REVENGE

Evening Star, Issue 25927, 19 October 1946, Page 11

REVENGE

(Written by Mary Scott for the ‘ Evening Star.’) For seven years Elspeth lived and worked by the clock. She was the much-treasured secretary of an important business man, and he used bitter language about the young man who eventually wooed and wed her, thereby depriving him of “ the best and most punctual girl who ever worked in this office.” Elspeth was emphatic about her changed circumstances “ I’m sick to death of keeping one eye on the clock,” she told me. “ I’m 25, and ever since I left school I’ve worked to a schedule. The unforgivable thing in that office was to be two minutes late. Well, I’m going to live in the country, and I do not mean to be governed by the silly old clock any longer.” 1 demurred at this. Even in the country, I told her, men had to cat at certain .hours, and even bridegrooms grew petulant when they were very hungry. “ Oh, I’m not going to starve Charles,” she assured me; “ I’ll feed him properly, and keep the house in reasonable order. But I’m my own boss at last, and I’m shaking off routine for good and all. I’m not going to be like many women—washing on Monday, ironing on Tuesday, baking on Wednesday, and so on. I’ll wash when I have to, and iron when I must, and I’ll bake cakes when I ifeel like it. If I want to read a novel before I sweep the house, I’ll read it. Thank goodness I’m free at last.” Fine words. We most of us have ideas like that when_ we are young. I can remember thinking wistfully when I was a child that it would be splendid to be grown up aud entirely free to do what I wanted.. Well, I have been grown up for more years than bear thinking of, but the millenium in which I please myself has not yet dawned. Elspeth has now been married six months and has probably already learnt that she has, after all, merely exchanged one job for another —a happy job and infinitely worth while, but still a job, and one that has to be done according to some sort of schedule. I had heard accounts of her efficiency, her good cooking, and campetent management of her hours. A mutual friend, calling in unexpectedly one morning, told me that she found our bride fully occupied.' She was sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea, shelling peas, reading a book —with the help of a book rest that I gave her one Christmas —smoking a cigarette, and listening to a neighbour’s conversation. “What about tlie wireless?” I asked, regretful that Elspeth had not added this to > her occupations. But our young friend refuses as yet-to install a wireless, having spent all her years in town in. a flat where she was the victim of three different sets' in adjoining quarters, all blaring together. However, Elspeth seemed entirely serene, and said that she was keeping up her reading. With the help of the book rest she found that she could do her vegetables, peel fruit and even potatoes, and mix a cake as she read. As yet, she said simply, Charles had not been able to fix up a gadget that would enable her to read as she washed the dishes, but probably this would follow.

This emancipated approach to the housework problem made the prospect of a. visit to Elspeth interesting. I wanted to see for myself how far she had succeeded in abandoning routine, how completely she had managed to remove her eye from the obnoxious clock. Well. I have now returned from three days spentv in her house, and found her doing her new job just as efficiently as she did her old one. This is partly because she applies to it her excellent brain on all occasions* When she expects a visitor, she plans her meals beforehand, cooks a joint, makes cold puddings, and does not rush about cooking and stoking; her range when her guest wants to talk or go out. Her house is in good order ana can safely be allowed “ to go ” for a few. day 6. She does not appear overworked, and is at peace with the world.

With one exception. She has one enemy against whom she wages a perpetual war. Since before marriage she was a slave to time, she has now turned the tables on lfer ancient foe and made it peculiarly her -slave Peculiar is, I think, the word to employ, for her methods of dealing with the problem are unusual and unconventional in the extreme. Let me admit frankly that she is entirely unscrupulous in her attitude towards time and in her manipulation of the kitchen clock.. Normally, she tells me, she keeps it 15 minutes fast. “ Then I’ve something to come and go upon, and, when I put it back in the afternoon, I feel that I’ve cheated time and gained a whole quarter of an hour.” I sympathise with this, since 1 also have a prejudice in favour of a clock perpetually on the fast side; then, when 1 am late with dinner it is always possible to say triumphantly: “Yes, but you’re .forgetting that the clock gains.” But with this simple and. childish expedient I have always remained content. Not so my young friend. When I went to bed the first night I set my watch by her clock and was dismayed to find , that there was an unaccountable gap between the two in the morning. Elspeth only laughed when I said that I was afi-aid my watch was gaining madly. “ Oh, the potatoes wouldn’t cook and so I just put the clock back 20 minutes. We’ll catch up again later in the day,” she said airily. After that l took little notice of the fluctuations of time in that house. I discovered that Elspeth put it back with no conscience at all if she was going to be late with a meal; on the other hand, if we were going out and she wished an early lunch, the clock galloped ahead in the most accommodating fashion Even so, I seemed unable to account for some variations; when I had seen Elspeth putting the clock on, my watch yet reported the time as correct. Since arithmetic has never been my strong point, I was inclined to accept this as one of its many mysteries, until one morning I came into the kitchen at the moment that Charles was putting the hands of the -clock on 15 minutes. He winked at me “ Elspeth is sure to put it back, and we’ll end up with the right time—but, 1 happen to want to be punctual to-day,” he told me. Then I understood the peculiarities of that long-suffering clock. No wonder time danced and lagged and galloped and stood still in that house. Elspeth was quite airy about it all. “ Oh, yes, we keep up the pretence that the time is right, but we each know that the other alters it. But it keeps us from being slaves to time. We manipulate it—we don’t dance to its tune.” An original view, but a little exhausting if you have to catch a train. At home once more, I find it restful to alance at a clock that says 3 o’clock and means it—or at any rate a quarter to.