The evening must have gone with a swing, because no one was up next morning when I padded downstairs in my nightie with the pink rosebuds on it. I tried to be quiet but I fell off the chair I’d climbed on to reach a cup for my milk. The crash woke Auntie Flo who tottered into the kitchen looking bleary. I babbled an apology for the broken cup but she was casual about it.
‘Don’t worry, petal, accidents happen. Want some breakfast? I expect your belly thinks your throat’s been cut. Egg on toast do you? The eggs come from Sid’s cousin who’s got a farm round Blagdon way. One egg or two? Boiled, poached, fried or scrambled?’
I wasn’t used to making this particular decision for myself. I usually had what everyone else had, so it took me a while to make up my mind. I plumped for two and scrambled. I liked the way Auntie Flo scrambled her eggs; she added some stuff that looked like grass but smelt a bit like onions. She called it chives and it grew in the back garden. She handed me the big black kitchen scissors and asked me to get some while she made some tea.
‘Me mouth feels like a wrestler’s jockstrap and I won’t feel better until I’ve had a cuppa or six,’ she said as she opened the door for me.
Auntie Flo and I spent a companionable hour, drinking our drinks – tea for her, milk for me – and tucking into scrambled eggs on toast. Well, I tucked in and she nibbled the odd dry crust because she said she felt a bit seedy.
I liked my auntie Flo. She’d lived with us for a bit before she married her Sid and moved away. In those days she’d been known to everyone as ‘Scarper Flo’ on account of being a bookies’ runner for a while. She’d become a runner after her Johnny had got himself blown to bits. She had to earn her living somehow and wanted to stay at home to help Granny look after Gramps, who’d had a stroke. There were no farms or munitions factories in Soho, so the choices were limited. In the end, Tic-Tac Mac offered her a job as a runner and she turned out to be really good at it.
Auntie Flo earned the ‘Scarper’ on account of her turn of speed when being pursued by the coppers. It was illegal, as Uncle Bert explained, to place a bet anywhere except on the race course, but what working man or woman could afford to go to the races every time they wanted a bet? It was daft and, as my auntie Flo pointed out, rich blokes could place a bet by sitting on their fat arses and getting a lackey to telephone their bets through. Or they went to proper gambling clubs where they could play cards and the doorman would place their bets for them. She said it just wasn’t fair because they had the time and the money to go to the races and the rest of us didn’t, and I believed her. Anyway, that’s why the people who took bets from the punters were called runners – they had to be able to leg it when the need arose. Scarper Flo soon became a legend with other runners, bookies, punters and police alike and everyone was sad when she gave it up to marry her Sid. The local coppers reckoned that all the exercise she gave them kept them in mid-season form. No one ever managed to catch her, which must have been some kind of record in itself. Most runners expected to get caught now and then and kept a fund to pay their bribes or fines – mostly it was bribes because round our way the coppers saw it as a valuable addition to their wages.
Once we had breakfasted Auntie Flo decided it was best to try and get the others up. We chatted about my Great-aunt Dodie as we boiled the kettle for everyone’s morning tea. In fact she’d been the main topic of conversation all through our breakfast. We decided that we liked her; that she was very definitely a bit of all right, and that she was a welcome addition to our little tribe.
Auntie Flo told me how my great-aunt had kept everyone amused with her travel stories and how she and Mr Herbert had taught everyone to play a game called backgammon. They’d had to use a set of draughts, a bit of old sheet with the board drawn on it and some dice. She said she’d teach me later because it would be good practice for my sums. Then she loaded seven cups and saucers on a tray and headed upstairs with the teas. I followed behind so that I could knock on doors and help her deliver them. It came as a bit of a surprise to me to discover that Mr Herbert and my great-aunt were in the same room. Auntie Flo said not to worry about it as he had been servicing the old girl for years. I wasn’t sure what servicing meant but Auntie Flo said I didn’t really need to know. What I couldn’t understand, though, was how the pair of pink knickers came to be hanging from the light fitting in their room. Auntie Flo told me that I didn’t need to know that either, but she was laughing as she told me so I knew she wasn’t cross.
After we’d delivered tea to Great-aunt Dodie and Mr Herbert, we moved on to Madame Zelda and Paulette’s room, then Auntie Maggie and Uncle Bert’s and that left just one lonely cup on the tray for Uncle Sid. Once everyone was up, we sat around the long kitchen table discussing our plans for the day. I was all for going to visit the donkeys and Great-aunt Dodie said she’d like to come too. Mr Herbert wanted to look around for bookshops and the rest were happy to spend the morning recovering from the after-effects of the night before.
Great-aunt Dodie proved to be a mine of information about horses and donkeys. She took to Harry’s mob straight away and understood completely why Hazel was my favourite. She had a long technical conversation with Harry concerning the dietary requirements and habits of your average donkey. I noticed that Harry behaved very differently when he was speaking to my great-aunt. He had a sort of ‘cheeky chappie’ manner with the punters but with her he was quiet and serious. I think that was when I realized that she really wasn’t like the rest of us. Not only was she posh, which I’d already realized, but she had an air of authority that she and everyone else took for granted – a bit like the headmistress at school, only much, much more so. No wonder Afghan tribesmen legged it rather than face her down.
After we had communed with Hazel and co. for a bit we headed back to Dunroamin via the candyfloss place. Great-aunt Dodie took my auntie Maggie aside for a moment, there was a brief discussion and I heard Auntie Maggie say, ‘I don’t know, Dodie. Why don’t you ask her?’
I just had time to register that their relationship had moved on to a first-names basis when, to my utter astonishment, that imposing woman hunkered down so she was more or less on my level.
‘Rosa dear, how would you like to come for a spin in the car? I know someone not too far from here who keeps a farm with horses and I thought, as you love donkeys so much, you might like to meet them.’
I cast a hasty glance at Auntie Maggie to see what she thought of this plan. She smiled at me and nodded slightly, so I knew it was all right with her. So I nodded too, although I have to say I was a bit shy about going off with a woman I hardly knew.
I needn’t have worried as what followed was one of those days that linger in the memory for ever. It was a turning point in all sorts of ways as Great-aunt Dodie and I forged a bond that was to be a source of pleasure and strength to us both. We discovered that we shared a great love of the horse. I already knew I loved donkeys but I hadn’t yet met many horses. I’d seen them dragging milk and coal carts about; I’d seen them all done up for the Queen’s Coronation; I’d seen them in Westerns at the pictures, but I had never been introduced to one before. But what really happened that day was that Great-aunt Dodie helped me to discover my real mother – not the poor, drunken, frightened woman who reeled into the cafe now and then but the person she had been before she was wounded.
Naturally, grown-ups being what they are, Great-aunt Dodie and Auntie Maggie had extensive discussions about when we’d be home, the provision of grub and whether or not I should take a cardie or even a coat, given the English climate and all. Eventually I was skipping down the steps of Dunroamin and standing beside the silver car that was still parked outside our front door. I later learned it was called a Lagonda. Whatever it was called, I discovered that I liked speed and I loved open-topped cars. Great-aunt Dodie’s driving was fast and assured and before long we were twisting and turning along the country roads.
As we drove, my great-aunt kept up a running commentary on our surroundings. I hadn’t realized, until that day, that my mother had been born and brought up in Somerset. First off, we stopped outside a house with an orchard and a large garden.
‘Cassandra’s school chum, Lilian, lived there,’ my great-aunt told me. ‘They were great friends until the family moved to Brazil. See that big apple tree there, the one next to that gate? Well, your ma fell out of that when she was about your age. Bit clear through her tongue, poor thing. Claret everywhere. Still, she was a brave little soldier; didn’t cry that much. Would you like to see where she was born, your ma? Well, off we go then. It’s not that far.’
We sped between hedgerows for what seemed ages to me and finally came to a halt in front of an imposing pair of wrought-iron gates. To the right of the gates was a building that Great-aunt Dodie called a lodge but that looked just like a little house to me.
We waited for a moment or two, then she heaved a sigh. ‘I’d better knock them up, otherwise we’ll be here all day.’
She got out of the Lagonda and strode over to the door of the lodge and hammered on it. A small, round, grey-haired woman with a bun answered the knock. I heard her cry, ‘Miss Dodie!’ in surprise but I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation because they were too far away. Shortly my great-aunt returned to the car and the little round woman opened one of the gates. We drove through and the gate was closed behind us.
‘Thank you, Mrs Saunders,’ Great-aunt Dodie called. ‘Just showing my godchild the old homestead.’ And with that she put the car into gear and, with a cheery wave, we pulled away.
We drove in silence while I took in the scene. We were on a drive lined with horse chestnut trees. On either side there were lawns bounded by high brick walls clothed in espaliered fruit trees. In later years I was to learn that crops of apples, pears and even peaches were to be had from these peculiar trees that looked as if they had been crucified. In front of the walls, wide herbaceous borders provided a riot of summer colour. Old cottage-garden favourites including hollyhocks, golden achillea, pink phlox, purple Canterbury bells and the majestic spikes of blue delphiniums vied for attention. At the front of the borders, close to the ground, heartsease and pansies turned their pretty little faces to the sun. There was a smell of lavender on the light breeze. I was enchanted. We relied on the royal parks and Covent Garden market to supply our floral displays.
We negotiated a right-hand bend and there before us was a large, old house. It wasn’t really anything like as big as Buckingham Palace but it looked it to me. I was overawed and my eyes must have looked like saucers. We drew up at the bottom of a short flight of stone steps guarded by two stone greyhounds. The house was square and symmetrical. Whoever built it was really keen on the numbers three and nine. There were nine windows on each side, three on each of the three floors. The windows themselves were large and had nine panes of glass, three rows of three. I know this because I had recently mastered my multiplication tables up to the six times and so it was easy to work out.
I was still hanging about at the bottom of the steps when Great-aunt Dodie tugged on a long metal rod to the right of the panelled front door. I heard the jangle of a bell. While we waited, I took in some more details. I was fascinated by a sort of shell thing above the door. You couldn’t really call it a porch because it wouldn’t shelter anyone much or stop the rain from dripping down your neck, but it was pretty. There was a wisteria growing up the left-hand side of the house, although I didn’t know what it was called then. It was obviously very old because its trunk was gnarled and twisted like an arthritic finger, only much, much bigger. Later, when we were inside, I saw an oil painting of the house and in it the wisteria was in full bloom. It looked wonderful, like a blue waterfall cascading over that half of the building.
At last, a small figure dressed in black answered the door. She had a chain hanging from her dress belt and attached to it was a large bunch of keys. She took one look at my great-aunt and her old face broke into a wide smile, rearranging the thousand wrinkles into a new pattern.
‘Miss Dodie, what a surprise. Why didn’t you say you were coming? Mr Charles is up in town. He will be so sorry to have missed you. Come in, come in.’ She stepped back from the entrance to make room and then she saw me. ‘And who is this? Come, child, don’t be afraid, I shan’t eat you. In you come.’
Despite her reassurances, I was not at all sure she wouldn’t eat me or keep me a prisoner or something equally awful. Suddenly I wanted my auntie Maggie more than anything else in the world. I stayed put, my ever faithful thumb in my mouth and an arm wound round the neck of one of the greyhounds.
Great-aunt Dodie turned and, seeing my anxiety, retraced her steps and held out her arms to me. ‘Come on, Poppet, no one is going to hurt you.’
I let go of the greyhound, spat out my thumb and wound both arms around her neck as she carried me into the house.
‘Meet my godchild, Rosa. Can we find her some milk and a biscuit, Esther? I’ll explain in a minute.’ She set me down on the hall rug and took my hand.
‘Of course. Wait in the drawing room and I’ll see what I can find. Would you like something, tea perhaps?’ the little old woman asked.
‘That would be most welcome, Esther. We’ll just have a look around. I want Rosa to see my old room and the nursery. I’m sure she’ll like old Dobbin. Perhaps you could bring the refreshments up there?’
Esther smiled and disappeared towards the back of the house, and Great-aunt Dodie and I made our way to a wide, carved, wooden staircase. It was on the staircase that I saw the picture of the house with the wisteria in full bloom. I had gathered a bit more courage by that point and whispered an enquiry as to where the flowers were now.
‘I’m sorry, Rosa, but we’ve missed them. They appear earlier in the summer, I’m afraid. Perhaps you’ll see them another time. Here we are.’ We stopped at a white, panelled door on the first floor. She looked around carefully and bent down and whispered in my ear, ‘If I tell you a secret, can you keep it?’ I nodded solemnly, and she grinned. ‘Good girl,’ she said and flung open the door on to one of the most beautiful rooms I have ever seen, before or since.
‘This was your mother’s room when she was a little girl, and before that it was mine. But you must not mention your mother while we are here. Do you understand? It is to be our secret until we leave. Of course, you may tell your auntie Maggie and uncle Bert about our visit – one would not want you to keep secrets from them – but just for the time being, while we’re here, it is our secret. Except for Esther, and she’ll keep it to herself.’ Great-aunt Dodie stuck out an enormous hand and I shook it gravely.