The Telephone Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  I don’t think I’m overdoing it, she told herself in the short gaps between lights. That girl needs our help and the sooner the better.

  Throughout that day and the next, Ruth Ridley was in the worst of moods. She patrolled up and down the aisle, refusing urgents and picking up on every small fault – fingernails that were too long, elbows that jutted out, words that were missing ‘h’s at the beginning and ‘g’s at the end.

  ‘Did you see how she’s been ignoring me the entire time?’ Molly spent the dinner break on Friday complaining to anyone who would listen. She was in the cloakroom applying bright red lipstick and re-setting the pins that held her hair up in a French roll. ‘She’s acting as if I’m not there.’

  ‘Count yourself lucky,’ Norma told her. ‘If she’s pulled me up once, she’s done it a dozen times.’

  Cynthia too had found herself the butt of the supe’s bad temper when she’d failed to identify the red lamp glowing on an unmanned console in one corner of the room.

  ‘Miss Ambler, may I refer you to your basic instruction manual, page seven, where you will find that this is the automatic speaking clock and the “golden voice” of Miss Jane Cain, accurate to one tenth of a second.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Miss Ridley.’

  ‘Instead of thanking me, you must read your manual. The speaking clock service started earlier this year in the London Holborn exchange and is soon to be introduced as standard at exchanges across the country.’

  Cynthia had been made to feel a complete dunce in front of everyone and had retreated into her shell. The incident made her incapable of plucking up the courage later that afternoon to join Millicent in informing the sour-faced supervisor that she would miss the Health and Beauty class that evening.

  ‘A prior commitment?’ Ruth echoed Millicent’s words as Cynthia, Millicent and Norma waited behind her in the queue for coats and hats. ‘I see. At this rate, you’ll have missed too many classes for me to include you in this year’s team for the national display in the Albert Hall.’

  Millicent gave a careless, please-yourself shrug, took her coat from the hook, grinned at Cynthia and hurried off.

  ‘What about you, Norma?’ Ruth quizzed the next in line. ‘Or do you have prior commitments too?’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Norma promised. Douglas had been collared for a late shift, so it was either Health and Beauty for her or darning with Ethel and Ivy.

  Managing to make herself invisible, Cynthia held back until everyone else had gone, then she took a brush to her hair in readiness for her meeting with Wilf. When at last she crossed the foyer and left the building, she ran into Sam Bower on the pavement outside his barber shop.

  In his brusque way Sam thrust a leather satchel into her arms. ‘I’ve been told to give you this.’

  Cynthia recognized the scuffed brown bag as her Uncle William’s. ‘What for?’

  ‘Bert says you have to collect the rent money.’

  Pursing her lips, she tried to push the bag back towards Sam. ‘Why can’t Bert do it?’

  ‘The lad’s poorly with the chickenpox,’ came the reply. ‘It’s doing the rounds. His face looked a right mess so I told him to go home early in case he upset my customers. He said I’d have to get you to do his job for him this week.’

  ‘But I can’t – I’m meeting someone.’ Cynthia knew that her protest would fall on deaf ears and she felt close to tears as she watched Sam retreat into his shop. Seconds later, Wilf came around the corner, hands in pockets and whistling cheerily.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked when he saw her glum expression.

  ‘I can’t come out with you after all.’ She showed him the satchel. ‘Bert’s got the chickenpox so I have to collect Uncle William’s rent money.’

  ‘You do, do you?’ In an instant he came up with a solution. ‘I know – let’s do it together. What do you say?’

  ‘Honestly?’ Her heart lifted and she gave him a grateful smile.

  ‘Cross my heart.’ Wilf took the satchel and hung it from his shoulder. ‘I’m the first to admit, it’s not a patch on sitting with you in the back row of the Victory, but we’ll soon get it done between us. Then we can catch the bus out to Hadley, drop the money off at your uncle’s and afterwards we can do whatever you like with the rest of our evening.’

  ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’

  ‘For you, Cynthia – anything!’ he declared.

  Laughing and dodging the traffic, they dawdled hand in hand across the square, past the cenotaph, up by the central library on to Ghyll Road and from there on to Ada Street. By the time they reached the cramped quarters of Heaton Yard, Millicent had already set off to meet Harold for their prearranged walk to Brimstone Rock.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ Harold’s apology to Millicent was rushed and his face looked strained. ‘I couldn’t leave work until Mr Oldroyd had gone. It wouldn’t have looked right.’

  They had arranged to meet at the pavilion on Overcliffe Common, which had given Millicent just enough time to get home and change into the comfortable outfit she wore for her weekend rambles – a long navy blue skirt teamed with a pale blue blouse and matching headscarf wrapped turban-style around her head. During her walk up the hill out of town, long wisps of dark hair had escaped and they blew across her face as she accepted Harold’s quick kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ve been sitting twiddling my thumbs for ages,’ she complained.

  ‘I said I was sorry, didn’t I?’

  Mindful of the letter she’d almost sent, she overcame the urge to take him to task by breathing in deeply and setting off along the track that led across the moors. Her innermost feelings were at war – the old tenderness for Harold in conflict with a growing sense of unease. A yearning that ran slap-bang into a wall of guilt.

  ‘Where are you running off to?’ he said, hurrying to keep pace and snatching at her hand to slow her down.

  ‘We’d better get a move on if we want to get all the way there and back before dark.’ The tug of his hand irritated her and she pulled hers away, her face set in the direction of the distant crag as she continued a quick march along the path.

  ‘Mr Oldroyd asked me to go through the order books for June and July,’ Harold said gloomily. ‘It didn’t take long.’

  ‘Meaning, you don’t have many orders?’

  ‘No. Who wants to buy woollen cloth during the summer months?’

  ‘Plenty of people, if they think far enough ahead.’

  ‘Those that do can’t afford it,’ he explained. ‘Or else they’ve gone further afield to where they can buy the cloth more cheaply. We’ve cut back to the bone to get costs down but we’re still losing orders hand over fist.’

  It was unusual for Harold to talk about his work and it made Millicent slow down and listen more sympathetically.

  ‘We’ve already laid off as many as we can. We’d cut back on wages if the unions would let us, but they’re threatening to go on strike as it is.’

  ‘That’s awkward,’ she acknowledged. ‘But they won’t cut off their noses to spite their faces, will they? I mean, it’s the same for everyone these days – look at the number of collieries they’re having to close, for a start. If the weavers at Oldroyd’s think they can walk out of one job straight into another, they’ve got another think coming.’

  ‘That’s why we’ve got a stalemate.’ Worn down by worry, Harold had come to his open-air assignation with Millicent with the intent of escaping from his everyday cares, but somehow he failed to turn the conversation around. ‘The fact is if we don’t improve our order book, Mr Oldroyd might have to shut up shop.’

  ‘You mean, close for good? Surely not?’

  ‘I’m only saying “might”.’ The possibility kept Harold awake at night and when he did eventually drop off, his dreams were haunted by pictures of cavernous spinning and weaving sheds – no workers at row after row of clanking, grinding machines, no furnaces in the cobbled yard blasting fire underneath boilers to create steam for the engines to turn. O
nly acres of grey, ghostly silence.

  It was Millicent’s turn to take Harold’s hand and draw him close. ‘It won’t happen,’ she said stoutly. ‘If Oldroyd’s is forced to close, then so would Kingsley’s and Calvert’s and all the rest. The whole town would wither and die.’

  He stopped her and turned her towards him. ‘I’m warning you it might,’ he insisted, looking directly into her eyes. ‘What then? Would you still want to know me – a man without a job or a house to his name?’

  Her eyes narrowed and she took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That’s not why I took up with you, and you know it. It has nothing to do with those things – how could you think it did?’

  ‘Then what was it?’ He pressed for an answer by keeping one arm tightly around her waist.

  She couldn’t find one that she could put into words, however long he held on to her, here on the open moor, with a breeze tugging at her skirt and the sun sinking slowly in a cloudless sky. There had been a spark between them once, when she’d been young and naive and Harold had seemed so suave. But those days were so far in the past that they no longer seemed real.

  ‘You see,’ he said, letting her go at last. He turned away and took a half-smoked cigarette from his breast pocket, struck a match and lit it. ‘You’ve forgotten what drew you to me in the first place.’

  ‘I haven’t … It’s … Harold, we’ve known each other a long time.’ The words caught in her throat and came out slowly and awkwardly.

  Inhaling, he turned back towards her, tilting his head to aim the smoke away from her. ‘I’m like a bad habit that’s hard to break, eh?’

  She frowned at him, bewildered by a feeling that something had set cold and hard in the soft, loving part of her. ‘That must be it,’ she agreed, abruptly setting off back the way they’d come.

  Nothing was definite. Millicent and Harold had parted at the tram shelter on Overcliffe Road without arranging another meeting but leaving the door open for when either of them wanted to get in touch.

  ‘You know where to find me,’ she’d told him.

  ‘Likewise,’ he’d replied. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been down in the mouth lately. I’ve got a lot on my plate.’

  ‘I know. I do understand.’ She didn’t want to finish on this note – to be making an ending just at the point where Harold’s whole world might collapse.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he’d promised as a tram rattled towards them.

  She’d stayed inside the shelter as he’d got on and she’d waited until it was out of sight. Then she’d walked home and gone straight to bed, still trying to pin down the answer to his question – why had she taken up with Harold in the first place?

  ‘A penny for them?’ Next day, Norma leaned over from her switchboard to speak to Millicent. Saturday was a slack morning at the exchange, with offices closed for the weekend and many private subscribers out at the shops.

  ‘Sorry?’ Millicent slid her headset back from her ears.

  ‘Never mind. You looked as if you were miles away, that’s all.’

  ‘I only wish I was.’ The morning had dragged and the weekend ahead held out little promise of excitement of any kind.

  Guessing that Harold was the reason behind Millicent’s sad face, Norma changed the subject. ‘It won’t be long before we can talk to Clare and set her straight,’ she reminded her. ‘That’s your job for this afternoon, remember.’

  Millicent nodded then caught sight of Cynthia hunched over one of her training manuals inside the supes’ office, looking up as Agnes entered the room. Cynthia asked a question and Agnes supplied the answer by pointing to the booklet in front of her. ‘Poor lamb,’ Millicent commented. ‘She spends her whole life trying to please, does that one.’

  ‘Who – Cynthia?’

  Millicent nodded. ‘She’s like Clare in that respect. Neither of them has much notion of how to stand up for herself, especially where men are concerned.’

  ‘But you’re not comparing Wilf Evans with Sidney Hall, I hope?’

  ‘Who can guess what Wilf’s up to these days? All I know is that it’s a good job we’re keeping an eye out for Cynthia, because no one else will.’

  ‘Says the woman of the world!’ Norma wasn’t so sure that their new recruit was as helpless as Millicent supposed. She saw ambition in Cynthia and a determination to succeed, which was not the same as falling over backwards in a desire to please.

  Inside the office, Cynthia soaked up Agnes’s advice about how to deal with irate customers whose conversations had been broken into by other subscribers who shared their party line. ‘You must explain politely that the line is busy and that we’re working hard to improve our service. Apologize then helpfully suggest that they try to avoid peak-time calls in future.’

  Cynthia nodded and made mental notes. With only a few minutes to go before the end of her shift, she began to look ahead to her appointment at the hairdresser’s, wondering what Millicent would say to Clare while she and Norma got their hair done. Fingers crossed, she thought as one o’clock arrived and she joined the others on their way out of the building.

  The glare of the sun hit them as they stepped down on to the pavement and walked the few yards down the street. Sam Bower’s sun blind was rolled down and there were customers queuing to get into the busy barber’s shop. Further along, they heard the ring of a shop bell and saw Mrs Parr emerge from her salon with Sidney Hall hard on her heels.

  ‘Wouldn’t you just know it?’ Norma said as she watched the duo get into Sidney’s car and drive off. ‘That man hangs around like a bad smell.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s good that they’ve both gone out.’ Cynthia realized that this gave Millicent a clear run for her talk with Clare.

  However, when they went through the door, they found no sign of the receptionist. Instead, Barbara was at the desk checking the diary for the afternoon’s appointments. The small, blonde hairdresser welcomed them with a cherry-lipped smile and offered Millicent a seat close to the window. Then she took Cynthia and Norma further into the salon where she sat them down in front of large mirrors and Margaret joined her to drape nylon capes around their customers’ shoulders.

  Cynthia kept an eye on a nearby trolley laden with metal curlers and perm lotion, shampoos and scissors, next to an electrical contraption on a metal stand shaped like a beehive that went over your head to dry your hair. It was all new to her and she quaked a little under Margaret’s critical gaze. Her earlier nerve failed. ‘Just a trim for me, please.’

  The hairdresser took up her scissors. ‘How much shall I take off – an inch, two inches?’

  ‘Two inches, please,’ she answered daringly.

  ‘With a fringe or without?’

  ‘I’ll keep it without.’ Cynthia steered away from this too-drastic option.

  ‘And would you like a side parting to the left or the right?’ Less smiley than Barbara, the tall stylist assessed the task ahead of her.

  ‘To before the left, please.’

  ‘But no permanent wave?’

  ‘No, ta.’

  ‘No, you’re right. Your hair has a natural curl and it’s nice and thick. I think we could take a little more off the length, though – perhaps level with your chin.’

  Sitting next to her, Norma smiled at Cynthia then gave confident instructions to chatty Barbara. ‘A short, smart bob, please. And no perm for me either.’ She heard the bell ring and looked in the mirror to see Clare come in carrying a batch of new magazines. Now, Millicent, here’s your chance! she thought.

  Millicent stood up and intercepted Clare as she made her way to her desk. ‘Hello, I was hoping I’d catch you,’ she began warmly.

  ‘Hello, Millicent.’ Clare seemed wary of the friendly greeting. ‘What’s up? Ruth Ridley isn’t after me about leaving the Health and Beauty class, is she?’

  ‘Ruth? No. She’s given you up as a lost cause. I wanted to talk to you about something else entirely.’

  As Barbara and Margaret combed and snipped away, Norma and Cy
nthia stared into the mirror, keeping their eyes glued on Millicent and Clare’s reflection. Underneath their capes, both had their fingers firmly crossed.

  Clare sidestepped Millicent to go behind her desk and spread the magazines across the high counter. Glossy, made-up faces smiled out at them from the front covers of Woman’s Own and Vogue.

  ‘It’s about Sidney Hall,’ Millicent said with none of her usual flippancy.

  Clare placed both hands on the counter to steady herself. ‘What about him?’

  ‘I … we’ve heard a few things we thought you should know.’

  ‘Not now, Millicent. I’m busy.’

  ‘Just listen – all right? Normally I’d be the first to say it wasn’t any of my business—’

  ‘That’s right. It isn’t.’ With a flushed, stubborn look, Clare pretended to concentrate on the appointments diary.

  ‘Hear me out. I’ll come straight to the point, Clare – what do you really know about Sidney and what he gets up to?’

  ‘Leave me alone.’ When Clare looked up, her mouth was puckered in angry defiance and her face had turned pale. ‘You hear me, Millicent – mind your own business!’

  Even from a distance, Norma and Cynthia could tell that Millicent was getting nowhere. Then, as soon as Barbara cottoned on to the fact there was an argument going on, she excused herself, put down her scissors and hurried across to the reception desk.

  ‘Mrs Parr wanted me to pass on a message,’ she told Clare, speaking slowly and studiously ignoring Millicent. ‘She says that Vincent will pick you up tonight at seven o’clock.’

  Clare’s eyelids flickered and she leaned more heavily on the counter. ‘Seven?’ she repeated in a whisper. ‘Right you are.’

  Vincent? Who’s that, when he’s at home? Millicent thought.

  Her message delivered, Barbara went back to work, snipping away with surgical precision at Norma’s bob.

  Millicent watched Clare’s face. The stubborn anger had vanished and now fear took its place. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’