Bobby on the Beat

by Pamela Rhodes

  ‘Ah, Miss Rhodes, there you are.’ She looked over her specs. She was examining a long list of something on a very important-looking bit of paper.

  ‘We like our girls to arrive at a quarter to the clock, so if you could keep good time in future.’

  She didn’t look up as she spoke.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Preen,’ I said, with a slight curtsy.

  There was no messing with Mrs Preen. She ruled with an iron rod and was always turned out smartly, with neat grey hair in a pristine bob, nothing ever out of place. I was to spend many an hour arranging stacks of clothes into perfect order, ready for her keen inspection.

  There were four sales girls in our department, and I was the fourth. Bottom of the rung. It was hard work, with little room for excitement. If jumpers came in too small and a larger size was required by a customer, I’d have to stretch them out and iron them to make them bigger. I marked off stock when it came in and marked up prices. Very occasionally, if we had four customers and all the other girls were busy, I served on the shopfloor, which broke up the monotony a bit. When customers paid, the money went into a long metal tube which was then put into a shoot up to the mythical-sounding ‘counting house’.

  Our department was on the mezzanine floor and the view from the window was straight out to sea, at times seemingly into infinity. Sometimes it took my breath away, until Mrs Preen screeched across the floor at me to stop daydreaming.

  There was a hairdressing department and a restaurant on the first floor, and on the ground floor there were other departments with posh names like Model Gowns, Millinery and Furs.

  Two of the other women on my floor, May and Fay, were in their thirties. I always got them muddled up. They were very competitive: May was second sales girl and Fay was third, but Fay thought she should be second and had her eye on the position.

  Then there was Miss Fraser, who had been there for hundreds of years and was about 300 years old. She told me that when she had joined, back in the 1930s, she had actually lived in the shop, along with some of the other older employees, in a dormitory on the top floor. I couldn’t imagine living here and never leaving. How awful!

  For the first few weeks, I would have my lunch with Miss Fraser as I didn’t know anyone else. She told me about her life during the First World War and about her son who had died. At first I was fascinated, then I got a bit bored of hearing the same stories over and over again. I suppose, on reflection, she was lonely, but at the time I longed to meet someone my own age who I could have a giggle with.

  Just when I thought I might die of boredom, everyone was suddenly in a frenzy. Mr Richardson, the store manager, had caused a hoo-ha by announcing we were to be hosting a fashion show. When the big day finally arrived, Mrs Preen was running around, straightening displays and shepherding us girls to take armfuls of ladieswear to the restaurant on the top floor where it was all taking place. Just as I was rounding a particularly large pillar, carrying a pile of clothes, I banged smack-wallop into a girl coming the other way, carrying an equally enormous load.

  We both said ‘Sorry!’ at the same time, and laughed.

  ‘Mrs Smith will have my guts for garters if I tarry,’ said the girl, who introduced herself as Jane. ‘I’ve got to model children’s wear. Can you imagine?’ she said. ‘Are you modelling too?’

  ‘Oh no. I’m new.’

  We walked together to the restaurant floor, where all the tables and chairs had been pushed aside to make an aisle for the models. In those days, they actually called the real live models mannequins, and it was a ‘mannequin parade’ rather than a fashion show. Some of the girls had come all the way from London, while others like Jane were from the store itself.

  A local trio played a song from Oklahoma! and a very tall young woman, who looked like a film star, came tottering up the aisle, swishing a fox fur. I was gobsmacked by how glamorous it all seemed, with this mannequin, all the way from London, in our shop.

  Mrs Preen was flapping around next to the racks of clothes. She had just realized that Fay, who was supposed to be modelling for our department, was ill in bed with the flu and there was no way she could make it.

  ‘Oh Lord, the pedal pushers! And we’ve got Andrea Maracci up from London. I so desperately wanted him to see them.’

  I had no idea who that was but he sounded important.

  ‘Pamela, don’t just stand there gawping. You’ll have to do it.’

  Me? I thought. I’ve never modelled anything in my life!

  But before I could protest, she thrust something into my hands, a pair of bright blue cut-off trousers, and waved me over to the dressing area.

  ‘Come on, girl, don’t be shy, get behind that screen now. Quick-chop. Remember – permanent smile!’

  As I struggled with the pedal pushers, it was Jane’s turn up the aisle. She looked really confident, carrying a big sign with the word ‘Teenagers’ across the front. Teenage fashion was becoming a whole new style in its own right.

  As soon as the song finished, I’d be next. Hopping on one foot and then the next, I got my leg stuck, but managed to get the trousers on just in time. I smoothed down my hair, then walked as confidently as I could onto the catwalk. Jane gave me a wink as she passed, and I tried to keep Mrs Preen’s ‘permanent smile’ on my face, head up, back straight.

  ‘Here we have our latest in Women’s Separates, for all those new gals about town.’

  Mr Richardson had taken the microphone. He revelled in being the compere at any event.

  As I turned at the other end of the aisle, I nearly tripped on a wayward shoe, but managed to keep my balance by grabbing onto a pillar and, with a little impromptu twirl, made it back in one piece.

  When it was all over, the spectators actually clapped and I couldn’t help feeling a glow of pride that I’d been a real live mannequin for the day.

  However, despite the occasional glimmer of glamour, I soon began to tire of clothes and coupons, Miss Fraser’s stories and Mrs Preen’s sharp tongue. I wanted to see more of the world and I wasn’t likely to find it here, ironing skirts.

  Every time we had Saturday afternoon off work, Jane and I would have lunch at a little cafe on the seafront. It was a penny for Yorkshire pud and rice pudding and we gobbled it down, making all kinds of plans for the rest of our lives, planning our escape from Marshall’s. As we tucked into our treats that day, Jane was pouring over an advert she’d seen in the local paper.

  It said: Assisted Passage. Start a New Life Across the World: New Zealand for only £10.

  ‘But what would we do there? It’s so far.’

  ‘I don’t know. Be waitresses or something. Come on. Let’s write to them and ask!’ said Jane, her eyes shining.

  So we shook on it that we’d write to the address listed and see if we could get a place on the next boat. I didn’t know much about New Zealand except that it was miles and miles away, took weeks to get there and there were mountains, maybe even volcanoes. I’d seen an article in National Geographic once and I knew they had some strange animals, lizards with big heads and a bird called a kiwi that looked furry.

  We drafted the letter the next day:

  Dear Sir,

  Please can we get an assisted passage to New Zealand so we can start a new life? We are very hard working and would be an asset to your country. We have saved up £3 and five shillings, between us.

  Yours sincerely,

  Pamela Rhodes and Jane Willow

  PS We don’t get seasick and would be no trouble at all on the boat either.

  Actually I had no idea whether I got seasick since I’d never been on a boat, apart from the small ones in Scarborough, but I thought it should give us the best chance. We posted the letter, which needed seven stamps, and crossed our fingers for a swift reply. As the letter plopped into the post box, I realized I had been so caught up in the excitement I hadn’t even discussed it with Mam and Dad and vowed to let them know my news over tea that evening.

  When I got home I heard voices from the
living room and peeped round the door. Dad’s friend, Sergeant Baker, was sitting on the special chair that Granny always sat in, the one with the reclining back. We all called him ‘Dad’s billiard friend’ on account of the fact that they played billiards together every Thursday. I noticed they had the good china out, and biscuits too. It must be something big then. But they were laughing, so it couldn’t be serious.

  Sergeant Baker was wearing his police uniform and his hat was on the table. He had a streak of silvery-white hair like a badger, and unnervingly wild, staring brown eyes. I was apprehensive of the whole situation and tried to creep past up the stairs.

  ‘Is that you, Pamela?’ called out Dad. ‘We’ve got a visitor.’

  I walked in reluctantly and the Sergeant shook my hand so firmly he nearly broke my fingers.

  I was desperate to talk to Mam and Dad about my plans for New Zealand, but there he was, grinning back at me. Finally Dad spoke.

  ‘Brian here says they have a vacancy at his station. For a woman. In the police. So what do you think about that then?’

  A vacancy? The police? What’s all this? I knew nothing about the police, apart from old PC Bennett, our village bobby, and that run-in from aeons ago with Mary. Would it mean arresting villains? Maybe I’d have to identify dead bodies. Eurgh.

  ‘There are more women now joining the force, but still not enough. We have a female sergeant up at HQ, Freeman. Excellent specimen. But we’re encouraging more. And with our towns and cities growing at such a pace, we need everyone to do their bit to protect the rule of law and order.’ Sergeant Baker’s eyes darted around the room with unsettling enthusiasm.

  ‘So what do you think?’ asked Dad eagerly. ‘Do you want to give it a go?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. Maybe. It hadn’t even occurred to me to consider …’

  ‘Well. Think it over, lass. You’ve got until next week. And when you do decide to join, there’s a round of interviews next week, so you can stay with me and the wife up in Northallerton.’

  Dumbfounded by the whole thing, I made my excuses, said I’d think about it, and left. My head was spinning with the new possibilities my hitherto uneventful life had suddenly presented.

  The next day, at work, I kept getting everything wrong and it seemed like the longest morning ever. First was ironing, and I managed to burn a huge hole in a really expensive cardigan. They came all the way from Ireland and I knew Mrs Preen would have a fit, so I tried to hide it under some skirts, hoping it might just miraculously disappear.

  On the shopfloor wasn’t any better. I had a nightmare customer who all us girls dreaded. We called her Dog Lady. She wore a huge hat, a different one each day with a different kind of fruit on it, and she carried her yappy dog, Snuffles, everywhere with her. She dressed the animal in clothes to match her own outfit and today they were both wearing peach-coloured jackets.

  Dog Lady was renowned for trying on a hundred outfits in one go, then rejecting them one by one, for being too big or too small, too thin or too thick, too red or not red enough. As she preened and considered the clothes in front of the big mirror, Snuffles, with whom I had now been charged, kept trying to lick the inside of my nose. Meanwhile, she reeled off a list of questions.

  ‘Is this hand-stitched? Where does this cloth come from? Is it silk? Are you using those terrible new synthetic fibres, made by chemists? Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous in your life?’

  She even complained that one of the blouses she tried on smelled of cabbage and someone must have worn it before. I kept smiling until my mouth ached and tried to control the wretched Snuffles, who had wriggled away and was now nibbling his way along the clothes rail.

  I was desperate for my lunch break too, so I could see Jane and tell her about Sergeant Baker and The Visit. Eventually Dog Lady decided she didn’t have enough to buy anything anyway and she left, squeezing the breath out of the poor animal at her side.

  I wasn’t out of the woods just yet, though. Mrs Preen approached, holding up the offending cardigan.

  ‘I found this,’ she held up the article as though it were contaminated, ‘stuffed – can you believe, stuffed? – under some skirts in the stock room. Pamela, do you know anything about this? Weren’t you on ironing this morning?’

  ‘I, umm, sorry, Mrs Preen. I was going to tell you but we got so busy and …’

  ‘Do you know how much these cost? They should be treated with respect. And with rationing the way it is! Do you know what it’s worth? Well?’

  ‘I’m so sorry. It’ll never happen again. But I’ve really got to go. I’m sorry.’

  For once I didn’t care about the consequences, and, totally out of character, I dashed off, leaving Mrs Preen stunned, still holding up the garment, while I went to meet Jane.

  I told her in one long torrent all about the meeting I’d had with my dad’s billiard friend, and she thought the whole thing sounded thrilling.

  ‘It might be really exciting,’ she said, ‘all those handsome officers, and crimes and murders to solve.’

  Apart from a few crime books, I really had no idea what being in the police force would be like, and I doubted it would be like it was in the novels, all jewel thieves and handsome rogues. But in the end, I decided what the heck, it could be fun, and anything to get me away from the dreaded Mrs Preen.

  That evening, I told Mam and Dad that I had decided to give the police thing a go.

  ‘Brian’ll be chuffed,’ said Dad as he flopped down on the chair after work. ‘He’s right keen to get more women in the force. Since the war they’re up to all sorts.’

  ‘Oh yes. Mabel from school made aeroplane parts and now she’s a mechanic,’ Mam said. ‘She has to wear overalls and use a spanner and everything. And her friend Liza. She even flew planes during the war. You’ll do as well as any of those lads, I know it.’

  Mam’s kind smile filled me to the brim with confidence.

  ‘Pass the newspaper, would you?’ asked Dad, and he started flicking through it. After a little while he remarked, ‘Hmm, nothing much new. War in Korea. Isn’t Fred’s boy out there?’

  ‘Yes. Awful business,’ sighed Mam.

  ‘More bad news. Who’s dead then?’

  ‘George, don’t be so …’

  ‘Never heard of him. Or him.’ He continued to look through the obituaries. Then he said, ‘Hey, isn’t that that singer?’

  ‘Isn’t who that singer?’ asked Mam.

  ‘That Welsh singer. Who signed your photo in that beauty competition.’

  ‘What beauty competition?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh that! That was years ago. Ivor Novello.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the badger. Well, he’s dead.’

  ‘Oh no! He was so handsome,’ Mam said. ‘Lovely eyes. How?’

  ‘Coronary.’

  ‘What beauty competition?’ I asked again loudly.

  ‘Before you were born. Before I met your father actually. In the twenties,’ Mam told me.

  ‘Go and get the picture,’ said Dad, so I sat there intrigued as Mam went upstairs and rummaged about for a while. Eventually, she came back with a black and white photo and put it on the table in front of us. At the bottom was a large, curly signature in blue ink. Ivor Novello.

  ‘You look so young. Like a film star,’ I said, holding the photo up to the light.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ she said and smiled, as her younger self looked back at her from all those years ago. ‘I don’t know why I did it really. I had this mad notion about being a mannequin and I went in for this competition. We all had to dress up swanky, like, and be photographed. And Ivor Novello was the judge. I got asked to go and do a screen test in Leeds. He signed my picture. I just can’t believe he’s gone.’

  At that moment I realized this woman, my mother, had a life of her own. She wasn’t just Mam. She had a past, youthful dreams, young larks, hopes and fears. And even now, all the time I was at work or out with friends, sorting out my own life, hers carried on minute
by minute too. But I would never know what really went on in her mind, or who she really was.

  I looked at the photo again, and the signature from Ivor Novello. I felt proud of her, but also a little sad. She still looked young now she was in her forties, but where once her skin had been clear and bright, now lines were starting to form round her eyes and there were shadows under her eyes.

  ‘Innocent times. I’m not like that any more,’ she said sadly and turned the photo over.

  Dad looked up and smiled. ‘You are to me.’

  I applied to the police by letter, to Headquarters at Northallerton, and soon got a reply that there was to be an interview and a written exam for the course, which started that June.

  I had the time off work already, so I didn’t have to explain anything to Mrs Preen and Jane was sworn to secrecy.

  I had to change trains a couple of times on my way to Northallerton. On the last train, I ended up in a carriage with a woman who was trying to control her small son. His sailor outfit was all covered in chocolate and he kept trying to stick his head out of the window to look at the ‘choo-choo chimney’. She was fighting a losing battle to get him to sit still and gave me one of those defeated looks as if to say, what can you do? I told her I was off to be interviewed for the police.

  ‘Ooh, they have ladies do that now, don’t they?’ she said. ‘Sit down, Billy! You can’t take him anywhere. So will you be working with the men, then? And doing what they do and arresting folks and so on? I’ll have to be on my best behaviour then, won’t I?’

  I said I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing yet, but that I had to meet the Chief Constable and do a written exam. As I said the words, it sounded very grand and official.

  I looked out of the window as the Yorkshire countryside whizzed by, its landscapes half-familiar from childhood holidays. Huddles of cows and stone walls flashed by in a blur. A farmer hunched in his field eating a sandwich; a woman tried to control her washing in the wind. I wondered what we’d have for tea and whether the food would be good at the Bakers. I was starving. I looked up at the little boy, who had finally exhausted himself into sleep on his mother’s lap. With the only sound the clattering of the train, I soon drifted off myself.