Annie's Promise

by Margaret Graham

  Annie said nothing more, pulling up at the station, seeing Frank unloading the panniers from his truck, seeing the committee taking the panniers into the station, on to the train.

  ‘It’ll be so strange for him. He hasn’t been on a train before,’ she said.

  ‘Oh Mum,’ Sarah said, pulling at Georgie’s hand. ‘Come on Da, Davy, let’s go. We’ll miss the train.’

  Georgie was looking at her. ‘Will you be all right? I feel bad about leaving you.’

  Annie looked down at Sarah’s face, at the way she held Georgie’s arm, pulling him, the eagerness with which she was talking to Davy. ‘Well don’t. You and Sarah should share a day out more often – this must be the first of many, Georgie, she needs you, really she does.’

  She waved to them, watching Sarah talk to Georgie and hold his hand. Yes, they must get a converted car for Georgie, even if the export order came to nothing, because then he wouldn’t need her to drive him everywhere and he and Sarah could spend days together as father and daughter should.

  They decorated the showroom a light green with white woodwork, leaving the windows open all day and all night.

  ‘No one will break in, there’s nothing to steal,’ Tom said, locking the door. ‘And there’s enough of a wind to clear the smell of the paint out.’ He looked at the clouds scudding across the sky. ‘They won’t have let them fly today, will they? Your lad won’t be home until tomorrow you know.’

  Annie did know, she’d been monitoring the weather all day. ‘Will Gracie mind about Davy? Do you?’

  ‘No, I’m off to a debate with Rob tonight anyway – bit late now but we’ll catch the end of it. See you bright and early tomorrow then?’

  Annie caught his sleeve. ‘Do you take Davy to these debates?’

  ‘No, he’s always with Sarah.’

  ‘Not always, Tom, and he needs you, it isn’t just Rob who does.’

  They worked all Sunday and the weather was better, so Tiger would be flying. Annie hung the curtains, ironed and hung the slips, the aprons, the smocks that they thought they’d try out on Schmidt. They hung the bras and pants and pictures on the wall. They had arranged for the phone to be reconnected.

  ‘It’ll be worth it,’ Annie told Bet. ‘We can keep this up and running for the other buyers who might want to come. Jones is visiting in May.’

  ‘It’s getting big isn’t it, Annie. What would your da have thought?’

  Annie paused, then continued to put the iron in the box. ‘I doubt that he’d be pleased. He wanted us both to leave Wassingham, didn’t he, Bet, to make it big elsewhere and certainly not in trade.’

  ‘But he’d have been glad you’re happy and you are, aren’t you?’ Bet took the iron.

  ‘I’ve never been happier in my life and I think he’d have been pleased about that.’

  Annie closed up the ironing board and walked to the car boot with it.

  ‘He loved you, he just couldn’t show it and a father should, you know.’

  Annie did know and on Monday after Schmidt had been she rang a car dealer in Newcastle about car conversions. ‘I’ll send you the details,’ he promised.

  It had been a good day, Schmidt had left leaving a large order for two sets of underwear and he would have ordered the aprons too if the fabric designs had been more appealing. As importantly, Tiger had survived the hawks and won his race. Sarah sat and told her all about it while Georgie and she listened, directing their questions at her, not one another.

  ‘And so we learn,’ she groaned that night. ‘But who said it would be so difficult being a parent – running a business is so much easier.’

  Throughout April and May they taught the young birds how to trap and toss and in June Georgie had his car, paid for by a loan which Annie had arranged, because it was unfair that they should draw more from the profits than Tom or the workers.

  He drove out each weekend on training flights, taking Sarah and Davy with him, and sometimes Annie, but only sometimes.

  In early August some late birds hatched and a further order arrived from Schmidt who was eager for aprons but still didn’t care for the designs.

  In mid, August Tom and Gracie took the boys to Scarborough on holiday and Annie and Georgie worked late into the night, covering for them. On their return they did the same for Annie and Georgie, who took Bet to the sea for days out, though they didn’t go away, for who would look after their birds, Georgie asked.

  Annie just smiled and lay on the dunes feeling the tiredness draining from her body, hearing the gulls, the shriek of laughter, the thump as Georgie swung his crutches, and then his leg, thinking of how relieved Sarah had been when Davy also passed his eleven plus, and Paul too. The gang could stay together.

  ‘I’ll make your uniform this week, shall I?’ Annie said as Sarah dug into the sand and began to bury her. It was so cold. ‘Not so deep, you horrible child.’

  ‘Mum,’ Sarah’s voice was hesitant. ‘They’ll laugh if I wear home-made clothes. Teresa said you’d make them, she said everyone would make fun.’

  Annie lay quite still. ‘We can’t have that, can we? I remember how I felt. Of course I shall buy it, darling.’

  ‘You don’t think I’ll get like Terry, do you? It’s just girls you know.’

  Now Annie laughed and the sand fell from her shoulders.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Well, let me tell you, my dear girl, that there’s no danger of you becoming like that particular child, she’s a one off, and so are you.’

  In September they received a postcard from Don, Maud and Teresa in Spain and nobody was rude because they all felt guilty about thinking Don was Mr Jones. The night before Sarah started school she didn’t sleep and neither did Annie, but she need not have worried. She, Davy and Paul caught the same bus in and the same bus out and as long as she could do that, Sarah said that it didn’t matter where she went to school.

  They ran another mail shot and this time there were features in two of the dailies and mention of the export order and the response was bigger than ever, and the wholesale orders were greater too.

  They worked long hours building up the new season’s designs and samples, though Tom would not have to include the Jones department stores in the February tour because they had visited the showroom and placed their own order.

  The people of Wassingham were also visiting it, so it was decided that Bet should open it each morning and sell direct to the public at prices slightly cheaper than the shops. It gave them a greater profit but when Bet suggested opening more retail outlets they decided against it.

  ‘Too much capital, too much hassle with staff, and supervision. We’re not big enough yet,’ Tom said and the others agreed.

  ‘Let’s see how the printing works out when Tom and Gracie get back off tour.’ Because they’d decided to print off some tea towels and table mats and try them on the Christmas market and only if they worked would they invest in premises, continuous printers and curing ovens.

  ‘Retail outlets are part of the future I think, but a good idea, Bet,’ Annie said.

  At the end of October Tom built a silk-screen printer in Bet’s kitchen because she said they could use her oven if Gracie would put her dinner in the upstairs oven.

  ‘Better than that, you’ll come and eat with us until we see if this idea works,’ Gracie said, kissing her cheek.

  Tom bought wood and built a frame but it wasn’t sturdy enough and it flexed.

  ‘Damn it, it’ll print badly, and the colours won’t register,’ he said.

  He tried again, laying it on the kitchen table when he’d finished. This time it rested evenly with all four corners on the surface.

  Annie called Georgie in from the stable where he’d been cutting wires which they would string up in the kitchen for drying, and others which he would make into racks for the oven.

  ‘I glued and nailed the corners together and reinforced with angle irons screwed to the top,’ Tom said, showing it to them, bringing Davy forward so that he c
ould see and Annie was pleased.

  ‘Get me the silk, Davy,’ Tom said and then unrolled it on the table, putting the frame on it. ‘Check the weave’s parallel, Annie.’

  It was.

  Tom fastened the silk to the frame with drawing pins. ‘Thank God Prue sent us a load of silk. Perhaps we should cut her in if we get it off the ground,’ he said.

  ‘Not if, when,’ Georgie said.

  Tom looked at the silk. ‘It’s no good, it’s uneven. I know, let’s take it off. I remember what we did at college now.’

  They all helped to lever out the drawing pins and he turned up one edge of the silk and pinned it to the centre of one side of the frame, putting two further pins on either side of the first, pulling towards the corners for tension.

  Annie watched Davy and he looked as pleased as Sarah did when Georgie and she went off together.

  ‘Come on Annie, fasten the centre of that side, pull the silk as you do it.’ Tom was frowning with concentration. It was his face as a child, it was Davy’s face.

  She fastened and pulled, then Davy did the other side and Sarah the last. Tom turned it over.

  ‘Tight as your drums,’ he grinned at the kids.

  They watched as he masked the inside edges to prevent the ink from seeping underneath. ‘Don’t want a load of duff ones. Give old Manners a real Christmas treat wouldn’t it?’ Tom said.

  The next day, Sunday, they covered Bet’s table with a blanket and waterproof sheeting, stretching out the creases while the children mixed the dyes.

  Tom had converted Annie’s idea of a red star on a green background edged with red berries into a simple two-colour design and Bet had prepared the fabric the. previous night, boiling the heavy cotton oblongs to remove the dressing and hanging them on Georgie’s wires to dry.

  Tom printed the green background, passing the fabric carefully to the others. They hung them over chair backs, airers or hoisted them up on to the wires suspended across the ceiling and did the same the next night, and the next, all of them coming to Bet’s kitchen, mixing, printing, drying, baking in the oven to fix the dyes. Then drinking cocoa in Gracie’s kitchen upstairs – which used to be my da’s dining room, Annie told Sarah, wondering what he’d think of the cottage industry downstairs.

  Each day they responded to orders which were coming in from the July tour, and at the end of the week Tom repeat-printed the red star and the border. They sent samples of the tea towels to Germany, and to Jones Department Store. At the end of the week there were more and Annie took the afternoon off and drove round the market stalls, showing them the tea towels, telling them there would also be matching table mats in time for Christmas – if they were interested.

  They were and phoned in their orders all the next week.

  Tom phoned Bill at the estate agents and he called them in during their lunch break. He checked for them that Steadman’s was still available. It had been last year, and still in the summer.

  ‘Yes, seems OK, but there’s a stirring of interest, my boss says. Just a few questions being asked.’

  ‘Not the consortium.’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  They didn’t work that afternoon, instead they visited the planning office and discussed with them their requirements for the printing business, asking if there were any other sites within Wassingham that would be suitable. There weren’t. There was only one sewage works.

  That night they decided to have plans drawn up and submitted, even though they were not in a position to move on it and each of them tried to keep the panic at bay.

  ‘If the bloody consortium’s getting interested we’ll have to be sharp or it’ll cost us a fortune,’ Tom said.

  There was no word back from Germany, that week, or the next. Neither did they hear from Jones but they continued to print in the kitchen, refusing to believe that Schmidt would not like the towels, but prepared to believe that perhaps they were too primitive for Jones.

  The pigeons were in moult and each morning and evening Georgie checked them, fed them, cleaned them out and by the middle of October they had shed their primaries and some of their secondaries and so there were no long training flights, just local flights and a mess about from the loft.

  ‘Couldn’t have timed it better, pet,’ Georgie said as they mixed more paint, because the children were scavenging for Wassingham’s bonfire that weekend. ‘But I wish to God we’d heard back.’

  At the end of October Schmidt placed an order, and Jones too but they wouldn’t commit themselves to further goods until they saw how the Christmas take-up went on the existing stock.

  It was a long two months and as Christmas came they were tired because the stalls had re-ordered three times and Jones had sold out and come back for more for their post January sale period. ‘But not Christmas designs of course.’

  On Christmas Eve Jurgen Schmidt rang, ordering two thousand aprons, to be delivered by Easter in a two-colour design, the rough sketch of which he would send.

  They drank champagne with Don and Maud on Christmas Eve, and all the children drank too, though Maud said it was foolish and could lead to trouble in later life. No one took any notice, they were too excited, too happy, too tense.

  Immediately after Christmas they heard that they had received planning permission. They also heard that the consortium had finally bought Steadman’s, though the lease was still available, Bill said, his voice tired and defensive.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Annie said, gripping the receiver. ‘At triple the cost.’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Annie, and a landlord inspection clause too.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she said this time, listening as Bill said that there would be an inspection each year and any repairs deemed necessary must be undertaken.

  ‘Well, this is a wonderful start to 1959 isn’t it?’ she said.

  They talked that evening as they worked in Bet’s, wondering if they had ever smelt roast beef where now there were only chemicals. They talked and raged and could have wept.

  ‘But there’s nowhere else,’ Georgie said finally. ‘That’s it in a nutshell, we’ll have to take Steadman’s or move out of Wassingham.’

  ‘Which we promised ourselves we’d never do,’ Annie said as Tom nodded.

  ‘It’s as though …’ Georgie said, and then trailed off.

  ‘Could it be personal?’ Bet asked.

  ‘Don’t say that, we’ll be thinking it’s Don next and that’s not fair. They’re a London-based consortium, nothing to do with us,’ Gracie snapped.

  Annie listened, making herself think back to the yard, his jokes at Christmas, the kiss he had given her. No, it couldn’t be Don. Yes, he’d run that loan business with Uncle Albert, yes, he’d been tight and mean but no, he wouldn’t hurt his own family. He couldn’t, and losing their money had been a mistake which she had instigated. For God’s sake, Gracie was right, look at Mr Jones – how wrong they’d been then. Her head began to ache.

  ‘It can’t be Don,’ she said, her voice firm because she could see that Georgie was filled with doubt. ‘Look at the loft – that was a real Mr Jones. Look at the showroom – if we hadn’t rented that we’d probably not have landed the export order.’

  Georgie said, ‘There were other shops we could have gone to for the showroom, but look, we needed Briggs, and we need Steadman’s and it’s wiping out our profits again, we’re always back at square one.’

  ‘There weren’t other shops, not then.’

  Bet spoke up then. ‘Don was difficult, but never wicked, not as you are saying. You’ve asked Bill and he says it’s a consortium, he’s said it’s being done all the time. I think you’ve got to stop wondering who it is and sort out what you’re going to do. It wouldn’t be the lad. No one would be that devious.’

  Annie clasped Bet’s hand. ‘I know it’s not him and so do you all. He’s a right little bugger, we all know that but Bet’s right. This is just business.’

  Tom looked at Georgie, then at Annie, ‘I didn’t want to t
ell anyone but I’ve got to now. I’ve checked the names of the consortium. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done because he’s our brother but he isn’t named. There’s Samual Davis, James Merriott, Albert Sims, oh, and others. It isn’t Don. I’m sorry, but it just gets on top of me when we make all this effort and then we’re clobbered.’

  That night Georgie held Annie and said, ‘It gets on top of us all, my love, but you’re right – it’s just business and a collection of people out there that’re bloody shrewd. Just wish we had them on our side.’

  They paid the price and Georgie sold his car to help towards the cost of the ovens and the continuous printer. Annie hocked her walnut table to try and get it back, but it had been sold and by the time there was another there was no money left, it had all been sucked up by the printer, the shelving, repairing the heating, the ovens, and they were unable to sub-let the Briggs Warehouse at the price that they were paying for it.

  Annie said to Tom, ‘If I hear those politicians saying once more that we’ve never had it so good, I’ll scream.’

  CHAPTER 12

  Sarah sat at her desk, leaning back against the radiator, feeling the heat in strips, waiting for Miss Bates to call her name, watching as first one girl and then another walked down the row of desks. It was the first day of the new school year and she had just been appointed window monitor, together with Hannah.

  ‘Do we open or close them for fire practice?’ Hannah whispered, her long hair hanging down her face as she drew pictures of Elvis Presley on her rough book.

  ‘They’ll tell us,’ Sarah said. ‘They always tell us everything but perhaps we’ll change that this morning.’

  Deborah was walking past them now, on her way to Bates’s desk. Deborah always won the posture prize. Sarah sat up, put her shoulders back, then saw her breasts and hunched them again. They were a nuisance, they made her feel different, made her feel more of a girl beside Paul and Davy but they hadn’t noticed, nothing had changed.

  She drew guitars on the cover of her rough book. They were rehearsing tonight for the show at the Youth Club – Geoff was bringing his guitar, Paul was playing the bass they had made from a tea chest, a broom handle and a piece of string. Her fingers were sore from the washboard and Davy’s looked the same but they’d have to practise or they’d never get it right and the families had said they were coming. What if they waved? No, they wouldn’t, she’d tell her mum and she’d tell everyone else.