Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow Read Free Page A

fantasy, the kind that often came to her when people were in trouble, or she herself fell prey to an ambition. It was in two parts, neither of them connected with anything either sensible or practical. In one she was facing a group of men behind that fortress wall and giving them a piece of her mind about separating two unhappy lovers. In the second she was ringing the doorbell to Mr Lockwood’s flat and at her side was Lisabeta something or other, or anyway as he had called her, Liz, and when he opened the door Mrs Harris would cry, ‘ ’Ere she is, Mr Lockwood, I’ve been to Russia and brought ’er back for you.’
    Lockwood now cleared his throat and said, ‘Well,’ and made motions of one about to go to work.
    Mrs Harris could take a hint and said, ‘I’ll be gettin’ on,’ and proceeded to make her preparations to leave for her next rendezvous with dust and dirt and greasy dishes.

2
    Mrs Harris brooded all the way home that early Saturday evening over Mr Lockwood’s tragic dilemma and it was still colouring her mood when she forgathered with her bosom friend, Mrs Violet Butterfield, for their nightly path-crossing cup of tea and gossip.
    Bosom was an apt word to apply to Mrs Butterfield, as she was as stout, round and plump as Mrs Harris was thin and spare. Only the features in the full moon face were small, a mouth that formed into a tiny ‘o’ above a triple row of chins, a button nose and small, startled eyes. The shape of the mouth was just right for the instant emission of shrieks of fright.
    For whereas Ada Harris was the complete optimist and the soul of courage often to the point ofrecklessness, Mrs Butterfield was timid, nervous, wholly pessimistic and given to pronouncements of doom and disaster, particularly when her best friend was taking on one of her notions.
    At one time Violet had been a member of that gallant band of women who arose daily at 4 a.m. and sallied forth to clean London’s offices before the break of the business day but lately she had succeeded in acquiring the job of attendant in the Ladies’ Room of the Paradise Night-Club in Mayfair.
    It was this that solidified the nightly ritual, for just as Mrs Harris was closing down her day’s work, so to speak, Violet Butterfield was starting off on hers, enabling them to spend an hour or so together over the teapot and the evening papers.
    During those sessions, Mrs Butterfield was able to supply tidbits of scandal gleaned from the chitchat of ladies who visited her domain while Mrs Harris narrated tales of the vagaries of her smarter or more eccentric clients. Oddly that night, however, she did not feel inclined to pass on the story Mr Lockwood had told her. The tragic plight of the young lovers seemed to her somehow too sacred to furnish material for tittle-tattle. She preferred to enjoy the sorrow of their plight unshared. Besides which there shortly began a turn of events which temporarily drove it out of her head; the fur coat and the colour television set.
    â€˜You and your fur coat!’
    â€˜You and yer bloomin’ telly!’
    It was Violet Butterfield who for years had had her eye on a fur coat of musquash, a species of water rat, which each autumn, in the current fashion, would appear in the window of Arding and Hobbs, the department store where they did their shopping. It was a losing game. For while Violet scrimped and saved to approach the price of last year’s coat, by the time the new season rolled around, the galloping inflation had added another twenty pounds to the price and whipped it out of reach again.
    As for Mrs Harris, her television set was black and white, cantankerous, ancient and out of date and given to collapse during crucial moments of favourite programmes. She yearned for the new, modern, giant screen colour set that would turn her basement flat at No. 5, Willis Gardens, Battersea, into a veritable theatre. The price of such a one was