Читать книгу A Fickle Wind - Elizabeth Bourne - Страница 10

Chapter Four

It wasn’t a great job, but it was the only one offered, so I took it. It was with Barclays Bank, and I was to be the mail girl with the promise that I could, from time to time, fill in for one of the shorthand typists. My mother had thought that the office of one of the local factories would be a better place for me to work, as I wouldn’t have to spend a quarter of my paycheck on transportation costs and add two travel hours to my day. But London was so much more appealing.

The location was in the financial district, not in the West End where all the great shops were. Nonetheless, it was a happening place, and I felt as though I were making a good start! None of the other girls was welcoming or friendly. Funny how people are sometimes, especially at that time in England. It was almost as if they needed to protect their territory. From what or whom, I wondered, as I was not really much of a threat. But as is the case with most things, if you bide your time, don’t make waves, and go about your own business, people come around, and they did. And once I acclimated, things were pretty easy.

I started to worry that I would lose my hard-earned skills unless someone started to dictate a letter to me soon. On the other hand, I was so nervous when someone actually did, I enrolled in an evening course to make sure I didn’t forget everything I had learned. It was a get-your-feet-wet kind of job, and at least I would have more confidence for the next one. It took about a year for me to move on, and when I did, I soon found I wanted to run for cover back to Barclays!

I joined a shipping company, and I was expected to sit for an hour or more per session taking shorthand and then produce perfect letters to go out in the next day’s mail. At the end of my first session, I realized that I couldn’t read even one of the letters through in its entirety. I was panicked. Fortunately, it was late afternoon, so I left, shorthand notepad hidden in my bag, to enlist my parents’ help and sweat over it all evening. My parents sat and worried with me, but since they didn’t know a bill of lading from a plate of fish-and-chips, there was not much help there. So, I would have to face the consequences the next morning and tender my resignation.

I arrived at the office fully intending to do this. Fortunately for me, I was seated next to a very nice, welcoming girl named Marion. She smilingly asked how I was, and I replied that I wasn’t great. I explained that I should have to resign and gave my reason. She offered to go over my shorthand notes with me to see if she could read any of the areas where I was having problems. She was able to read everything! We both used Pitman shorthand. My outlines were correct; it was my unfamiliarity with the shipping terms that had confounded me. So I stayed, became skilled at my craft, and made one of my very best friends for life!

Fifty years later, Marion and I still communicate frequently, have a wonderful understanding of each other, share all our trials and tribulations as well as our joys and sorrows, and have lovingly supported each other through it all. Shipping terms have made very little difference in my life, but the woman who helped me learn them surely has.

I want to digress to tell you a rather amazing story along similar lines. Stella had a sister two years younger than she named Monica. She had attended the same high school as we attended, so I knew her quite well. She was very bright, vibrant, funny, insightful, and a bit of a rebel. If she didn’t think something was right, she had no hesitation in so stating. She actually walked out of school a few months before graduation, as she decided she’d had enough of the rules and would be better off out of there. She had several jobs before the one where this incident took place.

In this particular situation, she was the assistant to the assistant of the managing director, who was a somewhat intimidating, daunting figure. Monica had listed on her resume that she knew shorthand; she did not say she was proficient, but they obviously assumed she was. She was not called upon to use it until her boss went on vacation. Late one Friday afternoon, the managing director called her in to take down some letters. She was terrified. She sat down with her notebook, and he proceeded to unrelentingly dictate. She gave up even trying, didn’t stop him, and just started to scribble on the pad, emulating outlines that could be interpreted from his side of the desk as shorthand. He concluded many letters later and said he would like this to be her first project on Monday morning. She left in a total daze.

She had a terrible weekend and was prepared to be fired on Monday morning when she would have to admit her inadequacy. She was at her desk early, and the senior vice president approached and asked her to accompany him to the office of the director of personnel. Monica couldn’t believe they knew of her treasonous behavior so quickly. How could they know at all? She had told no one! She was stunned.

They asked her to sit down and proceeded to tell her that the managing director had had minor surgery over the weekend. They were most saddened to inform her that he had died on the operating table! In shock, she returned to her desk, immediately tore out the pages of scribble, destroyed them, and admitted nothing. She only confided the truth to her nearest and dearest, and this was now many years ago!

My concentration so far has been on my schooling and working world. I think I now need to bring you into what was happening in my personal life. I had been friends with some neighborhood girls since grade school, and we continued to pursue activities together. Our focus for several years had been how to attract boys.

A place called the Community Hall afforded an outlet for social activities for adults and adolescents. My friends and I joined, as the Hall held dances and offered gymnastics, table tennis, billiards, and other activities. Sometimes we were recruited to serve tea to adult members who played cards or chess. It was there that I met my first boyfriend, Craig, who, incidentally, became my first husband. “First,” do I hear you think? Well… yes. But all in good time.

I was fourteen and still in school. He was eighteen months older and working for a local factory as an office boy. In my opinion, he was very good looking, and since I didn’t consider myself pretty, I thought him quite a catch. Our social life consisted of going to the Community Hall dances, playing table tennis, having dinner at each other’s houses, and going to a movie once a week.

One Saturday afternoon after I started working, Craig and I ventured from Romford up to London with plans to dine in a nice restaurant. The trouble was that we were both too intimidated to walk in. You know the expression, “on the outside looking in”? That about summed it up. Our noses were glued to the windows, but that was as far as we got. We were afraid that we might look like fools, as we didn’t have a clue how we should conduct ourselves in such a place.

Instead we ate at Lyon’s Corner House. Lyon’s was a restaurant chain I frequented for lunch on work days, and the Corner House was its flagship version of a high-end restaurant. Somewhat familiar ground, at least. So, when we went up to London, that was usually where we ate. I longed for the confidence and lifestyle of the diners who were comfortably laughing their evenings away in upscale restaurants, but that wasn’t my lot in life. I wondered if it ever would be.

Not if my mother had anything to do with it! She was constantly criticizing the way I dressed and the hats I wore, and she accused me of putting on airs with the way I talked. I was an embarrassment to her. Who did I think I was?

Regarding the way I talked: I believe I was four years old when I consciously stopped saying the word doll. I was confused. I knew my role models weren’t correct in their pronunciation, but I didn’t know what was actually correct. Much of the populace of London and its immediate surrounds spoke appalling English, and I didn’t like it. For example, they did not pronounce an “L” at the end of a word, but changed it to a “W.” (Listen to Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.) So doll became dow, and windowsill became windersiw.

Once I started school, my teachers were better role models. I listened to the radio and noted that the BBC broadcasters also spoke differently. I started to emulate these people rather than those with whom I lived. It had been fortunate for me that many of the children I encountered in high school had decidedly more desirable accents.

My mother never called me by name, but usually “Janie.” That was her diminutive for Lady Jane, a nickname that had started when I was very young, painted my face, and dressed up. She now told me that people were watching from behind their curtains and commenting about me behind my back. Heaven forbid I shouldn’t conform!

One day, I wanted to wear a stole around my shoulders, and my mother refused to walk with me. “Don’t you look above your station, my girl,” was a comment I heard more than once. But I wasn’t sure what my station was supposed to be, so that was confusing. And perhaps I didn’t want to know, as I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like it. So she and I were already conflicted when an event occurred that made things between us even worse.

Craig, now eighteen, was conscripted into the Air Force. I had been thinking for some time that we really didn’t have a lot in common and that I should break up with him. Since he was now going away, it seemed like an opportune time. So I told him … and all hell broke loose. Craig, his mother, and my mother were all enraged. My mother’s biggest concern was the neighbors. Wasn’t it enough that I had caused so much gossip with my hats? Now everyone would be saying that since he would have less money to spend on me, I was dropping him like a hot potato!

You will recall that he was an office boy, and I can confirm that he had not moved up the ladder one iota. What money, I asked? The movies every week, for a start! My father, who had always been my stalwart supporter, decided to stay out of it. After giving me her opinion in no uncertain terms, my mother would not speak to me at all, which had habitually been her way of wielding control. Craig’s mother frequently waylaid me on the street, begging me to reconsider, and Craig, it seemed, met every bus or train from which I alighted, reiterated the same message.

My friends all had boyfriends and little time for me. I felt isolated, abandoned, and miserable for about a month, with no relief in sight. So I buckled. Two years later, on the eve of my wedding, I recall closing my eyes and thinking: I’m strong. I can handle this. It will all work out. Craig saw me and asked if I were having second thoughts. “Of course not,” I responded predictably. I wouldn’t dare have second thoughts! Hadn’t I taken a failed stand at age seventeen? I anticipated being shot at dawn if I backed out now.