Читать книгу Heartache for the Shop Girls - Joanna Toye - Страница 10

Frank excused himself after that, (‘Invoices!’ he said with a comical grimace), and Miss Frobisher and Mr Ward began an intense round of haggling. Lily watched, intrigued, as they danced around each other like hares boxing before Miss Frobisher yielded slightly on quantities and Mr Ward gave a little on price. Lily could see that it was important that neither of them lost face, but the handshakes at the end were warm enough, and as they left, Mr Ward even pressed a couple more biscuits on a delighted Lily. She secreted them in her gas mask case, knowing she should take them home for another day, but knowing too that she was bound to give in and eat them on the train.

‘Were you happy with how it went?’ she ventured as she and Miss Frobisher waited for their taxi.

‘Reasonably,’ was all Miss Frobisher said, but Lily could tell the meeting had been a success because at the station bookstall Miss Frobisher bought two fashion magazines and a bar of chocolate. On the train, she broke the bar in two and handed one half to Lily. As the train clanked and swayed, Lily munched happily – she could save the biscuits after all – and they leafed through the magazines together, Miss Frobisher pointing out how even proper couturiers like Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell were adapting to Utility requirements. She even unbent enough to eat a square of chocolate in front of Lily: the remainder she tucked away – presumably a treat for her little boy.

When they arrived back in Hinton, so late that the station was half deserted, Lily thanked her profusely.

Miss Frobisher simply smiled her measured smile.

‘Look and learn, Lily. And don’t be distracted. That’s all I ask.’

On Wednesday, just a week after the excitement of the party and the dismay of Jim’s telegram, Lily was seated at the kitchen table sorting silver paper for salvage. Gladys had suggested their usual half-day treat of a cheese roll at Peg’s Pantry and a matinee, but Lily had had to disappoint her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she told her. ‘I can’t. I just want to be at home – in case.’

‘In case Jim comes back,’ was unspoken but understood – and dear Gladys did.

‘I’d be the same,’ she said, ‘if I thought there was half a chance of Bill turning up off his ship. Some hope! But I still want to hear all about Monday – I know you haven’t told me the half of it!’

‘You will, I promise,’ said Lily, but she knew it wouldn’t mean much till she told Jim. He’d understand the significance of it all.

She’d almost finished with the bottle tops – some people hadn’t even bothered to wash them, disgustingly – when she heard the latch on the back gate click. Could it be …? She jumped up, bottle tops skittering to the floor, and skidded to the back door, flinging it wide. There he was. She’d have flung herself at him too but, pale and pinched, he looked as though the force would knock him flying. Instead she took his hand and led him inside.

‘Sit down,’ she ordered. ‘You look all in. Tea and toast coming up.’

Lily was her mother’s daughter, all right – and as always, Dora’s prescription was right. As he ate, Jim revived enough to tell her what he’d left behind.

‘A right lash-up,’ he sighed. ‘But it’s the best I can do. Mrs Dawkins is coming in early, to help Mother wash and dress. She’ll make breakfast for her and Dad, do some chores, make them a sandwich, then come in again at night to help Mother make some kind of meal—’

‘Help her? I thought she could only move one side of her body?’

‘Her leg’s not too bad. It drags, and she won’t use a stick, of course. She can sort of get around by holding on to things.’

‘With her good arm, so how can she possibly do anything else?’

‘She’s got exercises to get the muscles in the bad one working again.’

‘Is she doing them?’

Jim pulled a face.

‘What do you think? Says she’ll only get better by actually doing things.’

‘Oh, Jim! She should! It’s going to be very frustrating – the things she can’t do. And if she overdoes it—’

‘Do you think I haven’t said? You try telling her she can’t do things for herself in her own house. I’d rather argue with an angry rhino. Or you!’

Lily grinned – even a fed-up Jim could make her smile. Jim grinned too, but sadly. He took his plate and cup to the sink and spoke facing away from her.

‘Look, Lily. I’ll have to go back every weekend now. I’m not going to be much fun. If you want to call it a day – between us, I mean—’

‘What?’

He came back to the table, sat down and took her hand.

‘This isn’t how I thought it would be. If you wanted me to – what’s the phrase? – release you from your obligation—’

Lily burst out laughing.

‘Hah! Nice try, but if you think you can get rid of me that easily, think again!’

‘Really?’

‘For goodness’ sake, Jim! We’re not in the nineteenth century! You’ll still be here most of the time, anyway!’

‘Yes, but we’ll be at work all day, in the evenings there’s ARP and fire-watching, and all these ideas I’ve still got to work up with Mr Simmonds—’

Jim had been given a project by Cedric Marlow. As a result, the staff were doing more for the war effort, and to compensate, there were sports and social clubs to boost morale. The next phase was to think up ways to bring in more custom.

‘Jim!’ Lily took his face in her hands and made him look at her. ‘Stop it! We’ll be fine.’

He leant forward and touched his lips lightly to hers.

‘Thank you. Thank you. And I promise I’ll try and put my folks out of my mind the days I am here. Because there’s one good thing … Margaret says she’ll keep an eye.’

‘Margaret …?’

‘You know,’ said Jim. ‘Ted Povey’s daughter from Broad Oak Farm.’

Broad Oak Farm had come up in conversation on the one occasion Lily had visited Bidbury.

‘Oh, I remember. That’s good of her.’

‘It is. It’s some reassurance anyway.’

There was no more to say. It was how things were, and how they’d stay till Jim’s mother improved. The alternative – that she didn’t – was something Lily didn’t want to think about. For now, Jim would be here some of the time, and that was lots more than most people had of the person they cared for. She leant forward into his hug.

Later that afternoon, across town, Dora was settled in at Ivy’s enjoying one of what Sid called their ‘tea-and-tattle’ sessions.

Dora had dispensed the news, such as it was, on Jim’s mum; now it was Ivy’s turn.

‘There’s some good news, anyway,’ she announced. ‘Les has been for an interview – and it looks like he’s got that job at Marlow’s!’

‘Oh, I am pleased!’ exclaimed Dora. ‘That’ll put a spring in his step!’

‘Already has! Him and Beryl were straight out to the pictures last night, and a drink afterwards at the White Lion, if you please!’

The White Lion was Hinton’s smartest hotel.

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Dora sipped her tea, wondering why Ivy sounded a little sour. ‘He must be feeling better. He certainly looks it.’

‘Oh, he is, twice the lad who came home. And in his oil tot about the job; all smiles! And her!’ Ivy sniffed. ‘Not home till gone eleven, if you please, and me up and down to the babby all evening, and only half an inch of gripe water in the bottle! My legs are killing me!’

‘Ivy …?’

Ivy inserted two thumbs in the top of her corset and loudly expelled some air.

‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Oh, take no notice of me, Dora. I’ve got one on me today.’

‘Come on. What’s up?’ Dora persisted.

‘It’s this business of Beryl’s,’ sighed Ivy. ‘Taken over the entire front room, she has. Taken down my Stag at Bay and the sampler my mum made and instead we’ve got wedding dresses hanging from the picture rail. Display, she calls it! And to cap it all there’s a notice in the front window, didn’t you see? “Beryl’s Brides – Wedding Dresses, Bridesmaid Dresses and Occasion Wear for Hire—”’

‘Occasion Wear?’

Ivy took a long gulp of tea and clattered the cup back on the saucer.

‘You know what Beryl’s like for wearing a high hat. Says she’s branching out. And you haven’t heard the best. Then it says, “Enquire Within”! The liberty!’

‘What about when she’s out?’ Dora frowned. ‘Taking Bobby for some air, or to the clinic?’

‘It’s Muggins here that has to answer the door! And I’m to be polite, mark you, she’s told me all the patter. Name and address, telephone if they’ve got it, all got to be written down in a little book!’

‘She’s very business-like, Ivy. You have to hand it to her.’

‘Do I? I could show her the back of my hand sometimes.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ chided Dora.

Despite their forceful personalities, Ivy and her daughter-in-law had got on surprisingly well when Les had been away, but with him coming home and Bobby getting bigger – he’d be crawling soon – the house was obviously starting to feel crowded. Ivy’s husband, Eddie, was in the Merchant Navy, and rarely, if ever, at home, but there was Susan to think of as well, of course.

‘It’s all for the good, isn’t it, Beryl’s little enterprise?’ Dora soothed. ‘Les has got a job again, and the more she can make, the sooner they can get a place of their own. Then they’ll be out from under your feet and she can do what she likes with her own picture rails and front windows.’

‘And when will that be?’ challenged Ivy. ‘You seen many houses going begging round here? Or flats? Rooms, for that matter? They’re all full of people that’s been evacuated! There’s folk come from Croydon and Mitcham and Hackney – lots from Hackney, they’re over the back from us. A right rowdy lot, they are, and all.’

‘Well, yes, but when they’ve been bombed out and got nothing, and London’s the mess it is, what’s the authorities to do? They’ve got to go somewhere. We’re lucky still to be under our own roof.’

Even in the worst of the Blitz, Hinton had got off pretty lightly – it had no major factories to bomb. They’d had their fair share of incendiaries, of ‘tip and run’, but serious damage had been limited to a few high explosives that had landed near a smallish factory making aircraft parts, and a hit on a row of houses and a pub. Of course the sirens still went off at night, and it was a toss-up whether to head for the miserable damp darkness of the Anderson in the neighbours’ garden or to crouch under the kitchen table or under the stairs. Dora was too superstitious ever to stay in bed with the covers pulled up, like some people, or to let Lily or Jim do the same. Whatever you did, there was the straining of your ears for the planes, let alone the shrill whine of a bomb, the dropping off exhausted and jerking awake seconds later, the bone-weariness the next day … but for all that, they still had a home to call their own. Some of these displaced families had been bombed out not once but twice, buried alive, their houses wrecked then looted, even their poorest possessions gone.

But Ivy tossed her head and swirled the dregs of her tea.

‘Perhaps we’d better change the subject,’ she said. ‘Heard from your Reg lately? And how’s Sid getting on?’

September was usually one of Lily’s favourite months with its gentle warmth, but not this year. She was still delightedly pinching herself at the thought of having a young man of her own, but he was hardly ever there. They managed an occasional walk or night at the pictures around work and ARP and fire-watching but it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t the same. It seemed to take all his time in Hinton for Jim to unwind and for Lily to draw him back to her after his weekends with his parents, and just when she had, it was time for him to head off again.

She knew it must be grim, his father uncomplaining but his mother finding fault with everyone and everything. Alice had been as proud a housekeeper and as good a cook as Dora, so every slapdash dish, every non-dusted surface, every grimy window she must see as a reproach. And as Lily had predicted, trying to do things herself, with or without help, only meant that she got more frustrated and cross. There was no improvement in her mobility. If anything, Jim reported glumly, her arm seemed weaker.

He was preoccupied at work, too. He’d talked Cedric Marlow into a monthly staff newsletter, The Marlow’s Messenger, and had produced it in his spare time. Except now he didn’t have any.

‘Hand it over to someone else,’ Lily urged him. She wouldn’t have minded having a go herself, but Jim was as stubborn as his mother, she was discovering.

‘Not likely!’ he said, though he did let her choose the ‘Suggestion of the Month’ (every employee to get a day off for their birthday – controversial stuff) and to write up the triumphant rounders match between Marlow’s and Timothy Whites in which Lily had scored four rounders.

Then he was back to poring over plans of the store, deciding where best to site the escalators he was hoping for once the war was over, and wondering if he could use the Timothy Whites match to revive his campaign to shunt Marlow’s into the twentieth century by dropping the apostrophe from the name.

Every Monday evening, though, Lily pinned on her brightest smile as she left the store in case Jim should have come back early and be waiting for her. She knew how important it was to present a cheerful face to your young man whatever you might be feeling – that’s what Beryl’s Woman’s Own kept telling her, anyway. Jim tried just as hard, but how could he be cheerful when the situation at home was so gloomy?

Then one Monday, there was a boy with a big grin waving to her when she emerged from the staff entrance. Lily waved back automatically – but it wasn’t Jim.

It was Frank Bryant.