The Shop Girls

‘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.

Chapter 5

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.

Chapter 6

‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped as Frank took her elbow and steered her to one side so that the departing swell of Marlow’s staff could get by.

‘This is my patch, remember?’

‘Yes, but … Miss Frobisher didn’t say you’d been in today.’

The reps never came to the sales floor. They saw the buyers in the management offices or, if there was a problem, in the stockroom.

‘Very good, Miss Marple!’ Frank wagged his finger at her. ‘I’ve been in Birmingham, at Rackhams and Lewis’s, if you must know. I’ll be calling on Miss Frobisher tomorrow.’

‘Oh! Right. Do you want me to give her a message?’

Frank shook his head, laughing.

‘No! Of course not! I want you to come and have something to eat with me.’

‘What?’

‘It’s no good pretending. I know you eat. Someone had been at those ginger nuts in Mr Ward’s office. It can’t have been him because he’s got sugar diabetes and he’s not allowed. And Miss Fro doesn’t look the type to smudge her lipstick. So, call me Sherlock, but I conclude, Miss Lily Collins, that it was you.’

He had some nerve. And talk about the gift of the gab!

‘I can’t just go off with you!’ she protested. ‘I don’t know you!’

‘So let’s get to know each other over a nice cup of tea and … hmm, I could rather fancy a Welsh rarebit. At Lyons. See? All perfectly harmless and innocent. Not some backstreet dive, not a pub – where’s the harm?’

Lily frowned. There was no harm, of course. The reality was that Jim wouldn’t be back till midnight at the earliest, because he never was. Monday was Mrs Dawkins’s day off, so he cooked the evening meal for his parents, ate with them and, though it was highly embarrassing for both of them, helped his mother into bed. Only then could he begin the long trek back to Hinton.

‘Oh, come on,’ wheedled Frank. ‘Take pity on me. A new boy in town … all on my lonesome, you’re not going to consign me to a miserable supper and a lonely evening reading a penny dreadful in my digs, are you?’

Lily relented.

‘All right then. A cup of tea. A quick one.’

‘Don’t do me any favours, will you?’ said Frank, but he was grinning. ‘Good girl. Come on.’

Lyons wasn’t one of Lily’s regular haunts. She and Gladys favoured Peg’s Pantry, which was cheaper – if nothing like as swish. As they queued for a table, Lily looked around – in part for the atmosphere, but mostly checking for anyone from Marlow’s – she didn’t particularly want to be seen with a stranger. Thankfully, there was no one she recognised. Then Frank spotted a couple leaving a table for two by the side wall and pointed it out to the hostess, which meant they could leapfrog two groups of four ahead of them.