of as by Miss Norris – ‘when Marlow’s had to take girls from anywhere but the grammar school!’
Cedric Marlow shrugged. He was sixty-three, the son of the founder of the original Marlow’s (‘Capes, mantles and bonnets – all the latest designs from Paris!’) and had been in the business since he was twenty. He’d seen plenty of commercial ups and downs, plenty of staff come and go, and more to the point had seen one war that was supposed to end all wars be followed by this one. If he’d learnt nothing else – and he’d learnt a lot – it was that a business had to adapt to survive and accepting reality and adjusting requirements to suit what was available was the only sensible strategy.
‘We don’t have a great deal of choice, do we?’ he said mildly. ‘And I can’t see things improving when—’
‘When they bring in conscription for women. I know.’
Miss Garner looked briefly at the floor. She didn’t ever mention it, but she’d done her bit. She’d served in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in the First War. She’d met her first love, too, when she’d nursed him back to health after the second battle of Ypres. Before he left for the front again, he’d asked her to marry him, and had become her fiancé, then her missing-in-action fiancé, then her missing-presumed-dead fiancé. His body, the body she’d bathed and tended back to health once already, was never found.
Miss Garner was too old now for nursing, or any interesting war work, and too useful anyway, doing what she did at Marlow’s, keeping the home fires burning, or rather somehow finding the staff to sell the coal scuttles and hearth rugs that flanked the home fires – while hearth rugs and coal scuttles were still available. Making do and mending, cutting her cloth … seeing the young, then middle-aged, staff leaving and replacing them with the halt, the lame, the very old – and the very young. Fourteen-year-olds, in fact.
A shaky tap on the door told them that the girl they were expecting had arrived.
‘Enter!’ called Cedric Marlow.
Lily’s interview was about to begin.
‘So when do you start?’
‘Next week. Monday.’
‘That’s brilliant, Sis! Well done!’
Sid folded Lily in a huge hug and she relaxed for the first time that day. He was in the garden now, in an old collarless shirt and some ancient trousers, once their dad’s – nothing was ever thrown away in the Collins household. They were too big for him round the waist, so he’d found a huge leather belt which pulled them in tight and his braces were hanging down. Somehow, using the handle as a support, and putting as little weight on his bad foot as possible, he’d been hoeing between the lettuces, which were dangerously close to bolting, their mum said.
Now things were getting scarcer in the shops, Dora had taken ‘Dig for Victory’ to heart. She’d never done more than nurture the odd Christmas cactus or aspidistra for the front room, but now they grew what they could in a couple of small raised beds at the back of their terraced house. It had been nothing but a yard, but Lily and Sid had carted the soil in barrows half a mile from a bigger, boarded-up house with a garden. Every little bit they grew helped cheer up a diet that was becoming more and more repetitive and meagre.
Bacon, butter, sugar … they’d been rationed since almost the beginning of the war; even margarine had been rationed for almost a year now. Meat, tea, jam … sweets, of course … last month cheese and this month, eggs. One egg each a week!
Still, if it helped the war effort …
‘Where’s Mum?’ asked Lily. ‘I wanted to tell her straight away!’
‘Ah. She’s out,’ said Sid mysteriously.
‘She never goes just out.’ Lily looked puzzled.
‘She won’t be long,’ soothed Sid. ‘Anyway, you can tell me. Who was there? What did they ask you?’
‘Ohhhh,’ said Lily, covering her face. ‘It was dreadful. It wasn’t just Miss Garner, it was Mr Marlow himself! I mean, he seemed very nice, but … he asked what I’d liked at school and I said “all of it” and how I’d have liked to stay on, and then I thought that was the wrong answer ’cos he’d think I didn’t want the job … and then I blabbered on about how I liked meeting people, and talking to them, and about how I really really wanted to work there …’
‘Well, you do, don’t you? Better than that steamy laundry any day of the week. Or the Fox and Goose, with old Pearson trying to put his hand up your skirt.’
‘Sid!’
Sid grinned. ‘It’s true. There’ll be none of that at Marlow’s. Everyone there’s ever so well brung up, ain’t they?’ He lapsed deliberately into the strong local accent.
‘I suppose so,’ mused Lily.
‘Well, don’t sound so sorry about it! So no mental arithmetic or spelling? You were dreading that.’
‘Nothing like that,’ said Lily. ‘It’s only a junior’s job – in the Children’s department. I don’t suppose they’ll let me near a customer. And anyway I don’t know if I can take it. I haven’t got the right clothes!’
‘What, no uniform?’
‘They’ve scrapped it ’cos of the war. A dress in a plain dark colour, they said, or dark skirt and white blouse. And plain black shoes.’
‘Well, you’ve got those.’ Sid nodded at Lily’s best Sunday shoes.
‘They’ll never last the winter!’ cried Lily. She steadied herself against Sid’s shoulder and balanced stork-like to show him the soles, which were already worn. ‘As for a dress—’
‘Mum’ll come up with something. Or we’ll ask around. You know how it works in our street.’
Lily knew all too well. Hand-me-downs, making do. That was one thing the war hadn’t changed.
Sid went back to his hoeing.
‘Surely though, you’ll get some kind of discount? Buy some decent stuff?’
‘What, like a tie for you? On their prices, 90 per cent off wouldn’t be enough!’
‘They had some smashers,’ said Sid wistfully. ‘Silk. Still … one day, maybe …’
‘One day,’ sighed Lily. ‘When the war’s over …’
‘Dear me. A nice enough girl, but no polish.’
Miss Garner was assembling Lily’s staff manual, letter of engagement and terms and conditions of employment. Cedric Marlow was standing at the window of his office, looking down into the well at the back of the shop. A grimy pigeon was fluffing out its feathers in the sun and he was ashamed to realise that all he could think about was how good it would taste casseroled with bacon, mushrooms and shallots. His household could afford to buy its way out of the worst
