Christmas for the Shop Girls

by Joanna Toye

  ‘How?’

  ‘She got a job as a housekeeper to some people called Quartermain. Not round here, “up West”, he said.’

  ‘That could be anywhere in London!’ objected Lily. ‘Everywhere’s west of here!’

  ‘Yes, but with a name like Quartermain – that’s why he remembered – it’s hardly common, is it? All we’ve got to do is look in the telephone directory!’

  ‘If they’re on the telephone.’

  ‘If they can afford a housekeeper, they most likely will be. If not, there’s the electoral roll.’

  With all this to take in, Gladys seemed in even more of a trance, but Lily felt herself perk up again. Sid had an answer for everything, and ‘no’ wasn’t one of them. She smiled at her brother. She was so glad she’d got him involved.

  There were still a lot of ifs and buts. If they were in the telephone directory. If Mrs Webb was still with these Quartermain people. If the Quartermain family were still in London. If the whole household hadn’t moved somewhere safer, been bombed out or injured or killed …

  ‘Drink up,’ said Sid, swilling down the last of his tea. ‘We’ll go back to my place, a bit of work with the directory, and then I think an early night. The search resumes in the morning!’

  Sid’s lodgings were in Marylebone, another long journey by several buses, and just as shocking as they wove through the destruction around the miraculously intact St Paul’s in the City. Gladys fell asleep, her head against the bus window, but Lily looked eagerly right and left as they passed along Oxford Street, marvelling at the size of Selfridges and thrilled to see Marshall and Snelgrove’s, where Miss Frobisher had worked as a buyer.

  Sid’s lodgings were off Lisson Grove – ‘where Eliza Doolittle lived’, he’d informed them – and though it wasn’t grand or smart, the white stucco peeling and the window frames needing painting, after Stepney it seemed like a palace. Sid let them in through a door with coloured glass panels. There was a Turkey rug in the hall and a vase of flowers on a small polished table; most importantly a telephone fixed to the wall. Lily smiled, happy to see where the calls she made to her brother were received. Sid extracted the L–Z directory from the shelf beneath before leading them up to his room on the top floor.

  Again, it wasn’t luxurious, but scrupulously clean and tidy – part a conscientious landlady, part Sid’s naval training, Lily supposed. There was a single bed with a plain oak headboard, a chest of drawers with a Roberts radio, a small wardrobe, a table and upright chair and near the fireplace an easy chair with wooden arms. On the hearth was a small gas ring with a kettle and on a shelf, propping up some books, tea and coffee tins and a few mugs. Sid explained drinks were allowed, but no cooking.

  On the mantelpiece, below a bevelled mirror, were Sid’s shaving things, a bottle of pomade, and, Lily was glad to see, a photograph of their mum and a snap of the three children, herself, Sid and Reg the last time they’d all been together, before Reg joined up. Sid grinned at her (‘Not forgotten, see!’) and went to the window. Lily followed him and saw grey rooftops, chimneys, and below, a soot-blackened yard. Sid lifted the sash and brought in a bottle of milk from the sill.

  ‘All mod cons,’ he said, waving it.

  He brewed up some tea – rather better than the tea they’d had in Stepney – there was even some sugar, and a whole new bag of biscuits he produced from the top of the wardrobe. When they’d all revived, he opened the telephone directory on the table and Lily and Gladys crowded round as he ran his finger down the ‘Q’s.

  There were four Quartermains listed, but Sid could tell from the addresses that two were too far out to be strictly speaking ‘up West’. Of the remaining two, there was one in somewhere called Pimlico, and another in Kensington.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Sid. ‘Not too far. I’ll show you where you’re going to lay your heads, we’ll have a wash and brush-up, get ourselves a bite to eat and turn in early. Tomorrow – to fresh woods and pastures new!’

  Sid went out to fetch them cheese rolls from The Globe, the pub on the corner, and chips from the chip shop which was handily opposite. Gladys yawned throughout their makeshift meal, then took herself straight off to bed, though it was only just past eight o’clock.

  ‘You stay up as long as you like, Lily,’ she said. ‘The way I feel, a direct hit wouldn’t wake me! But shove me over if I’m taking too much room.’

  ‘And I was going to show you a night on the town!’ Sid told Lily as he made her some hot milk on the little gas ring. ‘But I could see Gladys was whacked.’

  Lily gave her brother a wry glance.

  ‘I’m not sure Mum’d approve of the kind of nightlife you mean.’

  ‘I meant a show!’ said Sid defensively, taking the pan off the heat and pouring the contents carefully into a mug. ‘A musical. Flying Colours, maybe – I hear Douglas Byng doesn’t disappoint, and Binnie Hale’s always a treat.’

  Lily took the mug he handed her. Sid had insisted she had the armchair; he sat cross-legged on the floor with a bottle of beer. The names meant nothing to her; she was more interested to hear if there was anyone significant in his own life.

  Most people would have been fooled by Sid’s easy charm. He could get round any woman with a bit of chat and a smile, like the bus conductress on the way to Stepney and even the She-Wolf at Barnardo’s. Only Lily knew that that wasn’t where his natural inclinations lay. The secret he’d shared with her, and which, with his permission, she’d shared only with Jim, was that her brother’s real affections were for men.

  Lily had been shattered at first, unable to believe it, but she’d come to see that that was simply the way Sid had been made, and it had never altered her feelings for him. She still loved him for the person he was, and that would never change.

  But it was the reason Sid had been so keen to work in London. For all that his tendencies were illegal and dangerous and could have got him thrown out of the Navy and imprisoned with hard labour, Sid could meet others like himself and lead the sort of life he wanted – needed – far more easily there.

  She didn’t need to frame the question. Sid knew she’d been waiting for them to be alone to find out whether his move to the city had worked out as he’d hoped.

  ‘There is someone, since you didn’t ask,’ he said, taking a swig of beer.

  ‘Oh, Sid!’

  It was what Lily had been desperate to hear. It had been nearly a year since Sid’s first love: she felt able to call it that now. Anthony, a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, had been killed when his plane had been shot down over the North Sea.

  ‘It’s early days,’ said Sid. ‘But … well, we get on great. He’s bright, funny. Makes me laugh.’

  ‘Oh, Sid, I’m so pleased for you! Is he … another serviceman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lily hesitated. There was so much she wanted to ask. His name. What he looked like. Where they’d met. But all she really needed to know was that Sid was happy – she didn’t need to know any more. It didn’t stop her being curious, but she was also trying to be discreet. It was Sid’s business – but then he volunteered something anyway.

  ‘He gave me this watch, actually. For my birthday.’

  The smart, expensive-looking watch that Lily had noticed.

  She made a face that said ‘impressed’.

  ‘He must think a lot of you.’

  ‘I think a lot of him.’ Sid took another swig of beer. ‘Blimey, no wonder they call this stuff “arms and legs”. No body to it at all.’

  He was changing the subject; Lily knew him well enough for that, and she conceded. He’d tell her more – if he wanted to – in his own good time.

  Chapter 14

  When Lily took down the blackout next morning, it was to more May sunshine, and when she and Gladys had washed and dressed they presented themselves at Sid’s door, ready for another day of detective work. First though, Sid found some Elastoplast for the blisters Gladys had got from all the walking yesterday. That had them marvelling – none
had been seen in Hinton for months.

  With Gladys patched up, and after breakfast in a café, they set off. Sid had suggested they try the Kensington address first as it was nearer. It was a pity they couldn’t take the Underground, he added, but being Sunday, there were no trains, and after a twenty-minute wait, it didn’t look as though there were any buses, either. There was nothing for it but to walk, Gladys gamely saying that she could manage.

  Their progress was slow, with lots of stops for Gladys to adjust her plasters, but Lily thought it was probably a good thing. These Quartermain people might be church-goers, so there was no point in getting there too early.

  It was after eleven by the time they turned into the street where the Quartermains lived. The houses were similar to the one where Sid lodged, but discreetly different – bigger – four storeys – and smarter, in a curving terrace. Having said that, there’d been a hit on the end of the street, where the corner house had crumbled like a chalk cliff. To stop people plunging down in the blackout, the houses had been allowed to keep their basement railings, but they’d had to sacrifice their wrought-iron porches, leaving only a faint outline of where they’d been. The Quartermains had covered up some of the scarring with pots containing red and white geraniums and blue lobelia.

  ‘Patriotic types, anyway,’ Sid observed. ‘All set?’

  Gladys and Lily nodded and the three of them climbed the steps to the front door. Sid raised the lion’s head knocker and let it fall, giving them an encouraging grin.

  The door was opened by a maid in a black dress and apron, far too young to be the housekeeper – Bill’s mother. Lily suddenly wondered if they should have gone down to the basement, to the servants’ entrance, but if Sid was having the same thought, it was too late now.

  ‘Good morning. I’m sorry to trouble you. We’re looking for a Mrs Webb. She is, or was, the housekeeper here.’

  The maid’s eyes widened. She said nothing, but turned as another woman, well dressed in a light summery frock, obviously the lady of the house, came out of a door on the left of the hall.

  ‘What’s this?’ she said.

  ‘They’re asking for Mrs Webb, madam,’ replied the maid.

  The change was instantaneous.

  ‘That’ll be all, thank you, Lizzie,’ said the older woman. The maid nodded and disappeared, and the older woman came towards them.

  ‘I can’t talk to you here,’ she said, looking over her shoulder. ‘Come with me.’

  Without even putting on a coat, she stepped out of the house and closed the door behind her, then led them across the road to a little garden square. Before the war, it would have been fenced and gated and only residents would have had a key; now the railings and the gate had gone. A tramp was asleep on one of the benches and the grass was unkempt. There was a pagoda-like structure in the centre and the woman led them to it. They all sat down.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked. ‘Who are you?’

  Sid explained. He spoke about how fond they all were of Bill, and their search for his mother over the past day and a half. Before Gladys could chip in, he mentioned that she was Bill’s fiancée and her hope that Bill and his mother could be reunited by the time of the wedding. The woman listened in silence, her hand at her throat. Lily noticed her rings, a wedding band and a sizeable ruby and diamond engagement ring.

  When Sid had finished, there was silence, then she spoke.

  ‘I am Mrs Webb,’ she said. ‘That is, I was. I came as housekeeper here nearly twenty years ago, that much you know. Mrs Quartermain was already ill – TB. There were no children. She died when I’d been here about two years, and Ernest asked me to marry him six months later. I’m Mrs Quartermain now.’

  That was a facer! After all the frustrations the day before, there was Bill’s mother right beside them! None of them had expected it to be this easy.

  Gladys was staring at her – her future mother-in-law – in amazement mixed with awe. Sid grinned broadly and glanced at Lily.

  ‘That’s taken the wind out of our sails!’ he exclaimed. He’d explained that he and Bill had met in the Navy. ‘I mean – that’s wonderful! To have found you!’

  Mrs Webb – Mrs Quartermain – looked anguished.

  ‘It’s not wonderful at all!’ she said. ‘You don’t understand – I’ve never told anyone I had a son! I can’t … I simply can’t … Ernest would never accept … I know that! He must never know! You have to go!’

  ‘And to think I felt sorry for her!’ said Gladys when Mrs Quartermain had gone back in. ‘All this time, I thought she must have been torn up inside for having to leave him. I thought she’d be desperate to see him, and over the moon that we’d come!’

  They were still in the little pagoda, too stunned to move.

  ‘“I had a son”,’ Gladys went on. ‘That’s what she said. Not “I have”. She doesn’t want to know Bill. Her own son. How can she possibly not? How can she possibly say that without even meeting him?’

  Over the top of Gladys’s head, Sid caught Lily’s eye.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘It was a hell of a shock for her, us turning up out of the blue. Maybe when she’s had time to have a think, she’ll change her mind.’

  ‘Exactly,’ cried Lily. ‘She might come round.’

  ‘You saw her,’ said Gladys. ‘You heard her.’ She gestured across the square. ‘Look at the life she’s got here. She doesn’t want to give that up. That’s more important to her than her own son. Ask her to the wedding? I hate her! I hate her! I wish we’d never come!’

  This wasn’t how Lily had seen things working out at all.

  ‘Oh Gladys … I’m so sorry,’ she said.

  Then Sid put his arm round Gladys and she burrowed her face in his shoulder.

  There was nothing else they could do. They sat there while Gladys had another cry, then trailed sadly back to Marylebone. The May morning was still bright; this part of London, despite the sandbags and occasional signs of bomb damage, was looking pert and spring-like. The plane trees were in leaf, making wavy patterns on the pavement, and pink blossom drifted down from the cherry trees. Thrushes and blackbirds had already hatched their first broods and were out and about, looking for food for their chicks. People were out and about too, smartly dressed London people, and the smell of their Sunday dinners floated up from basement kitchens. For once, though, even Lily wasn’t hungry.

  When they got back to Sid’s lodgings, Gladys went off to wash her face and Lily flopped down in the armchair.

  ‘What time’s your train?’ Sid asked.

  ‘Not till ten past six. But I think, if you don’t mind, Sid, we might get an earlier one.’

  ‘I think that’d be a good idea,’ Sid agreed. ‘I mean, we could fill the time, go to a concert, see the sights – the ones that haven’t been bombed. But we’ve got to get there and back and apart from her blisters, well, Gladys is beyond herself, isn’t she? She’s not going to enjoy anything now.’

  ‘I don’t think any of us would. I’m sorry it’s ended like this, but I think we may as well get home.’

  Sid suggested they take a taxi to the station: they’d done enough walking, he said. He tried to give them the money for the fare, but Gladys insisted she’d pay, and for the new train tickets.

  ‘I made you do this,’ she said sadly, ‘Both of you. And it’s not your fault it hasn’t worked out. I was ready not to find her, especially after the setbacks yesterday – but I never expected that when we did, she’d flat refuse to do anything about it. She said we don’t understand – well, I don’t understand her!’

  Sid gave her a hug.

  ‘We often can’t understand other people, Glad, and there’s not much we can do about it. But there’s one thing this doesn’t alter and that’s how much you love Bill and how much he loves you. Or the fact you’re going to have a wonderful wedding and a wonderful married life. Bill’s never missed his mother up to now, has he? Never shown any curiosity about her that I know of. So put this weekend away. P
ut it in a box and don’t open it again.’

  Lily looked at him and thought again how glad she was she’d got him involved – she’d been groping for the past hour for what she could say to Gladys, but Sid had summed it up perfectly.

  They didn’t get back much sooner than if they’d taken their original train. The one they caught was shunted into a siding while troop trains passed, then there was a delay at Rugby when the engine broke down and had to be changed. It was well after dark when they finally stepped on to the blacked-out platform in Hinton.

  They hadn’t talked much on the way; there was no more to be said about Mrs Webb, or Mrs Quartermain as she now was. Lily took her toothbrush from the overnight bag they’d shared; Gladys could bring the rest of her things to work in the morning.

  ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out like we hoped, Gladys,’ she said. ‘But Sid’s right. You’ve got to look forward now.’

  ‘Oh, I am,’ said Gladys. ‘I’ve thought about it all the way home. I’m not giving up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve got her address,’ said Gladys defiantly. ‘I’m going to invite her to the wedding anyway.’

  ‘Gladys!’ Astonished by Gladys’s unexpected determination, Lily was also appalled. ‘Isn’t that a bit risky? I mean, we don’t know anything about what goes on behind that front door. From what she said … if her husband – this Ernest … if he wouldn’t – if he won’t – countenance the idea of her having had a child before, even though she was a widow and it’s perfectly respectable, well … he might be the sort who – I don’t know – opens her post or something!’

  ‘If he does, that’s her lookout, isn’t it?’ said Gladys. Lily had never heard her sound so harsh. ‘Never mind leaving Bill in that home all those years while she was living in the lap of luxury, if she’d been a bit more welcoming to us, if she’d even acknowledged she had a son when we gave her the chance … but she never even asked about him, beyond what Sid told her! I don’t know how she can live with herself!’

  She probably won’t be able to, thought Lily, if her husband turned out to be the post-opening sort. He might even throw her out.