The Bright One (38 page)

‘I . . . I think I do.' A few minutes ago it had all seemed so simple. Now it no longer was.

‘But I want us to be engaged,' he said. ‘Breda, will you promise to marry me, even though we have to wait? But for now it will have to be a secret from everyone – and I do mean everyone. Could you bear that?'

She was being appealed to by the man she loved, and only she could answer his appeal. She felt a sudden surge of power, confidence, and with it the strength to do whatever he asked.

‘I could and I would,' she answered. ‘As long as we love each other, nothing else matters.'

‘And you'd wait? As soon as I'm independent and have my own job we'll be married, I promise you.'

‘Oh Graham,' Breda said. ‘Sure, I'd wait for you! What else would I be doing?'

‘You couldn't wear a ring,' Graham said. ‘But I shall give you something to show we're engaged. I shall give you—' He thought for a moment. ‘I shall give you a fine gold chain to wear round your neck. It wouldn't be seen by the rest of the world, but
we
would know. It would be special to us.'

I would like to show the rest of the world, Breda thought. I would be so proud. But if it wasn't possible . . . and wasn't there after all something special and exciting about holding such a wonderful secret?

‘Yes, I'd like a gold chain,' she said.

‘Then we'll choose one in Akersfield on our next half-day,' Graham promised. ‘Oh Breda, I do love you. Don't ever forget that.'

‘And don't forget that I love you,' Breda said.

He looked at his watch. ‘We'll have to leave,' he said, ‘or we'll miss the theatre.'

Afterwards, when she looked back over the evening, Breda could remember nothing of the play they had seen, except that they had enjoyed it and Graham had laughed a lot. Her own mind had been on all the things Graham had said to her in the restaurant; that he loved her, wanted to marry her, that they were engaged, however secretly.

In the taxi home he took her in his arms and kissed her lovingly. At number 52 he paid off the cab and stood with Breda in the gateway, then embraced her again.

‘Oh Graham,' she said. ‘How can I not tell Auntie Josie and the others? They'll only have to look at me!'

‘We can't,' he said firmly. ‘Not your family, not mine, not yet. But as soon as my training year is over, then I shall take you to meet my parents. I know they'll love you.'

But in the store next morning Breda was quickly made aware that people were looking at her for a reason which had nothing to do with the secret she carried. She was a heroine!

Even Miss Craven was not grudging in her praise, though it mostly took the form of self-recrimination. ‘I blame myself
entirely
,' she said. ‘If I had not left you in the lurch . . . '

‘But you didn't,' Breda argued. ‘You left me for a perfectly good reason. How were you to know what would happen?'

‘Supposing the worst had occurred,' Miss Craven said. ‘Just supposing . . . But no! It's too awful to contemplate. But if it had it would have been entirely my fault.'

‘It would
not
,' Breda assured her. ‘And in any case, it didn't. I'm hale and hearty, not one bit the worse for it.'

Miss Craven preferred not to be reassured. There was no stopping her. To everyone who visited the department – and there was a constant stream of people from every part of the store, all wanting to hear the tale at first hand and to see the site of the bullet – she said the same things.

‘You would think she was the heroine of the story', Betty Hartley said, ‘instead of you. Oh, you were so brave, Breda!'

Miss Craven's behaviour didn't worry Breda. She was so deeply happy inside herself that nothing else could possibly matter.
Her
only difficulty was in keeping her happiness hidden.

Halfway through the morning Miss Opal sent for her. ‘Are you quite sure you feel well enough to be here?' she asked.

‘Absolutely,' Breda said.

‘Then first of all I wish to thank you for what you did,' Miss Opal said. ‘You were resourceful and courageous. And secondly, I have to tell you that you must never, ever, attempt such a thing again. You were not only resourceful and courageous, you were extremely foolish and stupid. While I expect loyalty from my staff I do
not
expect, nor do I want, them to risk their lives for Opal's store. Do I make myself quite clear?'

‘Quite clear, Miss Opal. I'm very sorry.'

Why should she be apologizing to me, Opal asked herself? And yet the reprimand had been in order.

‘Then we'll go on to other matters,' she said. ‘In the first place both the
Leasfield Courier
and the
Akersfield Record
have been on to me. They telephoned me at my home last night. They would like to interview you. I told them what I knew, but they want your side of the story, a first-hand account. Now you needn't do this if you don't want to, there's no compulsion, but if you do agree to it I suggest you see them here in my office.'

With great restraint she forbore to say that a column in the local papers would be better advertisement for Opal's store than anything money could buy. She truly didn't want to put pressure on the girl.

‘I don't mind at all,' Breda said.

She thought how wonderful it would be if she could, at the same time, announce her engagement – then swiftly put the thought from her.

‘The next thing is that I am thinking of moving you from Fabrics,' Miss Opal said. ‘Perhaps only temporarily. We shall see about that later.'

‘Moving me? Have I not . . . ?'

‘You have done well enough there, but it's coming up to Christmas. Fabrics will not be quite so busy from now until the January sales, but Display are desperate for help. There's the Christmas Grotto which must be opened on Saturday and is only half finished. There are Christmas displays to be mounted all over the store, not to mention the windows. You showed some flair in the matter of the royal wedding and I think you might be useful to Mr Sutcliffe.'

It might also help the girl to put yesterday's episode right out of her mind, Miss Opal had said, when broaching the subject to Mr Stokesly earlier, if she were to be physically distant from Fabrics. And wasn't that also, she thought privately, a good way of presenting it to Miss Craven, who would not like the move.

‘So what do you think, Miss O'Connor?' she asked.

‘I would like that very much,' Breda said. ‘When . . . ?'

‘Today. You're needed as soon as possible. Well get the newspaper interview over, then I want you to see the doctor just to check that you're all right. After that I'll hand you over to Mr Sutcliffe.'

Everything moved with speed. Breda returned to Fabrics, wondering how to tell Miss Craven that she was to be moved on, only to find that Mr Stokesly had already done it. In any case, Miss Craven was still occupied in relating her version of the story.

The reporters came, wrote down Breda's statement, then took a photograph of her standing beside the till and a second one with her hand outstretched to indicate the bullet hole. The doctor saw her and pronounced her fit but foolish. Never, in so short a time, had she been called foolish so often!

She had a quick dinner of sausage and mash with Graham, but this time every seat at their table was taken, so there was no chance of conversation, other than to give him the news of her transfer.

Breda's first sight of Jim Sutcliffe was of him at the top of a ladder which leaned against the wall in the drab corridor which was to be transformed into the Magic Christmas Grotto. A second man held on to the foot of the ladder while a third, close by, hammered nails into sheets of plywood. Wood, cardboard, coloured paper, string, pots of paint and brushes were everywhere, in what appeared to be a glorious muddle.

‘I'm looking for Mr Sutcliffe,' Breda told the young man at the foot of the ladder.

‘Then look up,' the man said. ‘That's him, up aloft! Young lady to see you, Jim!' he called out.

‘Is she pretty?' Jim said, not turning his head.

The young man looked directly at Breda. ‘Very!'

‘Then I'll be right down!'

Back on the ground, Jim Sutcliffe was revealed as a short, round man with bright blue eyes and a balding head. What hair he still retained was as red as Breda's own.

‘I'm Breda O'Connor. Miss Opal told me to report to you.'

He held out his hand. ‘So you're the young heroine, then? We've never had a heroine working with us before, have we, lads? Come to that, we've never had a young lady. So no rough talk, no swearing. We shall have to mind our p's and q's!'

‘Indeed you will not,' Breda said. ‘Haven't I been brought up with three brothers, and not one of them minding what they said in front of me?'

‘Well, that's a relief,' Jim Sutdiffe said. ‘And I hope you're a hard worker as well as a heroine. There's a lot to be done in no time at all.'

‘I'm more of a hard worker than a heroine,' Breda said. ‘So if you'd like to tell me what to do, Mr Sutcliffe . . . '

‘Well, for a start you can call me Jim – and this is Bill and that's Martin.' He waved a hand at the other men. ‘We don't stand on ceremony here. We leave all that fancy stuff to the sales staff. Any road, you can start by sorting things out, getting a bit of order into this mess.'

‘How do you want me to do it?' Breda asked.

‘Nay lass, that's up to you,' Jim said. ‘Just sort it out so that we can find what we want,
when
we want it, and no time wasted.'

It took all afternoon, but by the end she had reduced chaos to order. Paint pots were ranged together, like colours against like; fabrics and papers were separated and folded, cardboard stacked against a wall. Everything was visible and to hand.

Towards the end of the afternoon Graham came into the corridor, carrying two newspapers.

‘May I speak to Miss O'Connor?' he asked Jim Sutcliffe.

‘Make it sharp,' Jim said. ‘She's busy.'

‘I just wanted to show her the local papers,' Graham explained. ‘I'll leave them with her.'

‘Why don't we all have a look-see?' Jim suggested.

He took the newspapers from Graham and read out the headlines.

‘“Shopgirl Heroine Foils Gunman!” And what does the
Courier
say? “Brave Breda Halts Hold-up!” Yes, that sounds like the
Courier
.' He handed the papers to Breda, then turned to Graham.

‘Thank you, young man,' he said dismissively.

‘Is he a friend of yours?' he asked Breda when Graham had left.

She hesitated. ‘Yes. Yes, he is.' And so much more, she thought.

‘You do know who he is – rather, who his father is?'

‘Yes,' she admitted. ‘Yes I do.'

‘You want to be careful,' advised Jim. ‘Mind what you say in front of the bosses.'

‘But he's not a boss,' Breda objected.

‘He's on the way,' Jim said. ‘He's the boss class.'

‘I'll be careful,' she promised. ‘But I'm sure he's harmless. He seems quite nice.'

‘He's not one of us, that's all,' Jim said. ‘Now if you've finished the rest you can just sweep that bit of floor and we'll call it a day. You've done very well.'

‘The only thing is,' Breda said to Josephine that evening, ‘I hope he isn't going to use me just as a dogsbody, clearing up after the men. I'm sure that's not what Miss Opal intended.'

‘You have to learn to walk before you can run,' Grandma Maguire said.

‘I don't expect he will,' Josephine said. ‘It's early days yet.'

‘Not really,' Breda said. ‘There's a mountain of work to get through before the Christmas rush starts.' But if he didn't let her take a real share, she thought, she would have to have it out with him. Politely, of course.

As it happened, she did not need to do that. The very next day he set her on to what she thought of as real work, though not before he had found her a pair of overalls and told her to change into them.

‘I reckon yon black dress needn't see the light of day this side of Christmas. You'll not want to get it messed up wi' paint and glue.'

From then on it was all go, hard at it all day and sometimes late into the evenings. Following Jim's outlines, she painted designs on the walls, she draped materials, made giant cardboard flowers, blew up balloons, scattered artificial snow and silver dust. Bill and Martin constructed Father Christmas's cave, in which he supposedly dwelt with Mother Christmas, but which was in reality used to store spare light bulbs, assorted tools and the sixpenny parcels Father Christmas handed out to the children who came in droves.

Late on the Friday night before Saturday's official opening of the Grotto, at which Miss Opal herself would turn the magic key, they stood back and surveyed their finished work. It was indeed Wonderland, Breda thought. She had never seen anything like it and she felt a glow of pride and pleasure that she had had a part in it.

‘Aye, it's not bad!' Jim Sutcliffe allowed. ‘Not bad at all!'

Miss Opal, accompanied by George Soames, the General Manager, came to inspect it.

‘You've excelled yourselves!' she said. ‘I really do think it's the best we've ever had. Congratulations to all of you!'

‘Shall I see you home?' Bill said to Breda when they were ready to leave. ‘It's a bit late.'

‘I'll be all right, thank you,' she said.