‘I don’t see why you need it anyway,’ he sneered. ‘You can afford to keep your lad at College instead of out at work like other lads.’
‘His fees and expenses are paid for by his scholarship,’ Greg said quietly, but the other man laughed.
‘I don’t see the point of it meself. He’ll only grow up thinking he’s better than other people, and you know y’self, that’ll be no benefit to him.’
A hot tide of anger rose in Greg and he longed to punch the man, but he only said firmly, ‘That’s beside the point.’ He laid a neatly written paper on the desk. ‘These are my reasons for asking to be upgraded.’
He had listed several items: the fact that he had been carrying out the duties of a senior clerk who had died and not been replaced, extra responsibility and hours worked without pay, but the manager had scarcely glanced at the paper before pushing it aside.
‘Are you complaining?’ he said roughly.
‘No, just making a request.’
The manager snapped, ‘Refused. You make up this wasted time by working late.’
Greg returned to his desk, angry with the manager and furious with himself for not being more aggressive.
For the rest of the day he was conscious of sidelong glances from the other men, but only one spoke of his visit to the manager’s office.
‘Got nowhere with old Greenwood then, old chap?’ he said. ‘You won’t, you know. He’s still afraid to use the telephone. He never got over that time you spoke on it, and that London fellow thought you were the manager.’
‘He couldn’t be so petty,’ Greg exclaimed.
‘He could, y’know,’ the other man said. ‘You’re not going to get any further while he’s in charge, I’m afraid, so you might as well resign yourself to it.’
Greg still felt angry and humiliated as he walked home. James Furlong joined him. He was a small shopkeeper whose son Joe was a fellow pupil of John’s, and seemed to delight in telling Greg that John had been in trouble at school.
‘Got the strap, my lad said,’ he announced with satisfaction, ‘for slovenly homework. That’s one thing our Joe will never be punished for, I see to that.’
Greg made no reply and left Furlong as soon as possible, making the excuse of buying an evening paper. He rarely bought a newspaper but was determined to redouble his efforts to change his job and move house, and wanted to search the paper for situations vacant and houses to rent.
One of the bitterest aspects of poverty, he found, was never having any money to spare for even the smallest treat for his wife and children, so it was galling to be shown the gift from his son to Cathy, then to be confronted with an impudent and hostile look from John, just when his spirits were at their lowest ebb.
When Sarah had left Cathy went back into the kitchen, intending to challenge Greg, but a glance at him as he sat slumped in his chair, his feeling of misery and failure clearly showing in his face, made her change her mind.
She recalled her mother saying once, ‘You’ve got to give and take, love. Keep back the angry word when Greg’s feeling low, and I know he’ll do the same with you. Dad says we’re like the couple in the weather house, taking turns to come out on the sunny side.’
Cathy had laughed at the time but now she remembered her mother’s words and spoke gently and cheerfully to Greg.
Sarah returned with the loaf and the fish and chips, followed by Mick and John. While Cathy served out the meal, Sarah stood with her arm round her father’s neck, telling him about an order she had helped Elsie to make.
‘It was a little chair all made of flowers for a lady from Scotland Road who had died. Her family all put together for it. Elsie put a little purple banner across it, saying “The Vacant Chair”. It was very sad, Dad.’
‘I’m sure it was, pet,’ he said, hugging her. Mick and Kate chattered to him so that his spirits lifted and he was able to smile at Cathy before going to wash his hands.
Later he sat and read through the newspaper, but the only jobs advertized seemed to be for highly trained men or domestic servants. Among the news in the paper was a report from America describing New York as “Boom Town” with thousands of dollars changing hands in wild speculation. Perhaps I should have copied Sam and gone there, he thought, but he knew that Cathy would have been miserable away from her parents.
Chapter Eight
Greg told her nothing about his day until they were in bed, then he said in a muffled voice, ‘I went in to ask for a rise today, Cath, but it was refused.’
She put her arms round him. ‘You tried anyway, love.’
‘Not very forcefully,’ he said with a sigh. ‘But Jack Almond told me I’d never get on while Greenwood’s the manager. He’s got his knife into me for some reason.’
‘He can’t sack you anyway,’ she comforted him, ‘And we’re lucky that you’ve got a job. Plenty of people in Liverpool would give their right arm for one.’
‘But it’s so poorly paid, Cath, and I can’t see any hope of getting anything better – or getting away from this house. I’m sorry I shouted at John like that but I was so fed up, and meeting that fellow Furlong was the last straw.’
‘So that’s who it was,’ she said. ‘I might have known!’
But Greg went on, ‘It all seems so hopeless. Our lives are passing while I’m stuck in this job, not earning enough to keep us. I’m ashamed, Cath, that you have to scrimp and go short of so much.’
A street lamp shone into the room. Cathy could see the lines of worry on Greg’s thin, sensitive face, and with a sudden rush of tenderness she drew his face down to hers and kissed him.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ she whispered. ‘We get by. We’ve got enough food and respectable clothes. Don’t worry about another job either. You know you’re safe in the railway job. Greenwood can’t sack you.’
“No, but he can report me for misconduct and then I’d be sacked. I think that’s why he’s trying to provoke me, and he damn nearly succeeded today.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, trying to hide her alarm.
‘I don’t know how I stopped myself from punching him this morning and telling him what I thought of him,’ Greg said, ‘but that would have been playing into his hands. I despise myself for keeping quiet while he pushes this extra work on to me, all the time finding niggling faults with it, but what can I do, Cath? You must despise me too,’ he added bitterly.
‘Indeed I don’t,’ she said. ‘It was more manly to stop yourself hitting him, and a lot harder. I respect you for it.’
‘You’re so loyal,’ he said, but the lines of worry remained on his face. Cathy kissed him again, tenderly. ‘Don’t think about it any more, love,’ she said. ‘We’ve got each other so nothing else matters, does it?’
‘Oh, Cathy, Cathy,’ he murmured, holding her close and kissing her passionately. He kissed her throat and breasts and she responded with equal passion. Their worries were forgotten as their bodies merged in love.
Later, as she lay in his arms, he smoothed her hair back from her forehead and kissed her gently.
‘I’m the richest man alive while I’ve got you, Cathy,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I worried you with my troubles.’
‘Don’ be, Greg. “A trouble shared is a trouble halved,” Mam says, and anyway I’m not worried. I’m happy, aren’t you?’
Kate still slept in the corner of their room. Now she stirred and suddenly said loudly, ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Greg whispered, as Cathy buried her head against his chest to stifle her giggles. She could feel his body shaking with suppressed laughter, but Kate had settled again, and soon Greg too slipped off to sleep.
Cathy lay awake for a while thinking of the worry she was unable to share, her debt at the corner shop, but she pushed the thought away. Instead she thought of the day she had met Greg when she had been injured in the Bloody Sunday riots and he had carried her to lie on his mother’s sofa in their flat in London Road.
She had opened her eyes and seen his face above h
er, his expression of concern and sudden sweet smile. For both of us it was love at first sight, she thought, looking at his dear face on the pillow beside her. He seemed relaxed and happy now, and Cathy smiled to see it. Our Mary wouldn’t have made him happy, she thought. She only wanted him because he was the only man who didn’t fall for her, and because he owned the jeweller’s shop. I wonder how she’d have liked living in Norris Street… The next moment Cathy too had drifted off to sleep.
* * *
A few weeks later Jack Almond, who worked with Greg, asked him if he could get some wood for him at cost price. Jack’s son, now eighteen months old, was able to climb the stairs and several times had tumbled down them.
‘I’ll have to make a gate for the stairs,’ he said, ‘but I don’t want to use orange boxes because of the splinters, and new wood’s so dear.’
Greg went to the woodyard on his way home but the owner, who had once worked for Greg’s father, was busy. While Greg waited for him he wandered round the woodyard, talking to the workmen. He savoured the smell of new wood, and listened fascinated as one of the men filled an order from different stacks of wood and told him what they were best used for.
He was standing beside a stack of redwood, running his hand over it, when the owner, Stan Johnson, came looking for him.
‘Hello, Mr Greg,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’ He looked hot and flustered and when Greg asked diffidently if he could have the wood for Jack at cost, Johnson said in an abstracted voice: ‘Yes, yes.’ They walked together to the hut that Stan used as an office. Suddenly he said furiously, ‘That bloody shark! Trying to say I haven’t paid my bill. I know damn’ well that I have, and he knows it too.’
‘Didn’t he mark it paid or give you a receipt?’ Greg asked. They had reached the “office”. Stan waved his hand.
‘It’s here somewhere, I’m sure, but how the hell am I going to find it by Tuesday?’
Greg looked at the confusion in amazement. Papers on the desk looked as though they had been stirred up by a stick, probably in more disorder than usual because of Stan’s search, but they were also heaped on a chair in the corner and in boxes on the floor.
‘Y’see what I mean?’ Stan said. ‘That’s what the bugger’s counting on – that I won’t find it in time.’
Papers began to slide from the desk. Greg seized some as they fell and pushed the others back. The bundle in his hand consisted of delivery notes, invoices, bills and orders, all mixed together. Greg found a clear space on the top of a small cupboard and sorted them on to it.
Stan Johnson watched him and gave a gusty sigh. ‘That’s what I should do, I suppose, but I wouldn’t know where to start with all this.’ He took a pencil from behind his ear. ‘Did your mate give you the measurements?’ he asked. Greg gave him a slip of paper with these and Johnson made a quick calculation, but they were interrupted by a workman who poked his head into the office.
‘Will you have a look at this two by four before we load it, Mr Johnson?’
‘Aye, all right,’ Stan Johnson said. He turned to Greg. ‘Hang on a minute, will you? I might be able to find a bit of offcut would do this.’
He bustled out and Greg began to tidy the papers on the desk and add them to the appropriate pile on the cupboard. He found a box of rubber bands and secured the piles on the cupboard with these. By this time he had cleared enough space on the desk to start fresh orderly piles. Stan paused in amazement when he came back.
‘Bloody hell, it looks better already,’ he said. ‘I could do with someone to see to this for me, I suppose, but I don’t want anybody knowing me business.’
Greg’s face grew red. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t trying to butt in. I only glanced at the papers to see what they were.’
‘I don’t mean you, Mr Greg,’ Stan said hastily. ‘Bloody hell, you’re no stranger; but I’ll have to do something, I suppose. This is only the half of it. I’ve got boxes full at home as well. He looked again at the papers Greg had sorted. ‘I wish—’
‘Yes, I’ll sort them,’ Greg said. ‘I’ll be glad to.’ He smiled. ‘You’ve done me plenty of good turns. If I get all the receipted bills together, you might be able to find the one you’ve been looking for.’
Stan was called away again and Greg settled down to sort out the rest of the papers on the desk. He enjoyed bringing order out of the chaos and worked quickly, careful though only to glance at headings to identify the type of transaction.
When Stan returned he went through the bundles of paid bills Greg handed to him, and soon gave a shout.
‘Got it! Now I’ll spike that bugger’s guns.’ He was like an excited child, slapping his thigh and chuckling as he waved the paper and said over and over again, ‘I’ve got him. I’ve got him now.’
In his excitement he knocked the pile of bills to the floor and looked at Greg in comical dismay, but he laughed as he gathered up the papers and secured them again with the elastic band.
‘That’s saved me eighty pounds nearly,’ Stan said when he had calmed down. ‘As well as wiping that bugger’s eye. We’ll have to have a drink on this.’ He groped in a cupboard and brought out a bottle of rum and two glasses then poured a generous amount for each of them.
‘I’m bloody made up,’ he said. ‘You’ve done me a bloody good turn there, Mr Greg.’ He took a gulp of his rum. ‘You know, before you said you’d do this, I wasn’t throwing a hint when I said “I wish”. I was going to say I wished you could do the job for me permanently. But you’ve already got a bloody good job, haven’t you?’
Greg’s heart leapt but he only said quietly, ‘I wouldn’t call it that, Stan, but it’s safe and there’s a pension at the end of it.’
Greg felt that it was only the euphoria of the moment and possibly the rum also which had prompted Stan’s offer of a job, but he said earnestly, ‘I couldn’t offer you no pension but the job’d be safe here for as long as you wanted it, Mr Greg. I need someone I can trust. Your father was as straight as a die, and I know you are too.’
‘But could you afford another wage just for having paperwork done?’
‘I’m beginning to think I can’t afford not to have it looked after properly,’ Stan said. ‘It’s not just this chancer today. I’ve mislaid orders and lost them, and I’m in a right bloody muddle all round. I hate this side of the business, and I’m losing money stuck in here while I’m needed in the yard. They’re mostly good lads but there’s a few skivers among them who take advantage, as well as things going wrong because I’m not on the spot.’
‘But perhaps you only need someone for a couple of days a week?’ Greg said. ‘I don’t know what you’ve got at home but the paperwork here could soon be straightened out.’
‘A few days?’ Stan exclaimed. ‘Bugger that for a tale. You know I’ve bought the land behind this yard? I’m growing all the time and this is only the start. Tell me straight now, Mr Greg, will you come here? I can only pay three pounds a week for a start, but as I make more so will you. The lads’ll tell you I’ve always treated them fair.’
Greg stood up and held out his hand. ‘I’ll take the job, and glad to have it,’ he said. ‘I’ll do my best to do a good job for you, Stan.’
‘It’s not a big wage,’ he began but Greg interrupted him.
‘It’s a damn sight more than I’m getting now, and I hate the job I’m in. Rules and regulations galore, and a bully for a boss – I’ve been trying for months to find something else. Believe me, I’m very grateful for this job.’
‘Right then, we’re both suited because you’re just the fellow I need,’ Stan said. ‘We’ll have another drop of rum on that and then I’d better get home or me missus’ll have me life. How about yours?’
‘I often have to work late,’ Greg said. ‘Unpaid,’ he added with a smile.
‘What notice will you have to give?’
‘A week. I could start here a week on Monday.’
‘Good. Half-past eight till six, and twelve o’clock Saturdays,’ S
tan said. ‘That wood you want, is the lad coming for it? Tell him there’s no charge. Goodnight, Mr Greg.’
‘Goodnight,’ said Greg. He hesitated a moment then said quietly, ‘We must change that. I’ll have to start calling you Mr Johnson from now on. You’ll have to stop saying Mr Greg too.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Stan said with a laugh. ‘All right, Mr Redmond.’
Greg rushed home so quickly that he was breathless when he arrived. Cathy looked up in alarm. He lifted her off her feet and swung her round. ‘I’ve got a job, a new job! Three pounds a week, Cathy, and maybe more later.’
She had just opened the oven when he arrived but he slammed the door shut and pulled her down to sit on the sofa with him. He poured out the tale of Jack Almond’s wood and the missing bill and all Stan had said, but Cathy could only say dazedly: ‘Three pounds a week. Oh, Greg!’
They were both too excited to eat but the children gladly accepted larger helpings of hotpot, and Cathy gave them recklessly large handfuls from a bag of broken biscuits Peggy Burns had given her.
Greg repeated the story of all that had happened at the woodyard several times, exulting in the prospect of giving his notice to Mr Greenwood, while Cathy planned all that she would do with the extra money, starting with paying off her debt to Mrs Cain.
After a while she said, ‘I must tell Mam and Dad. I’ll run down now, Greg – or do you want to tell them yourself?’
‘No, it’s all right,’ he said, but Cathy felt it was mean to leave him alone on such an occasion.
‘Why don’t we both go?’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ll take Kate. The others are old enough to leave.’ She called Sarah and told her where they were going, and they went together to tell Sally and Lawrie the good news.
Kate ran into the parlour to Josh while Greg again told the tale of the wood for Jack Almond and all that had happened at the woodyard. ‘I can’t wait to see Greenwood’s face when I say I’m leaving,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I could have stood another day in that office.’
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