A Store at War

Lily nodded.

‘Bet this feels like the longest day of your life, eh, Sis?’

Sid patted Lily’s shoulder and she nearly crumpled. Please don’t be nice to me, she thought, forcing her eyes wide to stop the tears, or it’ll all come out!

‘Tell you what. You can sleep in with me tonight, love,’ offered her mum. ‘Would you like that?’

Lily nodded dumbly.

‘Yes, please,’ she whispered.

She didn’t imagine she’d sleep much, wherever she was.

Miss Frobisher had told her not to go down to the lockers the next day, but to take the service lift up to the third floor, the floor where Miss Garner – and Mr Marlow – had their offices. The floor where only a week ago, Lily had had her interview, and had left with such high hopes. She wasn’t sorry not to have to mix with the others, to see the stares and the nudging. She was sorry not to see Gladys, to say goodbye if nothing else, but never to see Beryl again could only be a blessing.

She had to squash into the lift with a cage of gents’ socks and caps steered by a grizzled man with a moustache, presumably on his way up to the stockrooms. He manoeuvred his load wordlessly aside so Lily could get in with her gas mask and bag, which contained the contract of employment she’d signed only yesterday and hadn’t had the chance to drop off at the staff office. Nice waste of paper and ink that had been!

‘It’s you, in’t it?’ the man said as they creaked up past the first and second floors. ‘The little miss who slapped that other little madam down the shelter last night?’

‘Don’t, please.’

‘No need to apologise, love. There’s plenty on the staff who’d love to land one on a few of our customers, and without the excuse of a Jerry overhead! And on a few of the management, come to that! You only did what no one else dared. It raised a smile with some of us, I can tell you.’

‘Oh, well, that’s all right then!’

‘Sorry, chick. I didn’t mean … you’re new, ain’t yer?’

‘Newer than new. Yesterday was my first day,’ Lily confessed.

‘Dear oh dear! Start as you mean to go on, eh?’

‘I don’t think there’ll be any going on,’ said Lily sadly.

Her new friend shook his head.

‘That’s a pity. Even more of a pity there’s no union here that might fight your corner. We’re trying to set one up, but these family firms …’ He tutted and rolled his eyes. ‘You wouldn’t be able to join till you was sixteen, of course, but at least a union’d look out for you if you was in trouble.’

‘Well, that’s good to know. For other people,’ said Lily. ‘But it won’t come in time for me, I’m afraid.’

‘In that case you’ll have to stick up for yourself, won’t you? You don’t seem backward in coming forward.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Lily sadly as the lift clanked to a halt at her floor. ‘That’s what got me into trouble in the first place.’

‘My forms from yesterday, Miss Garner.’

Lily placed them on the desk.

‘I’d already signed them, I’m afraid. I’m sorry about the waste of paper. But I know you wanted the paper clip back especially.’

‘I did, Lily. Thank you.’

Miss Garner was still trying to come to terms with all she’d learned about the events of the previous evening from Eileen Frobisher, who’d sought her out to explain the situation. This was, of course, precisely the sort of thing Miss Garner had dreaded with the type of girls she was having to take on. She’d anticipated most things – or thought she had. Slapdash appearance, grubby fingernails, slatternly habits, dropped aitches, mispronunciations … chatting amongst themselves or, worse, over-familiarity with the customers … that was as far as her imagination had taken her. Assaulting the customers had never occurred to her. But …

‘The thing is, Lily,’ she said, ‘I’ve had a telephone call. From Mr Marlow.’

So he knew as well! Lily’s cheeks flamed.

‘And he …’

Miss Garner removed her treasured paper clip from Lily’s forms and stowed it in a little japanned box on her desk.

‘He’d had a telephone call from Mrs Tunnicliffe. Violet Tunnicliffe’s mother,’ she added, inscrutably.

Lily bit her lip. Hard. Was Miss Garner going to deliver the killer blow, or would Lily be passed on to Cedric Marlow? Would he rant and rage? She didn’t somehow think that would be his style. More a sort of sad disappointment that she’d turned out so badly. Either way, it’d end with her being shown the door.

But Miss Garner was speaking again.

‘It seems that Violet’s very highly strung. They’ve had trouble with her before in air raids. The doctor prescribed a bromide, but they didn’t have any with them yesterday.’

‘That’s awful,’ said Lily. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yes, well, it gets some people like that, doesn’t it?’

The little japanned box had a picture of a temple or a palace or something on it, brilliant in gold and turquoise. When the sun poked through the taped-over window, it throbbed with colour. Miss Garner saw her looking at it.

‘My brother sent it to me. He’s out in Syria. Perfect for paper clips.’

‘I see,’ said Lily automatically, though she couldn’t believe they were talking like this, about paper clips of all things.

Please. Get on with it, she thought. Why are you dragging it out?

‘The fact is’ – Miss Garner couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice – ‘Mrs Tunnicliffe’s actually rather grateful to you. She can’t do anything with Violet when she gets like that. If it had gone on much longer she’d have screamed herself into fits, and it needed someone to bring her to her senses.’

Another ‘I see’ would have done well here, but Lily was too stunned to speak.

‘In fact, Lily, if you really want to know—’

Miss Garner herself sounded amazed as she pulled a piece of scrap paper towards her.

‘I wrote this down so that I could relay it correctly. Mrs Tunnicliffe couldn’t praise you highly enough. “Quick-thinking” was the phrase she used. And she told Mr Marlow to make sure you were properly thanked.’

‘Never!’ The word was out before Lily could help herself.

A brief smile touched Miss Garner’s lips.

‘That’s what she said. But—’

She couldn’t let this go without delivering something of a lesson.