Annie's Promise (8 page)

‘I’ll try offering the department stores a much bigger discount, even extended credit, but not too much, we can’t carry it.’ She could see her breath in the moonlight. Did everyone talk to themselves? But why worry, she wasn’t growing hairs on the palms of her hands yet, Sarah had checked today and had said she might sound mad but so far wasn’t.

She turned again and again but sleep would not come and so she went down to the dining room. There was no point in wasting time if they had to get more garments out. She walked over the thread-strewn floor. She must hoover in the morning – what was it Isaacs had said? ‘A clean workroom is a happy room, Mrs Armstrong,’ and then he’d handed her the Hoover. She touched the boxes of pants Gracie had brought in at the end of the day. She must put them into packs of twelve but that could wait until the morning. There were Bet’s pants on the table, she’d re-do those now.

Her neck ached and her fingers were sore as she began
and she wondered how to tell Bet that her hands and eyes could not do the work, but even as she thought it she knew that she could never say the words and so she unpicked, re-sewed, stacked, unpicked, re-sewed, stacked as she always did for Bet, and then checked Gracie’s and her own. The quality must be good right from the start. She stopped and wrote a reminder to ask Gracie to stack her garments into dozens, it would mean one less job for her.

Now she cut out the work for tomorrow and shrugged aside the ache in hands swollen from using the scissors too much. What did banana fingers matter just so long as the work was done – pain was nothing, it would pass but there were tears in her eyes after half an hour.

For a further hour she sewed samples of their bras, of the new pants because she had decided she must tour the Madam shops again. She wouldn’t ring in advance this time, she’d just go. She sewed more aprons and gloves because she’d noticed two new kitchen and craft shops setting up on her way back from Gosforn market last week and she’d call in on them too. She’d do Durham, Newcastle, all the towns.

She needed to sound out Brenda Watson down Edmore Street again, make sure she’d really be available to help her train up the homeworkers if they got the big ones. No, not if,
once
they got the orders.

Tom and Georgie had talked to the men, they’d got four reliable wives picked out as homeworkers but how long would they wait, they might go and get other jobs.

‘No, there
are
no other jobs, you idiot woman, that’s why we’re here.’ Annie leant her head forward on her throbbing hands. Her back was stiff, her feet were cold, her lids were heavy.

She packed up the samples, checked through her list of calls, checked off the quantities against the orders – still needed twenty-four more vests and … she checked through the orders again, yes, there was an order for four dozen pants. It was for Fairway Market – how had she missed that? Gracie
and she could have done them on Sunday. She gripped the chair. They were to be delivered tomorrow.

‘For God’s sake, we can’t afford to be so careless,’ she groaned and looked at the clock again, it was so late, she was too cold, too tired but then she shook herself. ‘Get on with it.’

She went through to the kitchen, stoked the range, brewed tea, smoked a cigarette, stood in the open door looking out into the yard, there were no spent rockets and so she flicked her cigarette across the yard, watching it arc in the cold November air, watching it smoulder and die – ‘Good as a rocket any day, Annie Armstrong, now sort it out.’

She drank her tea, curling her hands around the mug, ignoring the throbbing, wondering how many pants would be returned from the other stalls? Could she bank on twenty perhaps as part of the four dozen, but no, what if they’d sold the lot? She rinsed her mug, then cut and sewed the full forty-eight, checked and packed them, and the twenty-four vests.

If she had any returns she’d have to put them back into stock and sell those on at the next trader. She checked her route. Yes, she could do Fairway and still be back for Sarah because she stayed for piano until four.

Annie checked the clock again, her mind a blank, her eyelids heavy, she rubbed her eyes. Georgie would be in at half past six, she’d give him breakfast and finish packing before Sarah got up, but then she saw the invoices. She had to do those so that Georgie could look at them before she left. She insisted that all paperwork was checked because she was unable to trust herself. Maybe all orders should be too, but no, everyone had enough to do, she’d just make sure she checked through each evening.

Her hands were shaking as she wrote but then they were all exhausted. Tomorrow she must tell Gracie that they had to produce more than they were doing so that they could build up a reserve to call on, rather than going from hand to mouth like this. Could Gracie produce more? She’d have
to, even though she had the two children. Could they work harder without telling Betsy otherwise she’d insist on doing more, which would only mean more unpicking? Annie slept for an hour.

The bacon was crisping and the sausages spitting as Georgie came through the door – safe, thank God, yet again. ‘Sausages are almost ready, the bacon’s crisp, the invoices are there.’ She nodded to the table, then laughed as his arms came round her, as his hands stroked her breasts and he said, ‘Since you don’t have to scrub my back take me straight to bed, Mrs Armstrong. The sausages can wait, the bacon can burn, the invoices don’t need checking.’

He pushed the frying pan off the hotplate and pulled her through the door, undoing her dressing-gown, leading her up the stairs, closing their door with his heel, stripping off his clothes, removing hers. He held her, stroked her, kissed her mouth, her breasts, her thighs and she could still smell the pits on him.

‘I love you bonny lass, little, little Annie,’ he said as he lay on her, moving with her, kissing her eyes now, her hair. ‘I love you, I love you.’

Though she was tired she held him, kissed him and then felt her own passion rise as it always did for this man, for his strength, his kindness, his love. Later, they lay in one another’s arms but only for a moment because Sarah must not be late for school, Annie must not be late for the rounds, so she eased herself from the bed, dressed and crept towards the door. She turned as he spoke.

‘Forgot to tell you, love. An order was phoned through from Fairway on Saturday, I stuck it in at the bottom of the pile – it should have been on the top, shouldn’t it?’

‘Next time, Georgie, I shall murder you!’ Annie blew him a kiss because this time the mistake had not been hers and so perhaps the days of carelessness were over.

Sarah ate Georgie’s breakfast while Annie cooked another for him and packed up sandwiches and an apple for her daughter’s lunch. She pricked the sausages, turned the bacon.

‘D’you need another slice, Sarah?’

‘No thanks, Mum, but I’ll have his rind.’

‘No you won’t, your da likes it, you’ve got your own.’

‘You’re as bad as Miss Simpson. She’s mean too.’ Sarah was buttering her toast, putting on too much marmalade. Annie smiled.

‘Surely not like Miss Simpson, she breathes fire, doesn’t she?’

‘Almost. She’s been going on about the eleven plus but I don’t want to go to the Grammar, it’ll mean breaking up with Davy and …’ Sarah waved her toast at her mother, ‘and, it’ll mean all girls, I’ll get like Terry.’

Annie put Sarah’s lunchbox into her satchel. ‘I don’t think we’d let that happen somehow.’ She checked her watch, ten more minutes before they needed to leave. She turned the sausages, grilled more bread and looked across at Sarah. ‘If you did pass, it would give you more opportunity you know, both of you. I mean Davy might want to go and if you’re spouting about not splitting up he’d maybe hold back. You’d get the bus in together and meet up afterwards.’

Sarah was quiet as she finished her toast. Then she took Georgie’s tray from Annie and ran upstairs with it while Annie hurried with the boxes out to the car, balancing too many, but Sarah rushed out and caught them as they fell.

‘Well done – but go in and brush your hair, Sarah,’ she laughed, ‘and give Miss Simpson a chance and more importantly, don’t influence Davy. Let him make up his own mind.’

She followed her daughter through to the kitchen and wiped the drainer. Then she shrugged herself into her coat, put on some lipstick and smoothed her hair. She straightened her daughter’s collar.

‘Are my seams straight?’ She turned her back to Sarah.

‘Yes, and Davy’s made up his mind anyway. He wants to go to Art College so I’m going too.’

Annie picked up her handbag and looked carefully at Sarah, smiling gently. ‘But you might not want to do art, darling.’

‘I don’t, not like he does, he wants to paint designs like Uncle Tom. I want to be like you, have ideas, make them work, learn how to move a strap and make something better but I want to stay here with you for the rest of my life. I don’t ever want to leave Wassingham, or this house.’ Sarah was moving towards the door as Annie reached out and pulled her close.

‘I felt just like you when I lived here. I never wanted to leave but I did, and then I came back. You do that when you’re grown up you know but the love never dies between families, it’s always there. And I think it’s a very good idea to go to Art College, if that’s what you want to do but there’s plenty of time to change your ideas. Listen to Miss Simpson though, she’s maybe a wise old dragon. Now scoot, you’ll be late.’

She watched Sarah walk through the yard and out into the alley, knowing she would pick up Davy outside Tom’s, and was moved not only at the thought of the children’s friendship but at the memory of Sarah’s words. That night she wrote to the Australian newspapers in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide explaining that she was trying to trace Sophie and Eric Shaw and asking them to print her letter. Later she worked into the small hours because it might not just be the adults’ future she was building up, but the children’s too.

As November became December there seemed almost no time to eat, let alone sleep. She picked up orders for a further two Madam shops, and five market stalls, and still ran the Gosforn stall, though she never saw Maud or Teresa there. She spent her evenings with Sarah, her nights working.

She called on the kitchen and craft shops. The manager of one was rude and turned her away, the other took a dozen aprons and gloves, then rang for more. Tom suggested that they sewed holly on to the knickers with Christmas approaching and they did so, though Annie felt they would surely not sell, because there was no way she would wear a pair, or Gracie. But sell they did and once again she made a note
not to allow her personal taste to influence her view of the market place.

She rang shops and stores offering larger discounts but only a few buyers from the smaller shops saw her and only one placed an order. In desperation she took Davy and Sarah to Newcastle for tea in the restaurant of the main department store.

They ate meringues with forks and watched the mannequins parade while she told them of the pantomime she had seen as a child and how she had clapped with all the other children when Tinkerbell was fading, and was convinced that it was only because of her longing that the fairy had lived.

She told how, long before that, she and Don had played jacks on the thick white cloth while they waited for Sophie and their father to finish talking in the front room, how she had wanted to turn herself into gossamer and float beneath the door so that she could listen to all that they were saying.

‘I’ve not heard back from Australia,’ she said. ‘Sophie can’t have seen my letter.’

‘Mum, you’re just putting it off. Go on, you wanted to talk to the buyer,’ Sarah said, drinking her tea.

‘Plenty of time for that,’ said Annie, playing with her meringue. She still had a problem with rich food after the deprivations of the war. So did poor old Prue from the sound of her last letter from India in which she’d told Annie not to send out a Christmas pudding as usual. Just can’t cope, darling. So unfair, she’d said.

‘Oh damn,’ Annie said, ‘I haven’t sent off Prue’s biscuits.’ She sat back in the chair, there had been no time, too much to do. ‘I’d better nip off and get a tin and we’ll send it on Monday.’

Sarah looked at her. ‘Mum, just go and talk to the buyer, she won’t eat you, she’s not like Miss Simpson.’

‘So, how is your work going both of you?’ Annie asked, leaning forward.

‘Auntie Annie, go and talk, we’ll stay here and we won’t
pinch the sugar lumps and we won’t spill our tea.’ Davy was picking up her handbag and scarf.

‘Yes, go on, Mum, just put on some lipstick, that’s right, you look great.’

Annie stood up, her legs were trembling. She hadn’t rung to make an appointment, there was no point.

‘Be good,’ she muttered.

‘You be good, sell it to them, that’s what Da said.’

Annie nodded, well, he would, wouldn’t he, tucked safely down a thousand feet under the bloody ground. She checked her samples, pulled her skirt, and had a word with the head waitress who nodded and smiled. ‘Yes, I’ll keep an eye on them, no bother.’

The lift to lingerie was crowded, carols were playing in the store as she weaved between the stands, checking the stock, the pants, the bras. There were none like hers.

‘Can I help you, madam?’ the salesgirl asked, her face fixed in a smile which disappeared when Annie said, ‘May I speak to the buyer please? It’s Mrs Armstrong from Wassingham Textiles.’

The girl ran her finger along her eyebrow, her nails were red.

‘Have you an appointment?’

‘No, I just happen to be in the area.’ Annie pulled out the pants. ‘We make pants and bras to any specification.’

The girl didn’t even look but said in a flat, bored voice, ‘Mrs Wilvercombe doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.’

‘Then how do I get an appointment?’ Annie asked as first one woman came to the till and then another.

‘You phone or write,’ the girl replied. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me I have customers waiting.’

Annie stood for a moment, wanting to take the girl by the collar and march her to Mrs Wilvercombe – wherever that old battle-axe might be.