she said, ‘we’ve got company.’
John Pharaoh was a good-looking devil. He wasn’t tall like Lois’s Herb or brawny, like Ed Gillis. He was soft-looking for a man, but there was something about him. Black curly hair. And a real winning smile. I guess it was the dimples. One of his eyes wasn’t quite right, though, and sometimes it gave him a crafty look, but it had a kinda awful fascination about it, drew you to keep looking at it. Then you felt sorry for staring at a person’s affliction.
He slid off the bed and he waved his fingers, like we were invited to sit down, only I couldn’t see where, there being just the one easy chair and that was occupied by a old yellow dog, size of a hog.
Kath was running around, still in her coat and her boots. She brought cups from a rack by the sink and extras from a cupboard, with saucers that didn’t match.
‘You’ll like these,’ she said to Betty. ‘Coronation saucers. King George the Fifth. A course, the cups have all gone west. Pull up a seat.’
There were three wooden chairs around the table, and my God, that room was cold. Either you stood close enough to the range to get scorched, or you froze. Betty gave me a brave little smile, this whole excursion being her idea after all. She was trying to show her appreciation, being a great believer in the importance of politeness, but there was one thing she did care more about than manners, and that was standards of hygiene, and I doubt those cups had ever seen hot water.
Kath made tea in big brown pot and pulled a woolly cover over it, so just the spout and the handle were free. There was no sugar, and the only milk she offered was Carnation, straight from the can.
I declined. Never did take to tea.
Kath said, ‘I can do you a Bovril?’ but I didn’t care for the sound of that neither. It made me realise Audrey was right. Travel gives you the opportunity to understand foreign ways of life. It can make a wiser person of you. And when I seen how those poor English lived, it made me want get down on my knees and give thanks for being born in God’s own country.
Kath brought out photos, from a drawer. They were faded and creased, but Betty loved them. Picture-postcards of some old king and queen, done up in their fancy orbs and sceptres.
Betty said, ‘Now, correct me if I’m wrong, Kath, but isn’t this Queen Mary?’
‘That’s right,’ Kath said. ‘She was Mary of Teck. And she was fixed up to marry one of the princes, but he dropped dead, so they passed her along to his next brother.’
I said, ‘That’s terrible. I wouldn’t have stood for that.’
Kath said, ‘Me neither. That’s like handing on a dead man’s trousers, still got a bit of wear left in them.’
‘Well,’ Betty said, ‘I guess you can’t let a princess go to waste.’
Lois was scratching the old dog behind its ears and slurping up that disgusting brew. ‘What I don’t understand,’ she said, ‘is why that king had to go outside for a smoke. No wonder he caught his death. What kind of milquetoast was he, didn’t just light up any place he chose? All he had to do was pass a edict or something.’
John Pharaoh seemed disposed to find everything Lois said highly amusing. There were some snapshots of poor folk, too. They all seemed to be kin to Kath’s friend May Gotobed, or some kinda relations to the Pharaohs themselves, only it was too complicated for me to follow. There was one of them standing with genuine princes, posing in front of a mountain of ducks they just helped shoot, but you had to be in the know to tell which ones were which. When they’re not wearing their crowns those princes just look like any ordinary Joe.
Audrey had asked for the bathroom and Kath had taken her, to show her the way, but Aud came back alone, beckoning me from the doorway to come and see something.
Kath was in the car, making believe she was driving. She was sitting at the wheel, window down, arm leaning out, making revving noises like she was barrelling down Route 66, next stop the Rio Grande. She laughed when she saw us watching her.
‘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