For Many a Long Day (4 page)

Though Ellie had heard the instruction a hundred times before, she assumed a gravely attentive expression, but this time Miss Walker was forced to break off as the door flew open. A tall,
round-faced
girl burst into the room, dark curls sticking damply to her flushed cheeks. From the floor below, the former kitchen clock ran through its preliminary wheezings. After a moment of complete silence, its tinny notes rose up through the stairwell. Though muffled by the barricades of cardboard boxes piled high on the landing outside, its message was clear enough. Eight thirty. They listened in silence as it struck the half hour.

‘You may indeed be
in time
for work, Miss Hutchinson, but I hardly think by any stretch of the imagination one could say you were
ready for
work.’

‘I’m sorry Miss Walker. Scotch Street is desperate busy. There was a Crossley tender tryin’ to get down the street through the carts comin’ up for the market an’ I coulden get through.’

‘Perhaps if you’d left home somewhat earlier the necessary activities of our Police force would not have inconvenienced you,’ the older woman replied sarcastically. ‘Tidy yourself up and when you’re fit to be seen come and take over from me in the Ladies Department. Miss Scott has her duties already.’

Her lips snapped shut on the last word like a vice and she sailed out with as much dignity as the congested area permitted.

‘The old cow!’

‘Shh, Daisy, she’ll hear you,’ said Ellie softly, as she took out her comb and pushed her friend gently down on to a bentwood chair. ‘Let me do it, I’m quicker than you.’

One look at Daisy’s crumpled face told Ellie that things were bad. It wasn’t just the effort of getting up early and cycling the three miles from her home on the other side of the city, it was the burden she’d been carrying since her father had died suddenly, two years ago, leaving his small farm in debt.

For some time now her mother had been poorly. The doctor didn’t seem to know what was wrong. That meant the only labour they had was Daisy herself and her two younger brothers, Bill and Johnny, who were both still at school. Their only regular income was Daisy’s meagre pay. However much she hated Miss Walker, she just could not afford to upset her. Getting the sack would be a disaster.

‘What’s happened, Daisy. Something’s wrong,’ Ellie whispered as she undid the black ribbon, caught up the dark curls and repinned them into a neat chignon.

‘We’ve had a notice from the landlord. He says he’ll put the bailiffs in if we don’t pay up,’ she said
gasping, her eyes wide, her lips trembling on the verge of tears. ‘What am I goin’ to do Ellie? What am I goin’ to do?’

‘I don’t know, Daisy, but we’ll think of something,’ she replied, giving her a little kiss on the cheek. ‘Tuck your blouse in, it’s out at the back. We’ll go and have an ice-cream after work. My treat,’ she added hastily, as she saw the look of anxiety in her friend’s eyes. ‘Now away down as quick as you can. Give her no excuse to pull you up. We’ll manage something. We really will.’

Ellie took a deep breath, put her comb away and consulted Miss Walker’s list, but the beautifully written copperplate suddenly blurred before her eyes as the thought came back to her yet again that George was going away and she was going to have to remain. Here, in this cramped and confined room. Here, in the more spacious but equally confining Ladies Department. Here, being polite and courteous and helpful to people who were seldom polite to her in return, seldom courteous and rarely helpful.

But she had a home to go to, a roof over her head, and was short of money only because she’d been saving every penny she could, whereas poor Daisy had to spend every penny she earned on food for the family and meal for the hens. She hadn’t even been able to afford a new blouse in all of the two years she’d been at Freeburns and her shoes had
pieces of cardboard in them, because she couldn’t afford the cobbler in Jenny’s Row.

The box of
Ladies Knickers, Large
she needed was at the bottom of the pile stacked on the landing. She reached up, tugged at a box labelled
Leather Gloves, Black
which was pressed against the low ceiling, managed to slow its fall as it tipped towards her and dragged it to one side. A further struggle with
Aprons and Overalls, assorted
enabled her to reach the one she needed. She had just finished rebuilding the column of boxes and was about to pick up
Ladies Knickers, Large
when from below she thought she heard her name.

Yes, someone was calling her. For a moment, she didn’t recognise the speaker. She picked up her box and staggered down the steep stair. The voice called again and she realised who it was. Miss Walker, of course. Who else? She was in the shop and the voice was her shop voice, so there must be a customer present.

‘Miss Scott. Do come down please. Mrs Richardson is here and she would like your assistance with some of our new material.’

Miss Walker beamed at her as she stepped into the well-lit rear of the shop and looked around the cardboard shield of
Ladies Knickers, Large
.

‘Oh Miss Scott, do leave that box for one of the young gentlemen. Really, my dear, that’s much too heavy for you,’ she said, smiling across at Mrs
Richardson as Ellie put it down and came up to the counter already strewn around with swathes of fabric.

Ellie said ‘Good Morning’ smiled politely and took a deep breath. The working day had begun in earnest. Whatever problems she or Daisy might have, there would be no rest or comfort for either of them till it had ended.

Charlie Freeburn, the owner of Freeburn’s High Class Drapery was an unprepossessing figure. Short, with a well-rounded stomach, a thick neck and bulging lens in his gold-framed spectacles, he closed his own front door firmly behind him on Saturday afternoon and set off across the wide tree-lined road outside. He took in his surroundings with a customary sideways glance which seemed to suggest that, by avoiding a too direct approach he would see something other people would miss. However limiting his short sightedness, Charlie missed nothing. That indeed was the secret of his remarkable success.

Left an orphan at the age of six when he was too unwell to join the rest of his family on the ill-fated Sunday School rail excursion to Warrenpoint in June 1889, he had been brought up by his aunt and uncle in the domestic part of the premises to which he now proceeded briskly on this pleasant afternoon. It had not been an easy childhood. Charlie preferred not to remember how difficult his aunt and uncle had found
it to make a living despite his aunt’s long hours making mourning clothes for their shop customers and providing for her lodgers, two young men from a rival drapery business who slept in the attic rooms and ate with the family.

As soon as he left school, Charlie went into the business and served his time. He hated the rudeness and arrogance of the customers, the confinement of living over the shop and even the smell of fabric. Having no other option, he began to plan for the day when his uncle would retire and he himself would become the boss. The time passed slowly, his only pleasures the books he read and the activity of increasing his small resources by trading on the Stock Market. Then came the flu epidemic of 1919 and his uncle died suddenly. By then Charlie had equipped himself not only with a formidable financial knowledge and a respectable amount of capital, but over the years had privately conducted a survey of all the other drapery establishments in his native city.

Along with thirteen churches and thirty-nine public houses, the number of these establishments in Armagh appeared out of proportion for a city of only some eleven thousand inhabitants. Unlike his rivals, Charlie did not wonder where all the customers came from, he made it his business to find out. And find out he did, from his aunt’s former lodgers, or the young men who lived over Lennox’s shop, or the many relatives of his wife, the former
Mary Hutchinson, a Richhill girl from a large family whose prolific offspring and matrimonial links put him in touch with the senior servants, the housekeepers and the dressmakers of the local gentry and aristocracy.

Within the space of five years, Charlie had bought the adjoining property and doubled the size of the ground floor shop. In the next five, he increased his staff and removed his wife and daughters to a handsome, brick-built house overlooking The Mall, a pleasant, tree-lined, green space, once a race track until the fulminations of the local clergy had put an end to this activity. Since then, it had become a place for ladies to walk, nursemaids to push perambulators and the local cricket team to display their skills on Saturday afternoons.

Now, in May 1932, Charlie knew he had more regular customers and more monthly orders for cloth and clothing than any of his rivals. His elder daughter had married into a prosperous, old farming family in County Antrim and his younger daughter, though not as likely as her sister to acquire a title when her father-in-law died, had ensured her future comfort by marrying the son of the motor company in English Street where he had bought his newest vehicle. The lack of a son of his own was a matter of regret, but, as he reminded himself regularly, what he lacked in sons to carry on the business, he most certainly made up for in grandsons and
nephews. At least he would have plenty of choice.

By four thirty, as he made his way along Barrack Street and slowed somewhat on the steepest part of Scotch Street he observed that the traffic had cleared. The pavements were much less crowded than when he’d made his usual mid-morning visit to the shop. Another hour and all would be quiet, the empty streets foreshadowing something of the complete silence of Sunday.

He congratulated himself on the wisdom of closing at five-thirty on a Saturday. Other drapers might remain open until six o’clock, but what was the point? Given that most of their customers had come a distance, many from farms as much as eight miles away where there were cattle waiting to be milked and an evening meal to be cooked, the women were unlikely to linger. In his experience, men seldom shopped for clothes without a female companion. Well, if his rivals wanted to waste gas or electric, to light empty premises, let them. Attention to detail was a critical element in financial success and his success had proved it.

As if to confirm the rightness of his judgement, he found only one customer in the Ladies Department. Miss Hutchinson was laying out black gloves for a pale-faced woman, a regular customer to whom he courteously touched his hat. Miss Scott was sorting a box of ribbon, re-rolling the disordered lengths with deft fingers.

In accordance with his instructions, the lights had been dimmed in the empty Gentlemen’s Department which occupied the opposite side of the wide ground floor. Two of his male assistants were refolding garments, another was replacing bales of cloth in the central display units while the senior man was already making up the takings at the furthest end of the long wooden counter. Miss Walker would be writing up the account ledgers while awaiting his arrival in his office.

‘Good, good,’ he said, to no one in particular, his glance moving backwards and forwards, carefully avoiding Miss Hutchinson and her customer. ‘A bereavement, of course,’ he thought to himself. ‘People didn’t often go for full mourning these days, though Freeburns could provide it if required. But why else would you buy black gloves in summer?’

He paused, made up his mind and set off down the length of the shop to where Miss Scott was working. Perfectly aware of his presence, but absorbed in her own thoughts and the job in hand, Ellie kept her head bent over the ribbons.

‘An order, Miss Scott?’ he asked genially.

‘No, Mr Freeman, just routine tidying,’ she replied. ‘Ribbon seems to have such a knack of unrolling, even when we use rubber bands over the spools.’

He nodded agreeably. The girl was good at her job. The customers liked her and often asked
especially for her. Even Miss Walker couldn’t find much to complain about. Miss Hutchinson was another matter. He sighed. She was one of his wife’s innumerable cousins. One couldn’t
always
pick and choose. Not a bad girl, but a little lacking in style. One had to be very particular about that sort of thing in the high class trade.

‘Miss Scott, I wonder if I could ask a little favour?’

Ellie looked up at him and smiled. She noticed he was carrying a parcel carefully wrapped in tissue paper.

‘Mrs Freeburn has asked me to deliver this to young Mrs Sleator. I’m told it’s any day now,’ he added confidingly. ‘I wonder if you would be so good as to deliver it to the showroom. Mr Wright can carry on with any other tidying here that you think necessary.’

Ellie took the parcel and patted it gently.

‘Has Mrs Freeburn been crocheting for the little one?’

‘I expect so,’ he replied, beaming at her. ‘I am a mere messenger,’ he added, laughing at his own joke.

The heat struck up at her from the pavement as she closed the heavy glass door behind her and moved beyond the shade of the awnings, but she was delighted to be outside in the warmth and light. She walked briskly towards the marketplace
and found the market itself had vanished as if it had never been. From all the morning’s bustle and activity, neither a fallen bloom nor a stray cabbage leaf remained. Beyond the broad open space itself, the main thoroughfare was almost empty of people. A scatter of confetti outside the Beresford Arms told her why there were so many motors parked along the street.

She moved on, the warmth on her shoulders easing the ache of the day’s lifting and carrying. Just beyond the newspaper office she could see two brand new motors parked in front of Sleators showroom. She did her best to keep her eyes firmly fixed on them and on the frontage behind as she hurried past the Canadian Pacific posters, but for all her effort and resolution her heart still sank. She could hardly avoid seeing them when from the pavement they were close enough to touch.

All was quiet at Sleators. No one was looking at the new models, their gleaming bodywork reflecting her image briefly as she moved towards the entrance. She could smell the leather, warm from the sun, as she stopped, looked around and wondered where to go. There was a small office inside the showroom door but there was no one perched on the high stool. She walked on into the showroom itself. Suddenly she heard a high pitched whine and saw a flicker of light from the workshop beyond.

‘Acetylene welder,’ she thought, as she tramped
between two much less well-polished, second-hand vehicles and found herself outdoors in a vast work area protected from the weather only by a high glass roof.

The noise had stopped and for a moment she thought there was no one there after all. Startled by a sudden loud bang, she turned and saw two well-polished boots and a pair of legs clad in brown dungarees sticking out from under a battered blue vehicle raised up on a jack.

She gazed at the boots and hesitated. No man ever wants to be interrupted when he’s in the middle of a job like that, but there wasn’t much point seeking out the person doing the welding. He’d probably not see her through his goggles and he certainly wouldn’t hear her if she spoke. On the other hand she couldn’t just leave the parcel unattended in the office.

Before she had quite made up her mind to speak, the boots moved towards her, pulling themselves along the hard concrete surface, until a tall young man, his face streaked with oil, caught sight of her and lay staring up at her, a spanner in one hand and an oil can in the other.

‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ she said quickly, catching the strange expression that crossed his face. ‘I was looking for someone to leave this parcel with. It’s for young Mrs Sleator,’ she added, as he levered himself into a sitting position and continued to stare at her.

She found it impossible to tell from the piercing gaze of his startling blue eyes whether he was actually angry at being interrupted or simply surprised at seeing her standing there.

‘Is Peggy not in the office?’

‘No, she’s not. That’s why I came out here.’

He climbed to his feet and stood looking down at her, his eyes moving to the prettily wrapped parcel.

‘I daren’t take that off you,’ he said solemnly, glancing at his oil-streaked hands.

‘Of course you can’t. How silly of me,’ she said catching a hand to her mouth and laughing easily. ‘And your friend on the acetylene welder wouldn’t be able to help me either,’ she added, smiling up at him.

‘What do you know about acetylene welders?’ he demanded brusquely, as he collected himself and studied her neat blouse and plain dark skirt.

She shook her head and laughed again, relieved to find he no longer looked so cross.

‘My Da’s a blacksmith. His hands are dirty even when he washes them. Could I fetch you a bit of cotton waste?’ she asked hopefully, glancing at the nearest workbench.

As he seemed completely taken aback by this simple suggestion, she waited to see what he might suggest himself.

‘We’ll see if Peggy’s back,’ he said quickly. ‘She can run up to Abbey Street with it. It’ll only take her a minute or two.’

He strode off, pushing his large frame between the two second-hand cars.

‘And if she’s not?’ she asked, slipping through behind him.

‘There’ll be a piece of brown paper somewhere an’ you can wrap it up so it’ll come to no harm an’ I’ll take it m’self. I know the house.’

‘But can you just go off like that? Will no one mind? What about the boss?’ she said anxiously, not wanting to get him into trouble now he was trying to help her.

‘Ach sure the boss is that pleased about the we’an, he notices nothin’ these days. He’s dyin’ to be a Granda.’

‘Just like my boss, Charlie Freeburn,’ she responded happily, as they arrived outside the office and found it still untenanted.

‘Ach aye, I’d forgot yer man Freeburn was Missus Sleator’s father. Is that where you work?’ he asked abruptly.

She nodded at him and bent down to search under the desk for a piece of brown paper. ‘I could take it myself if you tell me which house.’

‘Aye, you could, if I could tell you the number, but I only know it by going there,’ he admitted sheepishly.

‘Here we are,’ she replied, turning to face him. She smoothed out some saved brown paper, trimmed its torn edges, made a new parcel and tied it neatly
from a large roll of fine string sitting on the desk.

‘Ye’ve done that before,’ he said, smiling at her for the first time.

‘Like the fortieth horseshoe, as my father says.’

‘What d’ye mean?’

‘If you do a thing often enough you get good at it.’

‘Ahhh … I’m with you now.’

She held the parcel out towards him and tried not to smile as she watched him wipe his hands vigorously on the seat of his dungarees before he took it from her.

‘I’d better hurry back,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s getting on for closing time and Mr Freeburn likes to have a word with the whole staff about Monday morning. Thank you very much for helping me out.’

‘Ach, not at all. Not at all.’

She turned quickly, stepped lightly past the new Austin and crossed to the other side of the street, a small, trim figure, the sun striking gold from her hair.

Sam Hamilton watched her go, the parcel held in his large hands. Even when she was out of sight, he still stood gazing up English Street after her. He was a right fool. He’d never even asked her name.

He turned away abruptly, strode along the front of the Post Office and turned into Abbey Street. It took him only moments to find the small stone house on the steep slope just below the City Hospital. A
woman he didn’t know, with rolled up sleeves and a white cap took the parcel from him.