Lizzie's Secret (2 page)

‘Yes, sir, I know. But you pay more once I'm trained, don't you?'

‘If you finish your six months training, I'll pay you thirty-five shillings, and if you see the year out, I'll pay you two pounds and ten shillings. After that, it depends how talented you are.'

‘Are you saying I've got the job?'

‘You're the only one who applied for it; the rest of them want to be seamstresses,' he said. ‘I'm Bert Oliver – and I own this workshop. We sell to the retail trade. I shall expect you in at eight fifteen each morning. For a start you'll be sweeping up and making tea, but we'll teach you what you need to know – and we'll see if you're any good.'

‘Yes, sir – Mr Oliver,' Lizzie felt a tingle of excitement. ‘Do I start on Monday?'

‘Do you have to give notice?'

‘I gave notice last week at the canteen and finished last Saturday.'

‘How old are you, Lizzie?'

‘I'm twenty next Saturday.'

His brows rose. ‘You dress like a schoolgirl, Miss Larch. I thought you no more than seventeen at most.'

Lizzie was too embarrassed to answer, because her aunt made her dresses and was very strict. Aunt Jane insisted that Lizzie should always be modest in her clothes and not attract attention.

‘We expect you to wear a plain dark skirt and blouse for work, or a smart black dress, and we provide an overall for in here, but you may serve in the showroom sometimes and for that you must wear black.'

‘I've got a grey skirt and some white blouses – if that will do?'

‘I prefer black but dark grey will do for now. Very well, Lizzie. Bring all your details of previous work in on Monday and give them to Mrs Moore; she will see to your wages on a Friday.'

‘Yes, Mr Oliver.'

‘And bring some of your designs in if you want. I might have a look at them when I have time…'

Lizzie was still in shock. ‘Thank you, sir. I shall look forward to it…'

‘Off you go then, I'm in need of a trained seamstress and a cutter, though from what I've seen so far in the waiting room that looks like being a hopeless cause…'

Lizzie returned to the waiting room still feeling bewildered and unsure whether she was dreaming.

‘Lizzie!' Beth Court pounced on her. ‘I got my job – what about you?'

‘I've been taken on as an apprentice,' Lizzie said. ‘My aunt won't be pleased, because the wage is less than I was earning, but it's what I want to do…'

‘That's all that matters then, isn't it?'

‘Yes, perhaps,' Lizzie smiled at her. ‘I'm glad you got your job, Beth. It means I'll be seeing you most days, doesn't it?'

‘Yes, of course. They don't have a canteen here. We have a staffroom where we can make a cup of tea and eat our sandwiches, if we like – but there's a little café just down the road where we can go for a meal.'

‘I shan't be able to afford that,' Lizzie said. ‘Aunt Jane takes a pound of my money – that only leaves me five bob for everything.'

‘Surely she won't expect you to pay so much now?' Beth looked surprised. ‘I'm getting three pounds in the office for a start. It's mostly invoices for the customers and some bookkeeping, and typing letters to suppliers…'

‘You must be clever to do that. I didn't take my school certificate, because I was off school for more than a year.'

‘You don't sound dumb to me…'

‘Oh no, I'm not. I read a lot and my uncle helped me with arithmetic and other things… but I didn't know the proper work for the exams. My uncle says it's a daft system anyway, and he thinks I'm clever at stuff like drawing…'

‘He sounds nice?'

‘Uncle Jack is lovely…' Lizzie broke off with a sigh. ‘My aunt has such a sharp tongue and I don't think I could bear to live at home if he wasn't around…'

‘Sounds rotten for you,' Beth said. ‘Look, why don't you come and have lunch with us? Mum always cooks enough for an army…'

‘Could I really? Won't she mind?'

‘Of course you can come,' Beth said. ‘Mum always likes to meet my friends and she's a wonderful cook. I know you'll like her, Lizzie, and she will like you… and we'll have a look round the market on the way…'

*

Lizzie loved the busy market with its colourful canopies and stalls piled high with produce that smelled gorgeous. One was crammed with various kinds of cheese, some of them unknown to her that smelled really strong. She stopped to look and asked the man behind the counter what the different cheeses were. He laughed and explained that the ones that smelled strong were ripe Brie and Stilton.

Beth tugged at her arm and they walked on. The stalls were really busy and the cries of the costers were loud and sometimes shrill, all of them trying to be heard above the next man. The crowds were made up of lots of different peoples: local cockneys with their cheerful grins, greasy caps pulled over their heads; Jews with orthodox ringlets, beards, long black coats and black hats; men with dark complexions, turbans and traditional long gowns, their feet bare of socks and wearing string sandals; women in headscarves tied in a knot, showing just a glimpse of hair, and aprons that crossed over at the front, on their break from the jam factory just down the road.

On one side of the road there was a pawn shop with the sign of the three balls over its door and a few tarnished articles on show; most of the stock was inside, tucked away in the safe, waiting for its owners to reclaim it when they had the money. Next to it was one of the Greenspan trading grocery stores and then a hardware shop and a pub with its sign in black and gold lettering and a picture of a king's head, adjoining it; a tobacconist store with penknives, cigarette cases and signs, and a rack of pipes in its window made up the row of shops. Further on was a Jewish synagogue and next to that a building with the name of a clothing manufacturer over its dirty windows, which were blocked out with grubby blinds. Beth told Lizzie it was a sweatshop and the seamstresses who worked there were made to do impossibly long hours.

‘They're all foreign women and I don't think any of them speak English,' Beth told her. ‘Come on, we'd better hurry now or Mum will get worried.'

*

‘So what happened?' Aunt Jane attacked as soon as Lizzie entered the kitchen. ‘I suppose it was a waste of time. Don't imagine your uncle and I are going to let you sit around doing nothing all day…'

‘I got the job as an apprentice and I'm going to learn everything.' Lizzie's head rose in defiance. ‘My wage is twenty-five bob for the first six months and then it goes up another ten shillings…'

‘How are you going to manage on that?' her aunt demanded. ‘I'll still want my pound a week and that leaves you with hardly enough to get to work…'

‘Lizzie has done the right thing,' Uncle Jack spoke up for her. ‘I've always said that she's wasted in that canteen – and it isn't her fault she missed all that schooling, Jane. She'll give you a pound a week same as usual, but until she's earning more I'll give her ten bob for herself.'

‘Whose money is that coming out of? Don't think you can cut my money. I work all hours to keep this family decent – and I…'

‘It's all right, Jane,' he said quietly. ‘Lizzie's pocket money will come from mine. I'll share it with her.'

‘Uncle Jack,' Lizzie protested, ‘you can't give me your beer money. You work hard all week, you deserve something…' her eyes stung with tears, because he was always trying to help her, to protect her from Aunt Jane's caustic tongue.

‘If he's fool enough to give it to you, it won't hurt him to stay home one night a week…' Aunt Jane's eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘So if you got the job where have you been all this time?'

‘I met a nice girl at Oliver's workshops. She's got a job in the office and I had lunch at her home and met her mum.'

Lizzie wished she knew more about her own mother, but she had only a tiny silver cross and chain to remember her by. Lizzie sometimes felt upset that almost nothing of her parents' had been kept for her, but then most of her past was shrouded in a hazy mist since her accident.

Sometimes strange pictures flashed into her head and she seemed to recall a nurse bending over her… and a room with bars on the windows. All she really remembered was the doctor at the sanatorium telling her that she was Lizzie Larch and she could go home to her aunt and uncle as soon as she was well enough.

She'd left school at sixteen, and gone to work in the canteen. At night, her uncle met her from work and walked her home through the dirty and often smelly dock area, which meant he had to shut his workshop early for her sake. He was a busy man and mending shoes didn't bring in a fortune. Lizzie had tried to persuade him that she could walk home alone, because as a self-employed cobbler, Uncle Jack couldn't afford to shut his door half an hour early every night.

He said it was because he didn't want her to have another accident, but when she asked him to tell her more about it, he always shook his head and said the doctor thought it best if she was allowed to remember in her own time.

Lizzie would have liked to know more about her accident. If she remembered, her aunt might stop treating her as if she was still fourteen.

‘Have you got to wear a uniform for work?' her aunt asked suddenly, bringing Lizzie's wandering thoughts back to the present.

‘Yes, I need a smart black dress. I've seen something in your Butterick patterns… if you would let me make it on your machine. I could buy some material on the market.'

‘Yes, of course your aunt will let you use the machine,' Uncle Jack took a pound from his pocket. ‘Get some good material, Lizzie. Jane has always told you that good cloth makes the clothes, and it lasts.'

‘Well, at least someone listens to me sometimes,' Aunt Jane said. ‘If you show me the pattern, I'll cut it out for you.'

‘Oh thank you, aunt,' Lizzie smiled shyly at her uncle as he gave her the money. ‘If I've got a smart dress I may serve in the showroom sometimes – and that's all good experience.'

‘Well, I suppose it's a better job than you had,' her aunt sniffed. ‘But don't let it go to your head – and I don't want you staying out late at night.'

‘I hardly ever go out…'

Lizzie sighed, because it was never any use arguing with Aunt Jane, but at least she had the job she wanted…

‘Here, put this on, Lizzie,' the girl handed her a dark grey striped overall with a wrap-over front and a tie belt. ‘We have to wear these or we get bits all over our clothes.'

‘Thanks.' Lizzie tied the belt tightly. ‘What's your name?' The girl was fair-skinned with fair hair and bright blue eyes and she wore a pale peach lipstick. Lizzie envied her the modern haircut she'd had done, brushed back off her face into a stylish DA, which resembled the feathers of a duck's tail at the back. Lizzie's own dark hair was scraped back in a bun.

‘I'm Tilly Blake,' the girl smiled. ‘I do most of the making up, sewing brims into place, sewing on ribbons and trimmings, things like that.'

‘I think I saw you trimming a hat when I came for the interview. It looked interesting.'

‘I'll show you later.' Tilly thrust a broom at her. ‘Best get this place a bit tidy or Mr Oliver will be on the warpath. It's always a shambles by the end of the day, and we were busy on Friday evening so it just got left. He nearly blew a fuse when he saw it this morning. No one wants to clear up after anyone else – that's why Grumble Guts got you…'

‘Is that what you call Mr Oliver behind his back?'

‘His nephew Harry started it,' Tilly said, ‘and it just caught on.'

‘His nephew – where is he?' Lizzie looked round the workshop.

‘He's gone out delivering to the shops. The buyers come here, mostly once a month, and place an order. We make the hats up to their instructions, and then Harry takes the orders out. He fetches our stuff from the manufacturers, makes up orders, checks the stock – and he's a trained cutter too, but he hates working on the shop floor. He'd rather be in the showroom or out in the van, though according to Harry there's going to be a war soon and then he's off. He wants to fly aeroplanes…'

‘Gossiping again, Tilly?' Mr Oliver's clipped tones interrupted.

Lizzie started to pick up the larger pieces of material that had fallen to the floor, putting them into a large rush basket, which was for reusable scraps. She swept carefully round all the benches and collected all the rubbish, taking it out to the backyard and depositing it in a metal dustbin. Returning to the workshop, she looked round for more jobs.

‘Make some tea, Lizzie. You'll find everything in the staff room,' Mr Oliver told her. ‘I like mine strong, with three spoons of sugar, but ask all the girls what they want. You can all have a mug before we start the day. It's damned cold out…'

Lizzie made a careful note of everyone's orders, her training in the canteen standing her in good stead, but when it came to it, she wasn't quite sure who wanted sugar and who didn't, so she took a tray with a sugar bowl and spoons, letting them help themselves.

‘That's an improvement,' one of the men smiled at her. ‘You're the new girl, aren't you – Lizzie something?'

‘I'm Lizzie Larch,' she balanced her tray on the bench, offering her hand.

He gripped it hard. ‘I'm Ed Biggleswick – the head cutter. Everyone calls me Ed, don't bother with Mr Biggleswick, it's a mouthful and made my life a nightmare at school. Just call me Ed and we'll get on all right.'

‘Thank you, Ed. Will you teach me to cut out hats one day?'

He smiled at her eagerness. ‘If Mr Oliver tells me to. You'll have to wait a bit for that, Lizzie. It takes experience to learn how to shape the hats and the cutting is all important.'