Shadow Baby (31 page)

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chair and looked in every mirror, and in her imagination grew and grew in stature and status.

It was a game she played all day long for the next six days. She still rose very early but now she lit a fire in the morning-room and had her meagre breakfast in comfort in front of it. She waited to see if the house was to be viewed - there was an arrangement whereby a boy came from the agency and said so before ten each day - and if not, she went out, enjoyed the town, entering shops she had never dared go into, and holding her head high. Robinson’s, the new emporium in English Street, fascinated her, it was so beautiful with its plate-glass windows and carpeted floors and its mahogany counters behind which the sales assistants seemed veritable princesses they were so grand. Evie haunted that shop, happy to drift from department to department, admiring, but not of course ever spending. When she saw, in the Cumberland Nems, which was still unaccountably being delivered, that Robinson’s were advertising for waitresses to serve in their Jacobean cafe on the first floor she knew at once this was the job for her.

But would she be suitable? She was so small and slight and might be thought not strong enough to carry trays, and she knew she had no presence and would not inspire confidence in customers. All she had in her favour was Miss Mawson’s reference which she had read over and over until she knew the words by heart - ‘Evelyn Messenger has been known to me for more than a year as hardworking, honest and capable. I am sure she would give satisfaction to whoever employed her as indeed she did in the household of my friend, her employer, the late Mrs Elizabeth Bewley of 10 Portland Square.’ Taking this precious document with her, Evie presented herself for interview at Robinson’s. She went to the back door and was directed down into the basement and through another door into a corridor. This corridor was full of girls and women, all standing patiently in line, their backs against the bare brick wall. Evie took her place, heart sinking. All the other applicants seemed so confident. They talked loudly to each other and laughed and only she was quiet and cowed. One by one they went into the room at the end of the corridor and one by one came out, some flushed and triumphant, some downcast and in a hurry, and all, as they left, seeming to Evie powerful and desirable whereas she was feeble and unattractive.

In the tiny room there was an elderly woman who sat at a rickety

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table with a list in front of her. She looked extremely severe with a heavy frown line etched between her eyes and she made no attempt at preliminary pleasantries. ‘Name?’ she snapped, and ‘Age?’, and ‘Previous work?’ and Evie replied as clearly and firmly as she could manage. When the woman looked up she said at once, ‘Oh dear, you are small and thin, you’d never manage.’ Evie felt her face turn red. She pushed Miss Mawson’s reference towards the woman, saying, ‘Please, ma’am, I’m a hard worker.’ Something resembling a faint smile crossed the woman’s fierce face, but she said nothing as she read, then replaced the reference. ‘It isn’t just a matter of hard work, it’s a matter of strength, lass. Can’t see you balancing a metal tray with a pot of tea for four and all the rest that goes with it on the tray. You’d be staggering. No, you won’t do.’ Evie’s hand, as she took the reference back, shook. The woman noticed.and looked at her again, properly this time. ‘Want it that bad, do you?’ she said, though without any discernible sympathy in her voice. ‘Let’s see. You’re clean and tidy. Can you sew?’

‘Yes,’ said Evie, thankful that she had stitched things for Muriel, and had enjoyed the work.

‘Well then. I know there’s a vacancy for a junior in the cuttingroom at Arnesen’s. Fancy that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Here, then,’ the women said, scribbling on a scrap of paper. ‘Take this to Arnesen’s and say I sent you, you never know, they might take you on if they haven’t got someone already. It’s my daughter’s just left, that’s how I know they need someone.’

‘Thank you,’ said Evie.

‘Tell the next to come in,’ said the woman, ‘and let’s hope she isn’t a waste of time too.’

Evie didn’t know where Arnesen’s was or indeed what exactly it was, apart from some place that employed girls to sew. She stood in English Street, outside Robinson’s, and looked at the bit of paper the woman had given her. ‘Henry Arnesen, Tailor’ it said, and then an address in Lowther Street. Was it a shop, Evie wondered, as she hurried through Globe Lane to Lowther Street, and then as she repeated the name over and over to herself she recalled Miss Mawson saying Caroline Bewley’s beautiful clothes had been made by Arnesen. It was not a shop, however, in the sense Evie understood it, the Robinson’s sort of shop. The address led her to a stone house, part of a terrace, with steps leading down to a

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basement. On the front door she could see a brass plate with the name Henry Arnesen, Tailor, on it, but she thought she ought to try the basement first. Down she went and knocked on the door there only to hear a shout of ‘Push! It’s open.’ Stepping inside Evie saw an extraordinary sight, three rows of women all working treadle machines with fabric of every colour flying underneath the needles. None of the machinists stopped when they saw her, but the one nearest the door shouted, ‘What do you want, eh?’

Feebly, Evie waved her bit of paper and said, ‘I was sent about a job.’ ‘What?’ shrieked the machinist. ‘A job,’ Evie repeated, though still not loudly enough. When finally she had made herself heard, she was waved towards the door and a finger was pointed upstairs.

The front door led into a quite different atmosphere. Evie entered a large vestibule, with blue and green patterned tiles on the floor, and pushed open swing doors leading into a broad hall with a staircase rising from it. She stood there, intimidated by this grandeur, and jumped when there was a sudden slam of a shutter and a woman’s head poked out of a cubby-hole. ‘Can I help you?’ a voice said and then, scanning Evie and her clothes, a more abrupt, ‘What do you want?’ Evie explained. The voice made a sound of irritation but told her to wait. The shutter was slammed shut again, but the voice and face emerged to form a woman who came out from her tiny office. ‘Follow me,’ she said, and set off down the hall, leading Evie into a long room where there was a trestle table set up and bales of material stacked along the walls. Without speaking to Evie, the woman went to the table and picked up two pieces of cloth. She held these out, indicating that Evie should take them, and then nodded towards a chair at the far end of the table. ‘Sit,’ she commanded. ‘Sew.’ Holding the two lengths of white cambric reverentially, Evie went to the chair, sat, and saw in front of her an array of needles arranged in order of size and a box of every coloured thread. She put the cambric on the table, selected the finest needle and threaded it at the first go. She did not know whether to sew the two pieces together in a plain seam or a French seam, or whether simply to hem the slightly frayed edges of both pieces. She resolved to do both. Head bent, she sewed a straight seam and then began to hem. ‘Stop,’ the woman said. ‘You’ll do. Report to the cuttingroom Monday, eight o’clock sharp, clean hands, mind, and don’t expect to be fed.’

Outside again, standing in Lowther Street, Evie was dizzy with

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success. She had a job, a job that paid. But how much? She had not thought to ask. A wage, though, however small. She scurried back to Portland Square, arriving just in time to hand over the keys to the estate agent’s representative. He was only a boy but she had grown quite used to him and no longer felt embarrassed in his presence.

‘You’ll have to be off in the morning,’ he said, cheekily.

‘I know,’ Evie replied, annoyed at this insolent air.

‘Where will you go?’

‘That’s my business.’

‘Got another situation, have you?’

She did not deign to reply, but stood waiting for him to leave which, in his own time and with a lot of alternate yawning and whistling, he did. Evie rushed up to the attic and packed her battered old bag. She had washed and ironed everything that needed mending. Her most respectable outfit she was now wearing and must continue to wear until she could afford a replacement. Her other clothes were rags, all clean but rags nonetheless and not suitable for viewing unless covered by an overall or apron.

She had no idea how to find somewhere to live by the following day, but securing the job at Arnesen’s had given her a new confidence. She did not despair. First thing she would take her bag to the Citadel railway station and leave it in the left luggage, reckoning that she was more presentable without it. Tomorrow was Saturday, giving her two days to find lodgings before starting work. She slept well, as she always seemed to before days of great upheaval in her life, and was out of the house, for the last time, by seven o’clock, taking care to shut the door firmly. Her bag duly deposited

- it cost two pennies but was worth it - she sat for a moment on a bench in Citadel gardens and went over the advertisements she had cut from the Cumberland News. She proposed to begin with Warwick Road, which seemed to be full of bed and breakfast establishments and which would be near Arnesen’s premises in Lowther Street. The rents quoted were for rooms with running water, which she did not need, and for hearty breakfasts which were immaterial to her. What she was looking for was an attic with any kind of bed in it, and otherwise she required nothing but access to a tap, a sink and a water closet. The money Harris had given her would pay a week in advance at the rates quoted in the newspaper, but since she was not going to pay these rates, her wants being so

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much more modest, she hoped to strike a bargain and manage to pay a whole month ahead.

Knocking on doors was hard to do. Evie forced herself on but cringed every time a householder appeared and stared at her. She had begun with the rehearsed little speech of ‘Good morning, madam’ (or sir - quite often a man answered the door) ‘I am looking to rent an attic room and wondered if you would have one available?’ What she had not been prepared for was incomprehension. No one seemed able to understand what she was saying. Over and over she was forced to repeat herself and then, quite often, and to her absolute consternation, the door would simply be shut in her face. Soon she had changed her approach. She discovered that if she held up the Cumberland News cutting and began, ‘I saw your advertisement,’ she was asked in. Once inside the front door it was easier to make herself understood and, though a look of irritation would cross the landlady’s face, it was momentary, when Evie, after saying she did not want the actual room advertised, moved on to say she wanted only an attic and could pay in advance if the terms were reasonable. The question she was always asked was ‘Are you in work, then?’ and when she replied that she worked at Arnesen’s the name acted like magic.

Midday Saturday found her the occupant of an attic bedroom in Warwick Road, her bag already collected and installed. The attic was small and dirty. It had no heating of any kind, no curtaining on the broken window, no carpeting on the floor and the bed was a campbed with a collapsed leg. She saw the landlady, a Mrs Brocklebank, watching her closely and knew that any sensible person would be expected to say no to this hovel. To say yes would signify either desperation or standards so low the dirt had not been noticed. Evie had said yes, but inquired where she might find a mop and bucket and water to prepare the room for herself. Quite amicably Mrs Brocklebank took her all the way down to the yard and showed her where she could find cleaning implements, so she could ‘Please yourself if you’re fussy’. She was fussy, very fussy. Not caring a bit that she was watched and, she was sure, laughed at, Evie laboured all the rest of Saturday to make the best of her miserable room. When she woke on Sunday she had never been happier. She had a place of her own, secured to her for at least a month. Nothing was required of her for an entire day and tomorrow she had a job. She lay on the uncomfortable and inadequately balanced bed and gloried in her new

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life. The tiny room smelled of the bleach she had been given to use,

j but she liked the smell and liked the look of the bare deal boards she

s had scrubbed so viciously. The window pane was patched over with

brown paper and she had made a curtain out of her oldest and most

useless skirt. All she had to do was get up and do whatever she

wanted.

What she wanted most to do was eat, but food had not been included in the terms. She had a bun, one of two she had bought the day before, and she ate that and drank from the jug of water which had been standing all night. A smell of bacon began wafting through the whole house as Mrs Brocklebank prepared those hearty breakfasts she advertised and which her ten male boarders relished. Evie did not know what she was going to do about hot food. There were no cooking facilities here and she would never be able to afford to patronise even the cheapest cafe. She proposed to exist on cold food and water until she saw how much she was to be paid at Arnesen’s. It was quite sufficient, after all; she would buy fresh bread rolls and cheese and a tomato or two in the market and an apple perhaps, and she would eke it all out carefully. Her mother, she suddenly felt sure, would be proud of her when she knew how resourceful she was being. Her happiness was overwhelming and made evident in her singing in church that morning - her lovely voice, which usually she took care to keep subdued, soared over everyone else’s, and many a head turned to look at her and for once she did not mind attracting attention. She was only sorry that Miss Mawson was not in the congregation to witness her contentment. This was diminished somewhat on Monday. She had expected to feel lost and nervous and to have to call forth her already tried and tested reserves of stamina, but nevertheless the end of her first day at Arnesen’s found her exhausted and almost tearful. There had been no sitting and sewing straight seams in peaceful rooms, not a bit of it. She had never come near holding a needle in her hand. Instead, all day long she ran up and down the building, fetching and carrying and being shouted at. The place seemed to her chaotic behind its orderly facade, full of rooms where behind closed doors there was pandemonium. All orders were screamed, all instructions yelled. And, if they were not immediately understood, the language which erupted from faces red with rage was worse than any she had heard in the Fox and Hound. She trembled under this onslaught and her legs shook. Nobody was kind or gave a thought to her. She never left