Now I Know What the ‘Phone Number’ Meant
I was a precocious child. Always asking questions, not
giving up until I had, what I deemed to be, a satisfactory answer, or a clip
round the ear for being a pain.
I had taught myself to read from around the age of three or
four years old by reading the local newspaper (we didn’t have books) and
pestering any adult in the vicinity to explain words I couldn’t make out or
didn’t know the meanings of.
I soon realised that questions like ‘What does m-u-r-d-e-r-
mean? What is a-d-u-l-t-e-r-y?‘ Would be brushed off with harrumphs and ‘Ask
your Mam’ or ‘Will you stop asking me questions yer little witch’ – or the
inevitable smack round the head.
I started reading second-hand comics for boys (I hated girl’s
comics) which showed people still fighting ‘The War’ and killing Germans or
spies or showing Native Americans and Africans as stupid and lazy and anyone
‘foreign’ as an enemy.
When I got the chance to watch TV, I saw Sherlock Holmes ‘fighting
the Nazi’s’ in black & white and war films every Sunday.
Somewhere in my child’s brain I thought we were still at
war.
I wasn’t old enough for school yet, but I had been chosen by
default (the only niece old enough) to be a bridesmaid for my auntie’s hastily
arranged wedding. She told me it was because I was her favourite redhead. To
which I replied ‘but I’m the ONLY redhead!’
It was 1966. She had managed to get a date and time for her
wedding that didn’t clash with any World Cup games - but also, not too near the
pending birth date (hence the ‘haste’). She was only seventeen herself, but to
me she was all grown up and glamourous and ‘hip’.
I had been dragged along to boutiques, hairdressers (from
where I obtained my lifelong dislike of hairdressing salons – a burnt scalp will
do that to you!). We went to the office where my auntie worked as a comptometer
operator. It had a blackboard like school on one wall and smelled of chalk,
pots of tea and disappointment. The office girls were nice enough ‘Don’t she
look like Shirley Temple?’ they simpered as I was spun around on an office
chair.
My auntie then took me to what I vaguely remember as being
someone’s parlour room for something called ‘a fitting’. I didn’t know where we
were, or what a ‘fitting’ was, but the house was large and had indoor plumbing
so I thought they must have been rich.
The room was darkly decorated with ‘serene’ green walls (I
can’t remember whether it was wallpaper or just painted – on reflection, it
might have been wallpapered as I remember it not ‘echoing’ much when people
spoke) and treacle brown painted doors and skirting boards. The swinging
sixties hadn’t reached this house as yet.
The parlour had been turned into a sewing room. Lots of
rolls of fabric and boxes of buttons and sequins and layers of lace were stacked
along the walls of the room on the left.
A huge shiny sewing machine, the colour of a London Hackney
cab, stood to attention in one corner and a measuring and cutting table in the middle
of the room, which took up most of the floor space. A big heavy lampshade hung
from the middle of the room.
There were a couple of stools around a little platform
clients stood on whilst being pinned into the seamstress’ creations.
You could tell a lot of needlecraft went on in that space as
the air was full of tiny specks of fabric dust which caught the light. The room
smelled of mothballs and clean linen, but with a tiny whiff of sweat, late
nights and backache.
The room was very cool and I remember goose-bumps coming up
on my arms even before I was indignantly disrobed down to my under things to be
measured for the bridesmaid dress.
My auntie babbled away nervously to the lady who nodded
along as she took the measurements. She was a plump lady with steel grey hair
folded into a neat coiffeur on the top of her head. She wore a navy blue coverall
over her clothes and very sensible shoes.
I can’t remember what colour her eyes were but I remember they
saw right through you and took your measure as well as your dress size in an
instant.
My auntie was explaining to this very polite seamstress lady
what she wanted and the lady explained very politely back that what she wanted
was not within my auntie’s budget – ‘Perhaps madam would care to look over the
Crimplene fabrics?’
As I listened to them talk, I came to the realisation that
this lady was speaking with a German accent.
I was shocked! Shocked that my auntie had brought me to this
obvious den of spies and murderers who wanted to take over our country and
enslave us all. My child’s brain whirled. How could she do this? Grandad had fought
the Germans! My Dad would go spare when he found out!’
I scowled ever deeper as the conversation went on. Trying to
get auntie’s attention without alerting ‘you know who’.
Finally after sulking for what seemed like hours, my auntie
got me dressed and was very cross with me.
‘What is the matter with you today?’ and to the lady ‘She
really isn’t normally like this, she’s a real sweetie’.
To which I scowled even deeper and muttered to my aunt in that
quietly loud way kids whisper
‘That lady’s German - Why are we in a German person’s house?
Does my dad know you’ve brought me here?’
The room suddenly went from cool to Arctic. My auntie went
an unflattering shade of puce and started profusely apologising as I threw
horrible looks at this innocent woman in some pathetic show of defiance.
The lady met my eyes and said softly ‘Such hatred on such a
pretty little face’ she shook her head and said to my auntie ‘Don’t worry
yourself, she doesn’t understand, she is only a child don’t be too hard on
her’.
The lady smiled at me and I begrudgingly flicked a smile
back.
As she helped auntie with her coat (who by this time was
flapping around like a demented swan trying to get her arm into it), I noticed
that the lady’s sleeve of her overall had rolled up and I could see she had what
looked like numbers written on her forearm.
I thought to myself, ‘I get told off for writing on myself,
but this grown lady has written someone’s phone number on hers? Why?’
My auntie was probably dying of embarrassment by this stage.
If she didn’t have problems with her blood pressure before that day, she would
now. She grabbed the rest of her stuff and bundled me quickly out of the house.
As we left in a trail of yet more apologies (which I was
still at a loss at) the lady stroked my hair and said ‘Please think nothing
more of it, I’ll book you in for your next fitting, see you soon, take care
little one.’
The door was shut and I was unceremoniously dragged down the
street by my auntie with an earful of expletives and threats of bodily violence
if I did ‘that’ again. She threw me through a taxi door and sat there next to
me totally distraught.
I was really confused and upset. I didn’t know what I had
done wrong.
‘What have I done?’ I asked.
‘You were really cheeky and rude to that nice lady. I can’t
believe you said she was German!’ She replied
‘But she is!’ I replied.
‘I Know’ shouted my auntie,’ but you don’t go around
shouting it at people!’
‘I didn’t shout’ I said ‘I tried to whisper to you but you
weren’t listening!’
‘Shut up! I’ve never been so embarrassed, I don’t know if I
can go back there’. Obviously thinking her wedding plans were in ruins.
‘Why did the lady have a phone number on her arm?’ I said
‘Oh my God! She said putting her hands over her face ‘You wouldn’t
understand if I told you’
‘Yes I would’
‘No you won’t!’
‘Tell me and if I don’t understand, explain it to me’
‘Shut Up! Shut up! I don’t want you to talk anymore!’ she
said glancing in the taxi driver’s direction hoping he hadn’t understood the conversation.
I hated it when adults wouldn’t explain things to me, it was
the reading all over again.
I was dumped unceremoniously at home and my auntie told my
parents what had happened.
My Dad thought it was hilarious, but then he would.
However, when my auntie explained about the ‘phone number’
he didn’t find it funny anymore. He explained to me that we weren’t still at
war and told me off for being rude. So now I was even more confused.
Needless to say we did go back. The lady was very nice even
though everyone felt awkward (I still didn’t know why). The dresses were
beautiful. I looked like a sixties princess
I had forgotten all about it until a few years ago when my
sister was reminiscing and reminded me of the time I had been a bridesmaid.
After a few minutes, I remembered this poor lady who had suffered my tiny wrath
all those years ago.
Then I remembered the ‘phone number’.
That’s when I felt sick.
That’s when I felt wretched.
I realised that the ‘phone number’ had been her prison camp
identification tattoo.
She had been held in a camp during the war, come to Britain
to start a new life and a new business and had been snarled at by a speck of a
kid.
I could have clawed my own heart out.
If I could have gone to see her and apologised I would have.
But she was long gone.
I know I was a child and she didn’t hold it against me as
she said so at the time, but it must have upset her at some level and I will
never lose the feeling of guilt for that.
(c) Kate McClelland
Picture by Pixabay
(c) Kate McClelland
Picture by Pixabay
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