The Telephone Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘I promise.’ In secret, Cynthia clung on to the sunshine world that was just opening out, that contained Wilf Evans and laughter, dances, embraces, kisses and who knew what else.

  Beryl stood up and buttoned her coat with an air of finality. ‘Good. Let’s leave it at that then. The bus into town is due in ten minutes. Walk me to the stop, there’s a good girl.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Listen, you two – I need your advice.’ Norma collared Millicent and Cynthia at the start of their dinner break next day. They came off duty in shifts and had had to wait until Molly, Brenda and some others had returned at one o’clock before they were free to leave their switchboards. ‘Out of the blue Douglas has asked me to marry him!’

  Millicent responded with a shrill peal of laughter. ‘Come off it, Norma. Don’t tell me you weren’t expecting it!’

  ‘I really wasn’t,’ she protested as all three collected their coats then crowded together in one section of the revolving door. ‘Honestly, Millicent – whenever you teased me about it, I let it in through one ear and out the other. I truly thought Douglas and I were jogging along nicely from week to week, not looking to the future.’

  ‘Well, believe me – you were the only one who was in the dark about Douglas’s intentions.’ Emerging on to a street where the pavements were wet and a steady drizzle descended from thick grey clouds, Millicent put up her umbrella and shared it with the others. ‘Wasn’t she, Cynthia?’

  ‘I couldn’t really say.’ Cynthia hugged her own secret about Wilf close to her chest and held back from expressing an opinion on matters of the heart. ‘I haven’t met Douglas.’

  ‘You mean, PC Perfect.’ Millicent herded them down the steps, past Sam Bower’s and into the new hairdressing salon where the smart, older woman they’d seen previously sat at the reception desk, talking on the telephone. In the background, two customers sat draped in pink nylon capes while their young stylists snipped and curled away. A strong smell of permanent-wave solution struck the back of their throats as Millicent, Norma and Cynthia walked in. ‘To be honest, I’m surprised it’s taken him this long.’

  ‘Did you say yes?’ Cynthia was eager to know as Millicent closed her umbrella and placed it in the stand by the door.

  ‘That’s the thing. I didn’t – not straight away,’ Norma confessed.

  Millicent pulled a sad face. ‘Poor Douglas – don’t tell me you’re making him wait.’ Norma’s situation was so much in contrast to her own that she grew determined to press her point home. ‘For goodness’ sake, what’s stopping you? Once upon a time, if a certain someone had been free to go down on one knee and propose marriage to me, I’d have jumped at the chance.’

  ‘I know you would. But I didn’t know what to say. I was lost for words.’

  They’d come to Sylvia’s to make three appointments for later in the week – Millicent and Norma for a trim and Cynthia for a consultation and a complete change of style, which was what the other two insisted she needed.

  ‘We’ll turn you into a woman of the world before you know it,’ Millicent had promised as they made their plan to call in at the hairdresser’s before they ate their sandwiches back in the restroom. She’d dismissed Cynthia’s protestations and now here they were, waiting for the salon owner to come off the telephone.

  ‘Boo-hoo, poor Douglas,’ Millicent said again. ‘Why have you left him on tenterhooks? Don’t you love him?’

  Cynthia could see their reflection in a large mirror on the wall facing them – she was dressed in her beige mac, standing between Millicent in a short, cherry-red jacket, her black hair swept up and held in place by a pair of silver combs, and Norma in a pale blue coat with a stand-up collar teamed with a royal blue dress. Yes, it was high time to change her style, Cynthia concluded with an upward tilt of her chin.

  ‘I do love him.’ Norma was in no doubt about that.

  ‘But?’

  ‘But think about it, Millicent. If I say yes and rush into marriage, that’ll be the end of my days at the switchboard.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ Millicent thought this through for a while. ‘Not necessarily. It’s not like teaching or nursing. The GPO doesn’t have a law against employing married women.’

  Norma shook her head. ‘No, but how many of them do we have here in George Street?’

  ‘All right – none. Oh yes, one – Ruth Ridley.’

  ‘She’s divorced so that doesn’t count. Anyway, it might not be against the rules as such, but we all know what happens when a woman gets married.’

  ‘She has babies.’ Millicent grasped the point at last. ‘Then she stays at home and looks after them.’

  ‘And I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.’ Norma had lain awake most of the night trying to understand her feelings for Douglas, listing them like ingredients in a cake. There was a big dollop of love and longing plus a good spoonful of spicy desire – she recognized this as she pictured him high on the diving platform during their recent visit to the lido. He’d been by far the most handsome man there as he stretched his arms forward and plunged into the water, straight as an arrow. Her heart had lurched as he hit the water with scarcely a splash and only beat steadily again once he’d resurfaced. Yes, she loved and desired him, but was it the right mixture – her and him blended and baked together till death did them part?

  The woman behind the desk put down the phone then spoke to them in stiff but apologetic tones. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’

  As usual Millicent took the lead. ‘That’s all right. We’d like to make three appointments for Saturday, please.’

  ‘By all means.’ Instead of welcoming new business, the woman seemed irritated and unsure as she glanced around the room then opened a large diary and unscrewed the top of a pen. She was interrupted by one of the stylists who cleared her throat as she approached the desk. ‘Excuse me, Mrs Parr – Clare wasn’t feeling very well. She had to go upstairs and lie down. You were busy on the telephone so she asked me to tell you.’

  ‘Did she say what was the matter?’

  ‘She was feeling light-headed, I think.’ The young hairdresser spoke with downcast eyes, clasping her hands in front of her.

  ‘Thank you, Barbara.’ In the absence of her receptionist, the shop owner prepared to note their details, giving Cynthia, Norma and Millicent time to take in her appearance – not a blonde hair out of place, of course, and wearing a loose-fitting cream jacket over an apricot-coloured dress with two strings of pearls around her long neck. Her carefully powdered face had arched eyebrows and thin lips, plumped out by a lipstick in a darker tone than her dress. The whole effect was superior and in the vein of Wallis Simpson or of a royal lady-in-waiting, Norma decided, though the clipped voice contained flat, short vowels, giving away less than aristocratic origins.

  ‘I’ve made two appointments for one o’clock and one for half past with Barbara and Margaret,’ Mrs Parr said, pressing white blotting paper over their names.

  ‘Ta very much.’ Breezily casting a final glance around the room at the revolving leather chairs, polished parquet floor and shiny mirrors, Millicent seemed satisfied. ‘Come along, girls – dinner time!’

  They were on their way out when they were rapidly overtaken by a man who had appeared as if from nowhere – in fact, from a rear door that gave access to the upstairs rooms. He seemed to be in a hurry but he remembered his manners in time to hold open the door for them and they got a close view of his face – fair skinned, with small, straight features and deep-set grey eyes – the man in the Morris Cowley who Millicent had seen with Clare in the King’s Head, who had popped up a few days later emerging from the hairdresser’s with the salon owner on his arm.

  ‘Ta very much,’ Millicent said as she slid easily by.

  ‘Thank you,’ Norma and Cynthia added more shyly.

  They were out on the pavement, considering this set of coincidences and passing snap judgements on the natty dresser as he headed towards City Square.

  ‘Th
ose gloves and that hat must have cost a pretty penny,’ Millicent remarked.

  ‘What was he doing behind the scenes of a ladies’ hairdresser’s?’ Norma wondered. ‘Unless he is what’s-her-name’s son, after all.’

  ‘Mrs Parr’s? You’re way off the mark.’ Millicent was still adamant on that score. ‘He’s Clare’s secret beau, I’ll bet my bottom dollar. I know for a fact she has lodgings above the salon.’

  ‘It looks as though they were up there together,’ Norma realized with an air of scandalized surprise. ‘Alone!’

  Millicent made a show of covering Cynthia’s ears. ‘Hush – not when there are children present!’

  It wasn’t so funny a few minutes later, when they sat in the restroom at work, eating sandwiches and still reflecting on what they’d seen.

  ‘That chap’s like a bad penny, turning up when you least expect him,’ Norma said with a sigh. ‘Close up, I’d say he’s far too cocky by half.’ She recalled the way he held open the door for them with one eyebrow raised and a smile that could easily have been a smirk, thin lips tilted up at one corner. ‘If I were Clare, I wouldn’t want anything to do with him.’

  ‘Well, you’re not her,’ was Millicent’s only comment. Her mind had gone off at a tangent on to Harold and the times when she, Millicent, had skulked in corners with him – though never quite so blatantly. She liked to think their trysts were more discreet and more tasteful, but after what she’d overheard on the rambler group’s bus ride home from Saxby she was no longer so sure.

  ‘It’s coming up to two o’clock,’ Cynthia alerted them, one eye on the clock above the door.

  ‘Yes, indeed.’ Norma stood up and brushed crumbs from her skirt. ‘Come along, girls, it’s time to take the lights.’

  Norma’s afternoon of tapping front and rear keys to complete hundreds of cord circuits went without incident. Daylight filtered into the long room through high windows and Cynthia sat next to her, quietly observing every move.

  ‘Remember, these jacks on the back panel are all female sockets,’ Norma instructed. ‘Each one is wired as a local extension, or else as an incoming or outgoing trunk line. And when a jack lamp lights up, you place the rear cord into the jack and that automatically throws the front key forward.’

  Norma went through the procedure as she spoke. ‘Then my caller tells me the number he would like to connect with … Hello, Mr Brown. Go ahead, please … Hello, London, I have a new ticket, wanted as soon as possible.’

  Keeping her eye on the switchboard and pressing keys and speaking with accustomed ease, Norma pushed her headset back and spoke again to Cynthia. ‘Once I connect the two lines, both cords are left in the up position.’

  Cynthia took in every scrap of information. ‘How do you know when to end the call?’

  ‘Simple – there’s no need to listen in. In fact, it’s against the rules. This supervision lamp on the back panel lights up to alert us that it’s time to remove the jacks from the sockets.’ Norma removed the cords as she spoke. ‘See – it’s as easy as pie.’

  ‘Elbows in, Millicent. Take that light, Brenda. Come along, girls – chop-chop!’ Ruth Ridley patrolled the central aisle, keeping everyone on their toes. Up and down she went, vigilant as a sergeant major, ready to find fault with everyone and everything. ‘Cynthia, don’t lean in so close – you’re getting in Norma’s way.’

  ‘Ignore the crabby old thing,’ Millicent murmured as she swept by, having managed to get permission for an urgent and taking her handbag with her in order to touch up her powder and lipstick.

  ‘Sshh!’ Norma warned as Ruth kept an eagle eye.

  As soon as Millicent left for the cloakroom, the supe made a beeline for Molly at the far end of the row. She stopped, leaned over Molly’s shoulder and wrenched two cords from their jacks then told Molly to follow her into the office. The door closed firmly behind them.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Norma murmured to Brenda, who manned the switchboard to her right. ‘Is it what I think it is? Has Molly been caught listening in again?’

  Brenda shrugged and carried on taking lights.

  ‘I’ll bet she has,’ Norma said darkly.

  Knowing that their fellow telephonist was on her last warning, everyone held their breath and kept their headsets clamped to their ears, so that it was only Cynthia who heard raised voices from the office then saw Molly emerge, pale-faced and trembling. She went straight to her switchboard and picked up her handbag from beneath her seat then hurried, head down, along the aisle and out of the door across the foyer and into the cloakroom.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Millicent asked as she emerged from one of the cubicles to find the usually unflappable Molly leaning against the green-tiled wall with her eyes closed.

  ‘Ruth’s only gone and given me my marching orders for listening in.’ Molly turned her head towards Millicent and spoke bitterly.

  ‘Don’t worry – we’ve all done it at one time or another. They can’t give us all the sack.’

  ‘But she means it this time – I’m out on my ear.’

  ‘Poor you. She’s had it in for you for weeks,’ Millicent sympathized.

  Molly nodded. ‘She wouldn’t let me get a word in edgeways.’ As her defiance crumbled and tears welled up, she spilled out her side of the story. ‘All I did was pick up a call from someone calling himself Sidney Hall. He asked to speak to Clare Bell at the salon next door but one. So I connected them and I could tell straight away that Clare was upset. It made me stay on the line a few seconds longer than I should have.’

  ‘And Frau Hitler pounced?’

  ‘That’s right. I tried to explain – the poor girl was sobbing and saying no, she didn’t want to go with him.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘He called it a “soirée”. He shouted at her and said she would go if she knew what was good for her. That’s when Ruth snatched the cords from the jacks and hauled me into the office.’

  Millicent was upset by Molly’s account – partly because Ruth Ridley’s actions could ruin Molly’s future prospects and partly on behalf of Clare. She had no doubt that this Sidney Hall was the suave man they’d seen her with, who now seemed to be bullying her into doing something she didn’t want to do. ‘Would it make any difference if the rest of us put in a word for you once Ruth has calmed down?’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Molly dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  ‘Well then – do you belong to a trade union?’

  ‘No, I never got round to joining. Perhaps I will now.’ Molly too suspected that her future lay in ruins, all for the sake of eavesdropping for a few moments too long. ‘Just you watch – they’ll put Cynthia at my switchboard first thing tomorrow and there’s not a thing I can do. Anyway, you’d better get back in there – otherwise the dragon will come down on you like a ton of bricks as well.’

  Molly was right so Millicent patted her shoulder and left her to pull herself together then hurried back to work. Nothing more was said before the end of their shift, when Millicent shepherded Cynthia and Norma into the restroom to bring them up to date with what she’d heard. She waited until the room was empty then gave them a full account of what Molly had told her.

  ‘“Soirée” is what this chap Sidney Hall called it,’ she said scornfully. ‘You can just picture it – his lordship issuing orders and Clare crying her eyes out. He sounds like a downright bully, if you ask me.’

  ‘Never mind that – what will happen to Molly?’ Norma’s first reaction was to try to help their workmate. ‘Is what she did today enough to get her the sack?’

  ‘It depends if she’s already had a written warning or not.’ Like Norma, Millicent would be sad to see Molly go. ‘I hope not. She helps liven this place up.’

  As they put on their coats and hats, Norma and Millicent tried to think of ways both to help Molly to keep her job and to keep Clare out of Sidney Hall’s clutches.

  ‘Could what he said be seen as an actual threat?’ Norma wondered out loud.

 
Millicent considered this. ‘Maybe. We don’t know exactly what it was about.’

  ‘But we know that Clare was upset and that he has some kind of hold over her.’

  ‘Aren’t we guessing that last bit?’ Millicent paused to run through what Molly had told her. ‘No, you’re right – he was definitely forcing her to go to this soirée whether she liked it or not. And when I saw her with him at the King’s Head, she did look frightened.’

  ‘Goodness knows what they were doing upstairs at the hairdresser’s earlier today then,’ Norma said with a shudder. The more she thought about it, the worse the picture looked. ‘Let me talk to Douglas,’ she decided, ‘on the off-chance that he’s come across this Sidney Hall character.’

  Millicent gave a nod of approval. ‘Yes, do. The thing is – if there really are threats involved, it might be in Molly’s favour.’

  Norma didn’t see the connection. ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘I mean, she’d have had a good reason for listening in if she said she was gathering information in order to help Clare.’

  ‘Why don’t we just ask Clare?’ Cynthia spoke for the first time to give what seemed the most obvious course of action. ‘Instead of jumping to conclusions.’

  ‘We wouldn’t get the truth out of her – that’s why not.’ Millicent was sure on this point. ‘We’ve seen with our own eyes that Sidney is friendly with Mrs Parr. Now, Phyllis Parr pays Clare’s wages, so Clare’s not likely to queer her pitch by complaining about Sidney’s bullying, is she?’

  ‘Bullying, or worse,’ Norma added. Though it might seem to be stretching things, she’d heard enough from Douglas about men ill-treating their girlfriends to realize what sometimes happened when relationships turned sour.

  ‘I don’t know – maybe we’re making mountains out of molehills.’

  Exhausting the subject for now, Millicent led the way out of the exchange on to the street. The earlier drizzle had turned to heavy rain so they put up their umbrellas and prepared to set off for home through heavy traffic. Cynthia split off first to join a long queue for the Hadley bus, while Norma and Millicent stepped over puddles and crossed City Square together.