The Shop Girls of Chapel Street (19 page)

‘Of course, Mr Barlow. Come in, please,' Violet squeezed past and drew out the key to unlock the door. She quickly took refuge behind the counter, lifted a slip of paper off a spike and adopted her best shop-girl manner. ‘We were expecting you to drop by so I have a receipt here ready for you.'

‘I'm sorry, I don't have any change.' Colin Barlow handed her a ten-shilling note, not sounding sorry at all.

Violet took the money and opened the till. Then she counted the change into his outstretched hand.

Barlow closed his fingers over hers and squeezed – an action so quick and smooth that it left her flustered and confused. ‘I happen to have a little something in my pocket that I thought you might like,' he said with a tilt of his head and a knowing smile.

Alarm flashed through Violet, making her step backwards against the shelf piled high with boxes of buttons. Suddenly the shop felt too small for comfort.

‘All girls like scent, don't they?' Barlow drew a miniature bottle from his pocket and put it on the counter. It had a gold and turquoise label which read,
No. 4711 Eau de Cologne
.

‘Oh no, Mr Barlow, I couldn't!' Violet gasped.

‘Don't be silly – of course you could. I keep it in stock in all of my shops. It's a very popular line.' Brisk and matter-of-fact, he pocketed his change and headed for the door, bumping into Ida who had popped to the market during her dinner break and had come back bearing meat and vegetables for the Sunday dinner. Barlow tipped the brim of his hat and said good afternoon. Then he was gone.

‘What's this?' Ida spotted the cologne and picked it up to examine it. ‘“Glockengasse, Cologne on Rhine”.' Squinting to read the small print out loud, she rapped the bottle back down on the counter. Then she frowned, took a quick, suspicious look at Violet and went upstairs without another word.

The day was spoiled after this. Though Violet hid the perfume out of sight and made up her mind to donate the unwanted gift to a church raffle or some other good cause, there was an awkward atmosphere in the workroom. Ida seemed to sew with extra vigour and made hardly any small talk before going home early without explanation.

‘What's got into her?' Muriel wondered as she and Violet worked on into the evening.

‘She's upset with me for something that happened earlier,' Violet confessed. She felt she could confide in Muriel without her flying off the handle the way Ida might.

Muriel snipped a thread to free the fabric she was sewing from the spool of her machine. She shook it then folded it and set it aside ready to continue on the Monday morning. Her face was calm as she listened to a troubled Violet.

‘Ida saw some scent that Mr Barlow gave me as a present. I tried not to accept it but he caught me off guard then he left the shop without me having time to hand it back.'

‘Scent?' Muriel repeated slowly.

‘Eau de cologne.'

‘And he sprang it on you? You're certain you didn't do anything to lead him on?'

‘No!' Violet felt a pang of guilt that came from nowhere and for no reason. Perhaps she had encouraged Colin Barlow without even realizing it?

‘Don't worry. I don't have a high opinion of Mr Barlow, given the way he treats his poor wife. So I believe you,' Muriel said kindly. ‘But you're worried that Ida doesn't?'

Violet nodded. ‘What if she goes home and tells Eddie?'

‘She won't do that. Ida may be a hot head over some things, but she doesn't tell tales.'

The reassurance calmed Violet and she went on to explain the various ways in which she'd tried to keep Colin Barlow at bay. ‘It's the same with Stan Tankard,' she told Muriel. ‘I try my best to put him off but sometimes he just won't leave me alone.'

‘I wouldn't compare Stan with Mr Barlow,' Muriel pointed out. ‘That man's a different kettle of fish altogether, what with his chemist shops and fancy house and car. Are you sure you're not even a little bit tempted?'

‘Not in the least.' Violet thought about it then shuddered. ‘As a matter of fact, I dreaded him calling into the shop today and with good reason, as it turns out.'

‘The trouble is, you're not a plain girl,' Muriel commented with typical understatement. ‘It's bound to happen to you a lot – men running after you, whispering sweet nothings and giving you presents. The trick is not to let it go to your head, especially now that Winnie's not around to keep an eye on you.'

‘I won't let it,' Violet promised. ‘They can say what they like, it won't make any difference. I'm walking out with Eddie and I'm not interested in anyone else.'

‘That's good to hear.' Taking a soft broom from the corner of the room, Muriel swept under the tables – her final task before closing the workshop for the day. ‘But I know from my own experience that a person can swear something like that and still get led astray.'

Tidying pins into their round tin, Violet ventured into unknown territory with Muriel, whom she had learned to respect more and more. ‘Do you mean your fiancé?'

Muriel propped her broom against the table. ‘Yes, Ron. He courted me and promised me the world. We would get married and rent our own little house. We would have a family. I would stay at home to look after the children and Ron would carry on working as an overseer at Kingsley's to look after us. Or so he told me.'

‘Is that what you would have liked?' Violet asked.

‘Maybe not the staying at home part. I'm not sure that being a mother would have been enough for me, but who can tell? Anyway, that's not the way it turned out. Ron was very handsome – that's what I'm getting round to. The type who couldn't walk down a street without attracting the girls' attention, the sort you see in films – tall with thick, wavy hair and clear blue eyes that took your breath away.'

In her mind's eye Violet pictured the two of them together – Ron walking arm in arm with Muriel, her having to put up with other girls' flirtatious advances, him resisting their flattery until the one time when he didn't, it seemed. Her heart went out to Muriel when she remembered the way it had ended – a bride at the altar without a groom.

‘The woman he took up with wasn't from round here, so I never met her. She was married to a doctor in Harrogate, apparently. Ron wrote me the note saying he was sorry and he hoped I would soon find someone else. I didn't keep it – I read it then threw it straight in the fire. And I never knew what happened to him and his precious doctor's wife after that. As for finding someone else to get hitched to – I'd had my fingers burned once so I never fancied giving it another go.'

‘Honestly and truly?' Violet found this hard to believe. Muriel was still a good-looking woman. Besides, she was clever in all sorts of ways and kind with it.

‘Hand on my heart,' Muriel said, acting out the sentiment by crossing one arm over her chest. She stood with a halo of warm sunlight behind her and smiled at Violet. ‘As far as I can see there's nothing wrong with being an old maid sitting by the fire with cats for company. At least that way your heart isn't broken and you can call your life your own.'

For days Violet and Eddie contained their suspicions about Donald Wheeler and went on without further upsets until the good weather broke on the third Tuesday of August. It broke with one of the worst thunderstorms for years, presaged by purple clouds gathering over the moor and turning the sultry summer daylight into eerie, early dusk.

‘I don't like the look of that lot,' Marjorie said, nodding in the direction of the lowering clouds. She'd come into Jubilee for a yard of lace trim for a christening gown she was making for a great-niece.

‘No, we'd better batten down the hatches,' Violet agreed. She happened to be alone in the building and she judged that Marjorie would be her last customer of the afternoon. ‘Anyone with any sense will stay indoors until it passes.'

‘I've shut up shop a few minutes early,' Marjorie admitted. ‘There was nothing much left on the shelves anyway, so I thought I'd pop down for the lace before the rain started. That way I've got something to keep me busy while it gets it out of its system.'

She'd no sooner left the shop than fat, dark splashes of rain began to fall on the pavement and Violet likewise closed the shop then went upstairs to wait for the deluge. First there was a rumble of thunder in the far distance but as yet no lightning. Next jagged forks of blinding light pierced the clouds, then more thunder, closer now and strong enough to rattle the window panes in Violet's tiny room. Then the rain came down in sheets. It pounded onto the cobbled courtyard of Thornley's brewery, and caused the gutter to run in fast rivulets, soon flooding the drains which regurgitated water back into the yard and across the cobbles in a wider stream until it ran down the alleyway onto Brewery Road and on from there down the hill towards the canal.

Violet sat on the bed, as far away from the window as possible. A childhood fear of thunder and lightning came back to her, and she adopted the old habit of counting the seconds between lightning and the sound of thunder to judge how many miles she was from the eye of the storm.

One … two … three. Three miles. Another electric flash. One … two. Two miles. Then another, accompanied by a simultaneous battering of noise loud enough to make her put her hands over her ears. She cowered on the bed, waiting for it to pass.

And of course it was soon over, because storms as violent as this never lasted long. The clouds blew away and the sky lightened, the rain eased so that when Violet ventured downstairs and looked out onto the street, all she saw was clear water running in the gutter and steam beginning to rise from the rapidly drying pavements. And to her surprise, here was Eddie, on foot and soaked to the skin, coming to knock on her door to make sure she was all right.

She was, she assured him, inviting him into the shop but not up to her room. ‘Wait there while I fetch my coat.'

‘Why – where are we going?' he wanted to know. Water dripped from the peak of his cap onto the floor.

‘Down to the Green Cross – a shandy for me and whatever you fancy for yourself,' she told him boldly. ‘My treat.'

‘Why's that?'

‘Because you thought about me and got soaked to the skin for my sake – that's why.'

‘I'll always think about you,' he vowed as she slipped upstairs. He wasn't sure that she'd heard, but it was true – Violet was never far from his thoughts and slowly but surely he would go out of his way to make sure she knew it.

The storm broke the normal rhythm of Violet's days – an early rise to have breakfast in the kitchen then up to the attic to work before Ida and Muriel arrived. Conscientious as ever, she would serve in the shop or stitch like a demon, whirring away at her machine to complete the ever-mounting orders for dresses, trousers, jackets and costumes, looking forward to evening treats – a lovely ride out on Eddie's motorbike alternating with the occasional trip to the cinema, and if not that, quiet nights in with the Thomsons on Valley Road. Then, of course, there was the Wednesday rehearsal with the Hadley Players.

‘Are you sure you need me tonight?' Violet's tentative question to Ida broke the silence in the workroom towards the end of a busy afternoon. All day she'd felt the usual small knot of anxiety about the evening, building to a level where she felt she must ask to be excused. ‘Only, I feel like I might need an early night.'

‘Oh, dearie me!' Ida mimicked the quavery voice of an ancient crone. ‘What's the youth of today coming to, finding excuses to stay indoors instead of going out to enjoy themselves.'

Violet had the grace to blush and smile. ‘But seriously, would you miss me?'

‘We would!' Ida declared. ‘Tonight we're learning the moves for the dance hall scene in Act Five where the murderer is finally unmasked. I need all members of the cast to be present.'

‘Hard luck,' Muriel commiserated when she saw Violet's dejected expression. ‘But no doubt Eddie being there will help cheer you up.'

‘He's working late tonight,' Violet said. ‘But all right, Ida, I give in – anything for a quiet life.'

Which was how, despite her qualms about running into her Uncle Donald again, she came to take the bus out to Hadley with Peggy, Evie and Kathy. Then it was just her luck to have an empty seat next to her when Stan got on halfway along Overcliffe Road, and what should he do but sit down there and take the liberty of putting his arm along the back of Violet's seat and leaving his hand resting on her shoulder all the way to their destination?

‘Now, now, don't you two go putting my other passengers off their suppers,' the bluff conductor teased when he took Stan's fare. He winked at Violet as he clicked his ticket machine and tore off a ticket. ‘Don't worry, I'm only kidding. You don't look like that kind of girl to me.'

Mortified, Violet tried to shake Stan off as soon as they got off the bus, but he stayed close by her side as they made their way into the Institute and waited for the rehearsal to begin. Then who should Ida partner Violet with during the dance scene but Stan again, eager to get into waltz hold and whiz her around the stage, oblivious to Ida's directions?

‘Ouch, Stan – that's my foot!' Kathy complained.

‘Watch where you're going, Stan!' Peggy protested.

‘Stan, stop clod-hopping around. I want you and Violet to finish upstage left when the music ends,' an exasperated Ida called. ‘You do know your left from your right, I take it?'

Nothing dented Stan's confidence. He simply charged on at more of a polka than a waltz, blundering into the backdrop or almost falling off the front of the stage and taking Violet with him.

Kathy for one couldn't stop laughing. ‘You're a hoot, Stan,' she cried. ‘He's a hoot, isn't he, Evie? Poor Violet is going to end up covered in bruises if he's not careful.'