The Girl from the Corner Shop

by Alrene Hughes

  ‘Did you find him?’ her mother called after her, but she was already climbing the stairs. In her bedroom she took off her damp clothes, put on her nightdress and climbed into bed. She breathed in the smell of Jim on the pillow and wept. It was growing dark by the time her mother came into the room and closed the curtains before putting on the light.

  ‘What’s to do?’ she said, then she saw Helen’s face. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Helen blinked at the light and wiped her tears. ‘It’s Jim, they think he’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ Her mother’s voice cracked. ‘What do you mean “they think”?’

  ‘A wall collapsed and he fell off a ladder into a building. They say he’s probably dead, but they can’t get him out, it’s too dangerous.’

  ‘That’s terrible. Oh, Helen. Maybe they’ll find him.’

  Helen shook her head. ‘I saw the fires in Piccadilly. You wouldn’t believe what it’s like in the town. I’m praying that he’s all right, just trapped under the rubble, and they’ll get him out when they can, but I have this awful feeling that he’s gone and I’ll never see him again,’ and she dissolved into floods of tears.

  Her mother sat on the bed and held her until she was calmer. ‘Come on now, Helen, you have to hope for the best. That’s all we can do. Now, I’m going to make you some tea.’

  ‘I don’t want anything. Just leave me alone.’

  ‘But what can I do for you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I’ll sit with you for a while.’

  ‘Just leave me, Mam.’

  Chapter 3

  Dark clouds threatened snow as Jim Harrison’s coffin was carried on the back of a fire engine past the hundred firemen who lined the driveway of St Stephen’s church. Helen was barely aware of them, with her eyes fixed on the flag and the helmet on top of the coffin. Her mother walked beside her holding her arm and behind them were Jim’s sister and her husband, Bill, closely followed by Aunt Pearl, her godmother and her mother’s cousin. The minister was waiting for her at the door, but she could make no sense of his words. He preceded her up the aisle, but still she stared straight ahead and, once she was seated, she bowed her head and closed her eyes.

  Nine days she had been without him and every day her pain had grown worse. The night after she had been to the fire station, the city was bombed again. She refused to take shelter in the cellar and screamed at her mother that she wanted to die, but the Luftwaffe didn’t oblige. She didn’t want to see anyone who called to pay their condolences, except her and Jim’s closest friends: Frank and his girlfriend Gwen Jones. Christmas came and went. She ate very little, hardly slept, didn’t open her presents, just stayed in her room and focused intently on the unfinished cricket sweater then wore it every day… until today. From somewhere her mother had borrowed a black dress and coat, as well as a ridiculous little hat with a veil. She had threatened not to wear any of it, but on the day she was so frightened about the funeral that she had put up no resistance.

  The church was so cold. She couldn’t stop shivering and the smell of chrysanthemums sickened her. There were hymns when she had to stand up and prayers when she had to kneel and none of it had anything to do with Jim. Whatever was in the coffin wasn’t Jim, that’s why they wouldn’t let her see him, nor was he some ghostly presence at her shoulder. She understood absolutely that he was gone and she was alone.

  At the graveside she watched the little flurries of snow fall on the coffin while the minister droned on and her feet turned to ice. Then Frank was handing her Jim’s helmet as if it was some sort of gift. She shuddered and stepped back… but her mother reached out and took it. ‘It’ll soon be over, Helen,’ she whispered. ‘Then we’ll go home. I’ve invited a few people to come back to the house for some sandwiches and a cup of tea. I see our Pearl’s showed up. I suppose I’ll have to ask her back, even though she’s not been near us since the last family funeral.’

  The snow came thicker and faster on the half-mile walk back and soon their coats were flecked with white. As they turned into her street, there was some sort of commotion going on outside the shop. A few neighbours stood around, some arguing with a man in a brown overall unloading his cart while his horse stood by snorting its steaming breath.

  ‘You can’t leave it here!’ Mrs Lowe from two doors down shouted. ‘Can you not see all the curtains in the street are closed? They’ve had a death in the family.’

  ‘Take it away and come back tomorrow,’ Douglas Finney, another neighbour, called out. ‘Now’s not the time.’

  Helen, who had barely noticed anything on the walk home and hadn’t spoken all the way from the cemetery, took one look at the scene and started running. ‘No! No!’ she screamed at the sight of a brass bedhead propped up against the shop door, a tick mattress on the pavement and the metal bed frame in bits lying on the back of the cart. ‘It can’t be, it can’t be,’ she shouted at the man.

  He tried to explain. ‘Now look here, I were told to deliver this today wi’out fail. Most particular, the fella were, said he were movin’ house tomorrow. I told him I had a house clearance to do and I’d have to deliver it today.’

  ‘What the hell?’ Her mother turned on her. ‘Did you know about this?’

  ‘Oh, Mam.’ She could hardly get her words out through the sobbing. ‘Jim said he might buy a double bed, but that was a while ago. He didn’t tell me he’d actually bought one!’

  ‘Well, the fella bought it a couple of weeks ago,’ said the man, ‘and I’m sorry if you don’t want it, but I can’t give you the money back.’

  ‘Now, listen here,’ said Elsie. ‘You weren’t to know that the lad who bought it was killed in the bombings at Christmas and this girl here is his widow. She’s just buried him.’

  The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘But it were bought and paid for and I’ve delivered it for free.’ Elsie gave him a fierce look, but he went on. ‘Anyroad, I’ve spent the money he gave me – it were Christmas and I’ve seven children, you know.’

  ‘I don’t care about that.’ Elsie was getting into her stride. ‘My daughter’s been left a widow, so she has no need of a bloody double bed, does she? She needs the money her husband spent on it.’

  ‘It’s not my property any more – it’s yours,’ said the man. ‘You could easily sell it.’

  The argument would have continued if Frank hadn’t stepped in. ‘We can’t stand out here arguing the toss. Here, Bill, give us a hand to carry the bed inside, we can’t leave it out in the snow.’

  Elsie wasn’t for giving up. ‘But what about—’

  ‘Leave it, Mam,’ Helen cried. ‘I just want to get in off the street.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Pearl as she linked Helen and Elsie’s arms. ‘I’m starved with the cold, let’s get the kettle on.’

  By the time the bits of the bed were stacked in the shop, the dozen mourners in the back room were helping themselves to sandwiches and a cup of tea. Helen had wanted to go straight to her room, but Elsie was having none of it. ‘They’ve come out on a cold day to show their respects and to support you, so the least we can do is give them a cup of tea.’

  Helen was grateful that they seemed to be chatting among themselves and only occasionally looked over at her to give a sympathetic look and after a while she slipped into the shop. The bits of the bed were leaning against a row of shelves, the mattress was on the floor. She ran her finger over the brass bedhead and couldn’t help thinking it could do with a good polish. She sat on the mattress and thought of Jim. He had wanted it to be a surprise for her. It turned out he had arranged to borrow Douglas’s handcart to transport their few belongings to the new house and no doubt the bed would have been loaded on the cart as well. Tomorrow night they would have slept in this bed in their new home and, in time, their child would have been conceived there. She smoothed the mattress. ‘Oh, Jim…’ she whispered, her eyes filled with tears and she ran her hands over her belly.

  ‘Thought I’d find you out here.’ It was Pea
rl. ‘A hard day for you to get through, Helen,’ and she nodded at the bed. ‘What will you do with it?’

  Helen shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  Pearl walked slowly round the shop looking at the stock as if she was a customer deciding what to buy. Helen watched her: the heavy make-up, thin pencilled eyebrows; a navy dress, slim and elegant with her high heels. Mam’s cousin, but there was no love lost between them. Mam called her a ‘flighty piece’ to her face and Pearl didn’t shy away from calling her cousin ‘a miserable bugger’.

  She sat on the mattress next to Helen and stretched her legs out in front of her. ‘It’ll be hard for you, I know, but you’re so young and you won’t be the sad widow for ever. You’ve got your whole life in front of you.’

  ‘There’s nothing in front of me but working in this poky shop, slicing bacon and weighing cheese till I’m as crabby as Mam.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be that way.’

  ‘But it does.’ She bowed her head as though she didn’t have the strength to hold it up.

  ‘If you don’t want to be stuck here, you could get another job. It would do you good to get away from these four walls and mix with different people.’

  Helen said nothing.

  ‘You know I lost somebody too?’ said Pearl.

  Helen nodded. ‘Your fiancé died in the war.’

  ‘Hmm… Battle of the Somme, 1916.’ She bent her knees and wrapped her arms around them. ‘I’d just turned twenty-one when Sidney proposed to me on the night before he went away for basic training. Six months later he was dead and I thought my life was over.’ She paused. ‘And I suppose it was really… for a few years. I’d known Sidney from our first day at school but we never, you know, got together until we were older. He was always with his mates. Anyway, they all joined up together and went over the top together. Most of them didn’t come home. The number of times you’d see a telegram delivered and one by one the women in the street would go to the door of the mother or the wife and sit with her. Nursing their cups of tea and, God knows, some of the time there was weeping but, more often than not, they comforted each other with silence, knowing that nothing could ease their pain.’

  ‘But you’re all right now, aren’t you?’

  Pearl gave a rueful smile. ‘You never get over it, but you can’t live with that sort of grief forever and the pain will ease, I promise.’

  ‘But what about right now? I can’t bear it. Jim was the best thing that ever happened to me. He made me feel I was worth something and, now he’s gone, I don’t think I can go on.’ She began to cry again.

  Pearl squeezed her hand. ‘I know it’s hard, but you need to keep going one day at a time.’

  Helen felt the panic rise inside her. ‘I can’t do it, I can’t!’

  Pearl took her by the shoulders. ‘Listen to me. Don’t you ever say that again, Helen, you’re far stronger than you think. The only trouble is that, with Jim gone, your mother’ll keep you under her thumb because you’re all she’s got. But at some point, you need to get away from her, you know that, don’t you?’

  Helen nodded. ‘I should’ve found a proper job with a decent wage long ago.’ She wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘The last thing Jim said to me was that I should stand up to her more.’

  ‘And he was right. I know Elsie’s not easy to live with… Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but your father was the only one to bring out the best in her and when he went…’

  ‘I know he died when I was three, but I don’t remember him at all,’ said Helen. ‘Mam never spoke about him.’

  Pearl sighed. ‘Oh, I wish I could do something more to help you.’ She paused. ‘Look, if you need a shoulder to cry on, or somebody to talk to, just let me know. Send me a letter or come to my work, I don’t mind, and we’ll meet up. Promise me, Helen, if you’re not coping, you’ll let me help you.’

  The curtain to the back room was pulled back and Elsie stood in the doorway. She glared at Pearl. ‘Well, this is a cosy little chat, isn’t it? Giving our kid the benefit of your experience, are you?’

  Pearl got to her feet. ‘I was only saying, if she wanted someone to talk to, she could get in touch with me.’

  ‘And why would she do that when she’s got her mother to sort her out?’

  ‘I’m only trying to help, Elsie.’

  ‘Well, maybe we don’t need your help.’ She turned to Helen. ‘You’d better get back to the visitors, they’re going home now and you need to thank them for coming.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice, Pearl,’ said Helen.

  Pearl called after her, ‘You can do it, Helen. I know you can.’

  When everyone had gone, Helen washed the pots then told her mother she was going to her room.

  ‘Hold on a minute, what are we doing about the bed?’

  ‘I don’t know – I haven’t decided.’

  ‘What do you mean “you haven’t decided”? It’s cluttering up the shop; we need to shift it somewhere till we can get rid of it.’

  ‘Not now, Mam. I’m too tired,’ and she left the room without another word.

  The bedroom was freezing and she felt like going to bed in her clothes, but she couldn’t bear to wear the awful black funeral dress for a moment longer. She threw it on the floor and dressed quickly in her winceyette pyjamas, bedsocks and dressing gown and still she shivered. On cold nights, she would always snuggle up to Jim and he’d accuse her of stealing his warmth and within minutes they’d be like toast. She loved the closeness of him through the night; his body shaped to hers, adjusting to her sleepy movements. ‘Oh, Jim, are you here, love?’ she whispered. ‘I miss you so much.’

  She thought back to the moment when the station officer had come to the shop – with his grave expression and unblinking eyes she knew at once that they had found Jim’s body and her worst nightmare had become a reality. She remembered very little of the days that followed, except for the thought of the funeral, looming over her, filling her with dread. ‘A fireman’s funeral,’ they said, ‘with a fire tender and a guard of honour,’ when all she had wanted was to bury her husband quietly with no strangers gawping at her.

  And now it was over, she was alone and already she sensed a different sort of grief, far worse than standing at a graveside. Jim was gone. She would never see him or hear his voice again and the emptiness grew inside her.

  So, too, did the regrets. Of course, he knew that she loved him, she could say the simple words, but a shyness had always stopped her from telling him how much he meant to her. She should have said she loved the way he teased her, made her laugh, and how tender, gentle and passionate he was.

  *

  She slept right through the night and when she awoke there was a split second when she had forgotten he was dead, then the weight of her loss overwhelmed her. What would Jim say… you’re stronger than you think? Well, she wasn’t strong, she was weak. It could have been so different. It was New Year’s Day and they should have been moving into the little house in Newton Heath. She had been so excited about it – a new start, Jim had said.

  She opened up the shop as usual to serve the early morning customers on their way to work and, by the time her mother appeared, she had made up her mind.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk over to Newton Heath to get the money back that we paid in advance for the rent.’ She didn’t give a fig about the rent, but it was a good excuse to get out in the fresh air, away from the shop and her mother.

  It was one of those crisp, cold days with a clear blue sky, when even the two-up two-down terraced houses sparkled in the sunshine. It was a fair walk and with every step she felt her head begin to clear.

  The house was one of a row of mill workers’ cottages next to a park. When she went to see it with Jim it had been raining and she didn’t really take in the surroundings. Once inside they had a quick look around: a parlour at the front; kitchen at the back; a yard with an outside toilet and, upstairs, a bedroom either side of the steep staircase. Standing ou
tside it now she was struck by how tiny it looked, like a little doll’s house. How she wished it could have been theirs.

  They had been told to collect the key from the woman next door when they arrived with their furniture, and it seemed logical to ask her where the landlord could be found so she could cancel the tenancy.

  It was a while before the door opened, and when the woman eventually appeared looking hot and bothered, hands dripping soapy water, her first words were, ‘You’ve come for your key then?’ and, before Helen could explain, she was gone. She returned a minute later and thrust the key into Helen’s hand.

  ‘No, you don’t understand. I need to speak to the landlord,’ said Helen. At that moment there was the piercing scream of a child.

  ‘I have to go,’ shouted the woman. ‘I’ve a child in the sink. Come back later!’ and she closed the door.

  Helen looked at the key in her hand. What was she to do?

  The front door stuck a little and she had to put her shoulder to it. Inside, the empty house was bitterly cold and she stood a while in the middle of the front room, hardly worth the title of parlour, seeing it again with fresh eyes. Worn lino and faded sprays of roses on the wallpaper; the fireplace still full of ash. She went past the stairs into the kitchen where there was an ancient gas cooker and next to it a Belfast sink with only one tap. An old Victorian armchair with the seat ripped open exposing the horsehair stuffing was next to the fireplace. The floor was flagged and the chill of it went straight through the soles of her shoes. Anyone wanting to live here would need a few rag rugs underfoot.

  Upstairs, the bedrooms had bare floorboards. In the front bedroom there was the smell of damp and black mould over the window lintel. The back room was smaller and had no smell but plenty of cobwebs. It also had one redeeming feature – it looked out on to the park. She stood at the window a while watching a family walking by, the mother pushing an empty pram and the father holding his little girl’s hand. She had been standing in the same spot a few weeks before when Jim had turned to her, a smile on his face, and said, ‘Well, what do you think, Helen? Would you be happy here?’ And she had reached for his hand and smiled right back. ‘Yes, I think I would.’