The Mersey Girls (25 page)

‘Ah, it’s Miss Murphy, I never mistake a voice. You’re quite right, I don’t go round to people’s homes to tune their instruments on a Saturday morning, but I do play in the store. People who can’t play a note buy pianos, you know, but they all fancy themselves experts on tone and touch when they hear someone else play. So I sit down and tickle the ivories for them and if they buy I get a small – very small – bonus. Now have we reached the tram stop? My stick says we have.’

‘Your stick says right,’ Linnet assured him. ‘You’re magic, Mr Proud, I don’t know how you tell where you are, I’m sure.’

‘Sounds reflect differently off different objects,’ Mr Proud told her. ‘A tram makes different sounds on corners, you must have noticed, and then there’s the paving-edge. There’s quite a big piece of kerb missing just before you reach the stop.’

‘I think you must be the most observant person I’ve ever met,’ Linnet said humbly. ‘And I won’t tell you that the tram’s coming, because I’m sure you know, nor that we’ve about a dozen people in the queue before us.’

‘Thirteen,’ Mr Proud said gravely, then chuckled as though he could see Linnet’s astonished look. ‘Just teasing, Miss Murphy!’

Linnet had been in a happy frame of mind when she got on the tram and arriving at the office to find their small room full of sunshine and flower-scents lifted her spirits even further. She was first in and hung her jacket on the peg behind the door, then turned to take the covers off the typewriters – and simply stared.

On her desk, laid carefully across her machine, was the source of the lovely scent. It was a positive sheaf of pink and red roses – there must have been a couple of dozen lying there, their stems wrapped in the pale pink and silver paper used, Linnet knew, by a very superior flower shop indeed.

A passing messenger boy, peering in through the doorway, whistled. ‘Cor, ’oo’s gerrin’ wed, then, eh? If that’s Miss Beasley’s feller ’e’s splashin’ out ain’t ’e? That little lot cost a bob or three!’

‘I don’t think it can be Mr Cartwright, since he sent Miss Beasley a bouquet of pinks and cornflowers only yesterday,’ Linnet said cautiously. She approached the flowers as though they might bite her, touching the nearest head with one forefinger. ‘And they’re on
my
typewriter; it must be a mistake.’

‘Well, I didn’t deliver ’em,’ the messenger boy said positively. ‘Ain’t there a card, Miss M?’

‘No, I don’t think . . . oh yes, there is,’ Linnet said, considerably relieved. The nightmare of having to lug the flowers around three floors, each one of which contained countless rooms, had just occurred to her. ‘Let me see . . .’

It wasn’t a card, in fact, but a tiny white envelope. It had no name on, which made her hesitate for a moment, but she slit it open and pulled out the card, turning it over to read the carefully scripted note on the other side.

Miss Murphy; would you do me the honour of lunching with me today
? she read, though not out loud.
I should be most grateful for your company and also for some advice. Yours sincerely, A. Cowan.

’Oo’s it from, then?’ the messenger boy asked. He was still standing in the doorway but so curious was he that his neck had stretched out like a giraffe and his eyes, apparently on stalks, seemed to start from their sockets. ‘Come on, gel, are they for you?’

‘Yes, they’re mine. From a – a gentleman friend,’ Linnet said, picking the bouquet up and burying her nose thankfully in the scented blossoms. She had no intention of telling anyone – anyone at all – that the flowers came from Mr Cowan! ‘Do go away, Frankie, and shut my door!’

‘Some gentleman! Guess ’e’s rollin’ in the readies,’ Frankie said enviously. ‘Bet ’e’s old as the ’ills an’ ugly, too. Fellers wi’ that much money always is.’

‘Go away,’ Linnet said nervously. Suppose Mr Cowan had come out of his office up the corridor and heard that unflattering view! ‘I would like to do some work this morning if it’s all the same to you, young man.’

Frankie shrugged and began to withdraw. ‘Awright, awright, keep your bleedin’ ’air on,’ he said airily. ‘It ain’t nine o’clock yet, nowhere near, so if I want to . . . oh! Sorry, miss, I didn’t see you standin’ there.’

‘I imagine you did not,’ Rose said frostily, rubbing her elbow where Frankie had backed into her. She waited until Frankie, crestfallen, had taken himself off, then came in, shut the door, and began to take her jacket off. ‘What a crowd on the tram – you don’t know how much I’m longing for Seaforth sands – good Lord above, where did you get them from?’

‘From Mr Cowan,’ Linnet said in hollow tones, completely forgetting her resolve of two minutes earlier. ‘Just read the note, Rose! He wants to take me out to lunch today . . . oh Miss Beasley, what on earth am I to do?’

‘Goodbye, Seaforth Sands,’ Rose said regretfully, then came across the office and took the flowers and the note from Linnet’s unresisting hands. She read the note, then looked up and smiled encouragingly at her friend. ‘You must go, queen. He’s a nice feller is Mr Cowan, he won’t eat you. But he might feel like doing so if you turn him down.’

‘Turn him
down
? You make it sound like a date, a proper date,’ Linnet gasped. ‘He’s married . . . well, he’s a widow, then. Widows don’t take their secretaries on
dates
!’

‘He’s a widower, not a widow, and of course widowers take girls on dates,’ Rose said bracingly. ‘How else would they ever re-marry?’

‘
Re-marry
? Oh, but-but-but-’

‘Do stop stuttering, Miss Murphy, and listen for a minute. Mr Cowan is a widower but he isn’t an old man despite what you seem to think. Do I seem like an old woman to you?’

‘Honest to God, I’ve never thought . . . never said . . .’ stammered Linnet, much embarrassed. When she had first met Rose she had indeed thought her somewhat long in the tooth, but that had not lasted. Now, she and Rose were just two girls, neither of whom was yet wed. ‘You’re only half-a-dozen years older than me, Rose! Oh, I’m sorry, I mean Miss Beasley. But Mr Cowan must be . . . well, I don’t know how old he is, precisely, but he seems . . .’

‘He’s probably only in his early forties, not even twenty years older than me and not so much older than you, either,’ Rose said. ‘So stop thinking of him as an elderly man, because he isn’t. Why, he couldn’t even be your father, not unless he started awful young. And start practising saying, “
Thank you, Mr Cowan, I would be delighted to lunch with you today,
” because that’s what you mean and that’s what you are jolly well going to do!’

‘I can’t! I couldn’t possibly! What about Roddy? Oh how I would like to throw these
bloody
roses straight out o’ the
bloody
window and forget they ever came!’

Now it was Rose’s turn to giggle; she had never heard Linnet swear before. ‘Yes, all right, I can see you’re embarrassed by the whole business, but you mustn’t be foolish, queen. Just you read that note again, careful like. Go on, do it now, whilst I put the roses in water for you.’ She buried her own face in the blossoms, inhaling luxuriously. ‘Now that’s what I call a good scent,’ she said, turning to leave the room. ‘We’ll be swooning wi’ it by lunchtime, see if we aren’t!’

When she had gone, Linnet got out the little card and read it again. And gradually, her fears began to subside. It was not a lover-like note, it was quite a sensible one. Mr Cowan wanted company; well, that was understandable, he had a little girl and no wife, he must have problems which he thought another woman might be able to solve.
But why didn’t he ask a woman, in that case
? a little voice in her head demanded querulously.
Why ask a girl who’s only nineteen
?

Perhaps, Linnet told herself, he simply doesn’t know many women. But he does know me, I’ve been working as his secretary for three whole months and we’ve always got on very well. When I go through to take dictation we quite often have a little chat. The fact that the chat usually consisted of an enquiry as to her state of health, a polite rejoinder and then a request that she might bring him in coffee and biscuits for two people at eleven o’clock since he would have the general manager in his office at around that time was, she told herself, neither here nor there. Her boss was far too conscientious to indulge in light chat in the firm’s time. And besides, on a Monday, when he enquired after her weekend, she often told him what she had done at some length, and he did the same. He had gone to New Brighton and sat on the sands, his daughter – her name was Mollie – had tasted her first ice-cream cone, they had come home with pink and peeling noses.

It wasn’t much, but it was something. So when Rose came back with the flowers in a rather nice cut glass vase borrowed from the Claims Department, Linnet, pink-faced but determined, was about to set off for Mr Cowan’s room.

‘What was I to say?’ she hissed as Rose sailed into the room with the flowers held out before her. ‘Go on, tell me again or I’ll make a pig’s ear of it.’

‘Thank you for the flowers, they’re lovely, and I’d be delighted to have lunch with you,’ Rose said, giving a mock curtsy and squealing as water tipped from the vase and splashed onto the floor. ‘Go on, off with you!’

Linnet hurried down the corridor, repeating the words Rose had just said under her breath. She tapped on Mr Cowan’s door and entered, and for a moment sheer terror rooted her to the spot, just inside the door, whilst she stared at her boss like a sparrow mesmerised by a snake.

She might have stood there for ever, until she dropped dead she thought later, but then she looked – really looked – at Mr Cowan, who had risen to his feet and was staring across at her, his eyes eager yet anxious; ‘Like a kid waiting for a pat on the head but fearing a slap,’ she told Rose later. He didn’t look old any longer, either. He looked quite human, really, considering he was a head of department in a large insurance company.

Linnet cleared her throat. ‘Thank you very much for the roses; they’re really beautiful,’ she said, departing from the script but not minding, now. ‘And I’d be delighted to have lunch with you today.’

He smiled at her. He had smiled at her before, often, but not like this. Not a frank, broad smile which showed his teeth and made her smile back at him.

‘I’m glad you didn’t think I was being – well, fresh,’ he said. ‘We’ll go somewhere nice – d’you fancy the Lawrence Hotel, on Mount Pleasant? The food’s very good and the service is excellent. Or would you prefer somewhere smaller, more . . . well, smaller?’

‘I’d like somewhere smaller, really,’ Linnet said shyly. ‘I don’t know much about restaurants though – you choose.’

‘Well, why don’t we go to the Albany on Oldhall Street?’ Mr Cowan suggested. ‘The surroundings are pleasant and it’s quiet, too. The offices close at 12.30 today so I’ll order a taxi for one o’clock – or do you need more time to make arrangements?’

‘No, because R . . . Miss Beasley and I had planned to go to Seaforth Sands this afternoon,’ Linnet said, and found she did not regret her missed outing now because she could see she would enjoy herself with Mr Cowan, though differently, of course. ‘So a friend’s doing my shopping. And I live by myself, of course, so there’s no one at home I should tell.’

‘Of course. Mollie’s nanny usually leaves at two o’clock on a Saturday – she has the weekend off – but she’s staying on today until teatime.’ He glanced down at the desk, then across at her again. ‘I thought, perhaps, we might – might go back to my place and take – take Mollie out with us, for some tea?’

‘I’d love to meet her,’ Linnet said warmly, and truthfully, too. She liked children but had very little to do with them, apart from two boys of eight and ten who lived in the rooms beneath hers and made the weekends hideous with their fights and quarrels when their parents were out.

Mr Cowan smiled again; well, beamed, really. He looked happy and relieved – and all I did was agree to go out to lunch and then to meet his little girl, Linnet thought with amazement.

‘Good, good. And now, Miss Murphy, perhaps we had better get down to business. I’ve got half-a-dozen letters which should really go this morning . . . if you could fetch your pad and pencil?’

Lunch was a rare treat for Linnet, who had never been into a restaurant as smart and discreet as the Albany, let alone eaten such food. Mr Cowan had reserved a table and though there were other diners they took no notice of the quiet couple in the corner and very soon Linnet was chattering away to Mr Cowan as though she had known him all her life.

‘Let me pour you some wine, Miss Murphy,’ Mr Cowan said when the wine arrived, and Linnet felt her face grow hot. Her mother had warned her that gentlemen who pressed ladies to take drink might, occasionally, mean them harm. But how to refuse without giving offence?

‘I’ve never drunk wine, but I d-don’t think I shall care for it, Mr Cowan,’ Linnet said, and then added, highly daring, ‘I wonder whether I might, if – if it wouldn’t inconvenience anyone, perhaps have some water, instead? Only I know that strong drink sometimes makes girls tiddly, and since I’m not used to it . . .’

Mr Cowan laughed. ‘The last thing I want is a tiddly secretary, Miss Murphy! Of course you can have water but I’ll order you a glass of fruit juice, or some lemonade, if you wish. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it, because naturally a girl of your age wouldn’t fancy – er – strong drink,’ Mr Cowan said. ‘Now let me help you to some of this excellent sole, and some of the shrimp sauce, too.’

Linnet was much relieved that she was not about to be pressed into drinking wine, though it looked innocent enough as it was poured into Mr Cowan’s glass. It was a light golden colour and little bubbles formed on the bottom of the glass and then rose to the top, behaviour very similar to that of ginger beer, a beverage which Linnet much enjoyed. She watched Mr Cowan taking several glasses of the bubbly golden liquid without any ill effect and halfway through the meal, to her own tremendous surprise, Linnet heard her voice saying, ‘The fruit juice is very nice, Mr Cowan, but I – I wonder if I might try just a little wine?’ She waited for the sky to fall on her – having refused his early offer to now turn round and ask for wine seemed very daring indeed – but he just said, gravely, that it was a vintage of which most ladies he knew approved and poured her half a glass.