Even Aunt Tillie admitted the English should not do their own cooking, but send for French chefs. Like all Americans in England a long time, Aunt Tillie was a bigot about the rest of the world when it came to loving the English. They had no faults to her… they were the greatest people on earth. And she was one of them. Years later, T. S. Eliot, another Boston refugee, used to peddle the same sort of nonsense in a fake accent.… Mama was still very much of the idea that I should get an Eton jacket. I wanted a Beefeater's bearskin cap. Mama won.
Aunt Tillie dug into a rancid 'gator bag (that still had a few claws left on) and brought out a fragment of a card. “If you must buy, buy the best. Here is an address—Joe Plantaganet's shop. English tailoring at its best. Now if you want hats… or coal. No, you wouldn't want coal, would you, dear?”
Mama certainly didn't want coal. She looked quickly at the fragment of card. “I'll find it.”
“I'll go with you,” said Aunt Tillie, looking as if she wanted to make sure of getting her 5 per cent from Joe Plantaganet.
“No,” said Mama. “Stevie and I want to wander around London alone.”
“Well, dear, it's down past Victoria Embankment from Westminster Bridge, down to Blackfriars on the Thames, and.…”
“Thank you,” said Mama, taking my hand.
“Just say Tillie sent you… any place they know me.”
Mama bit her lip as if to keep back the words, “You bet they do,” and we went out. Aunt Fran was going to a hairdresser, Gramp was meeting an important beard at the Bank of Englan and Royal Exchange, and Mama and I were on our own in London.
“Frightened, Stevie?”
“No, Mama… but must I get an Eton suit?”
Just then a dray full of crates, pulled by two grey horses with the faces an rumps of German generals, banged past us, and the man with the whip stood up and howled at us.
“Blimmmmmey, wotbloodybusizzzzzness his thiss! Giiit hout, hiii siiy of the bloody — ooooooo… wiyyyyyyy!”
“What?” said Mama, but the dray went past in a clatter of hoofs, and we viewed the pendulous sagging plumpness of the rapidly departing German generals.
Mama shook her head, and we went up to a little red-faced man in a pot hat, who we knew was a bobbie from the steamship posters.
Mama said she wanted to find the Plantaganet place.
The Bobbie took off his hat and wipe the inside of it carefully… and peeped in as if the answer were printed in his hat.
“Now, ‘owww’s that… you sy Plan taganet, noww…? Now, lidy, that's a king's nime… ‘e’s dead… dea as all éell and 'Arry.”
“As who?”
“'Arry… Prince 'Al… 'Arry. 'Enry the Number 'e was, nowhhh? Was 'e hor was 'e not one of thimmmm Plantaganets?”
“Thank you,” said Mama. “'E wuz… I mean… I think he was.…”
And Mama took my hand and we went along, and we knew it was no use asking our way, since no one could speak English in London. Not even the side-walk artists peddling their tragic defeat, frustration, and impending ruin for copper coins.
We took a bus that seemed headed in our direction, we walked along the river, and twice we asked the way of passing natives. One man holding a closed umbrella winked at Mama as he said, “Que voulez-vous?” and a fat lady (eating a buttered roll at the curb) pointed to the river and said kindly, “Netter Fluss, 'nich?”
“Thank you,” said Mama, and we went that way, but got lost again; and so after a while we sat down in front of a little bookstore with cases full of yellow novels in the Tauchnitz editions… all marked “Not to Be Imported into Great Britain.”
“We're lost,” said Mama.
“Can I cry?” I asked. It always helped when you were lost to cry. It brought your plight to people's attention and was always good for free candy.
“No, Stevie, we'll find a telephone.” We tried several shops, but at last found that English phones were placed in the street in upright coffins. Mama and I got into a coffin, and Mama looked in dismay at the coins in her hand. She put one to a slot, but it fell out again, an she tried again and again until one was eventually swallowed by the phone, tasted, and kept.
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