Table Talk

Really a story written as a story of a table in World War 2 England. I am the boy and the bruises from the table mark my growth to manhood

Table Talk

I am a dining table in the house of a printer who works at night. He lives with his wife Peg, daughter Joyce and son, John. The son is five, that is sixteen years younger than the daughter. He must have been a mistake and that’s for sure. He’s a pest.  It’s a wonder I have any corners left, the way he keeps banging me with his head.

 

Across the room is a writing bureau that ‘Uncle Arthur’ uses to count the takings from his insurance round. He isn’t really ‘Uncle’, but Dad’s best pal, who was given a room during the depression and stayed. The boy obviously loves him and that feeling is returned. The desk stands there, flap down like a great gaping mouth while he empties his pockets into it, then counts the money. There he is doing it now. The boy is standing by as usual waiting for the silver three-penny bits. He gets three, but I saw Uncle Arthur slip about a dozen into another pocket saying, “This is getting too expensive”. When no one’s looking, the boy steals sweets out of the middle drawer. Atop the bureau is a glass-doored bookcase, the brain-box of the house.

 

I am covered by a piece of printer’s felt, “To keep the sun off”, says Peg. The sun pours through a sash type window, outside which is an Anderson Air Raid Shelter, covered in growing vegetables and herbs, as is the rest of the garden. Sometimes, on dark, dark nights, they all troop down to the shelter in the middle of the night when the sirens sound. 

 

Against another wall stands a large oak sideboard with cupboards and drawers, which house all manner of foodstuffs guarded by the eagle eye of the woman. It would appear that food is short and can only be obtained by using the coloured books kept in the sideboard’s top drawer, although sometimes a big Dutchman comes and lives here for a while. When he is here there is food to spare. He brings boxes and is something to do with ships in Liverpool. The boy sleeps in his enormous vest.

 

There is always a fire in the hearth and the house is constantly warm. It is also frequently smoky as they all have cigarettes from a machine on the side cupboard, which is refilled weekly by a woman who visits. The smoke is awful, dimming my polished surface when the felt is off on a Sunday and making both the boy and his sister cough. She complains that the place smells when she brings home a boyfriend and the boy laughs with glee because he was chased out last night for spying. Precocious brat. He hides under me when he won’t go to bed and they tell him “The Sand Man’s coming,” whoever he may be.

 

I stand on an Indian carpet that is white and green with other colours interwoven. The fluff from it gets into my joints. A little circular table and a stool with a raffia top are in the corner where the boy sits and makes things out of paper. He uses paper his dad gets from work and white paste from a tin. ‘Dad’ often sleeps in a big leather armchair in one corner and snores during his afternoon nap. He and the boy laugh a lot together. The carpet is becoming bald like the father’s head.

 

Sometimes, they decorate the room. I remember when they used wallpaper, but now all it gets is something they call ‘distemper’, which smells peculiar and is mixed in a bucket. Something to do with the war, I think.

 

The star of our room is the ‘radio-gram’ a Philco, which is very grand and plays records of a man with a funny voice called George Formby and they seem to get lots of dance music records and hold parties. When they do, my poor old legs feel the strain with all the food. I heard it said that it was bought with two months points. What could that mean, I wonder? Soldiers sit on me while Jock, a Scot, does his party piece putting a red-hot poker in his mouth. It’s a lively house and now Joyce has married a sailor called Max and mother and father aren’t too pleased. Well, none of us knew and it was sprung on the family. The boy worships him. At the moment there is a model boat he has made on my back. No one takes much notice of me unless I’m loaded then they all sit round me pushing their elbows into me, talking and lightening my load by the mouthful. I can’t get a word in edgeways but they listen to every word the radiogram says. They laugh at a voice, which sometimes appears saying how well the Germans are doing. He has a funny name – something like Lord Haw Haw. Above me on the wall is a map of the world with little Union Jacks all over it. They spend hours cutting them off cigarette packets called ‘Flag’, marking something called ‘Allied Positions’. I wonder why?

 

Other memories? Plenty - Crumbs on my back from toast done on the open fire, Uncle Arthur and the boy making up Meccano on me and the swish of a ledger being slid and turned as the insurance is entered up. It scratches a bit but it eases the itch from the crumbs.  

 

Now there is sadness. Joyce has died and there is no merriment around me as the family returns from the funeral to eat. Quite a bit is drunk too but there is no laughter.

 

There is a new wireless; a pathetic little tabletop thing called Pye. Poor old Philco has gone. The boy seems bigger now and it is his thigh that hurts my corner. Instead of crying he says words I won’t repeat. Sometimes he wears overalls, which he throws on me and gets told off. Peg now has a rocking chair, which clicks and creaks, from which she rules the house but the father has died and the house is not as happy as it was.   The boy is now a man and brings home a girl friend whom he will soon marry. Peg has married Arthur yet the house seems big and empty. There are no soldiers and Tony the Dutchman is gone. The boy now wears pyjamas. 

 

I am being carried out of the room, the house even, into the chill December air, as the family sheds furniture ready to move to another, smaller house. My replacement is a pathetic little gate legged thing of indeterminate timber, my room gone forever. “Goodbye, smoky haven, goodbye wooden friends and faded distemper”, dare I say “Goodbye Family”?

 

 

John L. Berry,  2002 - and yes - the boy is me.

Reviews

[Belator Books]

I am not normally a fan of personification but this piece grabbed by attention with the first line, a string of words that can only be described as 'lyrical'. It is simple, almost Durrell-like in flavor, yet seriously told and described. Such history surrounding each piece! We forget how these furniture objects stand in the corners of our lives--silent and soul-less--yet given a tinge of humanity nonetheless, simply by being around people. Humans age and change, marry and watch children grow up; amid and around this activity, the table chairs and lamps stand, like useful sentinels. Nicely done.

[Mary]

The use of the kitchens tables point of view to layout the life of a family is brilliant. I come from an exceptionaly large family and I would love to have our kitchen tables version of the ever caotic goings ons that it would have seen in our household ( and to know the secrets only it would know). Such a creative way to do this, like I said just brilliant.

[Donald Meikle]

man o man have you ever run through my memories, across the veranda down the steps with a sky alight with searchlights. sitting with our feet dangling in the cement bathtub, reading Riders of the purple sage by Zane Grey. waiting through the crumps for the All Clear. Who Need This? and yes I've been to Mannheim , and yes I loved Deutschland, with the beer and pork and castles and all. Thanks

[Fabian G. Franklin]

What a wonderful story filled with history from the musings of this table. I was held to the story throughout and found myself asking questions as this was a while before my time and I was so interested in the details. I would read a novel on your life. It would be most interesting. I read one novel on Washington D.C. during the war called Washington goes to war by David Brinkley...it was fascinating and funny. I laughed at the jackass antics of the politicians, learned about some crazy stuff...i.e. They had an anti-aircraft gun postioned on the top of the post office in Washington during the war...but it was broken and all the ammo boxes were ammo for different guns...strictly for show. In your story here I wondered what the sister had died from, air raids or illness. I liked the self deprecating humor in references to the "young John" as well, a delightful read.