The Shop Girls of Chapel Street

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Rightio, Ida will be on the war path if I don’t get cracking,’ he said when Violet had studied the picture and handed it back.

  ‘I’m on the war path anyway,’ his sister interrupted, seizing Violet by the hand and dragging her off to join Peggy, Evie and Kathy. ‘Violet, I’d like you to read for the part of the dead girl’s sister. She’s the one who first suspects that the death wasn’t an accident. We’re on page twenty-two, Act Two, Scene Four.’

  How did I land myself in this mess? Violet stood alone at the bus stop waiting for the number 15 to take her back to the top of Chapel Street. After an audition during which her nerves had been torn to shreds, she had managed to walk away with a significant speaking part. Peering down the straight main street in the gathering dusk but seeing no sign of the last bus home, she bemoaned her fate. I’ll have to learn lines and everything. And on top of which I got roped into making costumes. Ah well, at least it means I won’t be cooped up at home during these fine summer evenings. And there’s Stan’s invitation to consider, plus my regular visits to the baths for some exercise, so things aren’t looking too bad, considering.

  The sound of a motorbike pulled her out of her reverie. It was Eddie, emerging onto the street in gauntlets, cap and goggles. Spotting her at the bus stop, he drew up to the kerb. ‘Hop on,’ he invited. ‘I’ll give you a lift home.’

  Violet hesitated, but this time only for a second. ‘Are you sure, Eddie?’

  Nodding, he steadied the bike. ‘Hold tight,’ he told her as she stepped onto the foot rest and climbed aboard.

  See, he told himself. All you had to do was spot the girl of your dreams waiting for a bus and offer her a lift without thinking about it. Eureka – it was as simple as that!

  ‘What do I hold on to?’ she asked as she perched nervously on the back seat.

  ‘You wrap your arms around my waist,’ Eddie instructed cheekily as he edged away from the kerb. ‘Hang onto your hat, Violet. Here we go.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Violet held on for all she was worth as Eddie’s Norton CS1 swerved around bends and crested hills on the winding moor road. It felt as though they were on top of the world, looking down at the towns in the valleys below, climbing and swooping, buffeted by winds.

  She clasped him tight and sheltered behind his broad back, watching the sun sink in the west and holding her breath as the horizon darkened. Then, as Eddie leaned the bike into a bend, he braked suddenly to avoid three sheep loose in the road.

  ‘Are you all right back there?’ he asked, slowing almost to a halt.

  The sheep meandered ahead of them until they took it into their heads to step skittishly onto the verge at the far side. ‘Silly things,’ Violet muttered.

  ‘We nearly had mutton chops for tea,’ Eddie laughed, opening up the throttle again and sailing on.

  ‘Good job I was hanging on tight like you said,’ she called above the roar of the engine. It was her first time riding pillion and she loved it, sheep or no sheep. The speed was thrilling, the wind bracing and best of all she had a sense of freedom, just like a bird must feel when it took to the wing.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re safe with me,’ he yelled back, knowing that the journey would soon reach an end after this last descent onto Overcliffe Road. ‘There’s always stray sheep on this moor road so I was ready for them.’

  Down they went along a bumpy lane bordered by dry-stone walls, rushing past a farm with untidy barns and wisps of straw blowing across the farmyard. Then Eddie slowed for a narrow humped bridge over the canal and they reached the part where street lamps began.

  ‘You’re not too cold?’ he checked with Violet as he avoided the tramlines on Overcliffe Road and fell in behind a Bentley travelling at a stately pace towards town. ‘It can feel a bit chilly at this time of night.’

  ‘I don’t mind, it was worth it.’ She smiled, thinking how different everything felt from the back of a bike, how quickly they got past Linton Park and the people standing at the tram stop, how loud the engine sounded as they turned down Ada Street and how strongly the smells of cigarette smoke and beer came at you from the pubs after the clean, fresh air of the moor.

  All too soon they came to Brewery Road and Eddie pulled up outside her house. ‘No lights on,’ he commented.

  ‘No. Aunty Winnie and Uncle Donald always go to bed early.’ She dismounted, feeling breathless and wobbly as she stood on the pavement and looked up at the house.

  ‘Hang on a second while you get your sea legs.’ Gallantly Eddie parked the bike and offered Violet his hand to lead her up the steps to the front door. ‘All right now?’

  She nodded then looked him in the eye as she raised her free hand to pat her windswept hair. ‘Ta for the lift.’

  ‘Have you got your key?’

  ‘In my pocket.’

  An urge to kiss her came and went before he had time to act on it.

  ‘Thanks again, Eddie,’ Violet said, putting her key in the lock. ‘You saved me my bus fare home even if you did nearly make mincemeat of those poor sheep.’

  She was through the door and closing it behind her, when it struck him that she’d only taken the lift because it had saved her three pence.

  More fool me for thinking any different, he told himself as with a heavy heart he kick-started the Norton and headed for home.

  ‘Who was that who brought you back on a motorbike last night?’ Winnie asked as she wielded the bread knife at the breakfast table next morning, making ‘motorbike’ sound like the devil’s work.

  ‘Eddie Thomson. I’m sorry if we woke you up.’

  ‘I was still awake. You know I never get to sleep until I’m sure you’re back home and safely tucked up in bed.’ Winnie sliced the bread and put a piece on a plate for Violet. ‘You did wake your uncle, though.’

  ‘I expect I’m in for it, then.’ Violet sighed, one eye on the mantel clock and glad that Donald had already crossed the street to open his barber’s shop.

  ‘Let’s hope he’ll have forgotten about it by tonight.’

  Violet quickly changed the subject away from Eddie and his bike. ‘Ida gave me a part in the play.’

  ‘Did she now? And what will your Uncle Donald think to that?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing to worry about. There’ll be no larking about. This is a serious play about a murder. Kathy is in it, and a few other girls I know. Anyway, I’ll tell him it was Ida’s idea and everyone knows you can’t say no to Ida Thomson.’

  Eating and talking at the same time, Violet soon finished breakfast and was eager to be on her way. ‘I’ll be late for work if I’m not careful.’

  ‘Bring back three slices of pork pie for tea,’ Winnie called after her, still with knife in hand and shaking her head at carefree Violet’s non-stop energy. That’s youth for you, she told herself, always on the go. It made her tired just to think about it.

  Poached eggs on Tuesday, cheese on toast on Wednesday, pork pie on Thursday. Out on the street, Violet smiled at the way her aunt stuck religiously to the same routine. Hurrying up the alley onto Chapel Street, she waved at Ida, just unlocking the door to Jubilee. ‘Can’t stop – I’m in a rush,’ she said. But Ida’s rejoinder brought her up short.

  ‘Whatever did you say to poor Eddie last night? We couldn’t get a peep out of him after he got in.’

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t say anything!’ The memory of their bike ride came back so vividly that Violet had to stop and draw breath. She relived its soaring freedom before they reached the outskirts of the town with its sooty chimneys, snaking canal and towering mill walls, then she remembered the care Eddie had taken to make sure she was safely delivered to her doorstep. ‘Tell him again – it was very nice of him to bring me home.’

  ‘Tell him yourself next time you see him,’ Ida said, with a wink. There’s none so blind, she thought as she opened the shop door and picked up the letters lying on the mat. Violet was a bright, beautiful girl but she was naïve if she couldn’t see the effect she had on Eddie. That
’s what comes of being brought up by Methodists, Ida thought. Straight-laced, grim-faced teetotallers, the lot of them.

  For the next week or so, Violet didn’t see much of Eddie. She was busy at work as usual and in the evenings either she stayed at home to finish a skirt she was making or else she paid one of her regular visits to Brinkley Baths. It was during one of these swimming sessions that she’d finally said yes to a persistent Stan.

  ‘Very well,’ she’d agreed when he’d waylaid her on the Thursday evening outside the baths. ‘I’ll come to the flicks with you.’

  ‘Tickety-boo!’ A grinning Stan had quickly arranged the time and place.

  ‘Tomorrow outside the Victory, half six on the dot!’

  She eventually heard of Eddie again through Ida, when on the Friday afternoon Violet called in at Jubilee Drapers to buy a zipper for her skirt.

  ‘Eddie got that job as a projectionist at the Victory.’ Ida dropped his name into the conversation as she wrote out a receipt for Violet. ‘Part time, of course. But you know what they say – every little helps.’

  ‘Lucky him. Now he’ll be able to see the latest flicks without paying a penny.’

  ‘That’s true. It means you might not get your lift home from rehearsal next Wednesday, though – not if Eddie’s working.’

  The conversation would have drifted on, with Ida dropping hints and Violet giving no clue as to her feelings about Eddie had it not been for the ding-a-ling of the doorbell and the sweeping entrance of Alice Barlow into the shop.

  ‘White shoelaces!’ she announced without preliminaries, looking around with an imperious air. ‘I’m sure you must have them tucked away somewhere.’

  Ida stopped writing the receipt and Violet stepped to one side. Mrs Barlow had left her chauffeur at the wheel of the maroon Daimler parked outside and was evidently in a hurry. Dressed in a pale pink jacket with a deep rose-pink dress and in white high-heeled sandals with matching gloves and bag, Alice Barlow could have stepped straight out of the pages of Vogue magazine. The trouble with women like Alice Barlow, though, and what stopped you admiring her, was that she let you know just how superior she felt.

  ‘I have plenty of black and brown shoelaces – I’m not sure about white.’ Ida pulled out a shallow drawer and sorted through her stock.

  ‘That’s no good to me. Colin specifically asked me to buy white ones for his cricket boots.’ Noticing Violet and choosing to ignore her, Alice took off her gloves then pulled out a silver compact from her bag, flipped it open and began to powder her nose.

  Violet pursed her lips. She resented snootiness, especially from a woman who, according to her Aunty Winnie, had been the oldest daughter of a make-do-and-mend family living above a Chinese laundry at the top of Westgate Road. It was by luck that she’d met and married Colin Barlow whose father owned five chemists in West Yorkshire. In this way she had pulled herself up in the world to the point where she had a chauffeur-driven car waiting for her and an unpleasant way of ignoring people who were of no use to her in her climb up the greasy pole.

  ‘Ah, here we are.’ Ida unearthed the desired colour. While she popped the shoelaces into a paper bag, Alice clicked the compact shut and slipped it back into her handbag.

  The rose-pink dress was designed to flatter its wearer’s slightly plump figure, Violet noted. And she made the most of herself in other ways. Her fair hair was immaculately waved and a dark brown pencil emphasized her arched eyebrows. She wore rouge and a coral lipstick, with nail varnish to match.

  ‘I almost forgot – I’d like you to alter the hem on a dress I had made for me,’ she told Ida. ‘It’s a delicate fabric. Do you think you can do it without spoiling the look of it?’

  ‘We’ll do our best, Mrs Barlow,’ Ida promised.

  ‘Then I’ll send my chauffeur in with it on Monday morning. I’d like it done by the next day if you can manage it. I intend to wear it to a tea dance at the Royal Baths in Harrogate on Wednesday.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Barlow. I’m sure we can do that for you.’ A deadpan Ida gave nothing away but as soon as the doorbell tinkled and her customer was safely ensconced inside the Daimler, she let out a loud sigh. ‘See what a good actress I am,’ she told Violet. ‘“Yes, Mrs Barlow; no, Mrs Barlow; three bags full, Mrs Barlow!”’

  Violet grinned. ‘I know what you mean. We get hoity-toity customers like that in our shop, telling you how to slice the bacon and cut the cheese then taking you to task about how you wrap it. I suppose we shop girls just have to grin and bear it.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you like to get your hands round a woman like that’s neck and throttle those airs and graces out of her?’

  ‘I would,’ Violet agreed. She left the drapers with the feeling that she liked Ida Thomson more and more as she got to know her – even if she did keep on clumsily dropping her brother Eddie’s name into the conversation.

  The next evening, Violet presented herself to Winnie for inspection before she left to meet Stan. The blue skirt was finished and fitted Violet perfectly and she matched it with a white linen blouse.

  ‘And don’t say “not bad” or I’ll crown you,’ she joked.

  ‘You’ll pass muster,’ Winnie conceded, folding the tablecloth and putting away the tea things. ‘But who have you gone to all this effort for? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  ‘Never you mind.’ Violet wasn’t letting on about her assignation with Stan and a glance at her watch told her that she was cutting it fine. ‘Ta-ta, I have to dash.’

  Donald sat behind his newspaper, letting silence demonstrate his disapproval of Violet’s flibbertigibbet ways.

  Winnie waited for the door to click shut then she leaned forward to rest both hands on the table.

  ‘You look worn out,’ Donald said without glancing up. ‘Why don’t you sit down and put your feet up?’

  ‘Me? I’ve got too much to do,’ she replied. ‘After I’ve finished this pile of ironing I’ve got sheets with holes in them that won’t mend themselves.’

  ‘I was just saying – you look like you should take it easy.’

  Winnie sighed. Violet was gone in a cloud of flowery perfume and now the house was lifeless without her. She had just Donald for company and the fact was that the two of them had run out of things to say to one another years ago.

  Stan waited nervously for Violet outside the Victory. Unusually for him, he felt ill at ease in his dark blue blazer with the wide shoulder pads and the high-waisted twill trousers held up by braces – altogether more formal than his usual outfit of tweed jacket and open-necked shirt. Still, he was sure that Violet Wheeler was worth making the effort for.

  She was late, though. He watched couples walking arm in arm down Canal Road and into the shiny foyer of the picture house, trying in vain to pick out her slim figure. Instead, Eddie drew up to the kerb and parked his bike outside the entrance.

  ‘Hello, Stan, what are you hanging about out here for?’ Eddie asked, in a hurry to get inside. ‘Did someone stand you up?’

  ‘I might ask you the same question, only a little bird tells me they’ve been daft enough to put you in charge of the projector. Can that be right?’

  ‘Ha ha, Stan.’ As his pal shoulder-shoved him and shunted him into the wall, Eddie caught sight of Violet hurrying towards them. He felt a moment of nerve-tautening uncertainty until Stan spotted her too and immediately straightened his tie and cleared his throat.

  ‘Wish me luck, Eddie,’ Stan muttered.

  ‘You … and Violet?’ Eddie was slow to understand but when he did an angry shock ran through him – not irritation with Stan but with himself for being too slow off the mark. He hid it by hurrying on across the foyer and through a door marked ‘Staff Only’.

  ‘Here she comes, her royal highness!’ Stan greeted Violet with a joke which he knew had worn thin since Whit Monday but he was so bowled over by her appearance that it was the best he could come up with. Her brown eyes were bright, her mouth soft and full. Not to mention the rest of her, shown of
f to advantage in her slim skirt and close-fitting blouse. She was a looker, was Violet, and it was a miracle she hadn’t been snapped up long ago.

  ‘Hello, Stan. Sorry I’m late.’ She thought he looked smart and spruce, though the whiff of Brylcreem was overpowering as he offered her his arm. This is only the flicks, she told herself. It’s an hour and a half of Fay Wray being carried up a skyscraper by a giant ape. It still doesn’t mean that Stan and I are officially walking out, not by a long stretch of the imagination.

  ‘I can’t work her out,’ Stan confessed to Eddie the following night.

  The two friends had met in the Green Cross after a day’s work.

  Eddie emptied his glass and tried to change the subject. ‘Honestly, Marjorie can talk the hind leg off a donkey.’ He’d helped his dad that day with a decorating job above Marjorie’s bakery. ‘Mind you, she keeps us well supplied with tea and sponge cake while we work.’

  ‘I’m telling you, I was on my best behaviour with Violet,’ Stan went on, ignoring him. ‘I sat next to her good as gold. I never laid a finger on her until the scene where the monkey climbs the Empire State Building.’

  ‘Don’t tell me – I don’t want to hear about it,’ Eddie muttered.

  ‘Even then, I only held her hand. I was banking on her being scared by the gorilla and burying her face in my chest like the other girls, but trust Violet to be different – she never did.’

  ‘Honestly, Stan, I’m not interested in your love life.’ Especially if it concerns Violet Wheeler, he thought to himself.

  His friend, who was dressed in greasy brown overalls, with his dark hair hanging lank over his forehead, struck a pose. ‘Look at me – how could anyone resist?’

  Eddie had the grace to laugh and order them two more pints.

  ‘I’m not letting it put me off,’ Stan vowed, confidence undented. ‘Mark my words – I plan on taking another crack at Violet Wheeler as soon as ever I get the chance.’