She's Leaving Home (33 page)

‘Made a bit of a mess of your clothes, haven’t you?’ was all the thanks she got, but after another hour’s scrutiny, when her aunt was satisfied that she could be trusted to work the till and give the right change, she was at last left to her own devices.

That job lasted six months. Annie had brooded. She was supposed to feel, and exhibit, gratitude. It was made crystal clear that no pay rise would be possible for years, if ever. Instead she was not far off a skivvy, since Ida refused to employ a cleaner. That was endurable; but it was the terror of that weekly window which drove her at last to action.

She began to hover wistfully outside Priceman’s in St Homer Street which, though similar in appearance to Ida’s, was larger and specialised in women’s and children’s garments. It was open Wednesday afternoons when most shops including Ida’s were shut.

At first she had bought little things for the children or a modest gift for her mother, a tiny embroidered handkerchief or a wisp of a scarf. Then her attention turned to herself – a pretty blouse with
broderie anglaise
for which she had to save up five weeks, a pair of finer quality wool stockings, a blue silk ribbon for her hair.

One Wednesday she had to wait in line as a flustered assistant tried to total the half-dozen items purchased by the woman in front of her. Annie could not help blurting out the correct sum. ‘That’s right – that’s what I make it too,’ said the customer. The slight disturbance brought the manageress. The assistant’s incompetence and Annie’s quickness were explained; the manageress eyed the diminutive girl up and down and said, ‘If ever you want a job, miss, you come to me.’

So Annie boldly asked for a pound a week from Priceman’s and got it. The window was dealt with by an elderly man and the general cleaning by his wife, so life improved dramatically. Auntie Ida’s shrieks of fury could be ignored; her father had chuckled, her mother looked shocked, and Jack had slapped her on the back and said, ‘Well done.’

For years to come Annie would recall with pleasure the moment she had defied her fate and bettered herself. Priceman’s was to be her employer for two years until she had grown a couple of inches. Then she marched in neat black gloves and a pert hat into the ladies’ dress department of Owen Owen’s, the largest department store in town. No vacancies existed at present, she was informed, but her pretty face could be an asset elsewhere. At a remuneration of two pounds, rising by steps to three when she attained the age of twenty-one, would she be interested in the perfumery counter?

Would she? Ah, joy!

Thus Annie Feldman, of below-average size, truncated education and narrow horizons, who once had stood up for herself and who knew her own worth, became adviser to Liverpool ladies on which scent to wear for what, and to their husbands and beaux on the purchase of alluring gifts. She was astonished at how much money people were prepared to waste on smelly water. Not a shred of doubt assailed her, nevertheless, that she had found her métier.

Her own taste was for Bourjois
Evening in Paris
perfume – ‘young, romantic, a little sophisticated,’ the ads said. Mitcham’s Lavender Water was her recommendation for any woman over fifty, or Atkinson’s Gold Medal Eau de Cologne if the buyer looked slightly threadbare – perfume, soap and talc in a box could be had for four shillings and threepence. Coty had lots, with the most evocative names she struggled to pronounce –
Emeraude
(‘rich, sensual, and strangely individual’),
Chypre, Le Nouveau Gardenia, Le Vertige, Paris
– for Christmas a gilt-capped bottle in cut crystal of any one of them had cost a whole guinea.
Mischief
perfume came in three sizes at three shillings, five and six and twelve and six: the largest bottle, she had noticed, was bought with furtive glances by men with thin moustaches.

The mixed events of the day occupied Annie’s mind as she bathed the small slippery bodies. That boy, so earnest, so solemn: it was rare to find someone so young deliberately courting ridicule in that way. She resolved not to mention him to her fellow shopgirls who’d jump to the wrong conclusions. Her attachment was entirely driven by curiosity, and by compassion.

A chap like that could not be a suitable lover. He would never put earning a living as a high enough priority, for a start. Nor did he know how to treat a lady. Not compared with, say, Simon Rotblatt, who had bought a lovely present for her last birthday. He’d have been her beau in an instant had she let him. Kind Simon, with his round face and willing heart. He told her whenever he had a pay rise, not boastfully but as if giving himself a character reference. Yet he was not Mr Right: far from it.

Simon knew where she worked. Annie suspected he’d waited out of sight one lunchtime till she had gone for her break then checked with her fellow assistant what she’d most like. His choice must have been made as much to dazzle as to please, for it was three Helena Rubinstein perfumes in a red box with cupids, which she knew cost eighteen and six, a fortune. She was duly impressed and not a little anxious. If the gift presaged a proposal, she was not in the market.

She finished her tasks and excused herself. When her sister Becky came into the bedroom they shared, wiping her arms and hands on a towel, Annie was lying back on the bed, her head hung behind her, staring upside down at the far wall.

‘That’s done – heavens, what are you up to?’

‘Hanging head downwards brightens eyes and reduces wrinkles,’ Annie responded dreamily. ‘At least, that’s what it says in
Women and Beauty
. We get the old ones from the hair salon. It also suggests a gentle massage of the eyeballs through the lids to stimulate circulation.’

Becky shrugged. ‘That nonsense is read by women who have nowt better to do. Don’t get the wrong ideas. You’re a working girl.’

‘But I don’t want wrinkles.’ Annie sat up and pouted. ‘In my job it is important to look one’s best at all times. You never know when Mr Right might show up.’

Becky took off her apron and hung it over the end of the bed to dry. ‘Simon’s keen on you. What’s wrong with him?’

‘He’s a show-off. And he’s only interested in money.’ That was not fair and she knew it. ‘He has no imagination.’

‘So what? He’s on five pounds a week at Berman’s, one of their best cutters.’

‘A tailor! I don’t want to marry a tailor. I can do better than that. Anyway I’m enjoying myself. I don’t want to get tied down into marriage and motherhood for ages. Maybe never.’

Becky slowly sat down on the bed beside her sister. A concerned expression settled itself on her broad features. No man had come forward for her yet; if she could not find a husband for herself, assistance would be sought, but for the moment her usefulness in the house was paramount. She placed a clumsy soap-roughened hand on Annie’s shoulder.

‘I hope you don’t mean that. You don’t want to be an old maid. Plenty of those already. A woman’s fulfilment lies in her home, her family, her children –’

With a toss of her head Annie rose and went to the chest of drawers. She wished there was room for a proper dressing table. She felt cross and out of sorts, though usually bathtime with the babies brought lightness to her spirit. ‘Yes, but just look at our mother, and all the other mothers we know, Becky. Every other year a new infant, endlessly expecting, backache and – that. And such a
struggle to feed and clothe them all. Is she truly happy? Is that what I want? It may be what I have to settle for, but as long as I have a choice –’

‘You’ve met someone,’ Becky spoke accusingly. ‘Is he Jewish? Some
goyische
bloke’s come into Owen Owen’s and been chatting you up over the cold cream, I’ll bet. Be careful. You won’t be the first to hear a packet of lies and live to tell a tale of woe.’

‘No, no. It’s not like that.’ In defiance Annie unscrewed the middle Rubinstein bottle and dabbed the stopper behind her ears. That was a waste of good perfume but would rub in her sophistication as against her sister’s simplicity – more, her control of her life as compared with Becky’s passivity. She loved her sister and itched to confide in her about Daniel Majinsky; instinctively she saw it as unwise.

‘Too independent, that’s you.’

Annie shrugged. The perfume filled the air of the little room with dreams and whispered promises. Becky made as if to say more, then left the room and shut the door behind her a mite too sharply.

‘I just want – what do I want?’ Annie murmured to the closed door. ‘Not to be stuck here for ever. To get out, to get away, if I can. To be adored, to be swept off my feet. The question is how, and to that I have no answer.’

The strange young man had forecast correctly. War was to come, though not for another eighteen months. In the meantime Mr Chamberlain flew to Munich with a copy of
Rebecca
in his briefcase. The British government expressed their conviction that German expansion in central and eastern Europe was a ‘normal and natural thing’. By March 1939, a year almost to the day that he had entered Vienna, Hitler was in Prague, a move condoned by the British Prime Minister as ‘inevitable’. In the House of Commons Conservative members were impatient at Churchill’s urgent warnings; but equally they resented Hitler’s interference in their affairs.

Annie sensed rather than understood a change of mood. The fascist disappeared from the Pier Head and was rumoured to have been arrested. All the orators now spoke openly about the likelihood of conflict and were joined by Polish and Czech refugees. The throng increasingly included foreign sailors who smoked strong-smelling tobacco and whispered among themselves. No one from the government parties dared to appear to utter words of continued appeasement; any such would have been shouted down.

Daniel Majinsky, increasingly respected, took his place with other speakers who urged realism and effective preparation. Annie openly came to listen to him. The two had also walked out, not every week, but whenever he could spare the time and money, or drag his attention temporarily away from politics.

She found him a total puzzle. He had escorted her at her suggestion to dances at the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton, but after a few polite foxtrots would retire to the bar and engage in heated debate with acquaintances he found there. She was included in the conversation, however, an experience she found unsettling. He preferred the cinema and would sit forward intently for the newsreels then mutter and fidget through the films. He seemed oddly immune to the glamour of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

To Annie, nurtured on a diet of glamour and recipes from
Women and Beauty
and
Vogue
, Daniel’s obsessions were embarrassing but intriguing. Any attempts at coquetry on her part met with an irritated frown on his. He was not a boyfriend in any conventional sense, though frequently she felt the need to defend him; he was a friend, no more, no less. She continued to accept the attentions of Simon Rotblatt who would look at no other, but regarded herself as free of promises or entanglements. The special man of her fantasies had resolutely refused to materialise at the perfumery counter. She wondered in her darkest moments whether he ever would.

Annie waited as Daniel finished his session and packed up. This Sunday he was quite hoarse: he must have been making speeches during the week when she did not see him.

He took her arm without ceremony and headed for the tea stall.

‘Annie, what are you going to do when war breaks out?’

She stopped. ‘I still don’t think that will happen –’

‘It will. They’re digging trenches in the London parks. The newspapers are full of evacuation plans for the children – your little brothers and sisters will be sent to North Wales. Mr Chamberlain’s announced the return of compulsory military service. Your big brothers will be called up.’

She recoiled, shocked. ‘Not our Davy. We’ll still need chemists here. Or Jack – he’s just married and a baby on the way.’

‘So? He may not be in the first wave, but after that.’

‘Don’t, Daniel. You’re frightening me.’ She looked up, her face puckered. ‘Anyway, what about you? You’re not married. Will you volunteer, or will you wait till you’re sent?’

His shoulders sagged. He seemed to have grown even thinner. ‘I wouldn’t pass the medical. Not a chance, or I’d go like a shot. The doctors say I’m lucky to be alive.’

They drank their tea, a sombreness in their manner. Around them similar conversations in low tones were under way. He put down the mug and lit a cigarette.

‘Look, Annie. It won’t only affect men, you know. Selling perfume will hardly be a protected occupation if we’re at war with Germany – you’ll be sent somewhere, on the farms or to a munitions factory. Unless you do something more useful.’

She began to protest but the firmness of his expression silenced her. He hurried on.

‘In Berman’s some of the boys in the reserves are already packing their bags. And we have big new contracts for army uniforms and the like. They’re trying to take on extra cutters but there’s a shortage. So they want to train up a few girls. I could put in a good word for you.’

‘A
tailor
? Goodness, that’s a man’s job.’ She did not add that, as a girl who had no intention of ever marrying a tailor, the notion of becoming one herself was preposterous.

‘You could come into my workshop. They’re a friendly enough bunch, nobody too rough. You already know Simon Rotblatt – he’s on the same shift.’

‘But I’d be teased – I’m so small, how on earth would I reach over the workbench?’

He laughed at last. He had such a sweet smile, she realised, though it was rarely on display. His gaze swept her up and down, as if it were the first time he had appraised her.

‘You’d have to stand on a box. C’mon, Annie, you can’t stay where you are. Berman’s is well paid. And you know the best thing?’

She shook her head. It was bewildering. The future which she had daydreamed over was about to slap her in the face.

‘I’ll look after you. I’ll train you myself.’

She bent her head and murmured that she was not sure that was such a recommendation, but it felt as if a brother had pledged to care for her – somebody she could trust absolutely, who would immediately think of her welfare in troubled times. Yet he seemed to want so little in return.