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

Lily hugged the news to herself for the rest of the day. She told Gladys about it as they left the store but made sure to talk it down as much as she could.

‘I expect she just wants company,’ she explained. ‘You know what the trains are like.’

Lily knew from past experience – look at the way Gladys had reacted to Lily and Jim getting together – how her friend loved to build things up and she didn’t want her reading any more into it than she only half-dared to herself.

She had to tell her mum as well, naturally, because who knew when she and Miss Frobisher would get back and she didn’t want her to worry. But Dora wasn’t to be fooled.

‘She must think something of you, Lily!’

‘Oh, well, maybe.’

Dora wiped her hands on her apron – she’d been peeling potatoes – and came to give her daughter a hug. She hadn’t been very free with her hugs when Lily and the boys had been growing up – too busy keeping them fed and clothed after she’d been widowed. Her life was hardly any easier now she was living through the second world war of her lifetime, and she missed and worried endlessly about her sons – but if that had made her more demonstrative to the child she did have at home, Lily wasn’t complaining.

‘I did promise when I started at Marlow’s that I’d try my hardest. But I’m so lucky with Miss Frobisher. Not all the buyers are like it, but she wants to help me along.’

‘And up, by the sound of it!’ Dora had a sudden thought. ‘Lucky you got that jacket at the rummage the other week. And if you want to borrow my horseshoe brooch for the lapel, you’ve only to say.’

The only person Lily could really confide in about her hopes was Jim, but when he came back on Sunday, he was understandably preoccupied.

‘Flying visit,’ he said, surprising Lily and Dora by turning up as they were finishing their meagre, virtually meat-free stew.

Dora immediately fetched him a plate and served out the rest – so much for Monday’s planned cottage pie – and Jim answered their questions between mouthfuls. The answers weren’t encouraging.

‘I don’t know what to think,’ he confessed. ‘Mother’s hardly been out of bed, but they’re chucking her out tomorrow.’

‘That can’t be right!’ Dora protested.

‘No, that’s not quite fair. Someone’s been coming to walk her up and down – her leg’s not too bad, though she needs someone to lean on. But she can hardly move her arm. Still, they need the bed, apparently.’

‘What are you going to do? You’ll have to stay on, won’t you?’

Jim turned to answer Lily, but she knew what he’d say.

‘There’s nothing else for it, till I can sort someone out to look after her and my dad. I’m only back to collect some clothes.’

He’d finished his stew in what seemed like seconds and Lily trailed upstairs after him to watch him pack for the second time in five days.

‘I wish there was something I could do,’ she said.

‘There is,’ said Jim. He produced a letter from his pocket. ‘Take this in to work; it’s telling them I’ll need a bit more time off.’

He gave a huge sigh and sank onto the bed, pulling Lily down beside him.

‘What a mess it all is.’

Lily put her arms round him and pulled him close.

‘It’ll get sorted,’ she said, trying to sound convincing. ‘Things do.’

Jim smiled thinly. He didn’t tell her that Margaret had instantly offered to help, though he’d rebuffed that straight away – she had a more-than-full-time job on the farm. No, he’d have to find someone else in the village, though the only available candidate so far was Mrs Dawkins, a rather chaotic woman who cleaned – and frequently drank – at the pub. Jim couldn’t see her meeting with his mother’s approval. Still, she might have to put up with it.

Within the hour he was off again for another wearisome journey. Lily saw him to the door. It didn’t seem the right time to start going on about her day out with Miss Frobisher, and what it might mean, but when Jim kissed her briefly, Lily did mention that she’d been invited on a buying trip with her boss.

‘Oh, good,’ said Jim distractedly. ‘You’ll still be able to get that letter to Staff Office, though, won’t you?’

Lily didn’t say that she and Miss Frobisher were meeting at the station, so she’d have to set out early to divert to Marlow’s first. But it was the least she could do.

‘Good morning! You’re looking very smart.’

Lily, already a little pink from her detour with Jim’s letter, blushed some more. She hoped it wasn’t too obvious that her jacket was a black and white bird’s eye check – Miss Frobisher had a bird’s eye suit in navy – or that her black barathea skirt was not unlike the skirt of Miss Frobisher’s black barathea costume with its back pleat. Fortunately her boss wasn’t wearing either of them today, but a camel coat and skirt, and court shoes the colour of conkers. Lily surreptitiously wiped the toes of her own black lace-ups on the back of her legs to buff them up a bit. If only she could be as polished as Miss Frobisher.

Miss Frobisher flourished the tickets.

‘Platform three. And wonder of wonders, they’re not predicting any delays.’

Wonder of wonders, ‘they’ were right for once. Settled smugly in the train – they even managed to get seats – Miss Frobisher began to fill Lily in on what to expect.

‘I deal with Mr Ward directly,’ she explained as the train pulled out in a hiss of steam and a shower of smuts. ‘It’s a relationship I’ve built up over many years – in fact, I was the one who persuaded him to sell through Marlow’s. I dealt with him when I was at Marshall and Snelgrove’s.’

Lily gaped. ‘I had no idea you’d worked anywhere but Marlow’s!’

‘I started out at Marlow’s as a junior like you.’ Miss Frobisher put out a hand against the window as the train jolted on the tracks. ‘In Ladies’ Fashions. Ran around unpacking boxes and ironing out creases and picking up pins. Then gradually worked my way up through sales.’

That explained it! Miss Frobisher always looked like a fashion plate. How she did it on clothing coupons had always fascinated Lily; perhaps she still had contacts in the trade.

‘But at the time – before the war, before the staff shortages we have now – there was no movement above me. No progress that I could see in any department. And then … one of the reps recommended me and I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse. Junior buyer – in London.’

‘London!’

‘I only came back to Hinton because of the war. I … well, I had my son by then, I didn’t want to risk it.’

Lily knew Miss Frobisher was married: it was one of the store’s quainter conventions that its women employees were addressed as ‘Miss’. Her son, she also knew, was only about four – a neighbour looked after him during the day. As for her husband, he was serving abroad. That was all anyone knew. Miss Frobisher never talked about him and she was hardly the kind of person you could ask. It wasn’t their place, Lily and Gladys had agreed, and it wasn’t uncommon; it was the way some women coped with the separation. But at the same time they’d convinced themselves that he couldn’t be talked about anyway because he was engaged on some kind of secret hush-hush work – he’d obviously be doing something glamorous, in keeping with his glamorous wife.

Now Lily knew Miss Frobisher had lived in London, which was presumably where she’d met him, it turned the speculation into certainty. London was another world, exciting and different. Anyone Miss Frobisher might meet there – over champagne at the Café de Paris, no doubt – was bound to be too.

But Miss Frobisher had gone as far as she intended with her personal revelations – further perhaps – and she drew the subject to a close.

‘We’re not here to talk about me. Let me show you some figures.’

She produced a sheaf of papers from a small attaché case and spread them out on the little table between them.

The miles and the minutes flew by hand in hand as Lily tried to absorb costings and profit margins and sales by volume. She asked scores of questions – how did you decide what to buy in the first place? How could you ever estimate demand? Though that was easy these days – it always outstripped supply.

Before Lily knew it, the train clanked in to Nottingham. On the jostling platform, Lily kept her eyes fixed on the back of Miss Frobisher’s smooth French-pleated head as they threaded their way through soldiers, airmen and civilians, women porters yelling ‘mind your backs’ and guards blowing their whistles. Outside, Miss Frobisher hustled her into a taxi – the extravagance! Dora would have died! – which wove through the streets and dropped them at a huge red-brick building; a proper old Victorian mill, long and low with tall chimneys.

Inside, Mr Ward’s secretary led them up to the management offices, built on a sort of platform on cast-iron pillars overlooking the massive factory floor. Lily blinked in wonder. Not just the platform but the air itself seemed to vibrate. Looms rattled and clattered as the shuttles wove from left to right and back again, transforming loose skeins of thread into smooth sheets of cloth. The noise was deafening and it was a relief when the secretary left and closed the office door behind her.

Miss Frobisher made the introductions: it had been Lily on the train, but she was Miss Collins again now. Mr Ward, small, bald and so stout he looked as if he’d been blown up with a bicycle pump, shook her by the hand.

‘Pleased to meet you! You couldn’t have anyone better than Miss Frobisher here to teach you what for, but I expect you know that already!’

He kept up the merry chat as tea was brought in and poured. He didn’t get much of a response – Miss Frobisher wasn’t one for small talk – but it didn’t seem to bother him. He answered his own questions about the trains and the weather and the state of the war while Lily surreptitiously eyed the plate of ginger biscuits. She’d never seen Miss Frobisher eat, nor heard her stomach rumble, as her own often did so humiliatingly during a long morning and, as she expected, Miss Frobisher politely waved away the plate when Mr Ward wafted it in front of her. Lily had no such qualms. She knew Miss Frobisher was keen to get down to business, but surely one wouldn’t hurt? She extended her hand and Mr Ward beamed.

‘Take two!’ he urged. ‘Spoil yourself!’

Lily didn’t need telling twice. Aping Miss Frobisher’s clothes and trying to copy her poise was one thing, but there were limits.

Miss Frobisher was flourishing her sheets again, and as Mr Ward squeezed himself into the chair behind his desk, she produced another on which she’d logged all the customer requests for Robin Hood babywear that she’d been unable to fulfil.

‘I realise you’re under pressure with government orders, but …’

‘Long Johns and combinations,’ Mr Ward confirmed. ‘Bandages, blankets, and now they’re talking about webbing and camouflage nets.’

Busy trying to eat her biscuit as unobtrusively as possible, Lily looked up; Miss Frobisher seemed shocked.

‘Goodness! That’s a lot more than I realised.’

‘A lot more. In fact, things have got so bad that …’ Mr Ward sat back, light through the taped-over window glazing his bald head. His tight waistcoat had a big gold watch inserted even more tightly into the pocket. ‘Mr Keppler and I have discussed it and we’ve decided to stop producing Robin Hood babywear altogether.’

Shot with a poisoned arrow, Miss Frobisher reeled back in her chair.

‘You can’t be serious!’

Lily had never seen her so discomposed.

Mr Ward held up a podgy, but pacifying, hand.

‘Raw materials are so hard to come by, there’s no choice. We can’t guarantee the quality and we don’t want to compromise the name.’

‘But … you can’t do that! If you can’t send us your best, can’t you at least send us something? And … well … call it something else?’

Genius, thought Lily admiringly. That’s where Miss Frobisher’s years of experience came in.

Mr Ward beamed.

‘I knew you’d think of that – and it’s exactly what we plan to do. And keeping with the Sherwood Forest theme, we thought we’d call the different lines after trees. Maple for underwear, Olive for baby blankets and pram covers, and so on.’

And so on? thought Lily. Maple, maybe, but since when were there olive trees in Sherwood Forest? What next? Coconut palms?

Privately she and Jim had joked about the Robin Hood name – robbing people with their exorbitant prices – but surely the point was for customers to make the connection with a label they’d trusted in the past? On top of which, not using native trees was hardly patriotic!

Miss Frobisher had emphasised that Lily was there to observe, not to intervene, but as always, she couldn’t help herself.

‘Why those trees, Mr Ward?’ she asked.

Now she was the one pierced with a poisoned arrow – a poisonous look, anyway – from her boss. She scrambled to apply an antidote.

‘I only thought, Miss Frobisher, that if a customer happened to ask, it’d be good to know.’

Mr Ward beamed again.

‘That’s a fair point,’ he said. ‘It’s personal, really. My son’s doing pilot training in Canada, hence the maple. And olive was Mr Keppler’s suggestion, for the homeland his people have long wanted in Palestine. But if you’re worried about them not being thoroughly British, we’ve got oak, beech and pine as well.’

‘Does that answer your question, Miss Collins?’

Lily nodded dumbly, but Miss Frobisher didn’t seem cross really. She was too relieved, probably, that she was going to have something to sell.

‘So when will the new lines be ready?’ she asked. ‘And in what quantity?’

Before Mr Ward could answer, there was a rat-a-tat on the door and a head poked round.

‘You asked me to pop by, Mr Ward. If it’s convenient …?’

‘Perfect timing, Frank. Come in.’

Mr Ward extracted himself from his chair – not an easy process – and Lily swivelled in her seat to get a better look at the arrival as he crossed the room. He had a broad, open face, a head of dark curly hair, very blue eyes, and a cheeky smile.

‘Miss Frobisher, I presume?’ he said in a soft Irish accent, speaking as if he was greeting Dr Livingstone in the jungle. ‘Frank Bryant.’

Miss Frobisher shook the extended hand without a word.

‘And this is …?’ Frank turned to Lily.

‘A colleague,’ replied Miss Frobisher coolly.

‘Miss Collins,’ Mr Ward supplied helpfully.

Frank shook Lily’s hand too.

‘How do you do?’ he said formally, obviously noting that the temperature in the room had dropped by ten degrees.

Mr Ward, insulated perhaps by his fleshy covering, seemed oblivious.

‘Frank’s our new Midlands representative,’ he beamed. ‘Of course, he won’t be calling as frequently as Mr Harris did.’ Mr Harris had been the previous rep, now a stores orderly in the RASC. Lily wondered why Frank wasn’t in the Forces himself, but Mr Ward was continuing. ‘Petrol and so on. But he’ll be round as often as he can to check you’re happy with the goods and to let you know in advance of any new lines.’

Lily stole a glance at Frank. He was straightening his tie and trying to look serious, but not succeeding very well. He caught her looking at him and winked.

Lily looked away rapidly, but though Miss Frobisher seemed to have her head bent over her paperwork again, Lily could tell from the set of her shoulders that she was more Queen Victoria than Dr Livingstone. Definitely not amused.