Custard Heroes

She lived on Highgate Hill, no less, right opposite the church. She was built like a mahogany wardrobe and she smelt like one, too. She boomed rather than spoke in a disturbingly deep smoker’s voice which had flecks of phlegm around the edges and she had a curious habit of addressing the wall instead of the person to whom she was talking. She was known as Mrs. W., although saying it out loud took longer than using her full name. She looked down her nose at Uncle.

Uncle was embarking upon a new life with a new wife who was, everyone agreed, a delight. Smart she was, vivacious and quick-witted. Arty type too, just the ticket for Uncle. She did a lot to settle his shell-shocked nerves, although at times he was still liable to fly off the handle and… well, do things. Such as kick the living daylights out of his car when it wouldn’t start. Which, it must be said, was often.

I once saw him, outside our house, laying into a Ford 8. “You bloody bitch, so you won’t start will you?” Slams door, wrenches open bonnet, unscrews a spark plug, gets hands filthy, nerves frayed taut to a single strand and zinging. “Bloody bastard Fords, what a heap of junk!” Plugs cleaned, screwed back in. Socket spanner slips off thread, knuckles barked: “bugger, bugger, bugger! If I ever meet that bastard Henry Ford I’m gonna bang his balls between two house bricks. Now, start you bastard bitch!”

You wanted to tell him it was useless yelling at a collection of nuts and bolts but if you said a word his eyes would pop, his hair would stand on end, his earlobes would turn bright pink and he would storm up and down like a bumble bee with a thorn up its bum.

The rest of the time he too was a delight: kind and enthusiastic, always ready with a friendly, head-cocked-on-one-side smile. He adored almost everything about his new wife; there was nothing he wouldn’t do to please her. She was everything he could have desired. She had only one fault and it lived in Highgate.

The trip to London to see Uncle’s mother-in-law had been planned for weeks. Quite why we had to go was a mystery to me. The build up to the dreaded Sunday would have been more bearable without boyhood bad days that included visits to the barber’s, there to be shorn chilly behind the ears, and bedtime baths more thorough than drowning. By the time we were traipsing up the front path of the house in Highgate the admonitions had grown to fever pitch. It was worse than when the doctor came to visit! “Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to”, “don’t pick your nose”, “pull your socks up”, “put your hand over your mouth when you cough”, “come here while I comb your hair (anyone’d think you’d been dragged through a hedge backwards) and DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING!” Yes Mum, no Mum, of course I won’t Mum, is breathing allowed? “Don’t be so cheeky or you’ll get a thick ear…” Mrs W. couldn’t have been treated with more reverence had she been the Queen. It was important for Uncle’s sake.

It turned out she was not as la-di-da as all that. For a start, she didn’t have the whole house in Highgate to herself. She only occupied the middle floor. The family filed up a flight of stairs covered in tufted carpet so thick that it stole the sound of your footsteps off you, such that you had a job to tell where the end of your legs were. Uncle tripped near the top and fell face forward onto the landing. “Bugger!” he exclaimed, just as Mrs W. opened her door. “Indeed,” she boomed, surveying her unwanted son-in-law spread-eagled at her feet. It was going to be one of those days.

“You’d better come in,” said Mrs. W., as if there were some doubt about it. We shuffled inside and the various members of the family found themselves seats at a table dressed with white linen and doilies. “Sit still,” hissed Mum, “and remember, you’re not to touch anything!”

Uncle was performing the introductions. Before the war he’d studied in France and Italy. Perhaps it was there he had picked up the habit of making expansive gestures while he spoke. “And this…” he said, turning to me with a theatrical sweep of his arm, “is…”. He never finished the sentence. His sleeve brushed against a tall crystal vase intended for a single rose and knocked it over, spreading a patch of green damp over a doily. Now, we had flower vases at home, too. But I ask you, a single rose? We didn’t do Shakespeare in our house.

The room had a chandelier and the atmosphere was heavy; heavier still for a little boy with nothing to do. “Don’t touch anything! Go and watch the buses.” Now that was the best idea she had had all day. The front of the house possessed a big bay window that gave onto the road, which was on a busy trolley-bus route. They were fascinating beasts, swift and silent, but trapped under their power wires. Watching them, at least, would while away the time whilst not touching anything.

The bay window was fitted with a window seat upon which a short-trousered boy could kneel and look out. Better still, heavy curtains drawn back afforded some privacy if you shuffled up to one end of the seat. The view outside was, however, shrouded by an irritating net curtain. “Net curtains is for them as has something to hide,” was the common wisdom in our part of the world and most people wouldn’t give them house room. But the little boy was not the only occupant of that vantage point.

Already sat on a ledge looking out before him was a Dutch doll. She was shod in clogs and a wore a white lace bonnet over her golden locks. Across the shoulders she bore a wooden yolk which had milk pails dangling by red thread at either extremity. Her cheeks were rosy.

“Don’t touch anything!” rang through the boys ears. Of course not, wouldn’t dream of it. Hidden behind the curtain, he sighed. This was going to be an interminable day. Then his breath budged the net curtain with the barest of wafts, causing it to kiss the Dutch doll’s cheek with the most imperceptible of caresses that seemed to deepen her blushes. Ah, very touching. Then her head fell off. Just like that! One minute it was on, the next it was lying on the window-sill next to its body. “It came off all by itself!” No-one was going to believe that (the truth was too good to be true) and Uncle’s predicament was only going to worsen. The back of the boy’s neck began to prickle.

Elsewhere in the room, Mrs. W. was booming. “Does he like custard?” she enquired of the wall. What an odd question to ask a wall. We might not have been posh where we came from but at least we didn’t talk to walls. “Oh yes, he loves it,” said Mum, obviously referring to me. “In that case he shall have some,” Mrs W. informed the wall.

Indeed, he did like custard – knew how to make it, too. Prise the lid off a tub of Bird’s with the wrong end of a tablespoon, take a heaped scoop of powder with the right end and then sprinkle it sparingly into the milk heating on the gas. No lumps. Easy. Pour it piping into a soup bowl and enjoy. Don’t forget to finish off what’s left in the saucepan.

Oh no, she’s coming over! True enough, Mrs W. was waddling his way. “Has he washed his hands?” Heavens, she’s going to discover the disaster! The only thing to do was brazen it out. He stood up and walked resolutely towards her. They collided beneath the chandelier and he came off worse, the smell of tobacco smoke and wardrobes filling his nostrils. As he picked himself up she bent forward from the hips and coughed copiously over him. “Are you alright Mother?” said Uncle’s wife. Well, I like that! “Say you’re sorry,” said Mum, looking daggers at the boy.

Back at the table with the grown-ups, still scared stiff the decapitated doll would be discovered. While Mrs W., now recovered from her wretched ordeal, was away fetching custard, we ran quickly through the battle plans. “Sit up straight, keep your elbows off the table, make sure you eat it all and don’t slop any on the cloth…”. No wonder the walls looked washed out if they had to live by this rulebook each time they wanted to eat custard.

Eventually the custard came. “Eat!” Mrs. W. commanded the wall. Only it wasn’t proper custard. For a start it was on a plate and not in a bowl. More alarmingly, it didn’t move, or rather should I say it sort of sat there and wobbled. Worst of all, a faint smell of dog poo emanated from it. “I’m not eating that!” said the boy to Mum. “Oh yes you are.”

In an uncharacteristic move, Mrs W. unfixed her gaze from the long-suffering wall and directed its full force upon the boy, who felt like a cat caught in a searchlight. “That, young man, is egg custard as it is meant to be made. I suppose your mother gives you that abominable stuff from a tin.” At this, Dad’s knuckles went white as he gripped the arms of his chair. This was not a good sign. The last time such a thing had been seen the next thing anyone knew a hunk of mature cheddar cheese had been snatched from beneath the noses of the squabbling eaters around our kitchen table at home and chucked right down the garden via the fanlight (no mean feat in itself). To fill the ensuing silence of disbelief Dad had raged “there, that way no bugger’s gonna have any bloody cheese!”. There was no knowing what he’d do here in Highgate if he really got his dander up.

“You wanted it, so now you eat it,” said Mum with an air of finality. Given the storm that was brewing over the decapitated doll it seemed wise not to argue with her and just eat the muck. Which. Was. Abominable! Only someone like Mrs W. would go and spoil good custard by putting eggs in it. It clogged, it cloyed, it clung in the gullet and it tasted like a bilious attack.

In the end, innards awry, he was told to return to the bay window. “Don’t touch anything!” Please don’t keep saying that. Might there be a way to mend the doll’s broken neck and balance the head back on so as no-one would notice? Might as well try, can’t make matters any worse.

He picked up the cherry-cheeked sconce by its bonnet and brought it as best he could into place on the top of the body. However, the repair was less easy than it looked. To his consternation, one of the milk pails slid off in his hand. Thus relieved of one of its balancing weights, the yoke yawed alarmingly. Its free end lifted and the remaining laden end dropped, depositing the other pail on the window sill just as a trolley bus was going by. The only thing holding the doll’s arms to its body was the yoke, so they dropped off too. As it fell, the yoke caught on the doll’s dress and the whole darn lot toppled over. Anyone upstairs in the bus looking that way would have seen a kid’s face as pale as death with horror etched on its features. The murdered doll now lay in a sorry heap of pieces.

“What is he doing?” Mrs W. boomed to the wall. “He’d better not be touching Wilhelmina….” He looked round, panic rising like steam from his short back and sides. “I said,” – this time the chandelier shook – “no meddling fingers! Maybe we ought to check”. Oh no, she was getting up. The game would soon be up. Uncle was going to be humiliated. He would go to pieces and get arrested for attacking Fords. It would probably end in divorce.

Uncle sensed the panic. He knew the feeling only too well. A runner along the lines in the army, his motor bike had run over a landmine and brought his participation in the war to a premature end, nerves shattered. Mrs W. was unimpressed, as if Uncle had been the victim of a simple traffic accident.

Overtaking Mrs W., Uncle strode to the window. “I say, look at that trolley bus!” he enthused. “Can’t see it very well though, with this damn veil”. With that he brushed aside the net curtain with a flourish that sent Wilhemina’s constituent parts flying in different directions across the room. The head landed at Mrs W.’s feet. “Bugger these nerves!” cried Uncle. Mrs W. gave him a withering look. Slowly, she raised her foot then brought it down hard on the doll’s head, crushing it. She coughed, turned around and left the room.

Uncle ruffled the little boy’s hair. Heroes like him are not ten a penny.

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