Assured Attention

by Jane Tulloch

  “I think ‘Royal Exile’ and ‘Royal Stuart’ sound like nice horses. I was always interested in history.” Helen continued.

  “‘My Friendly Cousin’ could be a good omen?” Sandra suggested. “And I’ll go for a horse with an Irish sounding name. That will be lucky. How about ‘Bryan Boru’? I wonder what colour he is,” she pondered.

  Irene wasn’t so sure. “I’ll go for The Vintner, I do like a nice glass of wine, and, oh, I don’t know,” she waved her buttery knife over the list and landed its greasy tip on Aldaniti. “That’s me chosen,” she concluded.

  Helen sighed and brushed off the greasy mark. “Right then. That’s six horses off the list and thirty four more tickets left to sell. Who to, though? That’s the problem.”

  The ladies ruminated. Just then, Alan, the manager of the Tea Room and a great friend of the ladies, wandered towards their table. Helen scrambled the papers away into her handbag as he approached.

  Spotting this, Alan felt slightly miffed.

  “OK. What are you hiding from me girls?” he queried.

  “Nothing,” said Helen defensively.

  “Aw come on. I’m not daft. What’s up?” He drew up a seat and joined them, waving over to the counter staff to bring him a pot of coffee. After it was brought over to the table, Irene signalled to Helen to show him the list.

  “What’s this then?” He scanned the list, noting the ladies’ names after the horses of their choice.

  “Well it’s like this,” Sandra started, but Helen cut in,

  “We’re fundraising to help send three old ladies to London to see the royal wedding. We’re selling tickets for each horse in the Grand National and giving half the total money raised to the winning ticket holder.”

  “What’s left over should be enough to get us all to London.” Irene confirmed his suspicion as to who the old ladies were.

  Sensing a good opportunity, Helen asked brightly, “Would you like to buy a ticket? They’re £5 each?”

  “£5? That’s an awful lot,” he ventured cautiously; he was anxious not to hurt the ladies’ feelings.

  “Well there are expenses involved in running something like this and it is for a good cause,” Irene pleaded.

  “Alan,” Helen said portentously, “We all know that one has to speculate to accumulate.” He thought about it. After all, he’d recently had a nice pay rise.

  “OK then, I’ll take one.” He scanned the list and chose Delmoss at random.

  “Now, do you know anyone else who’d like one?” queried Sandra.

  “Or two,” added Helen hopefully.

  Alan thought for a while, then suggested that the porters generally liked a bit of a punt. He agreed to approach them on the subject.

  The ladies thought about their various ‘contacts’ and resolved to try to confine sales to Murrays itself as it might be easier to keep control this way, rather than selling to a variety of friends, neighbours and families, all of whom might disapprove. All of them most certainly would disapprove, as they were all well aware. With Alan on their side, they should be relatively successful in the venture. Each of them had pet departments at Murrays where they were familiar and popular customers. It was possible they could each make some sales there.

  Alan was as good as his word. The porters all signed up for tickets and various horses were chosen. Jim and the lads there were very enthusiastic and invited interested parties, as they put it, to join them in the porters’ lodge to watch the race on their illicitly stored portable TV. This was duly noted by the ladies. Meanwhile, Helen successfully sold tickets to her friends in Hosiery, Fancy Goods and Notions and Ladies Outdoor garments. Irene struck lucky in the Food Hall, as might be expected, as well as in the Outsize Department. Sandra, at the expense of a new hairdo and facial, sold several tickets in the Hair and Beauty salon, as well as Soft Furnishings. The number of tickets to sell diminished satisfactorily until there were only a very few left. They decided to traverse the shop nonchalantly striking up conversation with staff as they went and, if at all possible, casually introducing the topic of the Grand National and their charitable effort on behalf of the three old ladies.

  This worked well, several were snapped up in China and Glass and the remaining ones in Carpets and Rugs and the Handbag Department. Ladies Shoes sniffily dismissed them, as did the staff in Menswear (who had already heavily invested in the outcome of the Grand National at the local bookmakers). Finally, they were all sold. Helen banked the £200 and they eagerly awaited the great day. The plan had worked perfectly.

  The day dawned at last. Helen was aware of an unaccustomed feeling of nervousness, a quivering feeling in her stomach. Is this why they call it a “flutter on the horses” she asked herself as she cleaned her teeth that morning. Sandra, meanwhile, was wondering what the accepted dress style was for an afternoon at a porters’ lodge. Irene packed a picnic for them all as they were sure to be hungry during all the excitement of the race.

  The small group assembled around the old television set in the porters’ lodge. The ladies had been ceremoniously ushered to an extremely elderly and disreputable sofa and had gingerly taken their seats, swaying gently towards the middle as the springs gave way under the unaccustomed weight. Others, who had escaped from various departments, perched on trolleys or upturned boxes as best they could to catch a glimpse of the flickering picture. Excitement filled the tiny space. At last they were off! The group groaned as, one by one, the various horses refused, unseated their riders, or worse, fell. Irene was mortified when The Vintner refused at an open ditch.

  “Well really, I didn’t think he’d be such a coward,” she said in disgust.

  Alan was similarly disappointed when Delmoss fell. “But at least he tried,” he concluded, looking darkly at Sandra whose horse, “My Friendly Cousin” had just pulled up and refused to ride on. She looked down blushing with annoyance.

  “How embarrassing,” she muttered as the dangerous race continued, shedding horse after horse until only Helen and Irene had a potential winner still running. Royal Exile and Aldaniti galloped on. Helen’s Royal Exile began to fall back as Aldaniti and Spartan Missile pulled ahead of the remaining horses. It was neck and neck until Aldaniti, in a last great burst of energy, spurred on by his jockey, Bob Champion, was triumphant. Irene nearly passed out with excitement, her heart beating what felt like double time.

  “Oh my, oh my. I’ve won,” she said over and over again.

  Looking at her sourly as he tore up his ticket Jim muttered, “You’d think she’d been riding the bloody thing herself.” His friends nodded.

  In the excitement of it all, they had been making a very great deal of noise. This had echoed up the staff staircase and, most unfortunately, attracted the attention of Barry Hughes. He puffed his way down to the basement and burst into the porters’ lodge just as an ugly dispute broke out.

  “How can it be a swizz if Irene won?” Helen demanded, “No one could predict the outcome of the race.”

  “Well it’s just not right that one of the organisers won all that money,” Jim muttered.

  “Won all what money?” demanded Barry. There was a gasp and a general shuffling towards the door by the unlucky punters. “What’s going on,” he asked again in a quieter tone, noting the presence of the three lady customers. Helen swept as authoritatively to her feet as the sagging sofa allowed.

  “Just a little charitable event,” she informed him airily.

  “I think you might have to tell me a bit more about this ‘event,’” Barry said heavily. “I think we should discuss this upstairs don’t you?”

  Upstairs in the boardroom, Miss Murray looked at them and groaned, “Ladies, ladies what were you thinking?”

  “We were just trying to raise some money to pay our rail fare to London for the royal wedding.” Helen answered defensively. Sandra and Irene nodded vehemently.

  “We’re just old pensioners,” Irene put in pitifully, “We want to see the Queen one last time.” An incipient tear,
noticed by Mrs Pegram, trembled in her eye.

  “Well, you see it was gambling ladies,” Miss Murray explained kindly. “We can’t condone such an illegal activity on our premises.”

  “I didn’t think. We just didn’t think.” Sandra said. She looked up at them, “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not actually sure.” Miss Murray was flummoxed. In all her time at the helm of the business she’d never, in point of fact, faced such a situation. Barry looked on sternly. He was desperate to call the police. He looked forward to liaising with his former colleagues about the illegal gambling den that he, Barry, had uncovered.

  There was silence as they all pondered the next step. To their surprise, there was a knock at the door and Mrs Carr, the secretary, entered. “I wonder if I might have a word?” she asked Miss Murray.

  “Later perhaps Mrs Carr, we’re a bit taken up with these ladies just now.”

  “Actually, it was in relation to this, er, situation that I wanted to speak to you. Perhaps outside?”

  With a short nod, Miss Murray got up and indicated that Mrs Pegram should accompany her to the corridor. They shut the door behind them leaving the quailing ladies under the unsympathetic eye of Barry.

  In the corridor they looked expectantly at Mrs Carr. “It’s like this,” she explained and outlined a potential course of action open to Miss Murray. It was a topic with which she was unexpectedly familiar. The management ladies looked at each other and at Mrs Carr and nodded. Miss Murray smiled, “Thank you Mrs Carr. You just might have saved the day.” Mrs Carr dipped her head self-deprecatingly.

  Ten long minutes later Miss Murray and Mrs Pegram re-entered the room, Mrs Pegram struggling to suppress a smile.

  “Right,” began Miss Murray fixing the three ladies with a look, “I now gather that what you have been doing is running a charity workplace sweepstake. Quite legal within a workplace if held for the benefit of employees.”

  “But we’re not…” burst out Irene. Mrs Pegram moved forward with a sheaf of papers and gave out one to each. They looked down at them eagerly. After reading hers, Helen looked up smiling.

  “Temporary contracts?”

  “Yes, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be employed on an extremely short-term basis consisting of, actually, just today. Then you would technically be staff and your activity quite legal,” Miss Murray said with more confidence than she really felt.

  Barry glowered. The date on the contracts matched the day of the ‘sweepstake,’ so they were theoretically watertight but it probably should not be examined too closely. However, they were only old ladies who wanted to see the royal wedding. It was unlikely that any Procurator Fiscal would do other than dismiss such a case if brought before them. Barry was unwilling to collude in such a cover up, but, equally, he didn’t want to show himself in a negative light in front of Mrs Pegram.

  “Well, if they are staff, what work are they going to do?” he asked. “Even if it’s only for the rest of the day.” That set them thinking. There wasn’t much time left until the shop closed. Seeing a way out of their troubles, Helen eagerly called out, “We’ll do anything, anything at all.” Mrs Pegram nodded.

  A short while later a telephone call was put through to the Tea Room. The manager was alerted to the impending arrival of three ‘mystery shoppers’ who would be coming to test the quality of the afternoon tea. The works were to be provided: sandwiches, scones and cake were to be scrutinised and a written report submitted. Miss Murray valued her elderly customers and had been highly amused by their enterprise, but she couldn’t let her sympathies show in front of Barry and the other staff.

  Later, upstairs in the Tea Room, quite overwhelmed by both the events of the day and the unaccustomed quantity of provender in front of them, the ladies sat in silence. Suddenly, an irrepressible bubble of laughter emerged from Irene. She couldn’t help herself.

  “We’re going to London to see the Queen, here we go, here we go, here we go!”

  Helen frowned, but couldn’t quite prevent a smile breaking out.

  Sandra joined in and proposed a most unlikely toast in tea

  “Here’s to us, wha’s like us.”

  The others grinned and joined in, adding in a very unladylike way, “Damned few, and they’re a’ deid!”

  Chapter 8

  A Fine Romance?

  Susan Harrison, the new girl in Hosiery, was an extraordinarily quiet, self-effacing young woman. Looking at her, Mrs Garland, Hosiery’s Head of Department, sometimes wondered whether she’d done the right thing in accepting her as their new junior. Not that there was any real choice, but Mrs Pegram liked to let the senior staff think they had a say in these things. Unarguably though, it suited Mrs Garland, a plump, bustling lady in her early fifties, to have a virtually silent “yes person” in her department.

  Mrs Garland was accustomed to being in charge of any and every interaction, both social and business related. She did the talking and woe betide anyone rash enough to think otherwise. She steamrollered her way through sales and there were many ladies who left her department the bemused owners of stockings or other unmentionables in sizes and hues at some variance from those they set out to purchase. Mrs Garland had stock to shift and shift it she would. Ladies wanting to buy up to date patterned tights or pantyhose in the latest colours would leave with fully fashioned, seamless, run-proof stockings in colours such as Grecian Gold or Hawaiian Haze. The 1950s and 60s had been Mrs Garland’s heyday and she saw no reason to update what she sold. The wonder was that customers returned. As styles moved on in other departments to reflect the 1980s, regulars seemed to hope that somehow Hosiery would too. No such luck.

  Hosiery was conveniently located next to Ladies Lingerie and customers had to walk through Hosiery to get to Lingerie. Thus, it occupied a funnel-like space between the main staircase and the exotic haven of Lingerie, aka ladies’ underwear. Hosiery was low ceilinged and, with its thick, mushroom-coloured carpet, warm beige walls and discreet lighting, it formed a luxurious haven. The various display units were placed around the walls and, in a few places, alarmingly disembodied legs displayed a range of stockings of varying style and hue. The sales desk was angled away from any enquiring glances from passers-by and a dainty little chair was placed by the glass-topped desk for weary customers to flop down on if required.

  As the route to Lingerie, Hosiery’s location offered Mrs Garland the perfect opportunity to seize upon transiting customers and set her powerful sales technique in motion. The startled expression of her victims was a great source of amusement to the staff from Lingerie as they observed customers trying to run the gauntlet through Hosiery.

  Unlikely though it may seem, Susan took to Mrs Garland from the first time she met her. It must have been something to do with the contrast between Susan’s family and life experience so far and the vibrant, forceful Mrs Garland. Susan was a conspicuously unassertive girl from an exceptionally quiet family. She was the only child in her generation and her pale aunts, silent uncles and morose father’s and mother’s voices seldom rose above a whisper. She was accustomed to a life of quiet endurance and it was expected that she would reflect this upbringing in her own manner. Thus, for Susan, Mrs Garland exploded into her life like a huge firework. She was dazzled by her and watched her constantly. She marvelled at Mrs Garland’s way with customers and how she managed the buyer, as well as any members of management who dared to make suggestions regarding how she run her department. Susan revelled in learning all about the stock and if Mrs Garland liked it, then so would Susan.

  “Who would believe there was so much to stockings and tights?” she breathed to her parents one evening over their hushed evening meal. Her parents nodded appreciatively, her mother’s eyebrows raised with interest. They were inaudibly glad that their daughter was happy in her work.

  It was soon noted that Susan seemed to hover near Mrs Garland at all times. “Like a small moon orbiting planet Garland,” commented the poetic Mrs Jackson, Senior Sales in Lin
gerie.

  “More like a wee boat in tow,” replied the other, less whimsical Lingerie Assistant. They laughed as they heard the redoubtable Mrs Garland utter her most frequently used phrase, “Not now, Susan.”

  This phrase was uttered by Mrs Garland hundreds of times a day. In fact, almost any time Susan began to speak she was silenced in this way. Susan didn’t mind at all. She thought it extremely unlikely that anything she had to say would be of interest or relevance to Mrs Garland. It was sometimes unfortunate for Mrs Garland that she did ignore her, otherwise she might have been alerted to the theft of a large box of “lightweight, bend-easy, micromesh elasticated stockings,” by a sinister-looking woman wearing a capacious overcoat.

  On another occasion, Susan was unable to interrupt the flow of Mrs Garland’s conversation with Jim the Porter to point out that four customers were irritably waiting for her to finish discussing his departmental shortcomings.

  She was heard to say, “Not now, Susan,” so often that this became poor Miss Harrison’s nickname and it was widely used throughout the store.

  Although Susan loved her work in Hosiery and she loved Murrays itself in a general way, there were aspects of her daily routine that she was less keen on. Downright unhappy would be a more apt way of describing her feelings on the matter of breaks and lunches. She wasn’t sure if this was because in a two-person department it wasn’t possible for them both to be away at the same time, so she was separated from Mrs Garland for these breaks. It could also have something to do with her shyness, making it hard for her to face the cheerful, noisy camaraderie of the Junior Staff Ladies Room or the smoky, intimidating canteen atmosphere. There was no doubt that she had a real problem with breaks. At first she tried to pretend she’d forgotten to take her break, then she’d say she didn’t need a break or was too busy to stop. Mrs Garland, however, not wanting anyone to cast aspersions on her management skills, brooked no argument. Susan would be despatched from the department in what felt like, to her, disgrace or banishment from the sunshine of her place of honour near her heroine. She visibly slumped as she slunk away.