The Shop Girls of Chapel Street (7 page)

He turned and spoke above the idling speed of the engine. ‘We could get off and stretch our legs if you're not in a rush.'

Violet nodded and he pulled off the road onto a grass verge. ‘How about sitting on that rock?' She pointed and went on ahead to a smooth boulder overlooking a narrow, shaded valley with thorn trees and a cascading waterfall.

Eddie joined her and they sat looking down at the rushing water. ‘This little glen is where I used to cycle to when I was a kid,' he confided. ‘You're well hidden once you're down there amongst the trees. That's what I liked about it.'

Violet glanced at him. He sat with hands clasped around his knees, staring intently into the darkness, his profile in shadow, his eye glinting in the last of the light.

‘I was never allowed,' she told him. ‘I always had to play close to the house where they could keep an eye on me.'

‘Don't get me wrong – I enjoyed larking about with the other lads – cricket and football, the usual kick-about stuff. But once in a while I liked to get away.' He stopped short and glanced at her, wondering if he was boring her with his talk.

‘You and Ida – you're not alike.' Violet settled into the conversation, soothed by the peacefulness of their surroundings. ‘She's not backwards in coming forwards for a start.'

Eddie grinned. ‘You can say that again.'

‘I like her, though. And she's doing well for herself. I wish I had her get up and go.'

‘She and Harold are saving up to get married. She's got a list of things she reckons they need – table and chairs, bedroom suite and everything. It all adds up to fifty quid, give or take.' There he went – rabbiting on again because he wanted to avoid any silence that would give Violet the chance to suggest moving on.

‘I meant Ida and Muriel's shop. I'd love to be running a place like that.' Violet reached forward to brush her hand over the harebells growing in a nearby crevice. ‘How did they get set up in the first place?'

‘It was after Muriel's chap let her down,' Eddie told her. ‘I don't know the ins and outs of it – only that she was due to be married but it never happened. That's when Ida left her job in the mending department at Kingsley's and set up shop with Muriel, using the nest egg Muriel had saved for the wedding.'

The surprise information gave Violet pause for thought.

‘Muriel's the one with a head for figures. Ida's more involved in the sewing and altering side. Anyway, why are we talking about them? I want to know more about what you get up to.'

‘There's nothing to know.' Not wanting to give too much away too soon, she drew back from making confessions. ‘Honestly, there's nothing special about me.'

‘I'd say there was.' For once Eddie took a risk. Maybe it was the idea that if he didn't jump in with both feet, Stan would make his next move on Violet and it would definitely be too late. Or perhaps it was simply the right place, the right time.

Violet picked a harebell and turned it between her fingers. She held her breath, waiting for Eddie to speak again.

‘I'm not talking about the way you look,' he tried to explain. ‘Sorry – that didn't come out the way I meant it to. You look lovely, of course you do. But it's more than that.'

She sniffed the flower and stared ahead, slow to believe what she heard. She wanted the moment to last – the sunset, the peaty smell of the soil, the waterfall. Eddie by her side.

‘Stop me if I'm stepping out of line. It might be Stan you're interested in, for all I know.'

‘No, it's not Stan,' she whispered. ‘We went to the pictures together, that's all.'

‘Even so.'

Violet turned towards Eddie. His head was tilted forward and he looked earnestly at her from under lowered brows. She felt a surge of tenderness.

‘Stan's not my type,' she insisted. ‘You are.'

Her lips when he moved to kiss her were soft and warm, her face cool and smooth as silk. He put his arms around her.

Violet kissed him back. She closed her eyes and softened into his embrace. There was the sound of tumbling water and the feel of his kiss and in that moment nothing else mattered.

Night had fallen by the time Eddie and Violet reached town and the street lights were on.

‘Drop me here,' she said when they reached the top of Chapel Street. ‘That way we won't wake anyone up with the sound of your bike.' By ‘anyone' she meant, of course, her Uncle Donald, who would no doubt be gunning for her as usual.

‘Ta-ta then,' Eddie said when she'd got off the bike.

Violet hovered on the pavement, not wanting to leave but knowing she must.

Eddie leaned sideways and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I'm working again tomorrow night but we could go dancing at the Assembly Rooms this weekend if you'd like?'

‘That's right, we could,' she teased, a smile playing on her lips.

‘Or we could go to the flicks?'

‘The flicks,' she decided, to put him out of his misery.

A grin lit up his face. ‘The flicks it is. I'll pick you up at six o'clock on Saturday. We'll go to the new Odeon – my treat.'

Violet smiled and nodded, raising a hand to wave as Eddie revved his engine and coasted off along Overcliffe Road. The smile lasted all the way down Chapel Street and onto Brewery Road where she finally pulled herself together, took out her key and unlocked the door to number 11.

Inside the house she found the lights on and Uncle Donald in his dressing gown standing white as a sheet at the kitchen window.

‘What's the matter?' Violet asked, a sudden fear clutching at her heart. ‘You look as though you've seen a ghost.'

‘The doctor's upstairs with Winnie,' he told her, steadying himself against the sink as if he'd been dealt a deadly blow.

Violet didn't wait to hear more. She was up the stairs in a flash, dashing into the front bedroom to find her view of the iron bedstead blocked by the tall figure of Dr Moss.

‘Who's there?' Winnie asked from the bed, her voice low and strained. ‘Is that you, Violet?'

The doctor stood to one side and Violet rushed forward. ‘Aunty Winnie, what's wrong? Are you poorly?'

‘Hush,' Winnie said. Her hand trembled as she grasped Violet's hand. Her voice still sounded as if it came from a long way away. ‘There, there, love.'

‘What's wrong with her?' Violet asked the doctor. She held her aunt's shaking hand between both of hers.

‘I'm afraid it's her heart. I've sent for an ambulance to take her to hospital.'

‘You hear that, Aunty Winnie?' Violet held her hand tighter still. ‘You're going to the hospital. The doctors will soon find out what's wrong and make you better.' As the words spilled out into the hush of the room with its spartan furnishings, even Violet realized how childlike she sounded. She knew with certainty as she looked into Winnie's unfocused eyes that they were untrue.

‘No, love,' came the faint response. Winnie lifted Violet's clasped hands to her cheek and let them rest there. ‘I was hanging on until you came home, that's all.'

‘Aunty Winnie, no!' Violet whispered fervently.

‘Hush. I only wanted to say goodbye.'

‘No, that's not fair!' The words were torn from Violet's chest, irrational and childlike.

Winnie loosened her hold. Her eyes fluttered shut. ‘Look after her, Doctor. God bless, Violet.'

‘Come away now.' Dr Moss moved in and put his arm around Violet's shoulders to lead her to the door. He called down the stairs for Donald to come up.

Outside on the street the ambulance arrived and two uniformed men rushed into the house. They passed Violet and Donald in the narrow hallway, intent on getting the patient to the King Edward's without delay.

‘It's not fair,' Violet cried again.

Donald shook his head then his legs gave way and he had to sit down on the bottom step. Up in the bedroom they sensed the urgency subside then heard the slow, heavy tread of Dr Moss as he descended the stairs. ‘I'm sorry,' he said in a grave voice, his stethoscope still dangling from his neck. ‘We did our best but in the end there was nothing anyone could do.'

Exactly what was so unfair in Violet's mind was hard to explain. As the black-coated funeral men moved in to carry out the smooth and silent business of death, she sat in her bedroom choking back tears but unable to order her thoughts.
It isn't right
, she told herself repeatedly.
Aunty Winnie didn't show any signs of being ill. She's been her usual self, perhaps a bit tired lately, but never less than cheerful. She's fifty years old, which is nothing these days – stout and capable, always well turned out, the sort who goes on and on – everyone says so. And complaints never pass her lips
.

But maybe that had been the problem, Violet concluded. She never said, ‘I've an ache in my back or a pain in my chest', rarely visited the doctor but instead relied on home remedies – treacle and sulphur for rashes and heat lumps; monastery herbs for stomach upsets, comfrey for sprains. Anything more serious she must have kept to herself.

She insisted she was fit as a fiddle – her own words said in a breezy way that brooked no argument.
It was typical of Aunty Winnie to keep it to herself, but I should have noticed she was breathless when she came in with the shopping
, Violet thought in silent misery.
It was my fault. Uncle Donald said that she needed more help and I flatly denied it. That was me being selfish.
She felt an almost unbearable pang of shame and regret.

Goodbye and God bless.
A faltering, faraway voice. A life well spent drawing to an end. But still Violet's chaotic heart and mind protested that it was all too soon and too sudden, like stitches being dropped or knitting unravelling. Winnie should still be here to tut and smile, to keep Violet's feet on the ground, to glow with pride.
But she isn't
, Violet realized.
And now she won't see the rest of my life, which is the one she made for me as truly as any natural mother on this earth. She won't see her Cinderella go to the ball, if and when that happens. She won't see me married with children.

Sorrow overwhelmed Violet and she sat on her bed and wept.

One of the unexpected things that Violet noticed was that, amid all the arrangements – the notifying of neighbours and the issuing of certificates, commiserations and explanations, the setting of dates – Donald Wheeler refused to speak with the minister from the chapel at the top of the street.

‘I'd like to set a time for the funeral of eleven o'clock next Thursday,' Minister Frank Bielby told Violet after he'd knocked on the door and she'd invited him into the cool, clean front room at number 11. ‘I take it your uncle will agree?'

‘He's out at the moment, but I'm sure he will.'

The minister sat on the edge of the black horse-hair sofa. He was a tweed-suited bald-headed man who wore a stiff, shiny collar, silver-rimmed spectacles and sturdy brown shoes. ‘Is there anything in particular that you'd like me to include in the service?' he asked gently. ‘I know plenty about Winnie, of course. So I won't be stuck for something to say.'

Hands resting in her lap and sitting on a chair by the window, Violet simply nodded.

Bielby moved smoothly on. ‘And how is your Uncle Donald?'

‘He's at work.' Violet avoided the question. How
was
Uncle Donald? The truthful answer was he hadn't spoken a word since the funeral men had carried Winnie from the house into the hearse. He'd locked and bolted the door and gone upstairs and she'd not heard a sound until he'd gone down the next morning, out of the house and across the street to open his shop. She'd registered the coming and going of customers all day until her uncle's return at teatime.

‘What will you have to eat?' she'd asked, intending to break the atmosphere between them, so heavy that you could almost touch it.

He'd washed his hands at the sink and gone upstairs without a word. The same thing this morning – up and out without food or drink.

‘You'll let your uncle know that I'm at hand any time he wishes to speak to me.' A small frown appeared on Minister Bielby's face as he sensed that all was not as it should be. ‘And please hand on my sincere condolences during this difficult time.'

Ah yes – those were the phrases. Condolences … a difficult time. Nothing specific to Winnie and Donald who had been regular chapel-goers all their lives, whom Frank Bielby had known through countless whist drives and charabanc outings, weekend bring-and-buys and evening lectures. ‘I'll tell him,' Violet said with quiet finality.

‘It must be the shock,' Ida decided. She'd waited until after the weekend for things to settle down, but now on the Tuesday she called in at Hutchinson's to see how Violet was coping. Violet, pale faced and with her hair pushed back behind her ears, had told Ida that her uncle was maintaining his mysterious vow of silence and that it was driving her round the bend. ‘He'll come round. You just have to give him time.'

‘We have the funeral on Thursday so I won't come to rehearsal tomorrow evening,' Violet reminded her in a subdued voice.

‘No, of course – I realize that.' Ida trod carefully through the conversation with none of her usual vivacity on show. She'd walked up from Jubilee without a coat, in only a yellow cotton day dress with orange panels set into the bodice and skirt. ‘Muriel and I would like to come. What time should we be at Chapel?'

‘The service will be at eleven. I'm only hoping I can get Uncle Donald to leave his precious shop for an hour or two.'

‘He'll be there, of course he will,' Ida murmured.

‘Yes, even if I have to drag him kicking and screaming all the way up the street.'

‘Try not to worry. Grief hits people in different ways. Keeping the barber's shop going is probably Donald's way of coping.'