by Jane Tulloch
They nodded agreement glumly.
At that point they noticed the manager of the Tea Room making his way across to them. His hands behind his back he bore down on the, now worried, threesome.
“Are you the troublemakers demanding cheese scones?” he enquired in a stern voice.
Derek leaned forward. “Now look here,” he started. But before he could continue the manager (Alan – for it was he) said, “Well I’ve only got one thing to say to you…” They braced.
Then with a flourish he produced from behind his back a plate of gently steaming cheese scones. “Ta-da!”
“Oh how lovely,” burst out Elizabeth. “You shouldn’t have! We really didn’t mean to sound demanding. I don’t want that waitress to get into trouble.” (Well I do, thought Derek – he hadn’t liked being called ‘sonny’.)
“It’s OK, dear,” Alan continued. “The baker was experimenting with new flavours and you asked at just the right time.” Cecily gasped. Elizabeth smiled on.
“Well thank you very much. It’s much appreciated,” Elizabeth smiled warmly at him.
He looked at her again, “Do you know,” he started. “You look familiar… I’ve got it!” He slapped his forehead. “You put me in mind of my Auntie Betty.”
“I’m honoured,” said Elizabeth, her mouth twitching. Cecily stared.
“Nae bother.” With a smile Alan set off back to the counter.
The three companions finished their coffees and scones. When the bill eventually came, they’d only been charged for the coffees. “The scones were delicious,” pronounced Cecily to Alan as they walked out past the counter. “But you haven’t charged us for them.”
“Not at all. But as I said, we were trying them out. I wouldn’t charge you in the circumstances. Glad you enjoyed them,” he called after them as they left. “See you next time.”
They paused at the lift. Where to next? They decided to just go down the stairs and see if any particular department caught their eye. Sure enough on the second floor – China and Glass – Cecily and Elizabeth couldn’t resist a wander round looking at the various dinner services and ornaments. A little Lalique horse caught Elizabeth’s eye. “Oh how sweet that is. Just the thing for a certain birthday that’s coming up!” She picked it up.
Cecily agreed. “You carry on looking around while I sort out the payment for this.”
She looked around for an assistant but no one appeared to be in sight. There were stout wood-panelled columns supporting the gallery above and the till was behind one of those at the far end of the department. Unfortunately for Cecily, behind the nearest column lurked Barry, the store detective. As she walked away with the little horse in her hand he walked up behind her.
“Just a moment, madam,” he said as he placed a hand on her anoraked shoulder. Derek moved forward.
“I don’t think you’ve paid for that,” Barry continued.
Cecily – looking extremely agitated – stammered out, “I’m just looking for the till.”
“They all say that,” responded Barry with a world-weary shrug. He’d been much more successful in reducing shrinkage recently and was feeling proud of his improving success rate.
Elizabeth moved in to protect her friend. “I can assure you she was,” she said firmly.
“Oh I see,” said Barry, “you’re in it together then?”
Derek moved closer to Barry and whispered in his ear. On hearing what Derek had said he released his grasp on Cecily and it was Barry’s turn now to stammer agitatedly. He looked at them in horror, and muttered “so sorry, so sorry.” Disconcerted, he slipped the horse out of sight and into the nearest receptacle – Cecily’s shopping-bag – glancing around anxiously to see if anyone else had noticed what had happened. He caught sight of a movement across the gallery. Oh please, God, no one saw that, he breathed to himself. The sound of blood rushing through his ears and the thumping of his heart drowned out the departure of the three erstwhile shoppers.
Leaving the department and indeed the shop, they swiftly collected the boxes of shoes and got back in the car.
“Well that was exciting,” giggled Elizabeth as they drove off.
“Not half,” said Cecily brandishing the little horse. Then they looked at it then at each other, the laughter draining away. “I’ve still got it.” She leaned forward towards Derek, who was concentrating on rush-hour traffic. “Derek, did you ever pay for this little horse?”
“No. I was too busy trying to stop that buffoon arresting you.” Then he called back, “I thought you had.”
“Wait, Derek,” Elizabeth called out at last. “Stop the car. Nobody’s paid for this at all. That’s theft, isn’t it? We must go back and pay for it.”
“We can’t. It’s too late, besides the shop will be closed now, it’s after 5.30,” said the driver now negotiating the heavy traffic and struggling to get into the right lane….
All that evening Elizabeth was quiet. “What’s up, old girl?” her husband asked – several times, his memory not being what it was.
“Nothing, darling.” She brushed away his repeated enquiries. She worried and thought hard all that night and by the following morning at breakfast she had developed a plan.
“Cecily, I’ve decided what to do,” she announced.
“To do?” queried Cecily
“About that,” Elizabeth continued indicating the little Lalique horse now on the Breakfast Room mantelpiece. “It’s not as if I even like it now. It’s caused too much fuss.”
She told Cecily her plan. Cecily grudgingly admitted that it could work and set off to make some phone calls.
After an hour she returned and informed Elizabeth, “We’re on!”
“Oh goody,” said Elizabeth “What time?”
“Four o’clock.”
“Tea time. Excellent.”
...........................................................
The management team attending the daily meeting were very surprised when Mrs Carr entered the boardroom with a letter in her hand. It was most unlike her to disturb the meeting.
“This came for you.” She said hesitantly to Miss Murray holding out an envelope.
“Well surely it could wait until after the meeting.” Miss Murray responded impatiently. “Really Mrs Carr, I’m surprised at you.”
Mrs Carr reddened and said more urgently “I really think you need to read this now, Miss Murray.” She handed over a discreet cream-coloured envelope with a crest on it. Miss Murray took it silently and slit it open. Out fluttered a cheque. She looked at it in amazement then read the enclosed letter. Turning rather pale she looked up at the management team now looking at her expectantly.
What was going on?
“Well,” she began, “It appears to be a letter from Her Majesty the Queen. She encloses a handsome cheque marked for an item purchased yesterday and announces that she has noticed that as it’s our centenary, she would like to honour us with a visit.” Her voice petered out. “I can hardly believe it,” she whispered frowning. There was consternation.
“But when? We’ll need months to prepare?” was the general consensus. “This afternoon,” Miss Murray continued smoothly. “Apparently she wishes to visit certain departments and very definitely not others.” They looked at her. “Her Majesty and the Duchess do not want to visit Ladies Shoes and would particularly want to avoid China and Glass. She has, however, made a special request for a visit to the Tea Room.”
“Oh the café on the first floor? Well that’s fine. It’s just been redecorated and is very smart.”
“That’s just it,” said Miss Murray. “She especially wants to visit the third floor Tea Room.”
“Good heavens, no. Not that shabby old place with the eccentric staff? She must have made a mistake,” gasped Mr Philipson.
“No, that was made crystal clear to me,” answered Miss Murray.
“What will the security arrangements be?” queried Mr Soames sensibly.
“Barry Hughes will have to alerted,
but I think that royal security staff will check the place over and the police will have to be informed about parking and traffic control and everything.”
The management team scattered in disarray to make the various arrangements and to alert staff while making it clear that they were on no account to phone their mothers and tell them to pop in this afternoon to gawp at royalty.
In the Tea Room all was astir. Alan moved into top gear issuing instructions to the staff. Susan was despatched to the China and Glass department to choose the nicest possible tea set. “gold Spode Fleur de Lys if they’ve got enough stock in,” rang in her ears as she departed at speed down the staff stairs. The florist was alerted to the requirement for beautiful flowers. “For every table not just the main one,” Alan instructed her. The Linens department was contacted to send up its best tablecloths.
Miss Murray herself was in a quandary. She had left home early that morning in her usual work clothes, a rather dusty black suit. She really wanted to appear a bit smarter as she had been invited to join the royal party for the tour of the shop. In an instant she remembered the young man in Model Gowns. A quick telephone call from her secretary set Martin Da Costa scurrying around his department to find the best possible outfit for Miss Murray. He had already noted her various anatomical deficiencies or, more likely, surpluses and selected a light grey dress and long jacket that he was sure would reduce the appearance of her bottom. He remembered not to say this to the harried secretary when she called in to collect it. “Shoes!” he called after her, then forgot himself – “and for God’s sake, get someone from Cosmetics to do something with her face.”
Meanwhile Barry was showing royal security staff and policemen around the shop, pointing out potential blind spots, exits and entrances. Lower-ranked policemen and policewomen were checking bins. One young woman was on her first week of royal duty. “It’s so exciting,” she gushed to her long-serving, long-suffering colleague.
“Isn’t it just,” he growled as he went through the 4,000th bin of his career. He had kept a tally. He was not a happy man.
The Carpets department found a good length of red carpet and Mr Joshi supervised its placement on the street, personally shooing off members of the public who looked as though they dared to walk on it. He was discreet – “Keep off, it’s for a VIP,” he told interested passers-by. No one must guess who it was. Then he ruined it. “Her Royal VIP-ness.”
Alan found time to make a phone call. Helen, Irene and Sandra would never have forgiven him if he hadn’t alerted them to the royal visit to ‘their’ Tea Room.
Mrs Pegram was busy too. She checked personnel records for the youngest member of staff. Miss Collins from Perfumery was telephoned and told to present herself in Mrs Pegram’s office. In some trepidation she made her way up to the management suite. However, she soon emerged wreathed in smiles on hearing that she was to present the Queen with a bouquet on her arrival. After she’d left the office agog with her news, Mrs Pegram made a quick call to the staff canteen to arrange for Miss Collins’ mother to be excused in order to witness her daughter’s big day downstairs.
The time drew near. The management team assembled in Menswear at the side entrance as requested. All round the galleries staff hung expectantly, but carefully, over the bannister rails. The lift door stood open and Jock, in his best uniform, stood at the ready in case Her Majesty wanted to honour Lift 3 with her presence. A crowd had gathered outside and somewhere nearby a piper was playing. A large maroon car drew up outside. With a deep breath a transformed Miss Murray stepped forward in her smart new outfit to greet the royal arrivals. The doors swung open and Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth the Second, walked once more into Murrays. With a smile, the royal visit had started.
Looking back on it, Miss Murray could hardly remember the hour spent with the Queen walking around her premises. Her Majesty and her lady in waiting, the Duchess, were so interested in everything. She was pleased that they had paused by the plaque to Jamie Spence’s memory. The Queen had suggested that the signed photograph of herself, which would be sent to commemorate the occasion, be placed close to the plaque. That way people would be sure to notice and read it, she had reasoned. Miss Murray was delighted to concur.
Everyone else was left with very happy memories of the event – all except for one. Barry had endeavoured to keep a low profile throughout. He didn’t want to be recognised. He had hovered in the background while trying officiously to mark his territory from the royal security men and the police. He did, however, watch what went on in the Tea Room closely. That visit had gone particularly well, he had thought sourly. Alan had been at his cheerful best until he had seen the Queen arrive. He had paled at the sight of her. “Oh my God!” he had exclaimed slumping slightly behind the counter. “It’s her. It’s that wee wifey I told her she reminded me of my Aunty Betty! She’ll have me executed for treason or something!”
Far from his fears being carried out, Her Majesty greeted him cheerfully and told him how much she had appreciated the cheese scones and his friendly approach. The Duchess and Derek, the royal close-protection officer, nodded.
On the departure of the royal party from the Tea Room, Derek presented Alan with a wrapped parcel. “A token of Her Majesty’s gratitude,” he told him as he handed it over. Alan stammered his thanks and waved them off.
After they had left, the staff, including Barry, crowded round to see what he had been given. “Cufflinks, it’ll be cufflinks,” called out one. “No, a badge or something,” called another. To everyone’s surprise it was neither. For the parcel contained nothing other than a little Lalique horse.
Chapter 17
Miss Murray Muses
Margaret Murray paused while brushing her hair. She glanced out of her bedroom window and spotted young Anjali and Siri Joshi crossing the lawn from the gate lodge and making for the kitchen door. Mrs Glen would already be busy with the breakfasts for them all. Margaret, herself, would have hers in solitary splendour at the small breakfast table set in the wide bay window of the dining room. She did this because it was what her parents and grandparents had done – also, because Mrs Glen insisted. She was a stickler for the maintenance of what she called ‘standards’. If it had been left to her, Margaret would have much preferred to join the cheerful breakfast plainly going on down the back corridor in the big old kitchen. Laughter and shouts could be heard. The girls simply couldn’t be persuaded to try “guid Scots porridge,” as Mrs Glen put it. They were simply not interested in its powers to ‘put hair on their chests’ that she persisted in telling them about.
Margaret smiled. The sudden arrival of the Joshis had been such a surprise, such an upheaval for the Glens, particularly Mrs Glen. Mr Glen tended to just go along with whatever was the line of least resistance. He was a great source of irritation to his wife. The Joshis had just fitted right in from the start. Mrs Joshi helped Mrs Glen about the large house and Mr Joshi, when he wasn’t at work in the Carpet department, helped Mr Glen manipulate the huge old-fashioned lawnmower round the circular front lawn and the tennis court and kept the extensive grounds of Rosehill in trim. The lodge house was now warm and watertight and provided a cosy home for the little lost family. She mused on how things had worked out so well for all concerned.
Things did just tend to work out, she thought. It may not seem so at the time but, generally speaking, they did. She was no stranger to problems and difficulties despite her current apparently affluent and happy life. It was not the life that she had thought she would have. She had been brought up to be well-educated and to the expectation that, in time, she would be introduced to that certain someone who would turn out to be her husband. He would be tall and handsome and sweep her off her feet in a whirlwind of romance. In due course a fabulous wedding and dreamlike honeymoon would melt into a relaxed life as wife and mother of charming, beautiful children. How she had longed for this as a wistful 16-year-old looking doubtfully at herself in the long mirror in what was then her mother’s bedroom and no
w hers. For she was not really the material for these fairy tale fantasies. She was too tall for a start, with slightly heavy features and red hair with a mind of its own. Her despairing mother had dragged her from couturier to beauty salon to society hairdresser with minimal results. She looked, as she felt – at her best on the tennis court or in sports clothes.
She was not without admirers, of course. Her family money saw to that even in the wartime that prevailed when she was young. Margaret had been well aware of this uncomfortable fact and had tended to despise the rather desperate young men that sought her attention.
Margaret had enjoyed her studies and, after attending the private school for girls on the outskirts of town, keenly anticipated starting at university. She’d still have to live at home. Her mother (and Mrs Glen) had insisted on that. All was going well until that fateful day. She clearly remembered her parents exchanging glances at the breakfast table when it emerged that Gordon, her glamorous older brother, just demobbed from the Royal Artillery, had not come home that night. Her mother had raised her eyebrows to be rewarded by a knowing shrug from her smirking father. The ring at the Lodge Gate; Mr Glen trudging over to open the gate; the discreet black car sliding in and up the drive to the hardly used front door; the slightly over loud, formal voice asking to see Mr Murray. Father had thrown down his linen napkin and walked out into the hall, his footsteps echoing against the parquet flooring. An exchange of voices then a groan –at that Mother had run to the door almost knocking into Father who had returned. His bleak utterance of just two words stayed with Margaret forever. “It’s Gordon,” he had said. They conveyed everything. They were enough.
Later, much later, staring white-faced at her parents she asked, “How? What?”
“An accident,” her father had said, “just an accident.” He shook his head, suddenly aged.
“That damned, blasted car,” said Mother using words she had never uttered before. “Why, why, why, did you let him have it?” she raged. “I told you it was too powerful for him. I told you.” She looked as though she might spring at him. Her fists tightly curled in her lap, knuckles whitening.
