of Sarah’s mother but there had been someone after all in the trim semi-detached house to offer her strong and unwavering love.
Arnold had been in a Japanese prison camp when he heard the news of her death. The war was already over, the prisoners waiting for repatriation, when the letter had come, six months out of date. The thought of her had kept him going, he had dreamed in the humid nights of walking up the narrow path to where she stood smiling in the doorway. And she had lain for more than six months in the cold earth of the municipal cemetery with a marble stone at her head and an urn of flowers at her feet.
None of it had mattered any more, the homecoming, the medal–for someone in authority had appeared to think that Arnold had earned a decoration at some moment in that incredible time–the piece in the Milbourne paper, his father’s hand resting proudly on his shoulder.
The only thing that had come through to him in those phantom weeks had been the realization that however long he lived, in joy and happiness or in wretchedness and despair, he would never see her again. And as it hadn’t much mattered what he did or where he went, he had stayed in Milbourne, had taken a job in the new factory Owen Yorke was beginning to get under way.
‘You know the shop isn’t making much money these days,’ Owen said now with a deprecating movement of his hands. ‘You’ve seen the accounts. It hasn’t done really well for the last few years. Ever since . . .’ Ever since Zena Yorke had ceased to take an active interest in it.
Owen fell silent for a moment, thinking with recurring astonishment of the change that had come over Zena with the onset of middle age. The prettiness of youth–and she had been pretty, with curling blonde hair and lively blue eyes–had totally disappeared.
The blue eyes, faded now, veiled with chronic discontent, looked out at him these days from a pale and puffy face, the once-delicate skin heavily powdered, patterned with a fine hatching of lines. The slim curves of her figure had vanished beneath distorting layers of slackened flesh. And the self-indulgent years of over-eating, over-drinking, increasing idleness, had brought ill-health in their inexorable train.
But Owen hadn’t the slightest intention of discussing his wife with Arnold Pierson. Some deep-lying part of his mind was aware that if he ever took it into his head to examine closely the exact nature of the relationship between Pierson and Zena, he might very well uncover matters that were better left concealed.
He set a high value on his own peace of mind and so he very firmly declined to probe, entrenching himself instead–as far as possible–behind a deliberate attitude of detached pity for the woman who had been the girl he had loved and married.
‘Don’t think I’m in any way criticizing your sister’s management of the shop,’ Owen said. ‘But it doesn’t fit in with the way the business has developed.’ Owen had never had a passionate interest in retail selling; what he liked was manufacturing. He concentrated now entirely on the production of ladies’ coats and suits; Sarah Pierson bought in dresses from the wholesalers, together with knitwear and lingerie, scarves, handbags and a host of other fashion accessories.
‘You’ve definitely decided to close the shop then?’ Arnold didn’t much relish the prospect of breaking the news to Sarah. She had spent her entire working life behind the double glass doors, forty-four devoted years, beginning as an apprentice alteration hand in the days when Ralph Underwood managed the business himself and his daughter Zena was playing with coloured building blocks in her first year at kindergarten.
Owen nodded. ‘Sarah still has a couple of years to go till the normal retirement age but there’d be no difficulty about that. Her pension will start as soon as the shop is closed down.’ He allowed himself to contemplate for an instant the fact that it wasn’t going to be a very magnificent pension. It was based on the salary Sarah received and as that salary had been fixed by Zena, it wasn’t exactly princely.
Sarah had never complained and probably thought she was well enough paid when she remembered the wage she had started out with. Her living expenses can’t be all that large, Owen thought, I imagine she lives rent-free with old Walter, probably doesn’t even have to pay for her food, gets it all for nothing in return for looking after the two men. And if Walter Pierson shouldn’t recover from his bout of influenza–well then, there’d be a little money coming to her there, no doubt, and a half-share in the house too, most likely.
He had been on the verge of adding that a lump sum of a year’s salary would be paid over to Sarah in addition to the pension but he saw now quite clearly that she wouldn’t in the least need such a sum.
‘She’ll be fifty-eight on the first of February,’ Arnold said suddenly. It struck him all at once as a cheerless sort of age. ‘Do you want me to break it to her about the shop or will you do it?’
‘If you could have a word with her–I’m afraid it’s going to be a bit of a blow to her, no getting away from that, but it might soften the blow, coming from you.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Arnold looked at Owen with a trace of amusement. ‘But I’ll speak to her, if that’s what you want.’
Developers were already at work in Milbourne. A property in the High Street could be converted into a supermarket or simply torn down to make way for a new office building. Owen didn’t much care what happened to old Ralph’s emporium. It had served his purpose once but was now of no further use to him and so would be dismissed without a single pang of sentimental regret.
And the money it would fetch would be more than welcome. The expansion of Underwood’s had brought with it a massive need for more capital and in these days of credit restriction many of the conventional sources of fresh capital had inconveniently dried up.
‘She can retire on her birthday,’ Owen said. ‘That would seem to be convenient all round. She can make the January sale a closing-down sale now,’ he added. ‘Any stock that’s left over can be jobbed off to some other dress shop in the town.’ To Linda Fleming, for instance, he thought suddenly, seeing with a surprising leap of pleasure a clear picture of the young widow with her soft dark hair and gentle hazel eyes, kneeling in the window of her little shop, arranging a trail of artfully crumpled material at the foot of the display stands.
He would have been astounded to know that Arnold was also contemplating a mental vision of Mrs Fleming, only in Arnold’s mind she was smiling up at him from the other side of the counter in her trim establishment, offering him advice about a purchase. I could call in on the way home, Arnold thought with an agreeable flash of inspiration, I could buy something for Sarah’s birthday.
He stole a glance at his watch. He could clear off in a few minutes, as soon as he’d locked up in Accounts; Mrs Fleming would be sure to stay open till half past five at least. She’d taken the shop over only a few weeks before, coming to Milbourne as a stranger, from some town on the east coast; she couldn’t afford just yet to close early during holiday seasons.
‘One other thing before you go,’ Owen said. ‘The date of the annual audit—’ He broke off as the phone rang sharply on his desk, he reached out and picked up the receiver.
Arnold made a movement to go, leaving him to take the call in privacy but Yorke halted him with a raised hand. Arnold settled back again into his chair, expelling a little breath of resignation at the swift march of time towards the closing of Mrs Fleming’s shop.
‘Won’t be a moment,’ Yorke said softly above the shielded mouthpiece. ‘It’s Zena.’ He withdrew his hand and stared down at his desk with an impassive face, listening to his wife’s voice.
‘I expected you home long before this,
