Read Online Dolly's Mixture by Dorothy Scannell - Free Book Online

eyes were large, a sort of greeny-hazel, her complexion fair; she had a straight nose, nicely shaped mouth, good teeth and lovely, glossy, red-chestnut hair.
    Ade introduced me to Mr and Mrs —. The man possessed a military moustache and was wearing pheasant-shooting clothes; a sporty cap and muffler, Burberry and thick, brown, country brogues. His ensemble was completed by a pair of bright-yellow string gloves. Mrs was a fussy little woman in a blue Harris tweed suit, a felt hat with a coloured feather in the brim and a yellowish, grassy-looking fur round her shoulders. This was a complete animal with pointed nose and big, brown, glassy eyes, his mouth gripping one of his ‘arms’. It was flattened like a kipper and the back view was of the tiny hind legs and tail. The eyes made me shudder.
    Ade was already ensconced, wrapped about the knees with a plaid travelling-rug, and the lady, the perfect hostess, greeted me with another rug over her arm for me. ‘Call us Edie and Alby,’ said the lady poshly. ‘Any friend of Benny and Ade is a friend of ours.’ Her voice embarrassed me; it was obvious to me she had ‘risen’ from the area of my childhood, and the overlay of gentility was all so false. It couldn’t be natural to her. She wrapped me about with the travelling-rug – ‘We always keep these in the car’, which was, I supposed, a sort of declaration that she never needed to borrow them for their bed at night. She was, too, one of those worst offenders, the back-seat driver. Another declaration to make us think that she’d been brought up with a car in the family! Thus, with her running commentary – ‘Look to your right – a bicycle coming up on the left – oh my God, did you see that – oh what a madman, such people shouldn’t be allowed on the roads – watch that dog, Alby’ – we arrived at the bingo palace, Alby went to park the car while we queued; I had never seen so many people in a queue before. The building was an old cinema and finally we were seated. It was hot and smelly inside. I was unlucky that my tip-up seat was broken so that I was low to the ground. Ade seemed like a mountain next to me but there was no point in complaining about my broken seat, for all the seats were filled. I just longed for the evening to finish.
    The compere arrived and made a few jokes at which everyone screamed and clapped and then, with his little coloured balls shooting up and down, we were off. All evening it seemed that I had only just begun to cover the numbers on my card (some people managed three cards) when someone called ‘Bingo!’ None of our party won that night. Alby and Edie seemed surprised. I wondered if I’d brought them bad luck. We waited outside in the chilly night air while Alby collected the car. ‘We’ll go back through Upper Holloway,’ announced Edie, as though that area was the promised land. I felt I had been a damper on the proceedings and if Edie hadn’t been so ‘refaned’ I would have told Ade of the time when, during the war, I stayed with some people at Hampstead. As the L.N.E.R. train aproached its destination each morning a funny little porter would dash out of his box and scream, ‘I-git-up-er-ollo-waaay’ (Highgate, Upper Holloway), and everyone would smile, even the city gents. But if I couldn’t imitate the little porter’s excited yells then the joke would fall flat and the lady would think me incredibly vulgar, especially if Ade broke into one of her masculine guffaws.
    Edie was still assisting in the driving of the family saloon when it happened. We were driving along a wide main road. At a side turning was a stationary grey car, a beautiful car. At the wheel was a handsome black man, chatting to his passenger, another black man. They were laughing and Ade said, ‘Now don’t they look happy.’ Suddenly I felt apprehensive and I said,