‘How do you know? You shouldn’t have been looking,’ was Rosie’s immediate and heated response. ‘But if you want to know, that wretched suitcase she brought was bigger than it looked; the amount of stuff that came out of it was astonishing.’
At that Sylvia grinned. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘When she first arrived I made the mistake of trying to pick it up!’
‘It’s one thing sharing a bed and even a wardrobe,’ Rosie said, not wanting to give too much ground regarding her cousin’s stay, ‘but I didn’t realise I’d have to share every aspect of my life with her. ‘Rosie would you like to take Claire here, Rosie would you like to show Claire that, Rosie would you like to introduce Claire to— You never stop nagging at me! And if you must know, the real answer is no! No, I wouldn’t like to do any of those things, but you won’t let me get away from her.’
‘You must understand,’ Sylvia began, ‘you need to make allowances—’
But Rosie swept her arguments aside. ‘I understood at the beginning because she didn’t know her way around and everything was new, but you seem to expect me to let her trot along beside me wherever I’m going and I’m getting sick of it!’
‘But she doesn’t know anyone here,’ Sylvia said. ‘You can’t leave her on her own all the time.’
‘I know and I’ve introduced her to some of my friends but she’s going to have to make some friends of her own now; she can’t expect to be tagging along with me all the time.’ Especially not when I’ve got a chance to meet up with Trevor, she added silently, but she had no wish to bring him into the conversation yet.
‘Well, you might be lucky with that one,’ Sylvia said. ‘Your friend Penny came into the shop one day last week for some ribbon and buttons. She thought she’d bring a new lease of life to one of her old dresses and I got Claire to serve her; the next thing I could hear Claire offering to do some major alterations for her. When Penny came in for a trying-on session she seemed to be very pleased with what Claire had done. She really is good with a needle. And then I heard Penny asking Claire to go to the pictures with her and her sister Stella.’
‘That’s funny, Penny never said anything, and neither did Claire,’ Rosie said, feeling yet another barb of resentment against her cousin. She knew Claire was a far better needlewoman than she would ever be but she hated the thought that her mother might be comparing her with her cousin, and she couldn’t help feeling an initial stab of jealousy at what she thought was another of Claire’s attempts to work her way into Sylvia’s good books, like when she was the first at the table for meals or the first to offer to wash up when they had finished eating. Rosie had felt like her cousin was throwing down the gauntlet and it took some time before she gradually began to accept that there really was no need for her to be jealous and that she would be better off stepping back and letting her long-lost cousin do whatever she needed to do to make herself feel that she was part of the family.
Thankfully, Rosie’s fears that Claire would be a witness to Archie’s beastly behaviour towards Sylvia came to nothing for he had been away selling shoes almost from the first day Claire had arrived, and gradually she began to see that Claire made a much more useful ally than foe and that, in fact, there were some definite advantages to having her cousin live with them.
‘Aunty Sylvia,’ Claire said one day when the three of them were sitting down to tea, ‘I know you don’t know me very well yet, so I’m really glad you feel you can trust me to serve in the shop.’
Rosie looked at her in surprise, wondering what this could be leading to.
‘You’re family; of course I trust you.’ Rosie frowned at Sylvia’s predictable reply.
‘Well, I want you to know I never came here with the intention of sitting about the place all day, so I’m glad I’ve been able to help.’ Claire said.
Rosie’s first reaction was to make some disparaging remark to discredit Claire, comparing the work her cousin did in the shop with the important work she was doing in the munitions factory. But when she saw that her mother was actually sitting up and paying attention to her niece, for once Rosie held back and listened to what Claire had to say.
‘It’s easy enough to ring a few sales into the till and to sell a few items over the counter,’ Claire said, ‘but I’ve been wondering if there might be something more that I could do?’
‘Such as what?’ Sylvia asked, obviously taking Claire seriously.
‘I told you when I came that I don’t know a lot about knitting, but after all your help I hope you’ll agree that I’m a fast learner,’
Sylvia nodded. ‘Most definitely. You’ve mastered the Aran patterns, for example, extremely quickly.’
‘Well, I wondered if I could learn a few more skills? If you don’t mind taking the time to show me a few more things, then I could do some serious knitting. You know, turn out some items that you could sell in the shop, or even take specific prepaid orders from people who can’t or don’t want to do it for themselves.’
‘Now that sounds like an interesting idea, don’t you think so, Rosie?’ Sylvia was sounding enthusiastic.
Claire beamed. ‘I was looking through some of the patterns only the other day,’ she said earnestly, ‘and I thought maybe I could knit something for you, Rosie,’ Claire offered, ‘as a sort of trial piece, if you don’t mind being my guinea pig, that is.’ She giggled. ‘In a manner of speaking.’
Rosie was thoughtful as she felt the familiar wave of resentment and she wondered for a brief moment if she’d done the right thing by dismissing out of hand the idea of working in her mother’s shop. Maybe she should have persisted.
‘How about if I try to make you one of those new styles with the wide shoulders and the tapering ribbed waist? I could put shoulder pads in to make it really stylish.’ Rosie raised her eyebrows at the suggestions. It did actually sound interesting. Sylvia looked interested too. Claire paused and looked from Sylvia to Rosie and back again. ‘I don’t know how you would feel about that?’ she said, with sudden diffidence.
‘Hmm.’
‘They’re all the very latest.’ Sylvia looked impressed. ‘You’ll be like a top-line fashion mannequin on this street if you turn out with one of those, Rosie,’ Sylvia said, then she turned to Claire. ‘I’m sure I could help you work out the pattern in the first instance if that’s where you would like to start. I think it sounds like a great idea.’
‘And what about those new Fair Isle patterns?’ Claire asked. ‘Could you show me how to do that kind of fancy knitting too? I’ve always wanted to have a go at turning out one of those.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Sylvia agreed. ‘Once you can read a pattern, I always say the rest is easy.’
Rosie managed to swallow the familiar antipathy that she felt towards her cousin when she realised she might be able to turn this situation to her advantage, but before she could say anything she heard Claire bubbling enthusiastically.
‘Of course, the one thing I do know how to do is to sew and I did wonder what you would think of this.’ She got up from the table and pulled something from underneath one of the cushions on the couch where she had hidden it. ‘I thought you could display this in the shop window,’ she said, and she lifted a notice she had drawn up earlier.
NEW DRESSMAKING SERVICE
PERSONALISED ALTERATIONS, FINISHING, REPAIRS AND INVISIBLE MENDING, NEW GARMENTS MADE TO ORDER
FOR DETAILS ENQUIRE WITHIN
‘I know you already do some dressmaking and I thought we could perhaps combine our skills by offering a sort of repairs and advisory service. Of course, they’d have to pay a fee for each different service and you could have a list of prices for the various jobs up in the shop.’
At that Sylvia chuckled. ‘I know where you’ve got all those business ideas from, not to mention your actual sewing skills,’ she said, thinking of the hours her own mother had spent training her and her sister. ‘But it’s not something I could think of doing when I was on my own. I’ve run up the odd dr
ess or a pair of curtains for someone but that was more like a favour. I definitely think that something like this,’ she said, waving the poster in the air, ‘might draw in new customers and maybe some from further afield.’
This time Rosie didn’t know what to say. She had to sit back and admire her cousin’s initiative; she was certainly enterprising. Rosie had to accept that she couldn’t match it and she looked at Claire in a new light. Maybe, with a few extra pounds coming in, Sylvia wouldn’t have to worry so much about Archie’s wage packet occasionally going missing.
The main advantage of having her cousin to stay, as far as Rosie was concerned, however, was that Claire deflected the spotlight away from her so that Sylvia was no longer constantly interrogating her about her comings and goings or asking awkward questions like why had she taken up smoking?
‘I haven’t,’ Rosie had snapped when her mother tackled her about it one evening. ‘But why would you care anyway? Just because you don’t smoke. There’s nothing wrong in it.’ She felt irritated and hoped Sylvia would drop the subject but she had a hard time dodging the barrage of questions that followed. She had reached the stage when she was about to admit the truth that it was Trevor who had introduced her to cigarettes, but somehow she knew instinctively not to bring his name into the conversation. She had not yet told her mother about him and had no intention of telling her now, so she couldn’t admit that she smoked purely in order to please him so that they could slope off together to share a smoke during their breaks. If truth be told, she didn’t enjoy smoking, though she loved the sensation of actually holding the cigarettes like she’d seen film stars do. It made her feel grown-up and as so many of the girls in the factory smoked, it made her feel like she belonged.
One Sunday afternoon Rosie lay stretched across her bed, taking advantage of the fact that Claire was out, when her attention was drawn to a small lacquered box that Claire kept on top of the nightstand on her side of the bed. It was pretty, with delicate birds painted on all sides, and Rosie rolled across the counterpane to have a closer look. She ran her hand over it, admiring the smooth satin finish of the wood and she took the lid off to sneak a peek at the contents. Inside, the blue velvet lining was covered with jewellery trinkets that she was surprised to find looked like real gold.
Rosie had never possessed jewellery of any value and she laid out the dainty pieces on the bedcover, gazing at them in fascination. She only possessed some brightly coloured bead and paste necklaces which she kept in an old cigar box in her bedside drawer. She had never before handled the real thing and was surprised at how small and delicate the pieces seemed. Her mother didn’t possess any proper jewellery either, and she was frowning, remembering the pawning story, when she heard Claire’s footsteps on the stairs and she hurriedly put the pieces back into the box. She replaced the lid and put the box back on Claire’s nightstand. Then she rolled back to her side of the bed, lying flat on her back while she tried to compose the expression on her face.
‘Everything all right?’ Claire addressed Rosie’s prostrate figure.
‘Everything’s fine. Why shouldn’t it be?’ Rosie said, yawning and stretching. She hoped her face wasn’t registering the guilt she felt for rummaging through her cousin’s jewellery.
‘No reason. I’ve come up to change my earrings,’ Claire said. ‘I don’t know why, but one of my ears is feeling very sore today.’
‘Oh dear.’ Rosie sat up and swung her legs off the bed. ‘I’ve often wondered how you manage to wear those things all day.’ She came round to Claire’s side and peered at her ears. ‘Have you really had holes punched into them?
Claire laughed. ‘I don’t know about punched but yes, I had them pierced years ago when I was a little girl.’
‘Wasn’t it painful?’
Claire shrugged. ‘I don’t remember much about it. Why? Are you thinking of getting yours done?’
Rosie shook her head and pulled a face.
‘You should,’ Claire urged. ‘I’ll come with you if you want, or we can ask Aunty Sylvia, if you’d rather. Is there a jeweller’s near here?’
‘Not on this parade of shops,’ Rosie said. ‘Besides, I’m not sure my mum would approve.’
‘Why not? I bet her ears are pierced,’ Claire said. ‘I know my mum’s are.’
‘Hmm. My mum doesn’t really have any jewellery and I’ve never seen her wearing earrings, or a ring for that matter,’ Rosie said, and she shared with Claire the pawnbroker’s tale.
Claire laughed. ‘Oh dear, though I don’t know why I’m laughing because it’s really quite sad. I bet she was upset.’
‘Angry is probably more accurate. And she still sounded angry when she talked about it,’ Rosie laughed. ‘But Dad never did replace it.’
‘I don’t really have much jewellery,’ Claire said, ‘and the bits I do have I tend to wear most of the time.’
‘I know,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ve never seen you take your necklace off.’ As Rosie spoke, Claire’s hand went instinctively to her throat where her fingers twirled the small flat disc that hung from a dainty gold chain.
‘My father gave me this for my last birthday,’ Claire said.
‘That’s really nice,’ Rosie said grudgingly. ‘I couldn’t see my father ever giving me anything like that, not if he thought it might be worth a bob or two.’
‘I don’t think this can be worth much,’ Claire protested. ‘It’s only small, though it is nine-carat gold and I am rather fond of it, I must admit.’
‘I can see why,’ Rosie conceded. ‘It’s got such a pretty pattern on the pendant; I’ve never seen it close to before.’ Rosie reached out to touch the charm at Claire’s neck.
‘Oh, that’s not a pretty pattern. It’s a Hebrew word,’ Claire said.
‘Really?’ Rosie was surprised.
‘Yes, didn’t you recognise it? It says “mazel”. It means luck.’
Rosie looked at her quizzically. ‘How would I know that?’
Claire’s face flushed. ‘Sorry, but I thought you might have …’
‘How do you know what it says, for that matter?’
‘I … I used to go to Sunday Hebrew classes when I was a kid,’ Claire said.
‘You mean like Sunday school?’ Rosie was puzzled.
‘Well, yes, I suppose it was, though the Bible we learned was only the old testament and it was written in classical Hebrew. Not that I remember much of it now.’
Rosie stared at her, not sure what to make of what she was hearing.
‘I … I don’t suppose you ever did any kind of Hebrew studies, then?’ Claire’s words were tentative and she gave an awkward laugh. ‘No, of course you didn’t.’ She answered her own question. ‘I don’t imagine there were any on offer round here.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose there are any synagogues nearby …’ her voice trailed off.
‘Certainly none that I’ve ever heard of,’ Rosie said in astonishment. ‘Why, are there synagogues in Cricklewood?’ As she asked this her face changed and a strange thought struck her. She stared at her cousin for a moment, allowing the information to sink in. ‘Are you trying to tell me that your family’s Jewish?’ she said eventually.
Claire looked down into her lap and nodded. ‘Yes, we are. I’m surprised you didn’t know.’
Rosie shook her head. ‘Does my mother know?’
‘Of course, she—’
‘Then how come she’s never said?’ Rosie said defiantly, making it sound like an accusation.
‘I don’t know. It’s not my fault.’ Claire was suddenly on the verge of tears.
‘I really can’t believe it. I never would have guessed,’ Rosie persisted. She was struggling to make sense of Claire’s words.
Claire shrugged. ‘How could you? What is there to guess? Jews don’t really have horns that set them apart, you know!’ she said testily. “We don’t really look different from anyone else.’
‘I never thought they did.’ Rosie was affronted. ‘But … I just … well, I assumed …’<
br />
She got up and stood staring out of the window into the street, though all she could see was the shop’s awning below, flapping helplessly in the stiff breeze. ‘I’ve never met anyone Jewish before,’ she said after a long pause.
At that Claire gave a sudden hoot of laughter. She put her hand to her mouth and pointed her finger at Rosie. ‘How can you say that?’
Rosie frowned and turned back to face her cousin. ‘Why are you laughing? What are you trying to say?’ Rosie sounded incredulous. She was aware that Claire was staring at her and she gave a little laugh. ‘No,’ she said, ‘That can’t be!’
Now Claire smiled patiently. ‘I’m afraid it is. Think about it. Our mothers are sisters, don’t forget. They both had the same mother and they grew up together, even if they haven’t seen each other for years.’
‘No, something’s wrong here. This can’t be right,’ Rosie said, still trying to make sense of what her brain was telling her. ‘My … my mother can’t be Jewish.’
‘Why not? Mine is,’ Claire said.
‘But she’s never said.’
‘Have you ever asked her?’
‘No, of course not,’ Rosie blustered, ‘it’s not exactly something we would talk about over the tea table, now is it?’
‘Then might I suggest that you do?’
‘But if what you’re saying’s true …’ Rosie’s mouth opened wide as she finally processed Claire’s words. ‘Then I’m …’
Claire nodded. ‘I thought you understood that,’ she said.
‘And what about my father? Are you going to tell me he’s Jewish as well?’ Rosie said derisively after a brief pause.
‘No, not according to my mother. And Barker’s not a very Jewish name. But he doesn’t have to be in order for you to be Jewish. In Judaism, the religion passes down the maternal line.’
‘What about your father? Gold isn’t a very Jewish name, either.’
‘It used to be Goldberg,’ Claire said, as if that explained everything. ‘My dad only recently changed it to Gold after his parents died. He thought it sounded more English. But names don’t really tell you the whole story. My mum’s name is Hannah and I believe your mother’s real name is Miriam, which might say that they come from Eastern Europe where our grandmother came from, but doesn’t necessarily make them Jewish.’
The Postmistress Page 9
