Читать книгу Wartime for the Shop Girls - Joanna Toye - Страница 9

When Jim came home, Lily was still up, and being soundly beaten by Reg at dominoes. She didn’t say anything to him about what Reg had told her, and next morning, after a restless night, what with her and Jim rushing to get to work, and Reg getting in the way of them having their breakfast, she didn’t say anything either, or any more to Reg.

But Reg caught her in the hall as she was putting on the ankle boots she couldn’t believe someone had actually been mad enough to give to the WVS jumble. All right, so the suede uppers were worn shiny, but they had a neat little cuff, a smart toggle fastening and a decent sole with only a couple of splits. But with a layer of cardboard inside, which mostly kept the wet out, they were at least warm.

‘Sorry if I worried you last night, Sis.’ The pleading look in his eyes intensified the apology. ‘But it’s no good being an ostrich, now, is it?’

‘No, you were quite right, Reg,’ Lily said firmly. ‘I need to face facts. It’s no good pretending.’

‘That’s what I think.’ Reg seemed relieved. ‘Just got to get on with it, haven’t we?’

Lily nodded. ‘I don’t envy you telling Mum about your posting, all the same.’

‘Oh, I expect she knows the score,’ said Reg. ‘You know what our mum’s like. She’s read your mind before you’ve even had the thought.’

Lily smiled. It was true that you couldn’t get much, if anything, past Dora.

‘At least it’s different for you – you’re years off call-up,’ Reg added consolingly. ‘Anyway, you’re far too valuable for Marlow’s to let you go!’

‘Definitely! Every time I put a boy’s sailor suit on the rail I feel I’m doing my bit!’

Laugh it off, that was the only way. ‘Keep smiling through’, as Vera Lynn had been singing last night, when Reg had finally found something cheerier to listen to.

‘Essential war work! Vital for morale!’ he assured her. ‘Now give us a kiss, ’cos I’ll be gone by the time you and Jim get back tonight.’

‘Bye, Reg,’ said Lily. She gave him not just a kiss, but a big tight hug as well. ‘Look after yourself.’

It was completely inadequate, of course, but it was what everyone said.

‘Will do. And make sure you write, once I’ve got an address.’

‘Of course I will. And you must tell us if you need anything.’

‘Well, it won’t be balaclavas,’ grinned Reg. ‘Though they say it gets cold at night, out under the stars and that big desert moon.’

‘Steady on,’ said Lily, ‘you’ll be writing poetry next!’

She was getting quite good at this ‘making light of it’ approach.

‘What, smoking a pipe and wearing a cravat? I don’t think so!’ countered Reg. He wasn’t so bad at it himself. ‘But it’s an adventure, eh – join the Army and see the world?’

Neither of them was really convinced, she could tell, and it rang even more hollow now she’d realised how soon ‘seeing the world’ might happen for Sid and Les – and for Jim too. Maybe ‘making light of it’ wasn’t the way forward after all.

Reg gave her another quick hug, then added, ‘Say hello to Gladys for me, won’t you?’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’

Gladys was her very best friend at Marlow’s. She was the other junior on Childrenswear and had generously shown Lily the ropes from her very first day. Reg had met her on the short leave he’d had in the autumn when Gladys had come to tea.

It was nice of Reg to remember Gladys, and she’d be touched, Lily knew. Shy, and to be honest rather plain, Gladys wasn’t someone who usually made much of an impression.

‘Are we going? Or is there an all-out strike I don’t know about?’

It was Jim: they needed to get moving, or they’d be in the late book!

They’d only reached the corner when Jim dropped his bombshell.

‘I’m leaving you here. I’m going in the other direction.’

‘What … why?’ queried Lily. ‘Is there an all-out strike that I don’t know about?’

‘I’m not going to work,’ he replied. ‘I’m going for a medical. An Army medical.’

Lily stared at him. After the realisation she’d had last night, this was too much.

‘But … already? Why? You’re not eighteen yet. Not for weeks.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I decided last week. Get the medical out of the way, then as soon as it’s my birthday, I’ll be ready to go.’

Lily swallowed hard, as best she could around the lump in her throat.

‘Hang on. You’ve done all this … without telling us?’

What she really meant was ‘without telling me’, but she could hardly say that.

‘Come off it, Lily. You’ve known it was coming. Anyway, I’m telling you now.’

‘I hate it when people say that! That’s no answer!’ Lily burst out. ‘And never mind me, what about Mum? Don’t you owe it to her to have said something? And why – why on earth didn’t you say anything last night? Reg gave you the chance – he fed you the line when he was talking about your call-up!’

Now she remembered the half-smile, the shrug, and the lack of a straight answer to Reg’s question. Now they spoke volumes.

‘Lily,’ said Jim evenly, ‘be fair. It was Reg’s first leave for ages, and his last for a good long while, from what he told us. Yesterday was about him being home with his family. I didn’t want to shove myself into that. And for goodness’ sake, it’s only a medical, there’s nothing to say till I pass!’

Lily looked at him, disbelieving. If he really thought that … and she’d thought they were friends! Didn’t friends share things? Jim looked straight back at her. Fine, thought Lily, if he wants a challenge … she certainly wasn’t going to be the first to look away – and she wasn’t.

‘I have to go,’ he said finally, unpeeling his eyes from hers. She’d won – but if there was ever a case of winning the battle but not the war, this was it. ‘You should too. Or you’ll be late.’

‘Thanks for your concern.’

Jim obviously noted the sarcasm but said nothing and took a step away. One step, but the first of many, perhaps.

‘I’ve cleared it with the staff office,’ he said calmly. ‘I’ve booked the whole day off. I don’t know how long it’ll take.’

‘No, well, you’ll want to be measured for your kit straight away, I expect, and put your name down for the most dangerous mission they’ve got,’ said Lily, seething at his forethought, furious that the typist in the staff office had known what she hadn’t. ‘Might as well get on with it, eh? The sooner you get issued with your bayonet and battledress the better.’

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘That’s another pointless and annoying thing people say!’

Because ‘like what’ exactly? How dare he presume to know what she was feeling? If he’d had any thought for her feelings at all, they wouldn’t be having this scene in the first place.

‘Lily,’ he spoke to her as if she were a child, ‘I’m going. There’s no talking to you in this mood.’

‘Well, what do you want me to say?’ Lily retorted childishly, then added, ‘Oh, I know. Of course. Good luck.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jim levelly. ‘See you tonight.’

And he was gone, straightening his glasses, pulling down his cuffs, tall and lanky in his threadbare overcoat. Oh, why had it come out like that? Angry and bitter and sullen, when what she really felt was … what was it? She felt betrayed – he’d betrayed their friendship, the closeness she’d thought they had. But more than that, she felt … bereft. And in a flash, she knew she felt for him far more than she’d properly feel for a friend.

Lily blinked – hard – and looked down at her feet. She could still see Jim walking away, but this time he was wearing an Army greatcoat and he was walking away down a crowded station platform to the troop train. She blinked again. Can’t cry, won’t cry, she thought, looking even more determinedly down. But the pavement was slimed with dirt from the melted snow, and her boots, which just a short while ago she’d been so proud of, looked shabby and pathetic, and she hated, hated this war.

Lily made it to work in time – just. She’d been there for six months now, but having a job, and a job at Marlow’s at that, was still enough of a novelty for her to feel a secret thrill every morning when she walked through the door, even at the staff entrance around the back, and even on a cold, dark Monday. Every morning – until this one.

It had never before seemed like dull routine, but it did today; clocking in with the timekeeper, taking off her outdoor things and stowing them in her locker in the clatter and din of the women’s cloakroom, always especially loud at the start of the week as everyone swapped stories of their precious Sunday off. Waiting her turn for the speckled mirror to check her appearance, brushing stray hairs and lint from her skirt, and hurrying along the long corridor past the goods lift and up the back stairs with the rest of the staff …

Even stepping through the double doors on to the sales floor didn’t give her heart its usual joyful lift. The store always looked so beautiful first thing, so pristine and tidy, with the faint strafe marks on the carpet from the cleaners’ vacuums, the counters gleaming and the goods deftly displayed. Though the heating was turned to its lowest setting, some of the overhead lights had had their bulbs removed – another Government order – and the stock on the rails was thin, the first floor at Marlow’s, in comparison with the increasing drabness of everything else in life, still looked impressive, glamorous, even.

She glanced automatically across to Furniture, as she usually did. Though they walked to work together and clocked in at the same time, Jim always beat her to the sales floor, because men never had to spend so long over their appearance, did they? Lily had seen it done enough times at home – a quick duck in the front of the mirror, smooth their hair, and that was it. It was a source of much envy to Lily. Even though she’d got much better at managing them for work, her strong-minded blonde curls still required a lot of handling and were the subject of many silent prayers – and curses.

She wouldn’t be the only one who’d miss Jim when he left, Lily thought. With his absence today, it had fallen to the new junior on Furniture to try to anchor a stand-up price card on the bilious green satin waves of an eiderdown. He was not making a very good job of it. He eventually gave up and propped it drunkenly against the headboard.

That was always one of the first jobs of the day, making the stock look its best. On Childrenswear, that meant taking the dust sheets and tissue-paper covers off the more delicate baby clothes, lifting every hanger and polishing the rails beneath. She’d better get to work.

Gladys was already there, brushing the velvet-collared coats – a mere seven (seven!) coupons, plus the marked price, a pretty steep one in this case. But at least when you shopped at Marlow’s you knew you were getting quality – or the best quality that was available these days. ‘Nothing but the best’ was the store’s motto – so if you bought a big enough size for your child, a Marlow’s garment would last and last. Anything else was a ‘false economy’. That, at least, was the sales pitch Lily had heard many a time from Miss Thomas and Miss Temple. They were the department’s two salesladies – or salesgirls, as they were called – absurd when they’d both been summoned out of retirement to replace younger staff who’d volunteered or been called up.

Lily mouthed a ‘hello’ to Gladys, found a duster, and started working her way around the rails. If she concentrated really hard, perhaps she could stop thinking about Jim and how he was getting on. She knew what he’d be going through from what Sid and Reg had told her about their medicals: breathing in and out under the cold disc of the stethoscope, sticking out your tongue and saying ‘Ahhh’, being quizzed about your bowels. She wondered if Jim knew what Reg had also told her last night, that once Jim had been trained, he might be sent abroad sooner than young men had been until now. But she knew he would. Jim wasn’t daft. No wonder he’d kept his decision to himself.

As she polished, Lily could see Miss Frobisher in conversation with the new floor supervisor, Mr Simmonds. Well, he wasn’t that new – he’d been in place since the autumn. He’d been the buyer on Sportswear before. It wasn’t the biggest of departments, so he’d been something of a surprise appointment, but announcing it to her staff, Miss Frobisher had been diplomatic.

‘Mr Marlow obviously thinks he has what it takes,’ she said, but Lily had noticed that she’d raised an eyebrow – she had very expressive eyebrows – when she’d first opened the staff office memo.

Mr Simmonds hadn’t even been at Marlow’s that long. He’d been a PT instructor in the Army, which was a qualification of sorts for selling sportswear, Jim had said, and he was certainly ‘on the ball’. Apparently, he’d risen to Warrant Officer Class II but had been invalided out with a niggling shoulder injury. Tall and lean, he strode about the first floor with an athlete’s vigour and a springy step which made you think he was going to vault the counter, not point out a smear. With his quick eye and brush-cut hair, he radiated energy and vitality, and Lily and Jim had concluded that he’d been given the job to shake things up.

As Lily watched, Mr Simmonds placed one hand under Miss Frobisher’s elbow and with the other indicated the door to the stairs. That meant they were going up to the management floor – quite possibly to an audience with Mr Marlow himself.

Miss Frobisher shot a quick look at the hand beneath her elbow, then a longer one into Mr Simmonds’s face. It was not a happy look, and it didn’t make Lily any happier either. On top of the worry about Jim, did it mean Childrenswear was in for a jolly good shaking?