Tales of Pyrmont Road & Other Stories

Flo Flo
by MaryAnn Brooks

London 1931

“Alright gran?” I tapped respectfully on the front room door and waited for an answer.
Say anything else and she’ll like as not ignore you; gran hears when she wants to and speaks when she’s a mind to. But, and I’ve yet to find out why, she’ll always reply when I say those magic words.

This has been going on for two years now, ever since she came for a visit and stayed on. I suppose her being around kind of filled the gap left after mum died.

Fred didn’t mind her staying. I think he realized how much I was missing mum though he did say once after gran had been with us for a while that he hoped I hadn’t bitten off more than I could chew. My gran is definitely not my mum.

So now I tap on the front room door and ask “alright gran?” The day she doesn’t answer is the day I’ll know she’s gone.

Today she didn’t answer and when I went in there she was, sprawled back in her armchair with her eyes closed and her mouth open. She looked very gone.

My first thought was to go and get my sister Vi who lives just up the street, but I squashed that idea in a hurry. Gran would never forgive me if I let anyone see her when she wasn’t cleaned up and laid out in her best nightie that was in her chest of drawers, all wrapped up and labeled for the occasion.

I knew it was there because she had me wash and iron it every now and then, just so it would be fresh for the occasion; her words not mine.

I suppose I could wait till Fred came home and he’d help me move her back into her bedroom. But should we do it before or after the six o clock news?

I d just about decided that moving a dead gran on a full stomach wasn’t a good idea when she opened her eyes.

“Who you gawking at?” she demanded.

“No one gran,” I pulled myself together and ed up her tray; might as well look as though I went in for a purpose. That s when I noticed the open letter on her lap. She saw me looking and sat up.

“Flo’s gone,” she gave a couple of sniffs and when that didn’t work, she wiped her nose which wasn’t easy as her hanky was soaking wet.

“Oh gran,” I put the tray down, “I’m so sorry,” and I was. Flo, short for Florence was gran’s youngest and the only one left of all her children. She, gran, had outlived all the others, including mum who died three years ago. And now Flo was gone.

“I knew something was going to happen,” gran gave another sniff, “when I had one of me funny peculiar feelings.”

She reached down to pull up a clean hanky, she keeps them tucked down the side of her cushion, and came up instead with something that she pushed down again in a hurry, though not before I recognized my old reading glasses. So that s where they went.

She reached down again for the elusive hanky and came up this time with the baccy tin that used to belong to granddad. She looked at it, frowned for a moment then put it in her lap.
“Had the same funny peculiar feeling when he went,” she tapped the tin then dug down, rummaged around and finally located a clean hanky.

“The end of January it was,” she patted the end of her nose, “and it wasn’t long after that he was posted killed.”

“What about aunt Flo?” I knew all about granddad and him catching a spear in Zulu land but I knew near nothing about my aunt Flo who’d remained mysteriously unmentioned, and very single when married with at least two and half children was the norm.

“It says in the letter,” gran ignored my hint about aunt Flo, “that she left you something.”
“Any idea what?” I asked.

“You ll find out next week,” she said then she laid back and closed her eyes which was her way of saying, I ain’t going to tell you so you might as well go away. So after giving her one of my dirty looks which I d never do if she had her eyes open, I took myself, and my curiosity, back into the kitchen.

I’m Doris by the way and Fred, well you heard about him, is my husband. We live at number seventeen.

My sister Violet, except everyone calls her Vi, lives with her husband Bill at number eleven. They have three children.

We have – just us, and gran, of course.

About a week after the funeral that no one went to even if they wanted because gran wouldn’t tell us where it was, a small traveling trunk was delivered to the house. It was addressed to me.
I had the man put it back in the kitchen and he’d hardly set it on the table when gran appeared. She watched him in silence until he was out the front door then she turned and glared at me.

“Where s my tea?” she demanded.

“Fancy a cuppa?” I pulled the kettle over the fire, ignoring the fact she never got her tea before ten o clock and it was only just after nine, “it’ll be ready in a minute.”

“Any of those biscuits left?” gran ignored the trunk though I knew very well that s why she came all the way back to the kitchen. So I got busy with the tea while she made herself comfortable in Fred’s chair. Lucky it was early morning or there’d have been a battle royal to get her out of that chair and out of the kitchen so I could get some cooking done; I like to cook alone.

I did though, open up the range front. Gran feels the cold which might be expected; she turned 79 this summer.

I took my own sweet time over all this. If gran could keep me on tenterhooks for a week I could make her wait a few minutes.

Finally, after the tea was poured and the tin of biscuits opened, I turned to the trunk, only to realize it was locked. And I didn’t have the key.

“Here it is,” gran reached into her pocket and handed over a small key, a pretty thing with a curlicue handle that looked like it was gold though it probably wasn’t.

“Where did you get it?” I emphasized the “you.”

“Flo sent it to me a while back.”

“And you never told me?”

“You got it now. What else do you want?”

I didn’t have an answer for that so I put the key in, turned the lock, and lifted the lid.
As I said, the trunk was small, less than half the size of our holiday trunk, but it was full; crammed to the top with aunt Flo’s knick-knacks.

Fitted neatly across the top were eight long thin boxes, all the same except each was a different color. Inside each one was a fan carefully wrapped in tissue the same color as the box.

“Probably how she kept a check on who was who,” said gran.

“Whatever do you mean,” I asked.

“Pour me another cuppa and I’might tell you,” she replied, so I did that, giving myself a top up while I was at it.

“Your aunt Flo,” I could tell from the way she spoke this was going to be something seriously unusual, “and I’ll thank you to keep this to yourself, at least until after I’m gone, was on the stage, and she was very good at it. But those were hard times and a girl had to have someone to look after her if she was to get anywhere.”

“You mean she?” I stopped, not knowing how to continue.

“Just leave it at that,” gran didn’t intend going any further down that path than necessary.
“You said she never married.” I’made that a statement rather than a question.

“Never needed to,” gran’s voice changed ever so slightly and I wouldn’t swear to it but she sounded almost proud of the fact that her Flo had been independent. She went on. “She’d stay with one man for year or two then switch to another. Went on for years until she retired.”
“But what did she do for money? After she retired, I’mean?”

“She never said. But her house, she’s got a nice little place out near Southend, was paid for and she got herself a lot of jewelry over the years. I suppose that s what she lived off, or on, until she died.”

A house paid for!! I knew quite a few people who, like me and Fred, were paying off a mortgage. But a house paid for!! Naturally I wondered who she left it to?

I turned back to the trunk and looked to see what was next.

Underneath the fans a handmade lace collar lay spread out in an almost circle. Here and there on the inside band, tiny curled pieces of thread showed where tiny stitches once held it to a dress.

“Well well,” gran leaned forward, “my old collar. The very one I was wearing the day I got the news about your granddad. Now why the silly bugger ever joined up,” old memories began to trigger old resentments, “I’ll never know. Probably dead drunk at the time.”

“Then you keep it,” I pushed the lace collar firmly into her hands if only to shut her up. Once she gets going, it’s hard to stop her, and I wanted to hear about aunt Flo.

“I intend to,” she pushed it into a pocket. “Now what’s that?”

Folded and set beside the collar lay something white.

I picked it up, unfolded it and held up a single opera glove. It had a stain on the tip of the index finger, discolored with time but dark enough to have been what? Wine? Or blood? Gran picked it up, put it on and smoothed it into place as far up as it would go over her sleeve.

It could have been made for her, and when she buttoned the buttons at the wrist, tiny round pearls they looked like, you’d have thought she used to do this all the time when she was young. Except she’d never been part of the family going out for the evening; she’d begun service as a skivvy below stairs, unseen and preferably unheard.

“Wonder if it s wine or blood?” she held her arm out, turned her hand over and raised the finger with the stain.

“Who knows,” I was intrigued we both had the same thought but I wasn’t about to say so, “but it must have been a special occasion for her to keep it.”

“Makes you wonder who kept the other one,” gran slid the glove off and tidied her sleeve and as she did it her mouth turned up a bit at the edges which is about as far as she gets in the smile department.

Then her attention and mine, was diverted by a row of cigar boxes lined up like the fans, across the trunk.

Each one, when opened, held several pieces of jewelry of the kind worn on stage. Very pretty from a distance but not much to look at close up. We sorted through them and gran finally picked out a brooch and a necklace she thought she fancied. She’d never wear either of them, I knew that, but I suppose it made her feel good to have something else of Flo’s. I noticed the glove had vanished; probably joined the collar in her pocket.

I picked out two necklaces with bits dangling here and there. They really were awful looking things but if I took them apart, one was brown and one was green, the smaller beads, and there were a lot of them, might make up into something.

A string in either color would go nicely with my new dress. Might even mix them.
We were to the bottom now and there, spread to fill the space, was a package wrapped in creamy tissue and tied with olive colored velvet ribbon.

“Don’t see ribbon like that anymore,” said gran, “reckon Flo wrapped that a long time ago.”
I lifted it out, put it on the table and began to unwrap it only to be interrupted with “careful of the ribbon.” So I untied as instructed and gave the ribbon to gran who took it and rolled it over her hand to ease out the wrinkles. While she was doing that, I folded back the tissue and, well to tell the truth I didn’t know what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

Seven deliciously not quite transparent squares of gauzy chiffon, each quite large, and each a different color, lay there shimmering in the soft gas light, it was a dark morning and I’d lit the two over the fireplace.

I picked them up, one by one, until I had all seven in my hand each caught by a corner. When I shook them out, the different shades alternately bounced off and blended with each other, producing a glorious kaleidoscope.

“So that’s what happened to them,” gran began then before I could ask what she was talking about, she saw and pointed to a long, wrapped but not tied, package. “What’s that?”

I carefully piled the gauzy squares onto the table, then reached in and lifted the package out with both hands.

Another surprise; a lovely silk sash. Flesh colored, and five, maybe six feet long, it was unadorned except for a delicate fringe each end and a few paste diamonds spaced here and there along the middle.

Now my knowledge of sex is limited because it s something you don’t talk about, but this sash just oozed something you never would have talked about even if you did know. It was invitingly intimate and it made me go all goosey just to feel it slither across my hands.

“It’s just an old sash,” gran sounded almost disappointed, “with imitation diamonds.”

“What were you expecting,” for a moment I forgot who I was talking to, “the crown jewels?”

Gran said nothing but I felt her eyes bore into my back as I laid the sash down on the table. But it had me thinking. Why had aunt Flo lovingly put away something that, regardless of how it made me feel, was according to gran, just an old sash?

We almost missed the note because the envelope was the same shade as the wrapping paper. The writing on the obviously expensive notepaper was faded but the penmanship was superb. It was addressed to Flo Flo.

“Coo,” for once, gran was at a loss for words.

“Coo,” I repeated. I felt the same.

Well of course I removed it and we read the contents. No salutation. No signature. But what words!

“A little something to secure the seventh veil my dear and remember, my dear, not to drop it for just anyone.”

I looked at gran. She looked at me.

“What s he mean?” I asked.

“Time for a fresh pot of tea,” she answered.

So I got busy with making fresh tea. I’d rinsed the pot and was waiting at the range for the kettle to come to the boil when I happened to look round. Gran had taken one of the gauzy squares and was holding it up to her face like they do in a harem. I looked back quick as I didn’t want her to know I d seen her.

Gran? Romantic? Naah.

Until then I thought I knew it all but there was more.

“Your aunt Flo,” gran took a sip of tea and reached for another biscuit, “was very good on the boards and one night she performed a solo. It was the dance of the seven veils. Of course she had on a bit more than seven veils but not much. And that night there was Someone in one of the special boxes. Flo told me about the dance and the Someone in the special box but she never said a word about that,” gran waved her biscuit in the direction of the note. “I think I can guess though,” she nodded her head sagely, “who sent it.”

“D’you really think it could’ve been Him?” I hinted at a now long dead Royal Personage who was wont to have a night out now and then.

“If you mean Bertie, then say Bertie.” said gran who was not a one to mince words. She might have said more on the subject of the titled rich and their wasteful habits but just then the top half of the biscuit she’d just dipped in her tea, began to wobble and she needed all her concentration to get it into her mouth before it collapsed.

Now we, me and Fred, are devoted admirers of the Royal Family and though we might make the odd joking reference in private, we’d never actually say a name. As for HRH? That was a long time ago when things were different. But gran had grown up during those years; had known what it was like to go hungry. To her it was yesterday.

“Wonder how long she held onto her seventh veil?” I said. I knew enough about the facts of life to put that two and two together.

“Not long, poor girl,” gran finished her tea, “it was a hard life on the boards without someone to look out for you.”

“Well,” I began to repack the stuff into the trunk, “I think I’ll just put this away for now and talk to Fred about it when he comes home.”

“I wonder what your granddad would have thought about all that?” gran indicated the trunk and the items still on the table.

“Who knows,” I wasn’t in the mood to go down memory lane again. Not right now anyway. But gran had other ideas.

“Silly old fool,” she was still thinking about granddad, “didn’t even have the sense to get himself killed in a place with a good Irish name like Rourke s Drift.”

“Gran,” I asked, anything to get her off the subject of granddad, “you said aunt Flo owned her house?”

“So?”

I paused but only for moment, “Who did she leave it to?”
Gran sniffed. “Her handyman.”