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

no idea she gives herself away. For instance, she says “hache” for “aitch” and “ungyon” for “onion” and “nothink” for “nothing”. Poor old dear,’ said Ade, suddenly sorry for our ladylike acquaintance, ‘she’s had a hard life, I believe, having to scrimp and scrape for every ha’penny and wouldn’t have been able to go in for their house if she’d stopped work and had children.’ It was a sort of affectation that she always called Alby ‘Daddy’. ‘I wonder when she started calling him that, Ade?’ ‘When they were sure they wouldn’t have children, I expect. It was probably a sort of compensation title for him.’ ‘P’raps that’s when she started to lisp so that in one way she became Alby’s, or, rather, Daddy’s girl, as well as his wife.’ ‘The child-bride of the north,’ I remarked, which made Ade snort. ‘My twins always call her Violet Elizabeth, when she’s not there, of course. They had a stupid teacher who once said the twins were Jus’ William and Ginger [one of the boys was red-headed] so ever after that they just acted up to those two heroes, although they didn’t need any excuse to act like grubby urchins, it seemed natural to them. Anyway, I had to read the riot act to them when one mum called on me to say that they wouldn’t allow her boy in their gang. The twins said this boy was such a sneak he should have been head of the rivals, but he was so ambitious he wanted to be number one after my two.’
    To make it up to Edie, alias Violet Elizabeth, I suggested to Ade that Chas would take us out one evening for dinner at a posh restaurant. ‘Oh Gawd, wouldn’t she like that, she’d be in her element, we’d have to get a copy of the menu for her to bring home to show her “colleagues” at work, and I bet she’d say, “Now don’t be nervous, Ade and Dolly, just follow my example and do what I do, I’m used to this sort of thing.”’ Apparently Edie was a waitress in the directors’ dining-room at a large business concern. She had worked at this place since leaving school, the directors still called her ‘missie’. ‘I believe that’s where she gets her clothes, from the directors’ wives. She even lays up the table at home in the same way, even for the baked beans or egg on toast Alby gets when he comes home. And candles, too!’ I wondered how Ade knew all this. ‘Oh, they eat in the window, I can see them from my kitchen.’ Ade went on, ‘I don’t know what she thought of us the night she called for change for her slot meter. I was eating on the kitchen table, Johnny had a tray on the floor in front of the TV, the twins were wandering about after their meal, nibbling the remains of chop bones, and Benny was eating off a tray on the coffee table.
    â€˜I’ll tell you what we’ll do if we go for that meal. We’ll sit Benny next to Edie, for he speaks French, he’ll know exactly what’s on the menu without asking the waiter, and then she can pretend that she and Benny are giving their four retainers an evening out. It’ll mean a lot to her and the rest of us can then enjoy our nosh. Could we find a place with an orchestra so that Edie can ask for a request?’
    We did have dinner for six in a posh restaurant in the West End, although by the time the evening came, having changed my mind about the whole idea, I felt as though I was literally being dragged there. But it was my fault, the dragging feeling, for, as Chas said, ‘Dolly is like this .’ (Sometimes the word varies to that , since my inconstancy of mind and subsequent lack of enthusiasm is never forgotten.) ‘Perhaps this occasion will teach her a lesson. I tell you, I dread waking up in the mornings for then it is that Dolly gets all her “good