Opposite