Bond Street Story (16 page)

But already her father was addressing her.

“Tell us what it says,” he demanded. “Then we can all breathe easy.”

It was a Monday. It was raining. It was eight forty-five. And
as Irene took her place in the stream of smart girls, all dashing up the staff staircase and all as eager as a pack of young tigresses to get their teeth into the first customer, she hated the lot of them.

But with her father beside her there wasn't anything that she could say. Anything more, that is. It had all been said on the evening of the big row. But Mr. Privett had obviously forgotten all about that. He had even tried to hold her hand as they set out. And that was something else that Irene didn't care for—this prospect of endlessly being taken in. And presumably waited for again at night. It would be like starting Kindergarten again.

But there was worse coming. Much worse. At the head of the staircase, with the men's cloakroom on one side and the ladies' on the other, Mr. Privett suddenly kissed her. In front of everybody, too. And he didn't even remember to drop his voice.

“Now don't you worry,” he said. “You'll be all right.”

If her father had lain awake all night thinking of some way of humiliating her in front of everyone he could not possibly have done better. But she need not have worried. All round her, a busy feverish preoccupied sort of life was already going on. Even though it was still not ten to nine, there was as much noise as though Rammell's were throwing an early morning cocktail party. The guests were fairly pouring in. And Irene was the only one who had turned up alone. All the rest were arriving in twos and threes. Not that this was surprising. Because by now the rate of arrival was about one hundred and fifty a minute. They had met coming along Piccadilly. Or turning up Bond Street. Or in Hurst Place itself. There was a whole converging procession of them. And conversations were everywhere being taken up where they had been broken off before the week-end.

They were mostly rather rushed, scrappy sort of conversations. That was because there was so much to do. And so little time in which to do it. There were dust sheets to be snatched off. Folded. Put away. Traysful of stuff to be arranged on the counters. Furs and dresses to be hung out on stands. Hats to be stuck about on the tall silver knobs in the millinery department. Bowls of flowers to be arranged. Cash books issued. Hands washed. Faces made up. Hair tidied. And all by eight fifty-five.

Admittedly nobody ever came into the shop at nine o'clock when the doors opened. That wouldn't have been Bond Street behaviour. More the way Marks and Spencer customers go on. But that wasn't the point. Mr. Rammell and Mr. Preece were both great believers in punctuality. They would still have had the store opened dead on nine even if there had been a bye-law forbidding any buying and selling before midday.

It was the noise of conversation that reminded Irene that she was a stranger. A new worker turning up for duty at an already over-populated hive. The whole honeycomb was full and swarming. The buzz was incessant. And what her antennae did pick up made no sense to her. All wrong wave-length stuff, or something.

“ ... so naturally I didn't wait. Can you imagine me standing there like that waiting for
him
?”

“ ... and when I got them home and tried them on you should have seen them. You'd have killed yourself. They must have been tens at least ...”

“ ... was there all that time. I didn't know. Last Tuesday it must have happened ...”

“ ... then I said, ‘It isn't even as though it's a front room' I said. ‘You can't expect three guineas a week,' I said ‘not for ...'”

“ ... but the end was lovely. She's absolutely marvellous in the third act. I didn't care for ...”

“ ... well, it may be ‘art,' I said. ‘But it's still photography. You don't catch me having any.'”

Irene had taken her place in the queue by now, and began passing her things over the cloakroom counter. The attendant was an elderly woman in a brown apron. And she had hands like a slick conjuror's. As soon as anything was put down in front of her, she snatched it up again, palmed it, tucked it under her arm, folded what was foldable, and handed over a little brass disc in return. She could carry as many as three coats, four umbrellas, a hat and an attaché-case at once and all with different owners, and still give everyone the right token.

With her elbow—it was the only part of her that wasn't carrying something—she slid Irene's handbag back towards her.

“You keep this, dearie,” she said. “You'll be wanting it.”

The girl behind Irene gave a smile. She was a pale, sad-looking girl.

“There's always room under the counter somewhere,” she said. “You'll get used to it.”

“Thanks,” Irene said.

She hated all this new girl stuff. It made her feel silly. Younger than she really was.

“Which department?” the dark girl asked.

“I ... I don't really know,” Irene admitted. “I've got to ask for a Miss Hallett.”

“Ground floor,” the dark girl told her. “Over by the handbags.”

“Thanks,” Irene said again.

Then, because it was obvious that the dark girl was trying to be nice, she added: “Thanks ever so.”

The dark girl smiled.

“Probably be seeing you,” she said. “Good luck.”

By now they were pouring out of the cloakroom at such a rate that at first Irene didn't see her father standing there.

“Come on, dear,” he said. “I've just got time to take you down and introduce you. Then I'll have to be getting back. It's through here ...”

But this time Irene stopped him.

“I know,” she said. “I've asked.”

Mr. Privett seemed hurt. Was hurt in fact. He had looked forward to introducing his daughter to Miss Hallett.

Not that it really mattered. Sometime during the morning he would be able to step down for a few minutes to see how she was getting on.

There was no difficulty about finding Miss Hallett. No difficulty at all. Indeed, as soon as Irene got past the evening bags there was Miss Hallett looking out for her. She seemed a nice sort of woman, too. A bit worried-looking, Irene noticed. But that may have been only because she was getting everything ready. And she certainly went out of her way to be pleasant. But, for all the wrong reasons, it turned out. It wasn't because she appreciated that she was lucky having Irene working alongside her at all. She didn't even seem to know that Irene had been one of the star pupils of the Eleanor Atkinson, that both Miss Preston and Mrs. Wells had said that Irene could have gone to the University if she had stayed on. It was simply because Irene was Mr. Privett's daughter that she was pleased to see her at all. In Miss Hallett's order of things a shopwalker, even though he didn't happen to be on her floor, was a person of consequence. A figure.

“So you're Mr. Privett's daughter, are you?” she asked. “Well, we must see what we can do for you, mustn't we? Put your bag down there, dear. And are your shoes all right? It's all standing remember. Get ever so tired if you haven't got the right sort of shoes. Feeling nervous?”

“I am a bit,” Irene admitted.

It wasn't really true. But it seemed to be the answer that Miss Hallett expected. And Miss Hallett was certainly pleased by it. The worried look vanished, and she patted Irene's hand.

“If you're your father's daughter you'll be all right,” she said. “Now you stand about here. Of course, if the other young lady's busy, you may have to cross over. But try not to get into each
other's way. And here's your cash book. I'll sign it for you just at first until you're used to it. And don't forget the carbons. That's terrible if you forget them. If I'm not around, Miss Kent'll show you.”

But so far there was no sign of Miss Kent. Even though it was already one minute to nine, Irene had the counter to herself. Then she really did begin to feel nervous. She wondered what would happen if a customer really did come in and want to buy something. But she need not have worried. Miss Kent was in sight by now. She was a large, dark, sullen girl. And not hurrying. She came in like a disgruntled black swan, quietly drifting when everything around her was rush and bustle. As soon as she got round behind the counter she began easing her feet out of her shoes.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Another week of it.” Then she looked up as if she had only just noticed that Irene was standing there. “Where did you spring from?” she asked.

“I'm new here,” Irene told her. “I'm only just starting. Are you Miss Kent?”

Miss Kent was flexing her toes and bending her ankles, like someone getting ready to dive. “Call me Babs. It sounds nicer. First day?”

Irene nodded.

“I'll pray for you,” Miss Kent promised.

There was a pause. Miss Kent was examining her nails, holding them up so as to get the light on them. There was an air of having only just discovered that she had fingernails.

Irene began to feel a bit out of it. She gave a little cough.

“My name's Irene,” she said at last. “Irene Privett.”

Miss Kent stopped examining her nails. The magic had evidently been broken.

“Oh, that's right,” she replied. “I remember now. Poor you.” She was winding a bit of her hair round her finger as she was speaking. “I need a new perm,” she added. “That's what's the matter with me. I only had the ends done last time.” She paused. “Your dad's here, isn't he?” she asked. “He was down all last week talking about you. How much do you think you'll be able to get away with?”

But Miss Kent had already forgotten about Irene. She was wetting her finger and running it up and down the calf of her leg.

“Laddered,” she said. “Oh, God! My last pair, too.”

Irene tried to look sympathetic. But it was really about Miss Hallett's last remark that she was still thinking.

“Would you mind showing me about carbons?” she said. “I don't know the first thing.”

Miss Kent stopped rubbing her stockings, and brought out her sales book.

“Nothing to it,” she said. “You just fold the top sheet over like this, and ... somebody's taken my pencil again. Be a pet, dear, and lend me yours. I'll give it back to you ...”

But on that particular Monday morning Irene wasn't the only person in Rammell's who was feeling lost. Resentful. Bewildered.

Upstairs in a little room leading off the managing director's office there was someone else who was whole-heartedly loathing every minute of it. Not that there had been many minutes for Tony to loathe so far. It was still only ten-thirty. And up to the present he hadn't really done anything. Admittedly, two traysful of letters had been put down on the desk in front of him. But he hadn't done more than glance at them. They seemed to be complaints mostly. Rather rude, too, some of them. They represented retail commerce at its most sordid. And then, just when he had begun to get interested comparing the handwriting, the trays had been whisked away by Miss Underhill. He had decided already that he didn't like Miss Underhill. She kept sweeping in and out like some kind of ageing ice-queen. And he felt a chill run through him every time she entered. But even she had gone away by now. Her small efficiency igloo was just across the passage.

Left completely alone for the last quarter of an hour, he had done nothing but stare out of the window. It was all as bloody silly as he had told his father it would be. He would have been of more use to everybody, certainly less of an aching misery to himself, if he had simply stayed quietly at home. He had made one last attempt to explain this to Mr. Rammell as they came along to Bond Street in the car together. But he had already discovered that there were two completely different Mr. Rammells. One was the Mr. Rammell who crossed his legs on the footstool in the study and kept pouring himself out whisky and soda—first a little more whisky, and then a little more soda—right on through the evening. Rather a boringly talkative type, Tony had always found him. And the other was Mr. Rammell with his feet up on the footrail of the car. This Mr. Rammell had his nose inside the
Financial Times,
and wasn't prepared to talk about anything. Tony had just got as far as: “Y'know, Dad, I still think we're both making a big mistake ...” when Mr. Rammell interrupted him.

“Oh, for God's sake, boy,” he said irritably as the first twinge of the morning's indigestion began cutting into him, “how the hell can I read if you're talking to me all the time? I'll leave you to find your own way in to-morrow.”

That was rich, Tony thought. It was irony at its most subtle. Because one of the grimmest things about going into Rammell's at all was that he was being carted along in this way in the morning. If Mr. Rammell had hired a nannie to bring him it couldn't have been worse. He had come down this morning as usual wearing his suède shoes and his purple pullover, and his father had said flatly that they wouldn't do. Had sent him upstairs again to change, in fact. And told him to hurry. What Tony was now wearing was a double-breasted blue suit with a dark tie, and a pair of very ordinary black shoes.

“Oh, God,” he was thinking. “I feel like some bloody awful bank clerk. Perhaps the old man'd like it better if I wore pince-nez ...”

But he wasn't entirely wasting his time. His window staring at least had a definite purpose. He was making a social survey. And the results were certainly interesting. Because, whereas Oxford Street was packed solid with Austins and Morrises and Fords, Bond Street—which after all was only just around the corner—was equally jammed up with Rolls-Royces and Bentleys and Daimlers. A correspondent of
Pravda
could have drawn all the wrong conclusions about England simply by standing at that particular window and being observant. Tony was still counting cars when his father came in.