A Christmas Wish

They went to the canteen in turn and Debbie, going first, came back with disquieting news. ‘You know that girl who works in the secretary’s office?’

‘Mary Gates,’ said Olivia. ‘What’s happened to her—got engaged?’

‘No, no. She told me something she’d overheard. There’s not enough money—they are planning to make redundancies—one’s going to have to do the work of two. Olivia, supposing it’s me who goes? Whatever shall I do? With Dad out of work, Mother’s part-time job barely pays the rent.’

Olivia said matter-of-factly, ‘Well, we don’t know anything yet, do we? They could have been talking about another hospital—and I don’t see how they could get rid of one of us.’

‘Well, I do. You’re too nice, Olivia. Do you suppose these people who sit around talking over super food and drink care a damn if they cut back on jobs, just as long as they can save some money for some pet scheme or other? We aren’t people to them, just stat-stat…’

‘Statistics,’ supplied Olivia. ‘Debbie, don’t worry. If—and I say it’s a big if—one of us is given the sack it will be me; they have to pay me more because I’m older. You’re not yet twenty-one so you earn less.’

Debbie looked relieved and then asked, ‘But what will you do?’

‘Oh, I can turn my hand to anything,’ said Olivia airily, and took herself off to the canteen. She shared a table with two clerks from Admissions, older than herself, competent, hard-working ladies both.

‘There’s a nasty rumour going round,’ one of them said to Olivia as she sat down. ‘They’re cutting down, starting with the domestics and then us.’

‘Is it just a rumour or for real?’

‘We’re to get letters tomorrow, warning us, and at the end of next week we shall get notes in our pay envelopes if we’re to be made redundant.’

Olivia pushed shepherd’s pie and two veg around the plate. Something would have to be done about Debbie. Her own wages would be missed at home, but they wouldn’t starve and they had a roof over their heads whereas Debbie’s family would be in sore straits. She ate prunes and custard, drank the strong tea, and went along to the secretary’s office.

He wasn’t there, but his PA was—a nice girl, who Olivia knew slightly. ‘I want you to help me,’ said Olivia in a no-nonsense voice.

She was listened to without interruption, then the PA said, ‘I’ll do my best—shall I say that you’ve got another job lined up? The hospital manager will be delighted; he’s going to be very unpopular.’

Olivia went back to her work, and spent the rest of the day doing her best to reassure Debbie.

It was pay-day in the morning and, sure enough, everyone had a letter in their pay-packet, setting out the need to retrench, cut costs and improve hospital services.

‘How will they do that if there aren’t enough of us to go round?’ demanded Debbie. ‘I shan’t dare tell my mum.’

‘Not until next week,’ cautioned Olivia. ‘You haven’t got the sack yet.’

The next week crawled to its end and Olivia opened her pay packet to find a note advising her that she had been given a week’s notice. Although she had been fairly sure that she would be the one to go, it was still a blow—mitigated to a certain extent by Debbie’s relief. ‘Though how I’ll manage on my own, I don’t know,’ she told Olivia. ‘I’m always filing things wrong.’

‘No, you aren’t. Besides, you’ll be extra careful now.’

‘What about you? Have you got a job to go to?’

‘Not yet, but we can manage quite well until I find something else. Look, Debbie, we’ve got next week—let’s check the shelves together so that everything is OK before I go.’

She hadn’t told her mother yet; that could wait until she had actually left. Thank heaven, she reflected, that it’s spring. We can economise on the heating if only we can get Grandmother to co-operate, and not go round the flat turning on lights that aren’t needed and switching on the electric fires and then forgetting them. It was, after all, her flat—something of which she reminded them constantly.

They worked like beavers during the next week, and although Olivia was glad that she need no longer work in the dreary underground room she was sorry to leave Debbie. She put a brave face on it, however, assured her that she had her eye on several likely jobs, collected her pay-packet for the last time and went home. The bus was as usual crowded, so she stood, not noticing her feet being trodden on, or the elderly lady with the sharp elbows which kept catching her in the ribs. She was regretting leaving without seeing that nice man who had been so friendly. Doubtless back in Holland by now, she thought, and forgotten all about us.

She waited until they had had their supper before she told her mother and grandmother that she had lost her job. Her mother was instantly sympathetic. ‘Of course you’ll find something else much nicer,’ she said, ‘and until you do we can manage quite well…’

Her grandmother wasn’t as easy to placate. ‘Well, what do you expect?’ she wanted to know. ‘You’re not really trained for anything, and quite right too. No gel should have to go out to work—not people of our background…’ Mrs Fitzgibbon, connected by marriage to the elderly baronet and his family who never took any notice of her, was inclined to give herself airs.

‘All the same,’ she went on, ‘of course you must find something else at once. I, for one, have no intention of living in penury; heaven knows I have sacrificed a great deal so that both of you should have a home and comfort.’ She stared at her granddaughter with beady eyes. ‘Well, Olivia, perhaps that young man of yours will marry you now.’

‘Perhaps he will,’ said Olivia brightly, thinking to herself that perhaps he wouldn’t—she hadn’t heard from him for almost three weeks—and anyway, the last time they had been out together he had told her that he had his eye on a new car. The nasty thought that perhaps the new car might receive priority over herself crossed her mind. Rodney had never been over-loving, and she had told herself that it was because they had known each other for some time and his feelings had become a trifle dulled. Perhaps it was a good thing that they hadn’t seen each other for a few weeks; he might look at her with new eyes and ask her to marry him. Something he had not as yet done, although there was a kind of unspoken understanding between them. Anyway, now was not the time to worry about that. A job was the first thing she must think about.

She had been given good references but it seemed that her skills as a filing-clerk weren’t much in demand. She went out each day, armed with the details of suitable jobs culled from the newspapers, and had no luck at all; she couldn’t use a word-processor; she had no idea how to work with a computer, and a cash register was a closed book as far as she was concerned. The week was almost up when Rodney phoned. He sounded—she thought for a word—excited, and she wondered why. Then he said, ‘I want to talk to you, Olivia, can we meet somewhere? You know how it is if I come and see you at your grandmother’s place…’

‘Where do you suggest? I’ve things to tell you too.’

‘Yes?’ He didn’t sound very interested. ‘Meet me at that French place in Essex Road this evening. Seven o’clock.’

He rang off before she could agree.

He had sounded different she reflected as she went to tell her mother that she would be out that evening. Mrs Fitzgibbon, reading the newspaper by the window, put it down. ‘And high time too,’ she observed. ‘Let us hope that he will propose.’ She picked up her paper again, ‘One less mouth to feed,’ she muttered nastily.

Perhaps you get like that when you’re old, thought Olivia, and gave her mother a cheerful wink. It was of no use getting annoyed, and she knew that her grandmother’s waspish tongue was far kinder to her mother, an only daughter who had married the wrong man—in her grandmother’s eyes at least—and it was because Olivia was more like her father than her mother that her grandmother disliked her. If she had been slender and graceful and gentle, like her mother, it might have been a different kettle of fish…

She dressed with care presently, anxious to look her best for Rodney. The jacket and skirt, even though they were four years old, were more or less dateless, as was the silk blouse which went with them. She didn’t look too bad, she conceded to herself, studying her person in her wardrobe mirror, only she wished that she were small and dainty. She pulled a face at her lovely reflection, gave her hair a final pat, and bade her mother goodbye.

‘Take a key,’ ordered her grandmother. ‘We don’t want to be wakened at all hours.’

Olivia said nothing. She couldn’t remember a single evening when Rodney hadn’t driven her back well before eleven o’clock.

Perhaps, she mused, sitting in an almost empty bus, she and Rodney had known each other for too long. Although surely when you were in love that wouldn’t matter? The thought that perhaps she wasn’t in love with him took her breath. Of course she was. She was very fond of him; she liked him, they had enjoyed cosy little dinners in out of the way restaurants and had gone to the theatre together and she had been to his flat. Only once, though. It was by the river in a new block of flats with astronomical rents, and appeared to her to be completely furnished, although Rodney had listed a whole lot of things which he still had to have. Only then, he had told her, would he contemplate settling down to married life.

It was a short walk from the bus-stop and she was punctual but he was already there, sitting at a table for two in the corner of the narrow room. He got up when he saw her and said ‘hello’ in a hearty way, not at all in his usual manner.

She sat down composedly and smiled at him. ‘Hello, Rodney. Was your trip successful?’

‘Trip? What…? Oh, yes, very. What would you like to drink?’

Why did she have the feeling that she was going to need something to bolster her up presently? ‘Gin and tonic,’ she told him. A drink she disliked but Debbie, who knew about these things, had assured her once that there was nothing like it to pull a girl together.

Rodney looked surprised. ‘That’s not like you, Olivia.’

She didn’t reply to that. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing, and why do you want to talk, Rodney? It’s lovely to see you, but you sounded so—so urgent on the phone.’

He had no time to answer because the waiter handed them the menus and they both studied them. At least Olivia appeared to be studying hers, but actually she was wondering about Rodney. She asked for mushrooms in a garlic sauce and a Dover sole with a salad, and took a heartening sip of her drink. It was horrible but she saw what Debbie meant. She took another sip.

Their talk was trivial as they ate. Whatever it was Rodney had to tell her would doubtless be told over their coffee. He was an amusing companion, going from one topic to the next and never once mentioning his own work. Nor did he ask her about her own job or what she had been doing. She would tell him presently, she decided, and suppressed peevish surprise when he waved away the waiter with his trolley of desserts and ordered coffee. She was a girl with a healthy appetite and she had had her eye on the peach pavlova.

She poured the coffee and caught Rodney’s eye. ‘Well?’ she asked pleasantly. ‘Out with it, my dear. Have you been made redundant—I…’

‘Olivia, we’ve known each other a long time—we’ve been good friends—you may even have expected us to marry. I find this very difficult to say…’

‘Well, have a go!’ she encouraged in a matter-of-fact voice which quite concealed her shock. ‘As you say, we’ve been friends for a long time.’

‘Perhaps you’ve guessed.’ Rodney was having difficulty in coming to the point.