by Maggie Ford
‘We’ve no money for taxis, Mummy,’ Julia said gently. ‘And you wouldn’t want to travel in a bus.’
The light died in her mother’s eyes and she wanted to run and cuddle her as Victoria said, ‘I expect you’re right, dear. I feel safer inside. I don’t like the people round here. So rough and uncouth, they frighten me. I hear them at night coming out of pubs, laughing and shouting and quarrelling.’
Julia surveyed her. She was like a little mouse, afraid of the world, hiding away behind a dark skirting-board. Would she ever change?
‘I’ll be home as quickly as I can,’ she promised and hurried out of the room, through the kitchen and out on to the landing.
There she took a deep fortifying breath and immediately felt better.
Simon was waiting in his shop. It was looking so much brighter since she had got to work on it. The counter gleamed and sunshine now poured through a clean, uncluttered window. Soon it would display her lovely bright materials, tastefully draped, perhaps with a few of Simon’s better brooches and trinkets carefully placed as extra decoration.
As Julia entered, his handsome features broke into a wide grin. ‘There you are! I wondered if you’d decided not to come.’
‘I was talking to my mother,’ she said, explaining without going into too much detail what had transpired. The smile left his face.
‘You’re sure we’re doing the right thing?’
‘At this late stage, of course I’m sure,’ she said hotly.
‘But you still haven’t told your mother, or any of your family.’
‘I just don’t want to provoke too many questions yet. Mother will only fret.’
She didn’t add that her mother would be sure to disapprove strongly of her relationship with him. She didn’t care what the others thought; it was her mother she worried about.
‘I think they’ll be only too glad to see the stuff gone. They’ve been going on about it cluttering up our room long enough but I didn’t want to say anything until I felt sure of my ground – with you,’ she added, instantly wishing she hadn’t as she saw his brow knit in a puzzled frown. ‘But we’re wasting time talking,’ she hurried on, ‘and I’ll have to be getting back soon. My mother worries…’
‘Right,’ he broke in and preceded her into the back room where a pile of what looked like discarded rubbish still lay – tangled ribbons and beads, tarnished costume jewellery, strings of fake pearls. He bent down and took up a handful. ‘We can get this lot sorted out first. You tell me which needs dumping and which you think we might be able to keep.’
Julia felt a sudden pang of guilt as she detected a pathetic ring to his words. She was invading his territory, acting as if it were her own. She hadn’t given a thought to it before, but she was virtually trying to change his life and she had no right to do so. Then she reminded herself that he had been the one to offer the deal.
‘Are you really ready to throw so much of it away?’ she asked almost timidly. ‘It was… it is… your livelihood.’
‘Some livelihood,’ he scoffed, calming her doubts. ‘I thought I was on the right track when I opened this place but it seems I missed the point.’
He paused, a jumble of trinkets lying idle in his cupped hands. His face held a wistful expression, half rueful, half amused.
‘Over the past two years I told myself so many times that I was being thoroughly silly trying to make a go of this place but I refused to be beaten. I kept hoping that the next six months would see me doing better but it wasn’t to be. And there I was, thinking I knew it all.’
He let the handful of trinkets drop back on to the pile, and then with the toe of his shoe began idly sifting through it.
‘I came out of the forces, spent two years at university, gained a degree in art but found there’s no call for it, no jobs. No jobs anywhere. My family were deeply disappointed, those two years all wasted as they saw it. My father’s an optician. I’m an only child and my parents had set their hearts on my following in his footsteps. When I didn’t, Father… well, I wouldn’t say he disowned me but he didn’t try to stop me when I said I was leaving home to sort out my own destiny. They never write, and nor do I. It hurts sometimes, but then I suppose I must have hurt them. Well…’
He sighed and ceased stirring the useless heap of merchandise with his foot. ‘It’s all water under the bridge. But I would like to have made a go of the business, if only to prove I could do it without them. But as I said, it wasn’t to be.’ He paused for a second, brightened and looked at Julia. ‘And then you came along.’
For a moment she continued gazing at him sympathetically, and then quickly recovered herself. ‘Yes, well, let’s call it a turning point, shall we?’ She leaned down and in turn ran her fingers through one of the piles of stuff to cover the embarrassment his story had provoked. ‘I think if we clean it up a bit much of this can be used as decoration. It might even sell.’
She stopped, realizing how patronizing she sounded, but Simon broke into a laugh. ‘I’m sure it will.’ He laughed again. ‘If you say so,’ he added easily.
‘I do.’ She laughed too, and the tension was gone. This was turning into a wonderful morning, the two of them working companionably side by side. Tomorrow, if all went well, her materials would be gracing his shop window.
Eleven
Victoria’s voice was shrill. ‘Julia, what are you thinking of? You hardly know this man.’
Standing on the narrow landing outside their flat, the furthest she’d ever ventured outside in the three months since they had lived there, she called frantically down the flight of stairs. On the floor below, her neighbours were peeping out to see what all the noise was about.
It was only the second time in those three months that their elderly neighbours had ever been seen. The couple spent their time closeted away in their tiny flat, though Julia had occasionally passed a middle-aged woman, perhaps a daughter, going in with shopping but they had never spoken. Now the pair stood gazing through the crack of the door, peering at the young couple who were attempting to manoeuvre several tied together bolts of material round the bend of the stairs.
‘Julia, think what you’re doing!’ Her mother’s voice was still calling down the narrow stairwell.
Last night Julia had finally told her family of her plans and her partnership with Simon Layzell. Her news had had the same effect as if she’d hit them all with a sledgehammer. Mother had instantly leaped to the conclusion that Julia was carrying on a clandestine romance with a disreputable young man whom she had been too ashamed to introduce.
Stephanie of course had had plenty to say about underhandedness and gross unfairness to Mummy. She could talk! Julia thought. She was forever doing just as she pleased without a second thought as to how her mother felt.
James had also shown his disapproval, glaring stony-faced at her. For all his youth he saw himself as the man of the house now, especially since he had recently been given a promotion by the bank. In fact, it had occurred to Julia that he was beginning to behave a little like his father. It was a shame, she thought sadly, for she loved her young brother and the looks he’d given her last night had hurt her much more than Stephanie’s contempt.
Virginia had tried to lighten the atmosphere by remarking cheerfully that at least they would see the back of the clutter in the corner. However, the others were more concerned about this suspicious young man with whom Julia had joined forces; a man about whom they knew nothing.
‘Carrying on like you’ve been doing, it’s disgusting!’ Stephanie had huffed. ‘How do we know what you both have been up to?’
‘We’ve been up to nothing, thank you!’ she’d shot back. ‘Unless you see doing business as being up to something.’
‘Business, huh!’ had been her terse retort.
James stayed silent but his disapproving expression spoke volumes.
Only Ginny supported her, saying quietly, ‘Well, I think it’s exciting.’
To which her mother replied sharply, ‘You
know nothing about these things, Virginia! There’s something here that isn’t as it should be and I am terribly upset and disappointed by your behaviour, Julia. I cannot believe that you have kept us in the dark about what has been going on, saying nothing to me, your own mother.’
And so it had continued. Finally, at the end of her tether, Julia had shouted at them that nothing untoward had been going on, as they put it. She tried to explain that she had been endeavouring to start up a business, for their benefit as much as for herself, to help them all out of this miserable situation into which they’d been plunged.
And at last they had fallen silent; a silence that seemed to fill the room until eventually Julia left them to go early to bed. Later, when the others came to bed, there had been none of the usual chorus of goodnights except for Ginny who whispered, ‘Goodnight, Julia,’ only to receive a quiet command of ‘Go to sleep!’ from her mother, whose bed she shared.
* * *
This morning, after Ginny and Stephanie had gone to work, and before their mother had got up, Julia and her brother were alone in the kitchen as she served his breakfast.
‘Sis,’ he said, buttering his toast, ‘this person, how old is he?’
She paused in the act of pouring James’s tea for him. ‘This person?’
‘All right, the man you’ve been seeing.’ James kept his gaze on his plate. ‘I know he manages that shop downstairs but I’ve never seen him. None of us have. We know nothing about him, but from the state of the place as I pass on my way to work, he doesn’t seem the sort of person for you.’
‘Then you don’t know him,’ she snapped, resuming pouring his tea. ‘And I’m not seeing him in that sense. I told you, this is a business deal.’
‘It’s just that I’m concerned for you.’
Julia suppressed an angry retort. A boy not yet seventeen, behaving as if he were twenty-seven; how dare he take it upon himself to lecture her, giving himself airs and graces because he worked in a bank – how dare he!
‘I’m not prepared to talk about it,’ she said as evenly as she could, but was then unable to resist trying to present her side of the situation. ‘I wish you’d give me credit for knowing what I’m doing. I’m not having an affair. This is purely business and at last I can pull my weight. It was I who approached him to ask if there was a chance he could find a small corner of his shop to store that material for us and it went on from there.’
Briefly she told him how things had begun to develop. ‘It’s no more than pure business and I won’t have everyone reading anything into it other than that. We’ve discussed it and it might even develop into a good business.’
This was all she was prepared to divulge, and she ended the discussion by saying firmly, ‘And now you’d best hurry off or you’ll be late for work.’
James finished his cup of tea and got up from the tiny kitchen table, dabbing his lips on the paper napkin she’d provided for him. He gave her a searching look. ‘Be careful, Julia,’ he said. ‘You’re my sister and I care what happens to you. You’ve done such a lot for all of us, kept us together. I don’t want to see you done down by some unscrupulous business deal.’
For a second Julia found herself seeing another side to the brother she’d been judging so harshly lately. He was still the good-natured young boy she’d always been fond of and he genuinely had her well-being at heart.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ she offered in a sweeter tone. He was still looking at her.
‘I hope so. But can I say that if things don’t work out the way you hope, remember I’m here and I won’t let anything bad happen. I don’t know too much about business but being in a bank may count for something.’
A smile lit up his young face, eradicating any sign of pomposity. ‘Now I must go or I they’ll have my hide!’ he laughed playfully.
It was approaching nine thirty before her mother appeared from the bedroom to sit morosely by the living room window, staring stolidly out, not speaking except to decline breakfast.
‘I couldn’t eat,’ was all she said.
‘Then I’d best wash up and go downstairs,’ Julia told her brusquely, to be met with silence. With a sigh she put on a jacket and went out, saying, ‘I’ll be back in a tick. I thought I’d bring Mr Simon Layzell back with me. You remember, Mother, he’s the owner of the shop I’ll be doing business with. Then you can make your own judgement about him.’
With no reply forthcoming she had let herself out, returning moments later with Simon. But Victoria had retreated to the bedroom and locked the door. No amount of calling had enticed her out, so that Julia had been compelled to plead illness rather lamely on her mother’s behalf.
It was only as they bore the last of the bulky material down the stairs that Victoria had seen fit to emerge from the bedroom into the hallway to lean over the banisters and call down the narrow stairwell after her daughter like a fishwife, for all to hear their business.
Filled with anger, Julia vowed in that moment that she would make a go of this venture if it killed her.
* * *
Already it was late autumn, with many a frosty, all-enveloping pea-souper making any movement about London difficult. Yet to Julia’s delight business was going well, money was coming in, the theatre folk beginning to realize that despite being slightly off the beaten track, here was a shop worth visiting.
Julia had found a flair for window dressing and a way of using Simon’s old, scrubbed up stock to decorate and add even more charm to her tasteful arrangements. Another added bonus was finding a skilled dressmaker.
Betty Lewis was about thirty, a widow whose husband had been killed in 1917. She, like thousands of other women who’d lost their men to the war, had been desperately searching for work for months. A meagre pension, supplemented by what she could earn from bits of sewing for neighbours as poor as herself, hardly kept her in food, much less paid the rent. She’d leaped at this chance of work even though Simon could offer only a small wage.
‘I only hope she can do all she says she can,’ Julia had said when he had announced he had taken her on as a help to Julia.
Her heart had been in her mouth as she watched Betty cut a couple of yards of her precious beige Chinese silk – today’s fashions being narrow and skimpy – before she could order her to use something less expensive for the trial garment. But she needn’t have panicked. The high-class finish had her gasping in delight.
Betty was now proving a real treasure. Without her Julia wouldn’t have known where to start, for she herself had no skill as a dressmaker. What she did have was a different, recently discovered skill – how to sell.
‘I feel terribly embarrassed,’ she said to Simon. ‘We’re paying her far too little for such quality work.’
‘We can’t afford more at this moment,’ he told her. ‘It’s early days, and we need to keep our costs down until we’re more certain of ourselves.’
He had done some advertising and people were starting to trickle in to have a look at the few beautiful garments that had begun to grace the two small windows alongside the tastefully draped luscious silks from the far side of the world. By the end of October there were even one or two people making purchases.
Most of the customers though were still theatrical people. ‘Well, they would be,’ Simon reminded her when, vaguely dissatisfied, she’d remarked that she thought they should by now be attracting a wider class of clientele from the outset. ‘Most still come for the sort of stuff I’ve always sold.’
And then, noticing her ill-disguised anxiety, he’d continued encouragingly, ‘But you notice they’re buying for themselves personally, not just for the stage. And that’s good,’ he’d added on such a whimsical note that she’d laughed. He had a way of making her laugh at the oddest times with some quite simple remark.
On that occasion, and for no sure reason, she had suddenly thought of Chester, the man she’d been so in love with yet who had never in his life said anything amusing, or not to her. It had set her wondering ho
w life with him would have turned out. As Chester’s wife she would no doubt have been very much a lady of studied poise and cool composure, whereas these days she was rapidly becoming a girl who could laugh loudly and spontaneously without fear of attracting haughty stares.
‘Of course it’s good!’ she’d quipped lightly and received a conspiratorial wink.
But news of his shop was beginning to spread more by word of mouth than any advertising. By late November Julia realized that it would only be a matter of months before her initial stock was exhausted.
‘I must buy in more material, the same good quality as that first lot, of course,’ she stated, unwittingly taking charge. Sometimes she almost felt that this was her own business. However, he had a knack of reminding her that it was more of a partnership, and each needed to consult the other before rushing ahead, without needing to say it in so many words.
‘Remember, your first lot didn’t cost anything, Julia,’ he pointed out.
‘I know, but…’ she began, pulled up sharp by his caution.
‘We still have to keep an eye on the pennies for a while yet.’
‘I know, but we don’t want to let the standard we’ve set slip now.’
‘We also need some more decent-quality accessories,’ he persisted. ‘But there’s still rent and lighting and heating and so on to find.’
His words were a gentle reminder that they were now working together, sharing everything evenly, outgoings as well as profits. And at the moment the latter were still a long way from being a fortune.
‘So let’s have a bit of a committee meeting, eh?’
There was no laughter in his tone, no gentle banter, and his expression brought her up with a small shock.
‘Simon, I didn’t mean to…’
‘Of course you didn’t.’
This time it was said lightly, accompanied by a quiet, relaxed chuckle, but it left her aware of another side to him. It also left her with a new respect for him; and something else, a feeling that for a second she was unable to name.
