The Heart of the Family (17 page)

‘Did you hear that, Audrey? she called back over her shoulder. ‘I wanted her to leave well alone, but of course Miss Know-it-all only has to see some actress in a film with her hair overcurled to think that she wants the same.’

As she spoke Justine was deftly removing the curling rags and even more deftly blocking everyone’s view of the understudy, apart from Lena’s, as she quickly produced a pair of scissors from the pocket of her lilac robe and proceeded ruthlessly to shingle off the frizzled hair. Without pausing, she jerked her head at Lena and then nodded silently in the direction of a box on the shelf above Lena’s head. When Lena reached for it, Justine quickly dropped both the burned hair and then the rag curlers into it, whilst the understudy continued to bewail the fate of her coiffure.

Only once did Lena betray what she was thinking, her eyes widening slightly when Justine looked at her own hair and then leaned towards her, removing the precious Kirbigrips Lena had pushed into it in an effort to keep it tidy. Within seconds, by some sleight of hand, the grips were holding down the inch or so of shingled hair so that it looked for all the world as though it had been ‘rolled’.

‘’Ere, I felt that and it ’urt. What’s going on? What are you doing?’ the understudy demanded suspiciously.

‘I’m doing your hair, that’s what I’m doing, just like you’re paying me to do,’ Justine answered her, reaching up to the shelf for a hand mirror, which she held strategically for the understudy to look at the back of her hair – the top now a mass of ‘rolls’ above the longer length of the hair that had mercifully escaped being burned.

The understudy’s face was picture, Lena admitted, as she watched grudging approval replace the suspicion in the hard blue eyes.

‘Well, it looks all right, I suppose,’ she admitted reluctantly, ‘although it’s no thanks to you that me scalp isn’t burned red raw. I don’t know why we come here, really I don’t. It’s not as though you’re the only hairdresser in Liverpool, after all.’

‘I might not be the only one, but I am the best,’ Judith retorted.

Now that the crisis was over Judith finally had time to recognise the fact that the far too pretty girl in the far too tight and grubby frock who had rescued her client and her salon’s reputation from being scorched was a complete stranger to her.

‘And who might you be?’ she demanded as she reached into her pocket and removed her cigarettes, lighting one for herself without bothering to offer Lena or anyone else one, and then leaning back against the basin, her free arm crossed over her body.

‘Simone, from Clarendon Street, sent me and she’s given me a … a letter of recommendation for you. She said she thought that you might have a job for me.’

‘Well, she thought wrong because I haven’t.’

Justine never took on trainee or junior hairdressers, running the salon by herself with the help of a receptionist, who was sometimes called upon to help out with a shampoo or removing a client from beneath a hair dryer. Would-be hairdressers were either a complete waste of time and upset the clients so much that they lost you business, or they were so good that they got ideas above their station and stole them away to start up on their own. And as for this
girl – she’d have the women’s backs up in no time at all with them looks of hers.

Lena felt sick with disappointment. She’d been counting on getting this job. Now what was she going to do?

Judith watched her. The reality was that right now, despite the fact that it went against her belief that juniors were an expensive nuisance, with all the new acts coming into town to entertain the workers and the troops, she did need some trained help if she wasn’t going to have to turn business away. Her receptionist was useless as a hairdresser, as she’d already proved.

‘I’ll have a think about it,’ she told Lena. ‘Come back at five o’clock and I’ll see if I’ve made up me mind.’

Lena agreed. It wasn’t what she’d hoped for but at least she still had a chance of getting taken on.

As she left the salon she decided that she might as well use the time she now had on her hands to go down to the rest centre and get her papers and a billet sorted out. With a bit of luck it wouldn’t be as busy today.

‘A billet, you say. Well I’m sorry, my dear, but the billeting officer has already been and gone and he won’t be back again now until tomorrow, but I should warn you that it’s extremely unlikely that he’ll be able to find you anywhere. We’ve still got families that need to be rehoused. Are you sure there isn’t anyone – a relative you might not have thought of, perhaps?’

Lena wished that she could conjure up a long-lost relative who would be willing to take her in, but of
course she couldn’t and she had to say ‘no’ as apologetically as though she was in some way responsible or the fact that she was both homeless and without any family. She didn’t dare tell the WVS volunteer about her auntie. She suspected that if she did the Rest Centre would insist that she must go back. But what was the point when she knew that the auntie would not have her back?

‘And you’ve lost your papers and your ration book, you say?’

Lena nodded.

‘Mmm … You do know, I hope, that it’s an offence to try to claim a new ration book when you’ve already got one.’

Lena’s face burned with indignation. ‘I haven’t got one,’ she insisted truthfully.

‘That’s all right, dear. I can see that you’re an honest truthful girl, but there’s some that aren’t, you know, and we have to be careful. Now, name, please, and date of birth …?’

It was well over an hour before all the paperwork had been done and Lena had been issued with a new ration book and everything else.

‘I’ll hand you over to Mrs Cutler now,’ the WVS volunteer told her, ‘and she’ll take you to our clothes store and kit you out with enough to tide you over. We can only provide the basics, of course, but she’ll tell you where you can go to buy some decent second-hand clothes.’

‘But what about a billet for me?’ Lena asked anxiously.

The volunteer sighed and looked at Lena over the top of her spectacles. She was thin with a pointed nose and greying too tightly permed hair, her skin
crepey and faintly yellowing. When she pursed her lips as she was doing now Lena could see all the lines fanning out from them. When she turned her head to look purposefully towards the queue of people still waiting to be dealt with, the light caught her chin, revealing several hairs.

‘I’ve already told you, dear, as a single girl you aren’t priority. The billeting officers can’t find enough rooms for those people who are priority, never mind finding one for you. The best I can do is advise you to keep coming in. Where did you sleep last night?’

‘I went with the trekkers,’ Lena told her.

‘Then that is what I recommend you continue to do until the billeting officers can find you somewhere.’

She looked down the line of tables, some of which had volunteers seated at them and some of which did not, calling out, ‘Mrs Cutler, dear, will you come and take this young lady to get some clothing?’

The woman who came bustling up was the same age as the volunteer who had been dealing with Lena, but plumper and with a kinder smile.

‘Let’s get you a cup of tea first, shall we, love?’ she suggested, guiding Lena towards the tea urn, pouring her a cup of tea and giving her two biscuits.

Lena hadn’t realised how hungry she was until her mouth started watering at the sight of them. They were only thin plain things, not custard creams or fig rolls, but Lena nibbled slowly on them, relishing every morsel, refusing to give in to the temptation of gobbling them up so quickly that they’d be gone before she’d even tasted them properly.

‘Well, now, I can see that someone’s taught you some very pretty manners,’ Mrs Cutler approved.

‘Me mum. She was in service,’ Lena told her. For no reason at all her eyes were suddenly stinging with tears. Her mother had been hard on her at times, but she had still been her mother. She’d often said that she only went on at her because she wanted Lena to better herself, and not make the mistakes she had made. The WVS volunteer’s praise had suddenly brought home to Lena just how alone she was without anyone to call her own, and how much, deep down inside, she did miss her parents.

‘There now, I’ve gone and upset you. I’m sorry, love. Finished your tea, have you? Very well then, we’d better go and sort you out with some clothes. This way.’

Putting down her now empty tea cup, Lena followed the other woman through a door and into a narrow corridor, past an office in which women were busy working on typewriting machines, and then into a large room that was crammed with racks and shelves of second-hand clothes of every description, including footwear.

‘Right, we’ll start with underthings first, shall we? Now what size brassiere would you say you were, love?’ Mrs Cutler asked her.

‘A 34.’ Lena told her, suddenly feeling slightly self-conscious as she saw Mrs Cutler looking from her chest to her narrow waist. Lena was aware of the fact that she was, as her mother had often complained, ‘all out of proportion’ with narrow shoulders and a narrow waist, but a full bosom for her just over five foot one inch height.

She was wearing her one and only brassiere, washed on a Monday, when she had to wear an old
liberty bodice instead, and then worn all week until the next washday came along.

‘Here we are,’ Mrs Cutler told her, reaching for a cardboard box that had the figure ‘34’ written on the side, and removing the lid. ‘You can have a look through for yourself, but you can only have one, remember.’

Lena hadn’t known what she was expecting but the ugly blancmange-pink brassieres inside the box were not in any way appealing.

‘They’re what they give the ATS girls as part of their uniform,’ Mrs Cutler explained.

No wonder they’d been given away, Lena thought as she touched the stiff fabric. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they?

She picked one up and Mrs Cutler nodded her head in approval, putting the lid back on the box and saying, ‘Now knickers.’

If the bra was ugly and unappealing that was nothing compared with the knickers she was expected to choose from, Lena decided a few seconds later, looking into a box full of bottle-green school knickers so voluminous they would have done for two and still had room to spare.

‘We were given them by a school outfitter that was closing down. Ever such good quality, they are.’

Lena smiled wanly.

Thank goodness it was summer and it wasn’t going to be necessary for her to wear stockings all the time. As luck would have it, she had been wearing her garter belt when she walked out, and so she was able to assure Mrs Cutler that she didn’t need another one.

From the underwear section they moved on to
blouses and Lena ended up with a plain grey short-sleeved blouse with its collar edged in red. It wasn’t really to her taste at all.

‘You’ll be able to buy yourself something a bit prettier at one of the second-hand clothes shops. These are only to tide you over, and we do ask that you return everything once you’ve got yourself sorted out. Now let’s see if we can find you a skirt.’

Eventually they did, although Lena was horrified when she realised that Mrs Cutler expected her to wear a heavy black linen gathered skirt with a pattern round the bottom in red and white, contrasting it with the pretty floral softly cut frocks she had seen earlier and thought so smart, and admitting that she felt bitterly disappointed.

She hadn’t expected to get something as nice as them, of course, but she had hoped she would get something a bit more to her own taste.

‘Go ever so well with that grey blouse, this skirt will,’ Mrs Cutler announced happily, holding it up for Lena’s inspection, and then before Lena could refuse it, Mrs Cutler was telling her, ‘All you need now is a towel and a piece of soap, and then we’ll find you a bag to put this lot in and you’ll be all set. Got a nice billet, have you?’ she asked chattily, as she guided Lena back towards the exit.

‘No, there aren’t any unless you’re a priority, and me being on my own I’m not, so I’ve having to join them trekkers.’

‘Well, at least summer’s coming, and I dare say they’ll find you somewhere soon. Now what about one of these big straw baskets? Hold ever such a lot, they do.’

Lena’s heart dropped. She had a mental image of
Dolly and her straw bag. A wave of self-pity washed over her. Only the thought of having to go cap in hand to her auntie and then being turned away kept her from bursting into tears.

‘We give you a bit of cash as well. Have you got a purse?’

Lena had. As she opened her bag she could feel the sharp edge of her Post Office savings book inside its lining. The knowledge that she had her savings steadied and comforted her.

Once she was back outside, she looked at the cheap second-hand watch she had bought for herself when she had first started work. It was too soon for her to go back to the salon. Instinctively Lena knew that it wouldn’t do anything to improve her chances of getting a job if she turned up at the wrong time.

She’d been given two pounds ten shillings by the WVS to tide her over. She might as well go and have a look round one of the second-hand places the WVS woman had mentioned to her. She certainly wasn’t going to wear the clothes she had been given if she could help it.

An hour later, as she emerged into the sunshine from the darkness of the second-hand clothes shop, Lena felt if anything, even more depressed. There had certainly been plenty to choose from but in styles more suited to someone of her auntie’s age and proportions, and those dresses that would have fitted her looked like they’d come off school girls. She wouldn’t be wasting her money on anything like that.