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excerpts from "Pyrmont Road - Bricks and Mortar"

PYRMONT ROAD: Fred

It was all there. The not too warm breeze. The not too cool rain shower. The never changing Sunday quiet.

Where else could one find such a perfect combination but in England. In April. Fred closed his eyes and savored the moment as he leaned on his front gate.

Who'd have thought, he readjusted one arm for comfort, that five years ago, round about this time, he’d been up to his knees in French mud.

That last summer of the war had been bad; not as bad, he heard, as the summer of 1916, but bad enough.

Up and over the top when the whistle blew and keep your head down or next time you looked, it wouldn‘t be there. If you didn't catch a bullet in that first couple of minutes, you stood a chance of making it to the barbed wire. If you didn't get blown apart by a shell at the barbed wire, you stood a good chance of making it to the enemy lines. And if you were still in one piece at the end of the day, you collapsed into a trench, sometimes the one you left that morning and you ate, if you could, then slept, if you could, until the next time.

Stay alive. Stay alive. It’s all you thought about as you followed that whistle. You became so hardened, you ignored the scream of the soldier next to you when he got one in the stomach. You swore at the boot you nearly tripped over: you didn’t even think about the poor bloke who’s foot was still in it. And when poor old Archie from up the Road at home caught it from a shell, your only thought as you ran past what was left of him was, weren't you lucky it wasn't you. Not nice to think like that? When fear took over, there was no nice.

He hardly slept because of the rats and his boot leather was actually going soft with being in the mud all the time.. As for his feet? he was sure they were going moldy, they smelled so bad. But the summer came to an end, the war came to an end, and for the first time in two years, he didn’t swear when he got soaked. How could he? He was now on English soil. And this was English rain.

The first thing he wanted to do when he got home, what he'd been doing in his imagination for the last two years, was go round to the pub, breath in the intoxicating mixture of tobacco smoke and beer fumes and join in the never ending call for 'another pint please.'

Of course it would be different what with Archie gone as well as some of the others but there’d be enough at least to have a game of darts. And old Harry would be around. He lost a leg and a bit of his brain in the Boor war but he was still good for a thump on the piano. Yes, they’d manage. After they’d all raised a pint to lost comrades.

It was different. Terribly different. The tobacco smoke was thin, the beer fumes near non existent and the dust on the piano lid that thick you could write your name in it. He had a quick one and left, not daring to ask about the rest of the dart team. Or old Harry.

After yet another disappointing week of trudging from factory to factory and seeing yet another NO WORK sign on the gate, he took the bus to Kew and the Gardens. A good long stroll in pleasant surroundings might help get rid of the miseries.

He noticed the small crowd when he was walking back across the bridge; he'd save a penny if he hopped the bus at the top end by the station. He quickened his step in anticipation; a crowd not yet dispersed was always a good sign that something was still going on. It could of course be just an accident but it could also be a fight: the afternoon excursion had been pleasant enough but something extra, some fisticuffs maybe, would definitely improve the day. A police van pulled into the curb as he approached but by the time he'd managed to elbow his way through to the action, the van had loaded up, closed up and was already pulling back into traffic.

A single constable remained to urge everyone to 'move along there,' but this was Sunday afternoon and no one was in a hurry to leave; certainly not without further discussion of the incident. His invitation was declined. The constable tried once more. ‘Move along there,' he called out and followed up his exhortation with a slowly spoken and clearly enunciated, 'if you please.' This appeared to work; the watchers took the hint and began to disperse. Satisfied he had safely defused a possibly dangerous situation, the constable eased the strap of his helmet into a more comfortable position, squared his shoulders and continued his ponderous way across the bridge.

Fred would have continued across the bridge as well but he dearly wanted to know what he'd missed. Domestic battles are seldom fought in broad daylight and never to his knowledge in the middle of a bridge, and an accident takes longer to clear so what had it been?

'Anything special?' He asked the girl standing at the parapet, maintaining a respectful distance as he spoke; he didn't want her to think he was trying to pick her up.

'Not really,' she replied without looking at him, 'just some drunk trying to cross the bridge on the outside.'

'They do it often?' he leaned over to see what kind of ledge was down there and found himself staring at a strip of granite barely wide enough to accommodate a pigeon.

'Now and then,' she answered. 'We see them from where I live.'

'Oh?'

'Over there,' she indicated the north bank of the river and a group of trees a few hundred yards down from the bridge.

'Nice,' he said, seeing the houses on the tow path and wondering which one was hers.

'Not there,' she laughed as she corrected him, 'the Road behind the pub. You can see the bridge from our corner.'

'Sorry,' he turned to apologize and found himself being regarded with some interest.

'I'm Fred by the way,' it was time for introductions, 'short for Frederick but everyone calls me Fred.'

'How do you do Fred,' she nodded politely, then grinned, 'and I'm Doris, short for Doris but my friends call me Dorie.'

The friendship established, she allowed him to walk her to the corner of her Road and when he asked if he might see her again, she agreed.

Fred eventually found a job, working for his uncle Irwin in the small wood working business that he, uncle Irwin, owned. Uncle Irwin even made a good carpenter out of him.

Fred had never thought about doing this kind of work. He'd never actually thought about doing any kind of work, having done little but look after a few horses in the local stables until he went into the army. But working with his hands was pleasurable as well as rewarding, and when, a year later, he was given a raise, a deserved raise according to uncle Irwin, he decided now was the time to do what he'd been thinking about for quite a while; propose to Doris.

Doris was a woman of few words. After first asking what took him so long she gave him a quick kiss, which was her way of saying yes, then set about planning their wedding. They had a four day honeymoon in Bognor and were lucky with the weather; being lucky with the weather in early April meant it didn't rain for more than a half hour at a time. Afterwards they set up house in two rooms in the east end near where Doris's brother Leonard lived.

Fred hadn't thought much about the future when he was single; he'd stopped thinking about it altogether while he was in France. But this was different. He was married. He now had responsibilities. He sought advice from the only man he trusted.

‘Put your money in bricks and mortar,’ his father was a man of few words where it mattered; ‘bricks and mortar son, you can’t beat it for a married man.’ This made sense. Fred's father had saved hard all his working life and now, with his home paid for and some savings put aside to help with the pension, he was doing pretty good.

Fred's father gave sound advice on a wide range of subjects. His mother’s advice was more direct and personal. Just recalling her repeated admonition to ‘stand up straight’ had him away from the gate and to his feet before he realized where he was. Grinning at the foolishness of his action, he resumed his comfortable position.

This house buying thing had started a year ago when Doris received a letter from her mother. The writing was barely legible because the old lady never got around to buying a new nib for her pen and the worn one splayed ink all over the paper. But the message was clear.

‘The society that owns the road is putting all the houses up for sale,’ she wrote, ‘and when they sell number seventeen I’ll have no where to go. I just don‘t know what I’m going to do.’

Fred knew number seventeen well. While he and Doris were courting he’d been a frequent caller at the house on Pyrmont Road. Doris’s mother had received him cordially before they were married and she received him warmly when he and Doris visited later as man and wife. He liked his mother in law and it upset him to think of her being forced to leave the house she’d called home for much of her married life. The letter gave him an idea.

He approached his father for a loan, just enough to make up the down payment on a house: he explained he had number seventeen in mind. The old man was so tickled Fred had taken to heart his advice about ‘bricks and mortar’ he agreed to lend the needed balance. He even helped fill out all the forms. When the letter arrived informing Fred his application to the loan company had been approved, Doris put on her Sunday hat, he wore his Sunday collar and together, they went over to Eltham to tell his parents the good news.

After an excellent dinner, his mother was a very good cook, Fred and his father went for their usual walk, a habit developed when Fred was a small boy. This rarely took them further than the back garden but it kept them out of the way while the dishes were done. Today, while Fred and his father were out, Doris helped her mother in law with the dishes.

The back garden at Eltham was long, narrow, and filled end to end with flowers and vegetables: Fred's father was retired and his garden was his hobby. Half way down on one side and hidden from the house by a small garden shed, was the compost heap. Beside but not touching the compost heap was a fine patch of rhubarb.

Today, after first inspecting his prize Michaelmas daisies, then checking and commenting on his soon to be in the prize category, giant peonie, Fred's father led the way to the rhubarb patch, ostensibly to discuss the correct application of horse manure, a must according to Fred's father, if you’re ever going to grow good rhubarb. He swore by the droppings from the Guinness horses but Fred, not yet in that prestigious position of actually growing his own rhubarb, reckoned one load of horse manure was good as another.

Today, Thomas Blackford was not interested in rhubarb. After first making sure he couldn’t be seen from the kitchen window, he pulled several pound notes from his pocket.

‘Buy something nice for the house,’ he pushed them into Fred’s hand, ‘after you’ve settled in, that is. You can tell Doris where it came from,’ he poked at the handful of notes, ‘but whatever you do, don’t say anything to her in there,’ he tilted his head in direction of the kitchen, and his wife. ‘If she knew I gave away stuff like that,’ he indicated Fred’s pocket where the money was now safely stowed, ‘she’d have me put in the loony bin.’

Fred smiled at the remembrance then stood up and stretched. After that he stood back and regarded the wrought iron gate. Be as good as new with a fresh coat of paint. He put paint on his mental list of things to get, one day, then leaned forward and resumed his position. Daydreaming was nice. When you had time for it.

He hadn’t told Doris about the five pounds. He’d tell her after the surprise which he’d decided was to be a nice new gas stove. She hadn’t mentioned a new gas stove but he remembered the look in her eyes when she read the newspaper advertisement, and when he found the hole where she’d cut it out, he knew she was serious. The cutting was tucked away in her recipe book so all he had to do was go and find it before he went to the gas company. Hopefully there would be some money left over for Doris to buy new curtains. New lace curtains maybe? For the front room?

Pyrmont Road, like other roads, streets and avenues of the time, was a slave to tradition. A front gate left open or a front hedge poorly trimmed was not considered an affront to society. But woe betide the house that showed its face without the obligatory pair of lace curtains in the downstairs front window. White of course.

Fred almost laughed out loud when he and Doris arrived at number seventeen this morning to find the lace curtains still in place. Bet the old lady was too scared to take them down he thought but he kept said thoughts to himself as Doris was a bit touchy about her mother right now.

He and Doris had talked long into the night before coming to the conclusion that when they took possession, her mother should be asked to stay on and live with them. And after all that! What had the old lady done? Upped and moved herself and her furniture to her son Leonard’s place over in Deptford. Doris hadn’t seemed too put out about it which surprised Fred but they’d only been married three years and he had a lot to learn. About women in general. And Doris in particular. The main thing was that Doris was happy to be back in her old home and more than anything, Fred wanted to make Doris happy.

In this mellow frame of mind, he leaned on the gate and waited for the moving men. He had the key to his front door. All he needed now was his furniture.