My mother, like many other married women in the 1950’s and ‘60s, did not have a job. That didn’t mean she was lazy. She had begun her work life as a child of twelve, putting in 10-hour days in textile factories in northern England, where she was born. Later, during World War II, she had worked as a welder at the plant that built Rolls Royces. For awhile she and her sister ran a tea shop. After coming to America, she had continued to work as a waitress and later as a switchboard operator at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. About the time I was born, my dad started his furniture company, and once it began to be profitable, my mother quit working and stayed home.
During the week, my mother stayed home four days out of five. While she did relatively little housework, she had a set routine which she followed like clockwork. After my dad left for work, she’d spend an hour and a half every morning drinking coffee and reading the L.A. Times. Then she would work, at a relaxed pace, on projects around the house, always with the TV tuned to her daily round of programs. From ten until 12:30, she’d clean out her closets, sort clothing, move smaller pieces of furniture, work in the garden, and so on. Between 12:30 and 1 p.m. she would have a light lunch. After lunch, she’d lie down and take a nap for an hour or so. Following the nap, she’d bring out her sewing and work on it while watching soaps and talk shows. At 4 p.m., it would be teatime. My mother being British, tea was a very ritualized event. I was taught the intricacies of the ceremony from a very early age: the teapot, of fine china, was always scrupulously clean, rinsed with boiling water, left to sit for a few minutes, then drained and refilled with tea leaves and more boiling water. After precisely four minutes’ steeping time, it was covered with a tea cozy (a padded cover that looked like a miniature hat), placed on a tray with a tea towel, milk in a china pitcher, and china cups and saucers, and ceremoniously conveyed to the living room. Sometimes we had a few cookies or pastries with afternoon tea, but more often not. My mother was always watching her weight, and whenever I looked as if I’d gained a pound or two, she would remind me that I should be doing the same.
My dad had his own routine when he arrived home from work. He’d sit in the dining area in his armchair, pour himself a glass of jug wine (Silver Satin white or Red Mountain pink chablis), and drink it with some crackers and cheese. Meanwhile my mother would be finishing her tea in the living room. Dinner would be about 6 p.m. My mother usually cooked dinner, although one or two nights a week we would all go out, and sometimes my dad made dinner. My mother was a gourmet cook. Before the war, when she’d lived in France, she had studied at the Cordon Bleu. She made the lightest, richest puff pastry I’ve ever eaten, a jelly roll that rivaled anything from the fancy bakery downtown, and beef bourguignon that deserved five Michelin stars. However, most nights when she cooked dinner for us, she stuck to things like meat loaf and frozen vegetables. When I reached my teens I began cooking most of our dinners as well as baking bread for the three of us, and left her to contribute an occasional specialty. The truth was, she was an excellent cook who didn’t particularly enjoy cooking.
During the day my mother wore her pajamas around the house. No neighbors ever dropped by, so she never worried about being caught “indecent”. All around us were closed-off suburban houses where similarly isolated housewives went through their daily routines, never gossiping over the back fence or dropping by the house next door for a coffee klatsch. These were the Cold War ‘50s and alienated ‘60s, when communication was rather strictly regulated, even if only by custom. In suburbia, you stayed inside your house, watched TV, and minded your own business. If you did see your neighbors for some reason, it was a fair indication that something was wrong.
By nine thirty or ten p.m., my parents were ready to go to bed. My dad slept upstairs in his tiny bedroom. My mother had a slightly larger room downstairs. The reason for this arrangement was, according to my mother, the fact that my dad snored intolerably. She was a very light sleeper, often waking during the night, flipping on her reading light, and reading for an hour or two.
That was the general run of things around the house during the week, except for Fridays. On Fridays, my mother got up much earlier than usual, and sat in her bedroom with the radio on while she got ready to go downtown and shop. For her shopping trips, she always dressed to kill. She selected her outfit the day before, along with her wig (her auburn hair was graying, so she generally wore wigs when she felt she needed to look her best). She’d spend an hour putting on makeup and fixing her hairdo. Then she’d take another 45 minutes to dress. Finally, by 9:30 or so, she would be ready to leave.
Until I was in junior high, my mother had not been able to drive a car. She had tried repeatedly to learn from my dad, but they had fought about it so much that my mother finally refused to get behind the wheel when he was in the car. Eventually, after failing her driver's test two or three times, she went to a driving school, and after a couple more failed tests, she eventually sweet-talked a DMV examiner into letting her have her license anyway.
As soon as she could drive legally, my dad bought her a used Renault Dauphine. This tiny red car was woefully underpowered. It also had a rear engine and tended to fishtail going around curves, so my dad hit on the idea of putting a 75-pound sack of cement in the front trunk, as ballast. One day my mother, getting on the Harbor Freeway, made the hairpin turn at the Rosecrans Avenue onramp just a little too fast. The sack of cement shifted, the car swerved, my mother panicked, and the Dauphine smashed into the guard rail, crumpling the lefthand side of the car like a beer can. Was my mother daunted? Not even slightly. As soon as the car came back from the body shop, she was off again, this time minus the bag of cement. She was completely fearless.
Her routine on shopping days was always the same. Once she’d arrived in downtown L.A., she’d spend the morning hitting the second hand stores on Broadway. She rarely bought anything new, preferring to seek out bargains in used clothing and furniture, which she would then deconstruct and reassemble according to her idea of style. To her credit, she always looked like a million bucks, and our house was always elegant, if a bit eccentric. But as a kid, I was mortified by my mother’s peculiar ideas about shopping. Especially when I’d see her pick up an item at the Goodwill, snort “They want too much for that!”, open the large shopping bag she always carried with her, and deposit the item in question inside. Curiously, she would never shoplift at a department store. She claimed she only did it at the second hand stores because “they’re supposed to be helping poor people, and they’re not, so why should I subsidize their thievery?”
After prowling the junk stores all morning, she’d hit Grand Central Market and select a few groceries. Then it was down to the little Italian grocery behind the Bullocks department store, where she’d stock up on espresso. And finally home again, with the Renault’s minuscule front trunk loaded with packages. Most of the time she made it home safely. When I’d hear her pull into the garage, I’d run out to help her bring in the day’s booty and plunder. There were always at least 15 or 20 large bags full of clothing, household items, groceries, and odds and ends, including, maybe, a pair of jeans for me, or a fancy shirt.
On weekends my dad did the grocery shopping and his laundry for the week. He also cooked Sunday brunch. Later we got in the habit of going out for Sunday brunch, often to a French bistro in Palos Verdes my mother liked. That was where I first tasted champagne, in fact. Can’t say it took much getting used to.
As an adult, when I’d mention to people what my childhood and adolescence had been like, they’d often look at me strangely, as if they suddenly understood something about me. Of course at the time it was happening, it all seemed perfectly natural to me.
