The Grace Girls (12 page)

Then, before she had a chance to reply, Mr Walton came rushing out of his office clapping his hands for attention. ‘Just to remind you all that the window-cleaners are outside on their cradle-things this morning, so don’t get a sudden shock if a face appears at the window beside you.’

‘Well, ye don’t have to be completely mad to work here,’ Danny Fleming quipped, winking at Heather, ‘but sometimes it helps if ye are.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘And it helps if ye can look busy even when you’re not, especially if oul’ Walton is around.’ He dropped his voice. ‘He’s a dangerous man to work for. Ye never know how ye’ll find him – he’s all great laughs one minute and then very next he could caw the head off ye for nothin’. Isn’t that right, Maurice, son?’

Maurice nodded his head solemnly in Heather’s direction, then his eyes widened making them bulge even more. ‘A right moon-man at times – so be warned.’

She nodded her head now, alarmed to hear this about the man she had thought was really nice. ‘Thanks for telling me,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

After about an hour, Muriel Ferguson came over to Heather and said she had a few minutes to spare to show her the postal system. Another hour flew by as Heather became acquainted with the weighing scales for envelopes and parcels in the office, then she checked the postal rates on a table and franked each piece of mail accordingly.

At eleven o’clock, the office suddenly slowed down and people started looking for handbags and heading for the door.

‘Break-time,’ Muriel Ferguson said, indicating towards the big round, mahogany clock with the Roman numerals that had once adorned the sea-going office in a famous Clydeside ship. ‘There’s a small canteen on the floor below that everybody goes to.’

Heather reached for her bag. ‘Great,’ she said, ‘I could just do with a cup of tea.’ They walked down the stairs together
and as they entered the canteen, Heather was hit by th
e com
forting smell of warm sausage rolls and bridies. She
looked over at the glass oven that kept the food warm, and her mouth watered at the sight of the pies and hot bacon rolls.

She had promised herself that she would start to cut down a bit, so that she would fit into nice dresses for Christmas, but the look and smell of the lovely food made her shaky willpower waver even further.

‘They have a great selection,’ Heather said to the older woman as they joined the queue. ‘I can’t decide what to have.’ Her gaze came to rest on a tray of buttered treacle scones and lovely cherry scones with jam.

‘Some of them come into work without having any breakfast,’ Muriel whispered in a disapproving manner, ‘and then they wolf into all this heavy stuff as if it was lunchtime. You’d think they’d never seen a bite in their lives.’ She sniffed, lifting a plain white cup and saucer from the tray in front of the urns. ‘I have a good breakfast before I leave the house in the morning, so a cup of tea does me just fine at this time.’ She passed her cup across to the lady serving. ‘I would hate to have all that stodgy stuff lying on my stomach at this hour of the day – and I’m sure it must affect their work. How can your brain be sharp if your body’s sluggish from all that stodge?’

Heather’s heart sank as she realised that it would look terrible now if she went for any of the tantalising things that Muriel had described so disparagingly. She even felt embarrassed at the thought of buying one of the lighter items like a scone or a doughnut. She reached for a cup and saucer, pondering over her predicament, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘Where did ye say that place was in Ireland that yer family came from?’ It was the small, dark-haired fellow who had come across with his friend earlier in the office. He lifted up a large paper plate, his eyes scanning the array of snacks.

‘Offaly,’ Heather said, turning around to face him. ‘It’s one of the smallest counties . . .’

‘Imagine it being a county in Ireland,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘and I’ve never heard tell of it.’

He reached into the glass oven and lifted out a hot bridie and put it on his plate, then stretched across the counter for a jam doughnut, holding onto his spotty blue tie in case it draped across any of the buttered scones or sugary doughnuts on display. ‘Do you go to Ireland much?’ Danny asked now.

Heather shook her head, hardly able to concentrate for looking at all the lovely things she desperately fancied. ‘We used to go for a month every summer when we were a
t primary school, and we went over for a few Christmases
, but now that me and my sister are both working, we don’t go as often.’ She passed her cup across to the lady behind the counter who filled it up with tea.

‘We don’t either,’ Danny said. ‘Once ye start work ye don’t have the same time off. But I try to get over for a week every year.’ He grinned now. ‘We have some brilliant times over there goin’ to hurling matches and everythin’, and the pubs stay open half the night.’ He now passed a large blue mug across for his tea.

Heather turned back to face the front of the queue and realised that Muriel Ferguson and her cup of tea had vanished. She gave a quick glance around the canteen and then saw Muriel disappearing out of the door with another older lady.

‘Would you mind passing me a plate?’ she said to Danny. ‘I think I might have something to eat after all.’ Then she reached her hand into the glass oven for the lovely, golden sausage roll she had been eyeing since joining the queue.

‘They’re brilliant, by the way,’ Danny informed her, taking a bite of his bridie and sending little flakey crumbs
down over his shirt and tie. ‘They get all the stuff
delivered fresh every mornin’ from Crawford’s the baker’s.’

‘It looks lovely,’ Heather said, picking up a small slice of millionaire shortbread.
Tomorrow
, she promised herself.
Defi­nitely tomorrow, I’ll start cutting down.

The rest of the morning flew as piles of parcels and envelopes arrived to be weighed and franked, and when they eventually dribbled down to ones and twos, Heather took a break and went back to the filing cabinets. This time, as people moved up and down the office, and often stopped to pass a few words, she felt less self-conscious. As it grew nearer one o’clock, however, she started to feel a little anxious about where she might go at lunchtime. Then, Sarah, one of the girls she’d met earlier in the morning, came across to her.

‘Muriel asked me to give you your Luncheon Vouchers,’ she said, handing her an envelope. ‘There’s a few of us going to The Trees restaurant down at the station,
if you want to come.’

‘Oh, that would be great,’ Heather said, giving a relieved smile. ‘I wasn’t too sure where to go . . . I only know Glasgow for shopping.’

‘Oh, we know it well for shopping, too.’ Sarah laughed, her long, straight mousy-brown swinging as she did. ‘Where d’you come from?’ she asked now.

‘Rowanhill,’ Heather explained. ‘It’s out near Wishaw . . .’

Sarah’s brows came down. ‘Never heard of it – but then
I don’t know too many places outside Glasgow.’ She pause
d. ‘Sometimes a few of us go into the shops on a Friday evening after we’ve got our wages. We go for something to eat in the café at the station. If you fancy it, you can come any time.’

‘That’s a great idea,’ Heather said, delighted to be included. ‘I could just get a later train home.’

As she sat back in the train on her return journey that evening – squashed between a heavy-built woman and a young boy – Heather felt grateful and pleased with herself for
actually having a seat. She had bought a magazine from the paper shop in the station to read as she travelled home, but she decided now that there wasn’t enough room to hold it comfortably. She looked out of the window at the other commuters running to catch their various trains, then, as the train pulled out of the station, she ran over the day’s events in her mind, and felt she had made a very respectable start.

The afternoon had passed quickly after a nice lunch in The Trees. The three girls had all picked fish and chips wi
th a small dish of trifle to finish, then they had sat chatting
over a cup of tea, swapping information about themselves. Then realising the time, they’d all hurried through the bustling streets and back to the office. Mr Walton had brought Heather into his office and got her to take a letter down in shorthand, and then he’d asked her to type it up. When she’d brought the finished document to him, he said he was perfectly satisfied with the standard of her work, and that he’d chat to the other women about giving her some more of that work for the following day.

All in all, she thought, her first day at Seafreight had gone well.

She was relieved that when the train reached Cambuslan
g St
ation, the heavy woman and the boy got off, and Heather
moved in towards the window, glad to have a bit more space. She was just reaching into her handbag for her magazine, when she looked up to see a figure in a dark winter coat coming to move into the empty seat beside her.

‘Hello,’ a familiar voice said, ‘I thought it was you.’ He sat down beside her, an evening newspaper in one hand and a few carrier bags of different sizes in the other.

‘Gerry . . .’ Heather said, her voice suddenly sticking in her throat. She swallowed hard, feeling all flustered and embar­rassed. ‘I didn’t see you getting on the train . . .’

‘Oh, but I saw you,’ he said, his face quite serious. ‘I saw you queuing at the barrier in the station. I was a bit behind you.’ He organised the carrier bags into a tidy group on the floor under the table.

‘Aren’t you usually working at this time?’ she asked. ‘You don’t usually go into Glasgow during the week . . .’ She suddenly wondered if he’d remembered about this being her first day in her new office, and whether he’d worked out that she’d be getting on this particular train. There were only two that went to Rowanhill around the time that the shops and offices closed, so it wouldn’t be hard to work it out. But then, she thought, he could meet her in Rowanhill any time, he didn’t need to come into Glasgow just to sit beside her on a train. What would be the point in that?

‘Day off,’ he said, folding the newspaper over and fitting it into one of the bags. ‘I had a few things I needed, so I decided to take a trip into the bigger shops while it was quiet at the beginning of the week.’

There was an awkward silence, during which Heather pon­dered over how she should react to suddenly being flung beside her ex-boyfriend for the next twenty minutes. She turned to look out of the window, signalling to him that the conversation was ended. She definitely didn’t want to come across as being too friendly with him and giving him the wrong impression. She moved her handbag nearer to her on the table, then glanced down at Gerry’s shopping, and could see the names of the Gents’ Outfitters shops on the bags.

He had obviously been treating himself to some new clothes. She wondered now if they were for going to Australia after Christmas.

‘How are your plans for Australia going?’ she suddenly heard herself ask in a reasonably friendly tone.

There was a pause, then a little smile came to his lips. ‘I’m still considering it,’ he told her. ‘But I’ve had another option come up at work. When I told the boss I was thinking of going, he came back to me a few days later and offered me a good promotion.’ He indicated the bags. ‘I thought I could do with a new suit and a few good shirts and
things, whatever I decide to do . . .’ He turned sideway
s in his seat now, facing her properly. ‘I was thinking about you this afternoon . . .’

Heather felt her stomach tighten.
How on earth had he managed to catch the same train as her? And why did he have to have found one of the few available seats beside her?

‘How did your first day go in the new job?’ he asked casually.

‘Fine,’ Heather said, nodding her head but looking straight ahead. He had obviously remembered about her starting in the new office, and wanted to let her know. ‘Aye, it went really well . . . the people in the office are all nice. I think I’m going to enjoy it.’

Gerry nodded, his face thoughtful. ‘I think maybe you were right,’ he suddenly said in a low voice, ‘about us h
aving a break . . . maybe it’s not a bad thing. W
e both have things to be getting on with, your new job and my own situation.’

There was silence for a moment while Heather wondered if he had purposely used the words
having a break
as opposed to
us breaking up
. Whichever way he had meant it, she decided it would be safer not to make any comment. She reached into her bag and brought out her magazine now, hoping he would get the hint and maybe read his paper.

‘Are you going out at the weekend?’ he said after a while.

Heather shrugged, still looking at the magazine. ‘I haven’t given a thought to the weekend yet,’ she said casually. ‘It seems like a long way off.’

‘I’m fairly booked up already,’ he told her, a note of smugness in his voice. He shifted the bags into a straight line again with his feet.

‘Good for you,’ she said lightly. She turned over a page in her magazine and concentrated on a knitting pattern for a lovely jumper in a lace design. She often knitted and, having finished her last top a few weeks ago, had been pondering over what she would knit next. The one in the magazine was exactly the kind of jumper she needed to go with her tartan suit when it was too cold to wear a blouse under. She kept looking at the pattern, trying to work out which colour of wool she would buy – anything to keep her mind off her unwanted companion.