The Shop Girls of Chapel Street (15 page)

‘Still busy stocktaking?' he asked, sauntering in after parking his bike outside. Without waiting for a reply, he came round the back of the counter to steal a kiss. ‘Shouldn't you have shut up shop by now?'

‘Yes. What do you mean by coming in bang on half five?' she kidded, pretending to fend him off. ‘Don't think I'm going to drop everything and serve you after hours.'

‘What would I want with silk stockings?' His raised eyebrow suggested the cheeky answer to his own question and made Violet colour up.

Luckily she was diverted by a rap at the door and the bustling entrance of Lizzie Turner, the funeral director's daughter.

‘Phew, I'm glad I caught you,' Lizzie began. ‘I need some knicker elastic and it can't wait.'

‘Don't mind me,' Eddie said, beating a hasty retreat. ‘I'll call back in half an hour,' he told Violet. ‘It's Wednesday. I can give you a lift over to Hadley on the Norton if you like.'

Despite the late hour, Violet brought out rolls of elastic of various widths for Lizzie, whom Violet had known since their school days. Lizzie, who was the same age as Evie, was waif-like, with long red hair and pale skin, but despite her elfin beauty she was down to earth and easy to get along with. ‘It's not really for knickers,' she explained as she chose the half-inch-wide version. ‘I just wanted to see the look on Eddie's face. As a matter of fact, it's for my little brother Jimmy's garters. He used the last ones to make catapults for himself and Arthur Briggs and now he wonders why his socks keep falling down.'

Laughing and chatting, Violet served her last-minute customer and awaited Eddie's return. Seeing him strolling down the hill, she dashed upstairs for her coat then down again and out onto the pavement to meet him.

The next minute they were on the bike and on their way to rehearsal and they arrived just in time to see Kathy walking from the bus stop beside the tall figure of Stan Tankard.

‘Yes, I know – look what the cat dragged in!' Kathy gestured towards Stan then laughed to see Eddie and Violet's surprised expressions.

‘What are you doing here?' Eddie wanted to know as he let Violet dismount then parked his bike by the entrance.

‘Aww, what's wrong, Eddie? Can't I play too?' Stan grabbed the two girls by the waist and swept them through the open door. ‘I heard there was a part going spare for a good-looking fellow and I thought I'd be a natural, so here I am, girls, ready and willing to play the romantic lead!'

‘No, really, Stan – why aren't you at work?' Violet wondered, catching Evie's eye across the hall and noticing that she turned away awkwardly without signalling hello. It gave Violet the nasty feeling that either Ben or Marjorie had already spread the word about Muriel and Ida's proposed new venture into dressmaking.

‘The corporation altered my hours.' Stan's answer reclaimed Violet's attention and she grew aware of Eddie's frown as he followed them in. She quickly broke away from Stan and took her place next to Eddie as the interloper developed his story. ‘They don't want me to work on Wednesday nights any more, so I thought to myself, What's to stop me from joining in the fun with the Players over in Hadley? You know what they say, Eddie – if you can't beat 'em …!'

‘Oh well,' Eddie said to Violet as Ida spotted Stan and pounced on him as another potential bit-part player, ‘I suppose it doesn't do any harm.'

‘Quite right,' she agreed valiantly. ‘Stan can come and go as he pleases – it's no skin off our noses.'

And so they settled into the rehearsal – Eddie was soon up the ladder painting another backdrop and Violet was being herded here and there for her new non-speaking part. Then Ida called for a tea break and Violet took the chance to nip outside for a breath of fresh air. It wasn't until she was out in the yard that she realized, too late, that Stan had snuck out after her.

‘Great minds think alike,' he said pleasantly. ‘Don't worry, Violet. I don't mean any harm. I only want to have a bit of fun at Eddie's expense.'

‘Your following me isn't funny,' she protested. ‘Not in Eddie's eyes, anyway.'

‘What about in yours?' he insisted. Opposite the Institute there was the vicarage next to a pub called the Miners' Arms. Behind them, rising like a mechanical giant from slag heaps and other spoil from the recently disused colliery, a tall pit wheel still presided over village life. ‘I always had you down as a girl who liked to have fun.'

‘Stan!' Violet protested as he slid an arm around her waist and she side-stepped out of reach. ‘I mean it, this isn't funny!'

‘Steady on.' Stan came up against some iron railings and almost overbalanced. The loss of dignity changed his mood. ‘You shouldn't have led me on the way you did,' he grumbled as he straightened his tie. ‘Giving me the wrong idea.'

‘I never led you on.' Violet turned back towards the Institute. ‘We went to the flicks together, that's all.'

‘Without you letting on that you were already walking out with Eddie.' Winding himself up into a seriously bad mood, Stan pursued her and stepped across her path to stop her from re-entering the building.

‘That's because I wasn't at the time,' she insisted. Trying to push past him was a waste of effort, she decided, he was too tall and strong for that. ‘Eddie didn't ask me out until
afterwards
.'

‘Then you dropped me like a hot cake.' Unaware that a solitary figure was crossing the yard, Stan towered over Violet and continued to block her way.

‘I'm sick of this, Stan.' Shaking with anger, she backed away, only to bump into the down-at-heel old man heading round the side of the building. ‘Uncle Donald!' she cried, completely taken aback.

He frowned then cast a troubled glance from her to Stan and back again.

‘It's me – Violet!' she said, having failed to elicit a response.

‘You don't have to spell it out; I know who you are.' Seeing him trudge on, Violet ran after him. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘What's it to you?'

‘Uncle Donald, don't be like that. I'm surprised to see you, that's all. Is this where you're living now – out here in Hadley?'

He took a deep breath. ‘The vicar gave me a job as caretaker,' he informed her grudgingly. ‘I look after the church and the Institute – it comes with a house attached.'

‘That's smashing. Isn't it, Stan?' She looked round for support, only to find that he'd disappeared inside. ‘That means you have room for some of the things I took from Brewery Road – the clock and pictures, and such like. You know you only have to ask.'

‘I thought I made it clear I didn't want any of it.'

Realizing that he was thinner and more miserable than last time she'd seen him – if that were possible – Violet became all too aware of his razor-sharp way of cutting her off, yet still she risked one more try. ‘I found a wooden box with your brother's prayer book and other bits and pieces inside. Surely there's something there that you'd like.'

‘What bits and pieces?' Donald spat out.

‘Your marriage certificate. And a gold bracelet in a blue box.'

Suddenly Donald staggered as if he'd been punched in the stomach. His face was stricken and he had to lean against the wall for support. As Violet reached out to help him, he thrust her away. Then he pulled himself upright and began to walk away without looking back, through a narrow gate at the back of the Institute.

Violet watched him go, fear clutching at her heart. What had she said to provoke this reaction? What was it about a marriage certificate and a bracelet that had almost floored him?

Donald walked on, head down, clutching the lapels of his jacket and leaning forward as if against a strong wind when in fact there was not even a breeze. He was so thin it looked as if he might break in two.

Violet recalled the blue velvet box, and with trembling fingers she pulled out of her pocket the tiny note that she always kept with her. She slid it from its envelope and read it again:
To dearest Flo, as a token of my lifelong affection. Keep this bracelet for my sake.

On the point of slipping it back into its envelope, she lifted the small flap and noticed something that she'd overlooked until now. The sender had drawn a heart pierced by an arrow on the inside of the flap and inside the heart he'd written two letters – an ‘F' intertwined with a ‘D'.

‘D' not ‘J'.

A chill ran through Violet as a new version of events rushed in. ‘D' not ‘J' – Donald, not Joe.

At the end of 1914, Florence Shaw and Donald Wheeler had been in love! In the autumn of the following year, she, Violet, had been born.

The last thing Violet planned to do was to share her shocking discovery with anyone – not even Eddie. Instead, her instinct was to bury it deep.

If Uncle Donald really is my father – and it's a big ‘if' – he would deny it
, she told herself during the days that followed. What then was the point of pursuing it further? So she did her best to put on a brave face and carry on as normal. Yet she didn't feel brave on the inside – rather she was weak and trembling, nursing afresh the hurt of being rejected and wondering whether or not Aunty Winnie had been in on the secret from the start.

When Violet wasn't weak, she was angry. Donald was a sanctimonious prig, hammering away at the difference between right and wrong, making Violet's small, innocent self feel disobedient and unworthy when all the time it was him who'd committed a much worse sin than she could ever have imagined. Though Violet tried to keep busy in the grocery shop, Donald's sour face with its sunken cheeks and clipped moustache intruded on her tasks and she couldn't help bitterly re-enacting the unending, petty chastisements of her childhood –
wash your hands
;
tidy your toys away
;
don't speak with your mouth full
.

‘What's wrong, Violet? You don't seem yourself today,' Ida remarked at the end of the working week when their new lodger trailed in from the street.

A weary Violet had just come away from Hutchinson's and was trying to cheer herself up with the prospect of a ride out to the moors with Eddie next day. ‘It's nothing that a good night's sleep won't put right,' she assured Ida and Muriel, who had appeared from the back kitchen. Something about their manner was different, she thought.

They stood together behind the counter, smiles playing across their features – Ida with her short hair combed back from her lively face, Muriel looking excited and younger than her thirty years for once.

‘Shall you tell her or shall I?' Ida asked, as if keeping their secret might cause her to burst.

‘Let me guess – you and Harold have set a date to get married?' Violet chipped in.

Ida gave a loud laugh. ‘Not on your Nelly! We haven't saved up enough for a kitchen table yet, let alone chairs to sit on or a bed to lie in.'

Violet managed a smile. ‘Then it must be that the two of you have decided to go full steam ahead with the Jubilee dressmaking business.'

The clever guess did nothing to dent the pair's excitement – Ida's, in particular. ‘We thought it would be a nice surprise for you to end the week on – before you had a chance to read the advertisement we're putting in the
Herald
next week.'

A faint smile flickered across Violet's serious features. ‘I knew something was afoot when Muriel started quizzing me about the latest fashions.'

‘That's right, but what I didn't tell you was an idea that came to me last night when I was in the library.' Muriel took up the thread. ‘I looked at adverts in the local paper and it struck me that a lot of people these days are happy to buy things on hire purchase, so I asked myself why not set up an arrangement for customers to do the same with our dresses? They could order a blouse or a dress, we would accept a down payment and make it for them straight away then they could pay us in instalments of threepence or sixpence a week over the next ten weeks.'

‘It makes sense,' Ida insisted. ‘Some girls I'm friendly with do the same thing when they want to have a permanent wave for their hair. They call it the never-never. The hairdresser on Canal Road charges them a week at a time. The girl gets her hair done and the hairdresser gets her money in dribs and drabs. Everyone's happy.'

Violet quickly agreed. ‘I don't need convincing. I think it's the right thing to do.'

‘
And
…' Ida's sense of drama made her pause and hold her breath.

‘What?' Violet wondered. Muriel and Ida's excitement was contagious and she let it bubble up through her recent worries.

‘
If
we can get this off the ground …' Muriel began.

‘There's no ifs about it,' Ida declared then concluded without more ado. ‘So, Violet, what we're building up to saying is that we'd like you to come in with us.'

Violet's eyes lit up. ‘You mean you'd want me to leave Hutchinson's and work for you full time?'

‘That's exactly what we mean,' Muriel assured her. ‘Not just mending and putting in zips, but helping us with the cutting out and sewing.'

‘You wouldn't have far to go to work,' Ida pointed out. ‘Just step out of your room and up one flight of stairs to the attic.'

‘And we'd be able to pay you a fair wage, once we get properly started.' Muriel joined Ida in looking eagerly across the counter at Violet to judge her reaction. ‘What do you say?'

‘I say yes!' Violet declared without a second's hesitation and in a rush of pure delight. ‘Yes, please – I'd love to. If you must know, it's a dream come true!'

‘Goodbye to groceries!' Eddie declared when Violet shared her good news with him on a ride out to Little Brimstone.