Read Online Henrietta Sees It Through by Joyce Dennys - Free Book Online Page B

‘Shopping Baskets in one hand and Ration Books in the other they would walk right at the end of the procession, in single file, like a queue and they’d get a rousing cheer if nobody else did.’
    There was another grunt from Charles who had spent last Saturday morning shopping with me in our Cathedral City. Charles wanted to order a tweed jacket before they went allcomic, and I wanted a paint brush. We found our city very much changed. The streets are crowded as they always have been, but now, instead of strolling in the road and holding up the traffic, the people hurry along the pavements with set expressions on their faces, while the motors whizz up and down at such a rate that Charles and I clung to each other on the kerb and feared to launch away. There was hardly a Devon voice to be heard. Even in Charles’s tailors we detected an irreverent note, and the Dignitary who used to serve us was no longer there.
    â€˜Where is Mr Clement?’ we asked.
    â€˜Gone,’ said the New Man, with a grin. ‘He was seventy-eight, you know.’
    Charles was so annoyed at this levity that he refused the only cheerful check tweed left in the shop and chose a dull, countryish cloth into which little flecks of red and yellow were woven without enlivening its appearance in any way.
    â€˜Better take your measurements again,’ said the New Man. ‘Most people have lost a bit round the tummy.’

    The tape passed around his waist
    â€˜Tummy,’ indeed! The very walls shuddered, while Charles, pale with disgust, suffered his waistcoat to be pulled up and the tape passed around his waist.
    â€˜We haven’t any No. 4 paint brushes left,’ said the Girl in Artists’ Materials, who was also new and obviously considered herself Queen of the May. ‘See for yourself.’ And yawninga little she pulled open the paint brush drawer. Inside were two paint brushes.
    One could have been used for painting a house and the other for a very small miniature.
    Charles and I greeted our old friend the waiter with tears of recognition, but there wasn’t any lunch. Yesterday had been market day and there wasn’t anything left. Sadly we stepped into the street and threaded our patient way to a More Expensive House. ‘Could we have lunch?’ we asked meekly, standing on the mat. Authority looked us up and down. Yes, it thought it might manage something.
    Joyfully and effusively we expressed our thanks and fought our way to the bar, which was full of people we didn’t know. There, over drinks which called themselves Gin and French, we cheered up a little. ‘I think it is probably what is called Hooch,’ said Charles, ‘and will make us blind.’ When I asked him which sort of blind he said, ‘Both sorts.’
    Then we saw Geoffrey. Of course, it isn’t fair to judge
anybody’s
figure in battle dress. Otherwise he looked just the same.
    â€˜I suppose you are drunk with power now you are a Second Lieutenant,’ I said. Then Charles kicked me under the table, and I noticed that it wasn’t a pip on Geoffrey’s shoulder but a crown.
    This created such an Atmosphere that I would have been glad to leave but Charles said No, we had ordered our grill and we would wait for it. And wait for it we did.
    When it arrived at last it was quite good. ‘So it ought to be,’ said Charles. ‘At that price.’ Then I threw discretion to the winds and had some rice pudding, but it tasted of fish, and we came away.
    â€˜Who are all these people?’ said Charles plaintively, after he had been pushed off the pavement and into the gutter forthe third time. But we reached the garage at last, and scrambled into our car like shipwrecked mariners into a lifeboat. ‘It used to be fun,’ said Charles sadly, and we drove away.
    In the Cathedral Close there was a poster announcing music for that afternoon. I told Charles I would find my own way home,