The Grace Girls (11 page)

Kirsty listened, bemused by the conversation that was taking place around her. Could they really be talking about
her
? And using words like ‘very big future’ and ‘selling’, w
hich obviously meant there could be big money involved
.

‘No doubts about it,’ Frank said, winking at Kirsty. ‘Maybe
a wee change of image . . . a more sophisticated, glamorous one.’ He lifted the small blue-labelled Babycham b
ottle and proceeded to pour the golden bubbly drink into the elegant glass with the picture of the little dicky-bowed deer on the side. He stopped for a moment, allowing the bubbles to subside, and then he filled the glass to the top and handed it to her.

‘What age are you, dear?’ Larry suddenly asked.

‘Eighteen and a bit,’ Kirsty said, then immediately felt silly for adding the ‘bit’, as only immature schoolgirls did that.

‘Old enough,’ Larry said half to himself and half to Frank.
Old enough
, he thought, to make her own decisions and not have to have her parents too involved.

Kirsty went to lift the glass to take a sip of the lovely liquid, when Larry lifted his whiskey glass and moved it towards hers and then Frank’s. ‘Cheers!’ he said, turning back to meet Kirsty’s blue eyes. ‘And may you have a very long and very successful career in the music business.’

Chapter 14

There was a weary, depressed kind of atmosphere in the minibus going home that night and, instead of dozing as usual, Kirsty was staring out through the steamed-up, grimy windows, pondering over the happenings of the night. She felt strangely alert and excited, and couldn’t decide whether it was due to the proposition that had been put to her, or whether it was the effect of the couple of Babychams. Either way, it felt good to have something different to think about, even if it all came to nothing, rather than the same old routine.

Thank God it was men she was working with. She found them so much more reasonable than the girls and women she both worked with and was friends with. Girls were far more bitchy and jealous, Kirsty thought. Instead of being all catty and accusing, the lads in the band, even Martin, had just been q
uiet and had steered well away from asking her any awkward questions about Larry Delaney and the judge.

Kirsty drew the collar of her mother’s fur coat around her neck, feeling the warm softness against her skin and inhaling the familiar Coty L’Aimant scent from the collar. Maybe, she mused, she might be able to afford her
own
fur coat if she was to have that exciting, successful future in singing that the two men had been going on about. Maybe she might be able to afford a lot of things. It was funny how she saw the fellows in the band as ‘lads’ but Larry and Frank as ‘men’ – or maybe, more rightly,
gentlemen
. However she referred to them, they had definitely treated her as a lady as opposed to a girl.

She went over the conversation in her mind: how her image could be moulded into something along the lines of Marilyn Monroe or the English equivalent, Diana Dors. She almost laughed at the thought. Imagine anyone thinking that she could look all sexy and sophisticated like that, with her blonde hair loose and hanging over one eye.

‘And even better,’ Larry had said, raising his dark eyebrows, ‘is the fact that you’re younger . . . and genuinel
y more innocent.’

Frank had looked at Larry then, and raised his eyebrows too. ‘Just a wee bit of moulding here and a wee bit of moulding there would make quite a difference.’

Kirsty bent her head to look out of the van window now, up into the dark, starry sky. Even if it all came to nothing, it was certainly worth giving a bit of thought to.

Some time after midnight, as she waved goodnight back to the boys on the minibus, Kirsty wondered who would be the best person to ask advice about her singing. She felt very torn between her ambitions and loyalty to The Hi-Tones. She could think of no one who would really understand. Heather would listen and give an honest opinion, but she didn’t know what she was talking about when it came to the world of singing and clubs.

Her mother and father would give their opinions, but it would be coloured by old-fashioned views about the places she would be going to and the people she would be meeting. And if she asked her Auntie Mona, it would be all about whether she was singing in chapel halls or clubs that were frequented by Catholics.

The boys in the band were the only ones she could have relied on, but given the fact that she would be dumping them to move on to better things, they were hardly going to be full of advice.

When it came down to it, she would have to make the decision herself.

The van pulled away from the opposite side of the street, leaving a trail of exhaust dust in the cold, damp air. Kirsty turned to walk the few yards to her own gate, when she suddenly noticed a shadowy movement in the back garden.

‘Is that you, Daddy?’ she called, thinking that it was Fintan come to meet her as he occasionally did.

But there was no reply.

‘Uncle Pat?’ she called, catching sight of a man’s coated figure crossing over the back fence into the next-door neighbour’s garden. Then, a cloud moved from in front of the moon, and she saw the figure of a man quite clearly jumping a fence into the next-door neighbour but one’s garden.

She wondered now if it could be her Uncle Pat. Sometimes when he had a drink, Pat did daft things that he would never do sober. It would be just like him to take a short-cut through a fussy neighbour’s garden, delighted that they wouldn’t be able to see him trampling on their carefully cut grass.

Whoever it was, it wasn’t anyone who wanted to make themselves known to Kirsty.

It was only later, when she was lying in bed, recounting the whole evening in her mind, that it dawned on her that the stocky dark-haired figure looked a bit like Gerry Stewart. She looked across at her sleeping sister, and wondered if she should wake her to tell her about it. Then, she thought better of it.

In all honesty, she couldn’t be really sure who the fellow was, and if she was wrong, it would cause a lot of trouble.

She turned her face into her pillow and decided that it might be best to say nothing.

Chapter 15

Heather rubbed a gloved finger on the steamed-up train window and thought how she would have to be much smarter at pushing on the train this evening if she wanted a seat. The whole procedure of boarding the train reminded her of fighting to get on the school bus when she was twelve or thirteen. She hadn’t imagined that adults would behave in the same manner, desperate to get a seat for the half-hour journey into Glasgow.

In fairness, the air of desperation earlier was probably because it was not only a cold, wintry morning, but because it was also raining. People were trying to put their umbrellas down, shake the rain off them and board the train at the same time. Also, Heather hadn’t realised that certain passengers, who had already boarded the train at an earlier station, kept seats for their friends. As she passed the empty seats marked for someone else with a coat or a handbag thrown over them – or a briefcase when it was a man – it dawned on her that there was a knack to getting on this train, finding an available seat and grabbing it before anyone else.

By the time she had pushed her way up and down the crowded, smoky carriages, she realised that she might as well stay put at one of the doorways where there was a bit of room, or she would be forced to stand in the aisles where there was always the risk of falling in an ungainly heap over another passenger. She’d travelled lots of times by train when she was going into the city shopping with her mum and Kirsty or Liz, but that had been on a later train – she’d never had to negotiate anything like this bustling commuter one.

Eventually, the train came to a shuddering halt at the Central Station. Heather moved smarter this time, and was one of the first off the train and weaving her way towards the ticket clerk with her weekly ticket held up for inspection. Then, as she came to leave the main station building, she stopped for a few seconds to check if she needed to put up her umbrella. She decided that her hat would fend off the worst of the light rain, and moved into a quick walking pace uphill towards her new office in Bothwell Street.

By the time she had arrived at the granite-stone row of of
fices, the rain had eased, she had warmed up considerably, and found she had actually enjoyed the walk. She
was slightly out of breath as she joined a crowd of people who were entering the big lift.

‘All in?’ the elderly, uniformed, lift attendant checked. He dragged across the first set of white wrought-iron gates, and when they were securely in place, he dragged across the second set, and then the lift took off.

Heather felt a mixture of excitement and anxiety as the lift moved up floor by floor, as she listened carefully to the lift attendant call out the list of offices on each one. She knew perfectly well from her interview that her office was on the fourth floor, but she listened intently and didn’t move out of the lift until he called out Seafreight amongst the other offices on that particular floor.

There was no comparison between the small, three-roomed office in Wishaw and the city shipping office that took up a whole floor, and even had its own kitchen and
separate – very elegant, Heather thought – Gents and Ladi
es toilets. The walls were painted cream and were hung with la
rge, elaborately framed pictures of very serious sea-going
vessels with large, windswept sails. There was liquid soap in a glass dispenser, and piles of freshly washed blue and white towels folded in an old sea-chest.

‘I think we’ll start you on the filing and the post this m
orning,’ Mr Walton, the office manager, said with a kindly smile, walking her in the direction of the smallest office where two smart middle-aged women were hanging up the
ir coats, scarves and hats. ‘And then maybe after lunch, we’ll check out your shorthand and typing skills.’ He’d paused then, indicating to one of the women. ‘Talking of lunch, Miss Ferguson – Muriel – will sort you out with luncheon vouchers for the week, and I’m sure some of the other girls will be only too happy to suggest places that you can use them.’

‘Thanks, Mr Walton,’ Heather said, trying not to show how delighted she was about the luncheon vouchers. They had been one of the attractions of the job. Apart from saving her the bother of making sandwiches or having to pay for her own lunch, it gave her a reason to try all the exciting city places that had the LV sign on the door.

Mr Walton now introduced Heather to Muriel and Anna, and then they went back out to the main office. ‘You can put your coat and things on there,’ he said, pointing to a long wooden rack, ‘and there’s an umbrella stand by the door.’ He gave a little sigh. ‘At this time of the year it’s well used.’

Heather deposited her damp umbrella in the stand and then hung up her belted tweed coat and matching hat, t
hen Mr Walton took her over to a group of large grey filing cabinets in the centre of the largest office, and explai
ned how the numerical system worked for the shipping documents. He indicated a table piled high with documents. ‘They’re all numbered according to the files in the cabinet,’ he said, showing her the stamp on the corner of the top sheets. He gave an apologetic smile. ‘I’m afraid we’ve got a wee bit behind since Janice left.’

‘I’ll manage,’ Heather quickly reassured him. ‘I’ve done plenty of filing in my old office.’

‘Oh, I have every confidence in you,’ the older man said, then he motioned to a thin-built man in his late thirties to come over and be introduced to her, and two girls around her own age called Sarah and Marie. Various other members of staff were brought over to the filing cabinet to meet Heather, and others wandered over of their own volition.

Two fellows who looked to be slightly older than Heather c
ame over together, one dark-haired, on the small side alt
hough well-built, and the other almost six feet tall, going bald with slightly bulging eyes. She had noticed them chatting at one of the desks and caught them looking over at her on several occasions. When she saw them coming across to her, she could feel her cheeks starting to burn.

‘Danny Fleming,’ the smaller of the two said, greeting her with an outstretched hand and a big cheery smile. He in
dicated to his colleague now. ‘And this is Maurice Smit
h.’ Both shook hands with her, trying not to make it too obvious that they were over for a closer look at her.

‘Heather Grace,’ she replied, hoping she didn’t look as embarrassed as she felt. Then she added rather needlessly, ‘I’ve just started here this morning . . .’

‘Is that an Irish name?’ Maurice asked. He thumbed to the fellow beside him. ‘Danny’s family are all Irish.’ He gave a little smirky kind of smile. ‘That’s something you both have in common already.’

‘Aye . . .’ Heather said, her face going even redder. There was a little pause, and she suddenly felt she should say something. ‘My father’s from County Offaly.’

‘Mine’s from Mayo, a wee place in the middle of nowhere,’ Danny said in a pronounced Glasgow accent that gave no hint of his Irish roots. ‘Never heard of Offaly – whereabouts is it? Are ye sure that’s the name of an Irish
county
?’