The Way We Heard: Three Coins In The Fountain (1954) (Pt.1)

THE WAY WE HEARD: THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN

(September 1954)

 

Grace was dishing out the Sunday apple crumble.

“Pass the bowls round, Reen.”

“Haven’t you heard, Mum?” said Neville. “She’s not Reen anymore. She’s Rennay.” He cackled and grinned round the table, with the glee of an eleven-year-old escorting his fourteen-year-old sister to certain humiliation.

Renee said in a strangled voice, “Shut up.”

“She’s what?” Grace’s brother looked across the table at Neville, an answering grin starting on his face.

 “Yeah, it’s not Reenee now, Uncle Ray, it’s Rennay. She says it’s French and classy.” His grin got bigger. “Hey, it rhymes, Rennay. You rhyme with Uncle Ray.”

Ray started laughing.

Neville looked more gleeful. “I heard her, talking to Betsy Moore. Reen’s gonna be Rennay, and Betsy’s gonna be –”

“Shut up!” screamed Renee.

“That’s enough, Neville,” Grace said. She frowned at Ray. “And you, stop encouraging him.”

There were six of them round the table, which meant it was a bit of a crush. They’d had to bring the bedroom chairs down. Grace had cooked a chicken, because it was her husband Jack’s birthday on Monday, and Ray had brought a few bottles of mild for him and Jack. He’d poured a third of a glass for Neville, but Grace made him pour it back into his own glass.

“He’s eleven, Ray.”

“Then it’s about time he learned the taste of a good mild.”

Ray’s wife, Shirley, sat between him and Jack, looking pale.

“You all right, Shirl?” Grace asked.

 “Yes. Thank you. I’m fine.”

“It’s all right,” said Grace gently. “Don’t feel obliged to eat the crumble. Things take you different when you’re expecting.”

Shirley gave a small smile.

“I knew a girl called Rennay during the war, when I was in Egypt,” said Ray, his grin getting wider. “Only I wouldn’t exactly call her classy. Expensive, yes, maybe even French, but not what you’d call classy.” He roared with laughter and winked at Neville, who smiled uncertainly back.

Shirley burst into tears, got up from the table and ran out of the room.

“Ray…”  Grace glared at her brother, then looked towards the open door. “Reen, you do the crumble. I’ll go and see –”

“Leave her alone,” said Ray.

“She’s upset.”

“She’s always upset. She’s nothing but upset. Leave her alone, Grace.”

Grace looked towards Jack, at the head of the table. He gave a very slight shake of his head. Don’t interfere.

Grace drew in her breath. “You need to be kind to her, Ray. She’s young. It’s her first.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t ask her to have it, did I?”

There was a moment of silence.

Grace dug into the crumble. The clink of spoon against china echoed round the table.

“Jack.” Grace thrust a bowl piled with crumble and custard at him.

“Meet any Rennays when you were in France, Jack?” said Ray.

Jack blew on the hot crumble. “Not that I recall.”

Ray gave Neville another wink. “Soul of discretion, your Dad.”

Crumble finished, Grace and Renee took the dishes out to the scullery.

“I’ll kill him,” Renee hissed.  

The Ascot banged and Grace waited for hot water to spurt into the sink. “Which one?” she asked. “Neville or your Uncle Ray?”

Renee considered. “Both.”

“Reen, if you’re going to kill every man who speaks out of turn to you, you’re going to need your own graveyard.”

Grace looked out of the window. Shirley was sitting on the wooden bench by the shed, staring down at the grass.

“Make a start on these will you, love. I’m going to see if she’s all right.”

Renee raised her eyebrows. “I thought he said not to.”

“I can’t see him in here, can you?” She glanced towards the closed door between the scullery and the sitting room. “Too busy fleecing your Dad at Five Card Draw. Penny a go, and Ray’ll take him for at least five bob.”

“I thought they were playing rummy?”

“They say it’s rummy because they know I don’t like Neville being around gambling. Even penny a go.”

“Why not?” She frowned. “Oh. Grandad? I thought he was just the booze.”

Grace sighed. “Your Grandad was a lot of things. Pretty much anything you can think of.”

Renee said, “He was a laugh though.”

Grace smiled. “Yes, he was a laugh. And he tried his best. You have to give him credit for that. I just don’t want Neville having the same problems.” She glanced back at the window. “I’m going to talk to poor Shirley.”

She stepped out, leaving the back door open. The door stood open all day during the summer and early autumn, unless it was raining. It had rained a lot that year. Jack had spent all summer grumbling about the effect on the vegetable patch, and he had not been wrong. The potatoes and cabbages were a disaster.

The weather had brightened up a bit over the last couple of weeks, and the sun was still valiantly doing its best, although there was a chill in the air. Grace pulled her cardigan more tightly round her as she made her way down the path.

Shirley looked up. “Oh,” she said. “Is Ray wanting to go?”

Grace sat beside her. “I don’t think so. He’s fleecing my husband at cards at the moment.”

“Oh.” Shirley looked back down. “It was a lovely dinner, Grace. Lovely chicken. I haven’t had chicken for ages.”

“Well, it’s nice for a treat, isn’t it? I still can’t get used to meat being off ration. It feels odd not to hand over the coupons. Renee and Neville, they’ve never known anything but rationing until a couple of years ago. When they took the sweets off, I thought Neville was going to eat himself sick.”

Shirley smiled. “My little cousin, he just took his pennies to the shop and shoved them all on the counter and said, as many as I can get with that. The lady that runs it told him if he did that all his teeth would fall out and he wouldn’t even be able to eat sweets anymore. And he said he didn’t care, he’d take the chance.”

Grace chuckled. “You can’t blame them. It’s been tough on the kids. Renee was only six months old when the blitz started. I used to worry the noise would turn her deaf. I lost all the baby stuff when we were bombed out. Pram, cot, clothes, nappies. Salvation Army was good. It was a Sally Army midwife delivered her, and Neville.”

Shirley raised her head and looked around the neat garden, with its lawn, vegetable patch, rockery and bird bath. “Do you like it here better than Wapping, though?”

Grace smoothed her apron. “Better house, obviously. We didn’t have an indoor lav in Wapping, or a garden. When me and Jack first got married we lived with his Mum and Dad, and we didn’t even have running water, just a pump in the yard. His father kept chickens, though, so we had eggs, and we could have a bird for Christmas. But we’d lived in Wapping all our lives, me and Jack. My Mum and Dad, his Mum and Dad, our grandparents. Their grandparents. Jack’s family were river people, always worked the river. Jack said that when he was away in the war, when it was really bad, he’d think about the river, about rowing the boat, about the smell of it and the sound of it, and the way the light looked on the water. And he’d think about coming back to it. But of course, he never did, because we got bombed out, and when he came back, we were here. And Wapping wasn’t the same. So many families gone, rehoused like us.”

“He talks about the war, then? Ray doesn’t talk about the war. Not the actual war. He talks about things like what he said inside, about what they got up to, but not the actual war. Not what it was like. I could understand if he talked about the actual war, but I don’t want to hear all that stuff about what they did. About the girls, and all the rest. Especially not now.” Shirley ran a hand over the swell of her stomach.

“It takes them different, Shirl. He was younger than Jack. Ray was always happy-go-lucky, anything for a laugh type. A pain as a little brother, to be sure, but fun to have around too. He was different when he came back from the war. Still anything for a laugh, but the laugh wasn’t so happy-go-lucky. Jack – I think he finds it harder now than he did when he first came back. He doesn’t talk about it at all now. He doesn’t talk about anything much.”

 

Part 2 is here: The Way We Heard: Three Coins In The Fountain (1954) (Pt.2) | ABCtales

Picture by Fabrizio Russo, copyright free at Wikimedia Commons: File:Fontana di Trevi (IMG 4022) (26328785398).jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Frank Sinatra sings Three Coins In The Fountain: Frank Sinatra - Three Coins in the Fountain