Christmas for the Shop Girls

by Joanna Toye

  Dora knew what he was saying really, and she was pleased that he hadn’t been any more overt. That was one of the many things she liked about him. He never overstepped the mark. She liked what he hadn’t said, nothing embarrassing about it being the company he came for, or even the conversation, and she was grateful and relieved for that. If he had, she might not have said what she said next.

  ‘Well,’ she replied. ‘I was wondering if you’d like to try a bit of a different atmosphere. And tea made in a pot, not an urn like here. It tastes better that way.’

  His forehead creased.

  ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

  ‘I wondered if you’d like to come round. For tea at mine. Sunday tea.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You could meet the family – well, Lily and Jim anyway.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes, why not? Next time you get a Sunday off.’

  Sam replaced his cup on the counter.

  ‘Dora,’ he said. ‘That would be so kind. Thank you. I’d love to come.’

  The Navy hadn’t pushed out more boats in four years of war than Dora did in Sam’s honour and the resulting spread, when she surveyed it, met even her high standards. There was a big plate of sandwiches (sardine and tongue), scones – only plain, but with two sorts of jam – and a Victoria sponge, made with the last of Sam’s sugar lumps crushed to powder. She rather hoped he wouldn’t bring doughnuts however much Lily was slavering for them; there was barely any room on the table.

  There was a knock at the front door and, her mouth suddenly dry, Dora went to answer it. She only got as far as the doorway to the hall: Lily had skidded downstairs and beaten her to it. She’d been more excited than Dora to hear Sam was coming and was in her best skirt and blouse.

  ‘We’re on show as well!’ she’d said when Dora had commented, and Dora could hardly talk. She was wearing the blouse she’d had her eye on – oyster-pink with a scalloped collar and drawn-thread work on the yoke. She hoped she didn’t look as if she was trying too hard.

  ‘Do I gather the VIP’s here?’ Jim appeared from the scullery where he’d been washing his hands; he’d been re-caulking the henhouse. He stood expectantly by. Poor Sam – quite the reception committee.

  But Dora needn’t have worried. Led in by a beaming Lily, Sam was more than able to hold his own. There were no doughnuts – no food offering at all, but he’d brought a bunch of carnations, and once they’d been arranged in Dora’s best vase, they sat round the table. Dora was fully expecting him to have to undergo an interrogation from Lily and Jim, but Sam didn’t give them a chance. Easy and expansive, he was the one to question them.

  First he quizzed Dora on how she’d managed to produce such a splendid meal on rations (‘She’s a genius,’ Lily answered warmly) and then turned his attention to Jim and Lily, asking them all about Marlow’s. Dora had quite forgotten that as a shopkeeper himself, he’d be interested in their line of work. She felt almost left out as Sam laughed at Lily’s tales of awkward customers, capping them with ones of his own. Then he and Jim got into discussion about the overnight disappearance of galvanised buckets, mops and broom handles – the situation with supplies had obviously been the same in Canada as in Britain once the factories had gone over to war production.

  Lily signalled to her mum and they began to clear the plates.

  ‘He seems really nice,’ she said eagerly, pulling the door to once they got out to the scullery. ‘You have my full approval! He’s welcome any time.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ asked Dora. ‘And I suppose doughnuts have got nothing to do with it?’

  Sam had explained that he deliberately hadn’t brought any food in case Dora might feel insulted, but if they ever wanted anything, they had only to ask.

  ‘Nothing at all!’

  Dora didn’t believe her daughter for a moment, but she could have cried with relief. She hadn’t realised till then just how important it was to have Lily’s permission to go on seeing Sam.

  Chapter 23

  September had arrived, and with it rich pickings in the jungle of blackberry bushes along the embankment – if you could beat the birds to it. The leaves on the ash trees were still bright green under their coating of city dust, but the limes were already blotched with yellow and the fallen conkers lay glossily brown where their spiny casings had split. Summer was only just giving way to autumn, but at Marlow’s, Christmas was in full swing – behind the scenes, anyway. The bomb last year had pretty much wiped it – and profits – from the calendar, so this year, everyone was determined it was going to be a success.

  Jim was masterminding the first-floor extravaganza again: Father Christmas would arrive outside on a sleigh and process up to his grotto on Toys, where he’d sit on a padded throne and dispense a small present to every child who whispered their Christmas wishes. Most children would simply be asking for their daddies back, but as that was one wish that was in the hands of Herr Hitler and not Father Christmas, buyers across the store had used every ounce of their charm and persuasiveness to wring anything out of their suppliers that might pass as a gift.

  To her great joy Lily had been recalled permanently from her exile on Schoolwear – Miss Kendall, first sales on Bedlinens, had been appointed in Miss Naylor’s place. Lily had to acknowledge that her time on a different department had been good experience, but she was thrilled to be back where she felt she belonged. In view of the good job she’d done, though, Miss Frobisher told her she’d be keeping her second sales status.

  ‘Catching me up fast!’ grinned Jim, who’d reached the dizzy heights of first sales on Furniture and Household.

  ‘And coming up to overtake on the inside,’ warned Lily. ‘You’d better watch out!’

  Gladys was delighted to have her friend back on the neighbouring department – it made surreptitious chats easier. None of the gloss of being newly married had worn off, but now, she said, in a phrase she could only have got from some film, ‘the sands in the hour glass are running out’.

  ‘We’re making the most of the time we’ve got left,’ she told Lily, sidling over when Mr Bunting and Miss Frobisher were on their breaks.

  ‘The Jamaica’s refit’s almost done, is it?’

  ‘They’ll be putting to sea again in the middle of the month,’ mourned Gladys. ‘But we’ve had a good run. A whole summer we’ve been able to see each other. Plenty of couples only get their wedding night, so I can’t feel too hard done by.’

  Miss Frobisher was glad to have Lily back too, and actually said so. Ever since the way her boss had managed their unexpected meeting at the cricket pitch, and the frankness with which she’d spoken the day after, Lily had even more respect and affection for her.

  When it had first been made public, Miss Frobisher’s relationship with Mr Simmonds had been the number one topic of conversation in the staff canteen, along with speculation about whether her husband had ever existed, but it had soon been overtaken by the sudden sacking of Mr Riley of Luggage and Travel Goods for making ‘improper advances’ to young members of staff, female and – it was whispered – male. The store detectives, it transpired, had been keeping a watching brief on him for months. That was much meatier fare for those who liked to chew over the store’s latest scandal with their shepherd’s pie.

  But time and canteen chat had moved on again. Mr Riley’s misdemeanours were old news and now all the talk was of Christmas.

  Lily was in the stockroom to check off a delivery that Les had trundled up.

  ‘All present and correct,’ she confirmed, giving Les back his clipboard. ‘Socks, slippers and boys’ pyjamas. Half the quantity we’d have liked but—’

  ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on,’ chanted Les. It had become a very over-used phrase and no one could hear it now without a groan. He tucked his pen back into the pocket of his brown overall. ‘But for how much longer, eh, now we’ve only got the Nazis to deal with!’

  There had been some amazing news that week: the Allies had launched an invasion from Sicily to
the Italian mainland and just days after they’d landed at Salerno, Italy had surrendered. It wasn’t all good news though: the Germans had sent reinforcements and redoubled their resistance.

  ‘Only?’ Lily was more sceptical. ‘I can’t see Hitler caving in that easily.’

  ‘Our Beryl can!’ grinned Les. ‘Remember that book I was running back in the summer? She reckoned the war would be over by Christmas – she thinks she’ll clean up! I haven’t liked to tell her there’s six others that picked that date! Mind you, I’m thinking of opening another book.’ He leant in confidentially. ‘Simmonds and Frobisher engaged by Christmas. That’s a dead cert, if you ask me. What do you reckon? You work with her.’

  Lily assumed an air of dignity she didn’t really feel: the notion had occurred to her.

  ‘That’s a matter for them,’ she said demurely.

  ‘Yeah? And the rest! Beryl’s going to drop you in a couple of flyers about her business, even so. She’s had some new ones printed.’ Like his wife, Les wasn’t one to be easily put off. He clanged shut the gate of the metal cage he’d brought the boxes in and prepared to rattle off with it. ‘Stick one in Frobisher’s handbag, can you? And in Simmonds’s little cubby hole? A hint never hurts.’

  Downstairs, on the sales floor, Jim was stewing over another smug Government briefing.

  ‘All quiet on the Furniture front, Mr Goodridge?’

  Peter Simmonds, more relaxed, even more human, these days, approached and saw what Jim was reading. ‘Ah, the Utility Scheme.’

  Jim pushed the document to one side and straightened up.

  ‘Banging on about what a success it is. And it is – we all get the point of standard designs to save on materials—’

  ‘If only the manufacture was standardised as well.’

  ‘Seven hundred different factories making the stuff? Every delivery’s a lucky dip. Will it be any good or will the drawers stick and the chairs have a wobble? But …’ Jim fell back on the tired old mantra. ‘There’s a war on.’

  ‘And no one’s going to forget it,’ commiserated Mr Simmonds. ‘But I’ve come to take you away from all that.’ Good grief, a joke, he really had relaxed! ‘Mr Marlow would like to see you.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Jim perked up. ‘About Christmas?’

  ‘He didn’t say. You’d better go and see.’

  Hopeful, Jim was on his way to the back stairs before Mr Simmonds had even finished the sentence.

  ‘Go straight in, he’s expecting you,’ Mr Marlow’s secretary smiled and turned back to her typewriter.

  Jim knocked and entered. But what he saw – or rather, who – stopped him in his tracks with his hand glued to the doorknob.

  ‘Ah!’ Cedric Marlow got up from behind his desk. ‘I believe you know Mr Bigley.’

  The doorknob felt clammy under Jim’s hand.

  Bigley, amply filling one of the elegant carver chairs on the visitors’ side of the desk, got to his feet and held out his hand.

  ‘Good to see you again!’ he beamed. He turned back to Cedric. ‘As I said, your lad Robert introduced Jim and me in the summer.’

  Jim closed the door carefully, his mind spinning like a tank turret under fire. He crossed the wide sweep of carpet and gave Bigley’s outstretched hand a cursory shake. He sat down, at a nod from his uncle, in the other chair. What the heck was Bigley doing here?

  ‘Good news!’ Cedric began, settling himself in his own chair again. ‘I’m delighted to say that Mr Bigley’s going to be delivering the store’s coal again this winter. I can’t tell you the relief of knowing we’ll get regular deliveries from a reliable firm!’

  ‘You can trust me, Cedric,’ grinned Bigley. Jim winced at the over-familiarity, and waited for a pained look from his uncle, but none came. Barry Bigley carried merrily on: ‘And I suggested, Jim, that as we’d met, and as Robert’s no longer around, and you’re taking on more and more …’ – he favoured Jim with a wink – ‘more responsibilities in general, you could be my point of contact.’

  ‘Hmn!’

  To Jim it sounded like a bat squeak of disbelief, protest and horror. But a glance at his uncle told him that Cedric Marlow had heard it as acceptance – and Jim would have to accept that.

  Because what could he say? Expose Bigley in front of his uncle? Bigley would promptly spill the beans about Robert’s part in the nice little coal scam they’d had going last winter. Cedric had forgiven Robert once when he’d found out about the delivery racket and had been so touched when his son had dropped everything in Birmingham to come back to help out after the bomb. To reveal that Robert had cynically used the time in Hinton for his own ends, personal and profitable, might just finish the old boy off.

  But at the same time … Bigley was about as straight as a weasel in a revolving door. And what with the grinning and the winking, he was obviously expecting to repeat the same dodge with Jim that he’d had going with Robert. The introduction at the fete must have led Bigley to think that Robert and Jim were pals – a couple of chancers together.

  Bigley’s tireless good humour seemed to be catching: even Uncle Cedric, usually the most strait-laced of men, was trying out a smile.

  ‘And another thing,’ he added eagerly. ‘Mr Bigley’s agreed to help out with part of the Christmas proceedings.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  What now? Bigley as Father Christmas?

  ‘I know you’ve been having trouble, Jim,’ Cedric began, ‘finding a carrier who’d forgo a morning’s profits and sacrifice one of his carts to be Father Christmas’s sleigh. Well, Mr Bigley here has come to the rescue and offered one of his. Isn’t that generous?’

  ‘Very.’ Jim squeezed the word out between teeth that were grinding so loudly he was surprised the other two couldn’t hear.

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing! It’s the least I can do for the kiddies!’

  Bigley attempted to look modest and failed dismally. He was better when he was boasting, Jim thought acidly.

  ‘You see!’ Cedric was completely in thrall to the man. ‘He won’t take any credit. And that’s on top of the money he raises for the Police Widows and Orphans!’

  Oh, that as well, thought Jim. A nice way to disguise a few more backhanders.

  ‘Come now, Cedric, you’re making me blush!’ Barry prised himself out of his chair once more and stood up. ‘I’ll have to get back to business. But I’ll be in touch, Jim, to, er, finalise delivery arrangements.’

  Jim stood up as well, every nerve ending strained in the need to be polite.

  ‘I’ll wait to hear from you.’

  ‘And you will!’

  A threat or a promise? Almost certainly both.

  As the door closed behind Bigley, Cedric Marlow sighed happily.

  ‘Such a relief to know our winter heating is in such good hands,’ he said.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Jim! Why didn’t you say no right there? And tell Mr Marlow what a so-and-so Bigley is? And that he’ll rip him off?’

  Jim had been bracing himself for Lily’s reaction all day and now they were walking home he was getting it with both barrels.

  ‘Yes, great idea,’ said Jim ironically. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Because,’ said Jim patiently, ‘what would it say to Uncle Cedric? You know he’s not been quite the same since the bomb. Marlow’s being smashed up like that took away a lot of his confidence and he’s only just getting it back. If I tell him Bigley’s a crook, what does that say about the old boy’s judgement? It would all have to come out, the scam Robert and Bigley fixed up last time, which drops Robert in the mire, and makes my uncle realise he’s not even a very good judge of his own son. I can’t. It’s too cruel.’

  ‘So it’s kinder to let him be defrauded? And if anyone finds out, prosecuted?’

  ‘No one’s going to find out, are they,’ retorted Jim. ‘That’s the trouble, Bigley being so matey with the police.’

  ‘So let me get this right,’ countered Lily, ‘instead y
ou’re going let Bigley diddle Marlow’s? Oh and, by the way, take a rake-off yourself?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m going to have it out with Bigley, but in person.’

  ‘Good luck with that!’

  ‘He’s a bully,’ said Jim, hoping he sounded braver than he felt. ‘They’re always surprised when someone stands up to them. I shall tell him I’m not having any funny business. He’s got to deliver the full weight of coal he’s contracted to. I’m not overpaying for short weight and I’m not having anything to do with any crooked scheme.’

  Lily shook her head.

  ‘And if he laughs in your face? Or gets his heavies to punch you in it? You know it’s no good going to the police and reporting an assault!’

  ‘Let me try at least,’ Jim pleaded. ‘We’ll see what happens.’

  There was no chance to talk about it any further that evening, and perhaps that was just as well: after tea, everyone was going straight out again. Jim took his tin hat and armband off the peg in the hall and went off on ARP duty. Lily and Dora washed the pots before going their separate ways, Dora to one of Cousin Ida’s knitting parties and Lily back into town. She didn’t feel much like it now, but she’d promised to meet Gladys for a night at the pictures.

  Her friend needed taking out of herself: the HMS Jamaica was already at sea on its post-refit trials and would then be returning to squadron duties. Gladys wouldn’t see Bill again for many long months, maybe longer. They’d said their last farewells a week ago, and though Gladys kept repeating her mantra that she knew she was, or had been, lucky to have seen so much of him, it didn’t stop her from looking pale and wan, or her eyes being dark-rimmed when she came to work each morning.

  Lily had chosen the film carefully. It was a musical – she’d avoided anything war-like – but the evening wasn’t a success. The inevitable Ministry of Food propaganda piece featuring Potato Pete (‘I’m always getting into hot water, but there are lots of other ways of cooking me!’) was met with the inevitable bored groans and was followed by something even worse, a short feature called ‘Listening to Britain’. Lily was expecting a series of interviews, but it was more a sort of montage, and not a very helpful one in the circumstances. It opened with a long sequence of the sea lapping on the shore and progressed through scenes at a lookout post and then a dance hall (‘Members of HM Forces in Uniform Half Price!’) which immediately had Gladys reaching for her handkerchief.