Christmas for the Shop Girls

by Joanna Toye

  Peter dipped his head: she was putting a gloss on it, of course. She must have had some very dark times.

  ‘Perhaps not. Even so …’ He swilled his beer around in his glass, then put it down again. ‘But there’s one thing I don’t understand. When you came back to Marlow’s, why invent a husband? Why not simply say you were a widow?’

  Eileen took a sip of her drink. Her hair was loose and she hooked it behind her ear. Her earrings were like little red buttons.

  ‘Good question. It was stupid of me. I couldn’t be called up because of John, but I needed to earn some money – I had somewhere to live but I needed an income. I knew Marlow’s would have me back like a shot, and when I came for the interview, I was wearing the ring I’d bought myself, and it was assumed that I was married and my husband was in the Forces. And I – well, stupidly I went along with it. I knew I’d be addressed as Miss Frobisher at work anyway and Staff Office were so pressed they didn’t even ask this fictional husband’s name. Of course it would have been easier to say I’d been widowed, I made things far too complicated for myself! But it’s a bit late now.’

  Things might have seemed complicated to her, but for Peter everything suddenly seemed much simpler. If she was free … but he was getting distracted. They had to get back to the letter.

  ‘And this?’ He touched the folded sheet.

  She lifted her shoulders and the poppies and cornflowers on her bodice rose and fell.

  ‘Someone knows.’

  ‘Well, yes, except they’ve put their own despicable interpretation on it!’ Peter took a long swig of his own drink. He needed it. ‘Do you have any idea who it could be?’

  He expected a ‘no’, but she surprised him.

  ‘Any idea? I have a very good idea.’

  ‘Really? There’s someone in the world who hates you that much?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘You might like to get us some more drinks. It’s another long story.’

  First thing next morning, at eight o’clock sharp, Peter Simmonds was tapping on Mr Marlow’s door.

  He’d slept better than he had for days, and not just because he now had a plan of action. That was satisfying enough, but he knew the most refreshing rest had come because he was flattered – honoured even – by the confidences Eileen had entrusted him with, thrilled to know she was free of any ties, and excited to think he could get to know her better … and better. If his resolve to go into battle for her had been firm before, it was steely now. He knew he’d fight to his last breath for her if Cedric Marlow tried to resist.

  But when he heard Peter’s suspicions, Cedric was so stunned he simply nodded dumbly. He didn’t ask how Peter had come to the conclusion he had, and Peter didn’t name names, just in case Eileen had been wrong. He knew he needed proof.

  ‘I need your permission, sir, to carry out a locker check. For every member of staff, from juniors right up to management. I’m hoping to find the evidence I need to confront them.’

  ‘Someone in the store …’ the old man repeated. ‘You must do all you can, we have to root this out. Someone in the store … we can’t have that!’

  Downstairs, not knowing what was to come, the usual clatter and chatter prevailed in the cloakrooms, and no one was chattering more than Gladys.

  ‘Look, Lily, look,’ she squeaked excitedly, arriving beside her friend, hat askew and gas mask case flying.

  Lily calmly closed her locker door, but before she could turn her head, Gladys was thrusting something under her nose.

  ‘I’ve got the cards!’ she cried. ‘Look!’

  ‘Whoa, whoa … when did this happen?’ gasped Lily. ‘I thought we were still hunting for them!’

  ‘You won’t believe it,’ Gladys said. ‘Brenda from Books gave them to me. Her brother got married – oh, years ago, before the war, and she knew her sister-in-law had some left over and she was sure she’d saved them. So she asked her at the weekend and her sister-in-law found them and Brenda came round with them last night!’

  ‘How lucky!’ said Lily. ‘And how kind.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gladys. ‘And they’re going to come to the church to see us married, and all, the pair of them. What do you think?’

  She beamed, a smile as wide as the sea Bill sailed on. Lily obediently studied the card: Gladys would expect no less. There were no cherubs and no trumpets – well, you couldn’t have everything – but Gladys had got her ribbons, trailed by silver bells in each corner.

  ‘They’re perfect,’ she began, but was cut off by the sudden appearance in the doorway of Miss Garner from the Staff Office. She clapped her hands for silence.

  ‘Thank you, ladies, girls, if I could have some quiet, please?’

  Anyone still chattering was quickly shushed by their neighbour: Miss Garner was another of the store’s formidable females. Almost eighty pairs of eyes turned towards her expectantly.

  ‘We need to carry out a locker check. Can you please open your lockers and stand beside them until it’s completed. Thank you.’

  Everyone turned away with a variety of grimaces, mutterings, and raised eyebrows.

  Locker checks happened about once every six months, usually when there was a suspicion of staff shoplifting. Someone had once been found with an unglamorous stash of tooth powder; another time it had been a pair of suede gloves. A more lucrative haul had been several pouches of pipe tobacco.

  ‘I’d like to assure you,’ Miss Garner added as her minions began moving methodically along the rows, ‘that the management lockers are being checked as well.’

  There were more eyebrows raised.

  ‘No stone unturned,’ whispered the girl next to Lily. ‘There must be something pretty nasty underneath.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘Would you care to explain, Miss Naylor?’

  Jennifer Naylor, who’d been summoned from Schoolwear, folded her hands. Cedric Marlow was seated behind his desk, but it was Peter Simmonds, standing beside it, who was asking the question. The locker check had been more of a success than he’d dared hope.

  ‘You can see what it is,’ she said curtly. ‘A letter.’

  ‘Exactly. An envelope, typed, addressed to me, stamped, yet to be posted.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me. I don’t know how it got there.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Peter. ‘Let’s look at the contents, shall we?’

  He took out the letter, typed in the same capitals as before, on the same cheap paper.

  EILEEN FROBISHER IS A BITCH AND A TART AND—

  Then the same ugly word again. He produced the other two letters he’d received and their envelopes and laid them alongside. ‘You see the connection I’m making?’

  Miss Naylor looked at the letters and shrugged.

  ‘I see what you’re getting at, but it doesn’t prove anything. I’ve told you, I haven’t a clue how that letter got into my locker. Someone’s got it in for me. Miss Frobisher herself, perhaps.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For all you know, she’s writing them herself and trying to pin the blame on me! She’s never liked me.’

  Peter had to stop himself from throttling her: the nerve of the woman!

  He collected himself: he must try not to get too heated. He went on coldly:

  ‘That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it?’ Miss Naylor met his eyes directly, defiantly: maybe she was a little unhinged. ‘I’m sorry, but if you continue to deny all knowledge when the facts point directly to you, I shall have to involve the police, who’ll conduct a search of your home for the typewriter.’ It was an empty threat: Cedric still shrank from getting the police involved, but Miss Naylor didn’t know that. ‘It’s easy to identify one typewriter from another. Especially when the ribbon’s worn and some of the letters’ – he tapped the sheets with his finger – ‘almost cut through the paper. The “O” for example, and the “B”—’

  ‘I think, Miss Naylor,’ Cedric intervened, ‘that you may as well admit it.’

  Mr Marlow didn’
t know anything of the personal circumstances that Eileen had confessed to Peter Simmonds, nor that she’d gone on to explain the long-standing hostility between herself and Jennifer Naylor. But Cedric had worked that out for himself.

  Presented with the evidence, he remembered an animosity between Jennifer Naylor and Eileen Frobisher that went back years – back to when they’d both been juniors on Ladies’ Fashions. Young Eileen had started at the store six months after Jennifer, but it was clear from the first that she had a feel for the clothes and a way with the customers that they liked. Jennifer, on the other hand, was perfectly efficient, but mechanical in her approach, and when she found the newcomer in favour …

  Cedric remembered the Ladies’ Fashions buyer coming to him and asking that Jennifer be transferred. When he’d asked why, she’d explained that there was a bad atmosphere in the department, and that it was Jennifer who was causing it. Such things happened from time to time, and Cedric had agreed, but he’d kept his eye on Jennifer Naylor over the years. Bad atmospheres seemed to follow her around, but a difficult personality, though unfortunate, wasn’t a good enough reason to sack her. He’d discussed it with Miss Garner: their only hope had been that Miss Naylor would leave of her own accord. But she never did, and he’d even had to promote her through sheer length of service. She’d moved through several departments creating bad atmospheres before Cedric had settled on Schoolwear as the safest berth for her. It required no flair and not much charm; Marlow’s was the only supplier of uniform for various schools in the area, so customers couldn’t shop elsewhere even if they wanted to. It was only ever busy in certain months of the year, so Miss Naylor relied on ‘floating’ members of staff at busy times, and a full-time junior who Miss Garner watched over to make sure they weren’t being too fiercely bullied.

  Eileen Frobisher had left, inevitably, lured away to the bright lights of London, and since she’d come back, there’d been no chance for her and Jennifer to clash. Though he did remember coming across them before Christmas, before the bomb, in something of a stand-off – over the store’s rocking horse, of all things. Cedric had tactfully had to intervene.

  From across the desk, Jennifer Naylor looked sullenly at him. She was only in her thirties but her dark hair was already starting to lose its lustre. She was thin, too thin, neatly but plainly turned out in a charcoal grey suit and cream blouse, almost a school uniform in itself. He suddenly felt sorry for her. She must envy Eileen Frobisher, pure and simple, he thought, though he did wonder why her envy had boiled up now.

  ‘The choice is quite straightforward,’ he said. ‘You realise I have to sack you. Or you could pre-empt me and resign, which would be slightly more dignified.’

  ‘She fell on her sword,’ Peter told Eileen. He’d called her into his little office, though he was regretting it: her nearness, her stockinged legs, the faint trace of her perfume, was making him rather hot under the collar. He pressed on, hoping to disguise it. ‘Going quietly was the only thing she could do, really. I stood over her while she collected her things, made sure she handed in her name badge and pass, and she was seen off the premises. Cash Office will send on anything she’s owed.’

  ‘Oh Peter.’ Eileen bit her lip. He wished she wouldn’t do that; it was too tantalising. ‘I feel dreadful for her.’

  ‘What?’ It was the last reaction he’d expected. ‘She didn’t have much conscience about you!’

  ‘Maybe not, but—’

  ‘We couldn’t let it go on,’ he insisted. ‘From what you told me she’d had it in for you for years! Who knows where it might have ended?’

  Eileen looked sceptical.

  ‘What was she going to do, snap my pencils? Steal my hole punch?’

  ‘Now you’re being facetious,’ he chided. ‘And since you’d be lucky to replace them, it might have been a good tactic!’

  She smiled indulgently.

  ‘I know, but really, what were you imagining? Her running amok with a pair of pinking shears, taking me hostage or something?’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ Peter insisted. ‘I’ve seen it in the Army. It starts with a bit of ribbing, a bit of name-calling, an apple-pie bed, and the next thing is they’re putting some poor bloke’s head down the lavatory.’

  That checked her and she conceded, ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. And I’m very lucky – that Mr Marlow didn’t believe the letters in the first place – but even more so that you acted so quickly. Thank you.’ She paused. ‘But Jennifer Naylor’s got nothing and no one, as far as I know. And what’s she going to do for work?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said crisply. ‘There’s plenty of war work, she should have been doing it already, a single woman of her age.’

  ‘I believe she has asthma,’ said Miss Frobisher. ‘And she does a couple of stints a week at the hospital. Reading to patients.’

  ‘What, Gothic horrors? Ghost stories? I should think that sets back their recovery!’

  ‘Now who’s being facetious? And mean!’

  He held up his hands, a gesture of defeat.

  ‘All right, I’m sorry. But truly, Eileen, she’ll have no trouble finding work. She’s perfectly able – I can’t think of an industry that isn’t crying out for women. Miss Garner will give her a reference that says she’s efficient and punctual and all that. What it won’t say is that she’s a first-class, gold-plated—’

  He stopped himself in time.

  ‘And what about the vacancy here?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Peter Simmonds. ‘I was coming to that.’

  ‘Oh, there’s a catch, is there?’ She smiled her curving smile. ‘Let me guess. You – or Mr Marlow – want me to combine the roles.’

  ‘Yes, please – temporarily, at least. There’ll be a slight increment in salary, naturally.’

  ‘I should hope so!’ She seemed to be considering something. ‘Am I allowed a suggestion of my own?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I can’t be in two places at once. So move Lily Collins to Schoolwear. She’s ready for more responsibility – she’s getting bored on Childrenswear and there’s no more I can teach her.’

  Peter straightened his tie, no longer the regimental stripe, but a navy background with fawn trellis pattern. That meant, she knew, that he was thinking. She added:

  ‘The summer stock on Schoolwear’s already here and the stuff for the autumn term is ordered. All it needs is a competent salesgirl. You’d have to boost Lily up to second sales, of course.’

  ‘Oh really? You don’t want much!’

  ‘I’m solving a big problem for you. You can’t leave the junior on her own day-to-day and I know all the floating staff are already spoken for. I’ll keep an eye on Lily. She’ll fly, I promise.’

  ‘Second sales, you say?’

  ‘Yes. And I’m not asking for a replacement on my department – I’ll manage with Miss Temple and Miss Thomas. So it won’t add to the wages bill!’

  Peter Simmonds gave in.

  ‘All right. Don’t say anything to Miss Collins yet. I’ll have to put it to Mr Marlow.’

  ‘Is that all?’ It was a challenge, but at the same time a tease. ‘I was hoping you’d recommend it.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck!’

  But her tone was encouraging. It made him feel he might be able to push his.

  ‘One thing I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Well, two. First, how do you think Jennifer Naylor found out?’

  Eileen shook her head. Her hair was in a different style today, rolled back gently off her face, and up at the back. It suited her.

  ‘That I don’t know. I can only think that one of the reps she dealt with knows John’s father and what went on between us. Perhaps something was said.’

  Peter considered this.

  ‘Perhaps … But the second thing is – why now? I mean, why did all that bile suddenly surface in the last few weeks?’ Thoughtful, he answered his own question. ‘Of course, maybe they’re connected. Maybe she only recently found out.’


  ‘Maybe.’

  Eileen nodded agreement but she was smiling again, this time to herself.

  She hadn’t been overly impressed with Peter Simmonds when he’d got the job as first-floor supervisor. At first, he’d seemed to throw his ex-Army weight around – instructions, even suggestions, flung out so briskly that they seemed like orders. ‘Bringing the barrack-square to Marlow’s,’ some of the other buyers, who’d had their eye on the supervisor role for themselves, had grumbled. But over the months, Eileen had come to realise that his brusqueness was only a front – covering a shyness, almost, probably because as a career soldier he wasn’t used to being surrounded by so many women.

  Now she knew him to be gentle and gentlemanly and, in his own way, sweetly obtuse. It wasn’t just Lily and Beryl who’d registered the look on his face as she’d floated up and down the catwalk in the bridal gown. Eileen had seen it too – and so, she was sure, had Jennifer Naylor, watching from the wings. From her eyrie on Schoolwear, Jennifer had probably been watching them as they took their breaks together, too. Eileen didn’t think she’d entertained hopes of Peter Simmonds for herself – or maybe she had? Either way, the thought that her old rival might be the object of his affections must have simply derailed her.

  Peter was studying her, looking worried.

  ‘You’re thinking.’

  ‘Yes, I was. Sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry if all this has upset you.’

  ‘It hasn’t,’ she assured him. ‘That is, it would have upset me far more if I hadn’t had you to go into bat for me. I owe you a lot. And I’m so glad you know the truth.’

  She met his eyes fully. They were nice eyes, grey, but warm.

  ‘Me too.’

  Their eyes held each other’s for a moment, then she looked down, and up again.

  ‘Erm … when I said going into bat …’

  ‘Yes?’