Free Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow by Paul Gallico Page A

room. A policeman told Ada, ‘You can’t go in there.’
    â€˜Oh, I can’t, can’t I? I’d bleedin’ well like to see you keep me out. That’s me friend what I’m travelling wif and I’m lookin’ after her.’
    Mrs Butterfield was propped up in a chair and one of the policewomen was expertly running her hands over her torso when suddenly she started to smile, and turning to her partner whispered, ‘Oh no! Madge, you won’t believe this.’
    Madge said, ‘Believe what?’
    â€˜In this day and age.’ Then aloud to Mrs Butterfield, ‘Madam, will you please stand up for a moment.’
    Mrs Harris said, ‘Look ’ere, what’s all this? Leave me friend alone. She ain’t got nuffink.’
    The policewoman called Madge had begun to smile too and said, ‘It’s nothing serious. I just think it’s her stays. If Madam would be so good as to let us look.’
    â€˜Stays?’ cried Mrs Harris. ‘What’s that got to do with that thing making noises like somebody wascutting its throat. Stays is made of plastic. Vi? What the bleedin’ ’ell is it you’ve got on you?’
    Sanity began to return to Mrs Butterfield and with it understanding. She raised her skirts. The three women stared. Mrs Harris said, ‘Cor blimey, Violet, where did you get that?’
    â€˜That’ turned out to be one of those long, old-fashioned corsets stiffened with steel ribs, padded and laced.
    Violet said, ‘What’s wrong wif it? I got it in the Portobello Road. I only wears it when I goes out or dresses up for a trip because it ’olds me up comfortable like. ’Ere, see?’ And she revealed the further benefits that her large bosoms derived from the contraption.
    The policewoman explained, ‘We’re sorry, Madam,’ and apologized. ‘Of course, it’s the steel. Here, we’ll let you and your friend out this way and then you won’t be embarrassed.’ They permitted them to emerge from a second door while one of the policewomen gave the thumbs-up sign to the inspectors. Violet whispered to Mrs Harris, ‘I thought their bleedin’ machines had found the letter. ’Ere, take your handbag back. I want nuffink to do wif it.’ The two women proceeded along the ramp to the loading bay.

9
    If the departure from Heathrow was somewhat less than soothing to the two travellers their arrival before the stunningly glittering glass and sleek façade of Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow was chaotic, terrifying and for Mrs Harris and all her plans, dreams and expectations a disaster of the first magnitude.
    For here there was not only all of the turmoil of the great airport but it was conducted some fifty decibels louder, not only in a foreign language amongst foreign uniforms but also with every sign in a wholly unintelligible foreign alphabet, the Cyrillic lettering. Different sounds, different smells, a kind of combination of cheap soap and disinfectant and the clothes basket containing last week’s wash, different tempo, rude and hardlooking officials, lumpy sheep-like ill-clad crowds, salted here and there by a colourful and exciting Eastern costume or two.
    The flight from London to Moscow aboard a highly efficient aircraft had given no warning of this, though Mrs Harris later declared that from the moment she stepped aboard the Ilyushin jet she was subconsciously aware, except the way she phrased it the feeling was centred somewhere in her bones, that she had left behind the safety, comfort and familiarity of everything she knew and loved, Britain – London Town – and although they had not yet left the ground she had entered a foreign country which in no way that she could define had about it a slight feeling of menace.
    There had been nothing during the three and a half hour flight to instil this sensation of unease. The plane was clean, its appurtenances neat but not