Christmas for the Shop Girls

by Joanna Toye

  All the clucking over the presents delayed them, and by the time breakfast had been eaten and washed up, it was time for Dora to head off to church. Jim and Lily had cried off.

  ‘You’re having a day off,’ Jim insisted. ‘Leave everything to us.’

  Dora looked dubious.

  ‘You don’t trust us, do you?’ grinned Jim.

  ‘I trust you,’ smiled Dora. ‘It’s Lily in the kitchen I’m worried about!’

  ‘I promise, dinner will be bubbling away by the time you get back. Now off you go!’

  Jim shooed her out of the door.

  ‘Right,’ he said to Lily. ‘Get your pinny on and let’s get to work. But first of all, where’s my proper Christmas kiss?’

  In the end, it was the best Christmas dinner they’d had since the start of the war.

  Jim kept Lily hard at work peeling the potatoes, scrubbing the carrots and shredding the cabbage. They didn’t grow sprouts – the soil was too poor – and the greengrocer had laughed when Dora had asked if he had any. But Sam had pressed her to accept a tin of something called turkey roll and a can of equally mystifying ‘cranberry log’ to go with it. When Lily turned it out, it kept its shape on the plate, a wobbly cylinder of red jelly that made her laugh. She set it in the centre of the table and put a sprig of holly on top.

  Along with the turkey roll, the cranberry log was delicious and Dora’s Christmas pudding – light on currants, heavy on carrot – was helped down with custard and canned cream – also from the Canadian NAAFI.

  ‘Absent friends,’ said Jim, raising his glass. Dora had put aside her qualms and they’d all dibbed in for a bottle of black market sherry.

  Smiling, they chinked glasses – Jim thinking of his dad, Lily and Dora of Reg, Sid – and Sam, who couldn’t be there to share the feast he’d helped to provide. He was on duty at the base.

  ‘Well, that was lovely!’ Dora declared. Even she, never a big eater, had undone the button on the waistband of her skirt.

  ‘And you’re not doing the washing up!’ Jim chided. ‘Not a hand’s turn all day, we said, and we meant it!’

  Lily nodded agreement, but distantly. The presents, then the cooking, had occupied the morning, but the toast to absent friends had set her thinking. Her closest friends these days were her colleagues at Marlow’s, which led her back to Miss Frobisher – and Mr Simmonds.

  ‘It’s no good,’ she said to Jim when they escaped to the scullery. ‘I can’t help thinking about last night. And Mr Simmonds.’

  ‘We can’t talk about it here,’ said Jim. ‘Let’s wash up, hear the King’s speech, then we’ll go for a walk. How’s that?’

  The King, in his usual halting delivery, spoke of ‘a brightening of our fortunes on land, on sea and in the air.’ But he also counselled that though there were ‘bright visions’ of the future, ‘we have no easy dreams of the days close at hand’.

  They stood for the National Anthem, then Jim nodded at Lily.

  ‘We thought we might go for a walk,’ he told Dora. ‘Shake that dinner down a bit.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Dora, picking up the Georgette Heyer which Cousin Ida had given her. ‘I think I’ll have a little read.’

  Lily was glad to get out of the house. ‘You know what I’ve started to think, don’t you?’ she said as soon as they’d shut the back gate. ‘If it isn’t a mistake …’

  ‘Barry Bigley,’ said Jim darkly.

  ‘Oh, so you think so as well?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, I suppose,’ said Jim reluctantly.

  ‘Well, who else? If the police are still investigating Bigley before the case gets to court, and they’ve turned up something else, or he’s said something … maybe Mr Simmonds was in cahoots with him all along.’ Then she argued against herself. ‘But if he was, why did Bigley need to put the arm on you when he wanted to do that fiddle with the coal?’

  Jim sighed. If this was difficult for her to come to terms with, Lily realised, it was far harder for him. He’d worked so closely with Peter Simmonds – if Mr Simmonds wasn’t the person they’d thought, Jim must be questioning his own judgement of character.

  ‘Maybe coal was just one part of it,’ he said slowly. ‘If you remember, when Robert first told me about Bigley, he said Bigley was interested in lots of things Marlow’s might have. Razor blades, radio batteries, even Thermos flasks, for goodness’ sake!’

  ‘And Mr Simmonds was supplying him with them? And somehow in Bigley’s questioning, it’s come to light? Oh Jim!’

  In her stomach, Lily felt the turkey roll live up to its name. If things looked bad for Mr Simmonds, what about poor Miss Frobisher? And little John? And if the police were looking deeper and deeper into Bigley’s affairs, or Bigley had revealed things in the hope of a lighter sentence, how long before the police came looking for Jim? Or Dora? Or Lily herself? The plum suede shoes executed a mocking tap dance in front of her eyes and the turkey roll did a full somersault.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ she said. ‘We’ve got the rest of today and tomorrow before we’re back at work and can find anything out for sure. I can’t wait till then!’

  ‘You won’t have to.’ Jim pulled her along the cinder path at the back of the houses. ‘Let’s go and see if Miss Frobisher knows any more.’

  ‘What? Now? On Christmas Day? We can’t!’

  ‘I thought you just said—’

  ‘I did! But— Anyway, how can we? We don’t know where she lives!’

  Jim was striding ahead. Lily followed, sending up a scatter of ashes.

  ‘I do,’ said Jim.

  ‘What?’ Lily pulled on his arm and he stopped.

  ‘Well, sort of. Peter was talking one day about the Man in the Moon. You know, the pub? It’s on the corner of her road. Albany Road.’

  ‘And the house number?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t say that but come on, you tracked Bill’s mother across London with far less to go on – surely we can manage it in Hinton!’

  ‘Hang on.’ Lily had remembered something. ‘I might have a clue! Miss Frobisher was telling Miss Temple that she and her little boy had cut out paper snowflakes to stick all over the front window. That might narrow it down a bit.’

  ‘It narrows it down a lot! Well, come on! let’s get going!’

  Chapter 33

  It didn’t take long to walk to Albany Road. The day was dry but dull, nothing special, but there’d been enough drama lately, Lily thought, without the weather adding its two-pennyworth.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it,’ said Jim, thinking out loud, ‘ordinary people like us having their Christmas Day all over the world, or trying to. America, Australia, Africa, the occupied countries, even in Germany. I mean they’re not all Nazis, are they? There’s thousands, millions of people all over the world who never wanted a war, never asked for it, just trying to get on with their lives.’

  Lily nodded. She could hardly remember what life was like without a war, and she sometimes thought life would be strange without it.

  Albany Road was a quiet street of Victorian villas, semi-detached. They were three-storeyed and they could see from the multiple bells that almost all had been divided into flats. That fitted with what Lily knew about Miss Frobisher’s circumstances. She lived on the first floor and her downstairs neighbour, an elderly lady, looked after young John after school and in the holidays.

  ‘Snowdrops,’ Jim noted as they passed one of the gardens – still the country boy at heart. ‘And even a few daffs trying to come through. They’ll be pretty in spring.’

  ‘Never mind spring, we’re looking for snowflakes, remember?’ Lily peered up at the houses on her left. ‘I hope they haven’t taken them down.’

  ‘Why would they?’ asked Jim. ‘Hang on, look!’ Across the road, the bay window on the first floor of number 48 was covered in cut-out shapes. ‘That must be it!’

  They crossed the road. There was a short path of chequered tiles to the front door, where three bells advertised flats 1, 2 and 3.


  ‘Shall we take a guess it’s number two?’ Jim pressed the bell without waiting for Lily’s reply. There was a long pause.

  ‘Maybe they’re out,’ tutted Lily. ‘Gone for a walk, like us.’

  ‘Shh!’

  Footsteps were coming along the hall, giving them hope. Then the front door opened and they were face to face with a fearsome Red Indian chief. But beneath the feathered headdress and the war paint – a smear of red on each cheek and across his forehead – was Peter Simmonds.

  Miss Frobisher put down the tray of tea, turned to Jim and Lily and smiled.

  ‘He may be a while,’ she said. ‘That war paint – my lipstick, if you please – is going to take a lot scrubbing to get off!’

  All had been explained once Lily and Jim had followed Peter Simmonds up to the first floor. Young John’s hero was the singing cowboy, Roy Rogers, so for Christmas, Mr Simmonds had given him a pop gun, a cowboy hat and a neckerchief. But as every cowboy needs an adversary, he’d borrowed the Indian headdress from the Marlow’s Players – the store’s amateur dramatic group.

  So that was Peter Simmonds’s strange appearance accounted for – though not his appearance there at all. Lily was relieved he wasn’t languishing in a police cell, of course, but she needed an explanation for that, as well, which Miss Frobisher obviously realised. She’d seemed surprised at first, but also rather touched, to see them.

  ‘I imagine you’re here about last night.’ she said now, passing them each a cup of tea. She was in a seasonal claret-coloured dress, her hair pinned prettily off her face in a roll at the front then loose to her shoulders. John, still in his cowboy garb, had been persuaded to ‘sit quietly now’ with a cup of milk and some back copies of the Beano. ‘Perhaps,’ Miss Frobisher added, sitting down with her own cup, ‘we’d better wait for Peter to explain.’

  While Jim politely asked her if they’d had a nice day so far, Lily tried – as unobtrusively as she could – to look around. She’d never seen a room like it. Her own home was decorated – if that was the word – with wallpaper that had been muted even before it had faded to a uniform beige; the furniture was a cluttered mix of bits and pieces that Dora had acquired over the years and oddments that had been passed down. This room looked almost empty – but as if it had been planned that way. The walls were plain white and painted, not papered. There was a three-piece suite in a boxy, square style, upholstered in chevrons of emerald and turquoise and the little ornamentation there was showed all Miss Frobisher’s flair. There was a bright blue vase filled with peacock feathers on the mantelpiece and a striking picture over it – startling daubs of paint in blue and green shot through with egg-yolk yellow. Lily stared. If it was meant to be – she took a wild guess – ‘storm at sea’ it was like no representation of ‘storm at sea’ she’d ever seen. Even the Christmas decorations were different: pine cones arranged on top of each other in a conical shape to form a sort of miniature Christmas tree, while John’s toys were heaped in a wicker basket, the sort Dora used for laundry, and his books were arranged on graduated shelves stained green.

  ‘Do you like it, Lily?’

  Miss Frobisher had noticed her staring.

  ‘Very much!’ said Lily. ‘It’s very, er, unusual.’

  Miss Frobisher inclined her head.

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment! It wasn’t like this when I moved in. My father had lived here. I sold everything – and there was a lot – and started afresh.’

  You could say that again!

  Still looking slightly pink about the cheeks, Peter Simmonds came back in and sat down next to Miss Frobisher. She passed him his cup; he sat back and drank. Lily could see he was completely at home.

  ‘So …’ Miss Frobisher smiled. ‘I suppose you thought John and I would be prison-visiting today. You’d better tell them, Peter. Everything.’

  Mr Simmonds sighed. He put down his cup on a small table at his elbow.

  ‘It’s a bit embarrassing,’ he said, ‘so I hope I can trust that it’ll go no further. As you two were the only witnesses.’

  Lily and Jim nodded vigorously.

  ‘It’s all Eileen’s fault, really,’ he began, causing Miss Frobisher – Eileen – to shoot him a look. ‘Her Christmas present. She’d mentioned that as a girl, she’d had a charm bracelet she was fond of, but she’d lost it. I decided to get her another. I’d looked in several places but there was nothing to be had. Then I mentioned it to Captain Willerby.’

  ‘You’d better explain who he is,’ put in Miss Frobisher.

  ‘I was going to,’ Mr Simmonds replied patiently. Lily swallowed a smile – it was funny seeing him being dictated to.

  ‘If it’s the chap I’m thinking of,’ said Jim, ‘youngish, fair, got a moustache, he’s often in the store. Gentleman’s Outfitting, Tobacco and Cigars. And he bought a bedside cabinet from me back in the autumn.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Peter Simmonds confirmed. ‘A very good customer. Anyway, I went along one night to a veterans’ reunion, a charity do, and he was there. I’d never really spoken to him before beyond pleasantries – you know how it is.’ Lily and Jim did. While Marlow’s staff were encouraged to build a relationship with customers, over-familiarity was not advised. ‘We got talking. He told me he’d been invalided out of the Army too, and we talked about life in civvy street, my work, the difficulty of getting things to sell, and to buy, especially for Christmas. When I happened to mention what I was looking for, he said he’d come into some jewellery left to him by an aunt.’

  Lily glanced at Jim. She was starting to have a bad feeling about Captain Willerby, but Jim was listening intently as Peter Simmonds went on.

  ‘There was a charm bracelet amongst it, Willerby said, and if I was interested, I could have it – I’d pay him for it, obviously. Well, we arranged to meet in a pub – it wasn’t the sort of transaction I could do in the store. He brought it along – heavy silver, loaded with charms, and the price seemed fair. I gave him the money, took it away, wrapped it up, and—’

  ‘You’ve probably guessed where this is going,’ Miss Frobisher interrupted. Lily glanced at Jim again. He was nodding. ‘Our Captain Willerby was no such thing!’

  ‘He had been in the Army, Eileen!’ Mr Simmonds objected.

  ‘Tch!’ scorned Miss Frobisher, but affectionately. ‘Yes – a corporal in the Pay Corps! And kicked out, not invalided out!’

  ‘All right, I was taken in!’ Peter Simmonds defended himself. ‘But he had all the patter, a good story, didn’t trip himself up once. And I suppose …’ He was suddenly, touchingly, vulnerable. ‘I wanted to believe him.’

  Because of the bracelet, Lily thought. Because of Miss Frobisher.

  ‘But he was a con man,’ she said sadly.

  ‘And a thief!’ Having said Mr Simmonds should tell the story, Miss Frobisher jumped in. Now the initial shock and worry were past, it almost seemed as if she was enjoying this. ‘There were four of them! Last week the police caught one of the gang at a house burglary and he – what’s the phrase? – spilt the beans on his accomplices – and a few other unsolved thefts.’

  ‘Then the police had to trace the stuff,’ Jim surmised.

  ‘The loot!’ Miss Frobisher’s eyes gleamed. ‘And when it came to the famous bracelet, our friend “Captain” Willerby gave Peter’s name.’

  ‘The worst they could have charged me with was receiving stolen goods.’ Mr Simmonds took up the story again. ‘But they accepted I’d bought it in good faith and I’d been, well … duped.’ He turned to Jim. ‘There’ve been some changes at Hinton police, you know. A lot of the old guard have gone. That DCI Gregson, bumptious chap who used to come in and lecture our store detectives, he’s left apparently.’

  Bigley’s chum Gregson! Lily didn’t dare look at Jim, who was nodding in a casually interested sort of way.

  ‘They were very reasonable with you, weren’t they?’ Eileen’s tone was warm. ‘Except for taking my bracelet off you, of course.’

  ‘They dr
ove me home to get it and I had to hand it over,’ Mr Simmonds added sadly.

  ‘Then he shot round here to explain it all to me. I should think so, too, since I’ve had to do without a Christmas present!’

  ‘I’ll make it up to you,’ said Peter Simmonds meekly.

  ‘I should hope so! Do you hear that, Lily? You’re a witness to that as well!’

  Lily smiled again – first to herself, and then broadly. The way Miss Frobisher spoke about, and to, Mr Simmonds so reminded her of her own relationship with Jim. This telling-off by teasing only showed how very close they were. But she was also smiling with relief – and at herself and Jim. Had they seriously thought Mr Simmonds might be in league with Barry Bigley? The idea seemed absurd now they knew the real story and he’d been revealed not as a big-time crook but a besotted lover.

  While Lily had been thinking, John had scrambled to his feet. He was standing at Miss Frobisher’s side, whispering something in her ear. She laughed.

  ‘He wants to know if we can play Snakes and Ladders,’ she said. ‘Can we tempt you to stay?’

  There’d been plenty of snakes around all year – Robert Marlow, Barry Bigley, DCI Gregson and now the fake Captain Willerby – but, thought Lily, as Peter and Jim cleared the tea tray and she helped John to lay out the board and the counters, lots of ladders too, both at work and outside it.

  As the King had said, there might be no easy dreams, but there were some bright hopes to cling to as the year came to an end.

  Until the January sales started, the atmosphere in the store after Christmas could seem flat, but this year, buoyed by Mr Marlow’s promised changes, the staff came back to work in good spirits. Lily knew that the friendly welcome and the confidences extended to her and Jim at Miss Frobisher’s would never be referred to again, and most likely never repeated. In the store her relationship with Miss Frobisher would revert to that of boss and employee.

  And it did. There was only one reference to Christmas, when Miss Frobisher upbraided Lily for letting John win at Snakes and Ladders. Lily had deliberately miscounted a throw, tapping first on the square she was on instead of moving her counter immediately forwards, so had slid down a particularly crucial snake.