Orphans of the Storm (14 page)
Now, walking rather slowly towards Wykeham Street, for her marketing bag was heavy, Debbie wondered how Gwen was getting on. They had had little chance to compare notes, meeting only briefly at staff dinnertime. They had both been employed by the Dining Rooms but Gwen had been put in the dreadful smelly scullery, preparing meat and vegetables for cooking, and she had no excuse for leaving early so she would still be at it, chopping and grating, peeling and slicing. As a washer-upper, Debbie thought she was really well paid; she had been promised seven and six a week to start with and ten shillings if she proved to be satisfactory after a couple of weeks, but Gwen had been made no such promises. She would be paid seven and six a week all right, but there had been no mention of an increase in money should she prove satisfactory. But if she’s good at the job, I’m sure they’ll increase her wages, same as mine, Debbie told herself optimistically, as she turned into Wykeham Street. The manager had understood that she and Gwen were schoolgirls but had said, bitterly, that because of the sudden upsurge of jobs for women in munitions and uniform factories he was having difficulty not only in employing holiday cover staff, but also in persuading women to work long hours. ‘So if youse works well, then I’ll mebbe employ you from four to eight during term time, an’ all day Sat’days,’ he had said to Debbie. ‘See how it goes.’
Debbie went down the jigger and approached the house across the small yard. The key was hidden under a flowerpot to the left of the door, so she stood her marketing bag down, picked the key up, and let herself into the house, dumping the bag on the kitchen table with a sigh of relief. Then she jumped. The house should be empty – Pennymore and Barker always went out after seven or eight hours’ sleep – but she was pretty sure she had heard a floorboard creak in the room overhead. Burglars? But what was there to burgle? She glanced towards the mantelpiece where the housekeeping purse was kept, then remembered that she had taken it out with her and it now reposed, considerably thinner than it had been this morning, in the bottom of the marketing bag. Swiftly, she glanced round the kitchen; nothing missing that she could tell. She checked the parlour where her mother’s walnut bureau stood – Jess’s most prized possession – and was relieved to see it was still there. She went slowly back into the kitchen, then stopped short. Someone had crossed the landing above her head, making no pretence of quietness, and was descending the stairs. Debbie edged towards the back door, though she was almost certain, now, that the intruder was no intruder at all but someone with every right to be in the house. Probably either Pennymore or Barker had come home early to prepare for the next shift.
So it was all the more of a shock when the kitchen door opened and a man entered. He was very tall with frizzy close-cropped hair and a long, rather lugubrious face. He was clad in a blue shirt and navy trousers, and had a navy jacket slung over one shoulder, and when he saw her he smiled ingratiatingly, with a great show of long, yellow teeth. Debbie was opening her mouth to ask him just what he was doing in her house when her mother entered the room close behind him, saying reassuringly: ‘It’s all right, queen . . . goodness, what a fright we must have given you! This is Mr Bottomley; he’s – he’s come to take a look at a room.’
Debbie opened her mouth to say that all their bedrooms were taken and then saw her mother, behind Mr Bottomley, shaking her head. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said feebly. She returned the elderly man’s smile. ‘Sorry, Mr Bottomley; I thought for a moment you was an intruder.’
Mr Bottomley laughed so heartily at this idea that he nearly choked himself. As soon as he was able to speak, he said, ‘Well now, that ain’t likely! I’s a big feller, too big to slither through that letter box of yourn.’ He looked, appraisingly, round the kitchen. ‘Cosy, real cosy. Nice an’ clean, too – youse could eat your dinner off that floor.’
Debbie considered making a sharp retort, saying something clever like ‘We’ve never been reduced to doing that yet’, then thought better of it and moved over to the table, beginning to unload the shopping. She half listened to her mother talking to the stranger, telling him that she would write to him at his place of work. ‘I can’t say too much now, not until I know how things stand,’ Jess said, opening the back door as a clear indication, to Debbie at any rate, that she wished her caller to leave. ‘But I should know by tomorrow, or the day after . . . I’ll drop you a line.’
Mr Bottomley, however, was not to be so easily ejected. He ignored the open back door and proceeded to look curiously about him whilst chattering amiably about the convenience of living so near the Stanley Road, with trams constantly passing and repassing, so that one was within easy reach of the city centre. ‘And I’d be much obliged, missus, if you could let me know by tomorrer at the latest,’ he said, in a rather aggrieved tone, as Jess, losing patience, walked into the yard herself and beckoned him to follow. ‘I telled you me landlady needs me room ’cos her eldest daughter’s comin’ down from Glasgow to have her baby under her mother’s roof, and when you mentioned you was lookin’ for a lodger you never said nothin’ about seein’ how things stood. I thought it were all cut and dried and that if I liked the room – which I does – then I could move in immediate.’
Debbie saw her mother’s back stiffen and could imagine the expression of annoyance on her face, but she only said, coolly: ‘I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, Mr Bottomley, but I’m sure I never meant to do so. The fact is, I’ve two lodgers at present, both nurses. One of them told me this morning that a friend had offered her a flat share and she will probably take it, but I don’t know when she’ll be moving out, so you see . . .’
Mr Bottomley, halfway across the yard, stopped short. ‘If I’d knowed that . . .’ he started belligerently, then paused and heaved a sigh. ‘Look, missus, if you want the truth, I’m pretty damn desperate. I’m out on me ear at the weekend and your place would suit me down to the ground. I’m norra difficult feller; you’ll find I’ll fit in right well with your family and I’ll pay reg’lar as clockwork. If you’ll give me a definite promise then I’ll move into a doss house until your room’s free. I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’
Jess turned away, saying coldly as she did so: ‘I said I’d let you know, Mr Bottomley, but perhaps I’d better say at once that I don’t think we should suit.’ She re-entered the kitchen and shut the door smartly behind her. ‘Phew!’ she said, her face pink with annoyance. ‘Of all the cheek! I’ve never met anyone so—’
The kitchen door crashed open and Mr Bottomley surged back into the room. He looked furiously angry, and dangerous, too, and he began haranguing them at once, saying that he had been unfairly treated, that he had come to view the room at Mrs Ryan’s request.
Debbie quailed but Jess faced up to the man without any sign of fear. ‘Get out of my house or I’ll call the police,’ she said brusquely. Without moving her eyes from Mr Bottomley’s, she added: ‘Debbie, run round to number seventeen and see if Constable Bullock is in. Or you can go on to Stanley Road and find a policeman somewhere. I refuse to be bullied in my own home.’
Debbie shot across to the back door but her mother’s threat seemed to have done the trick, for Mr Bottomley turned, left the kitchen, and almost ran across the yard, mouthing obscenities as he did so. Jess slammed the door and locked it, then collapsed on a kitchen chair. ‘My God, I wonder if you should really go round to number seventeen?’ she said, her voice shaky. She looked apologetically across at her daughter. ‘He seemed such a nice quiet man, but . . . look, put the kettle on, queen, because it’s a long story and you’ll want to know exactly what’s gone on since we both left the house this morning.’
‘You’re right there,’ Debbie said fervently. ‘But is it true that one of the nurses is moving out?’
‘Yes, it’s true,’ Jess said, wearily. She stared towards the back door as though half expecting Mr Bottomley to start hammering on it, then gave a rather watery giggle and relaxed. ‘I dare say the poor old feller had a point and I was a bit unfair. You see, love, I’ve had an absolutely awful day. It started when Sister Thomas . . .’
‘Gosh! But Sister Thomas deserved everything she got. How dared she hit the patient,’ Debbie said, when her mother paused for breath. ‘Only I expect she managed to blame you, didn’t she?’
‘Yes, she did, and I was given my cards,’ Jess said, rather bitterly. ‘Matron admitted that Sister Thomas had been wrong to strike a patient, but of course Sister had said the patient had hit her first. There’s going to be an enquiry and maybe at the end of it I’ll be reinstated, but quite honestly, love, we can’t hang around waiting. I’ll have to get another job, and this time it won’t be in nursing. Naturally, when Pennymore told me she was moving out – and I’d just been sacked – I was in despair. Losing my salary was bad enough, without losing a lodger as well. So I nipped out to Protheroe’s corner shop, to put a card in the window, advertising the room, and there was Mr Bottomley putting a card in the window as well, asking for lodgings. It – well, it seemed like the answer to a prayer. Perhaps I should have made an appointment for him to come and view the room when we were all at home, but he was very insistent that he should see it right away. It was all right at first; he liked the house and the situation, liked the room very much indeed, but the more I thought about it the less I liked the idea of sharing a house with a man like him. He’s very opinionated, laid down the law, kept telling me how things should be done, so by the time we came into the kitchen I’d already decided that I would have to turn him down.’ She heaved a deep sigh and rose to her feet to fetch two mugs from the dresser as the kettle began to boil. Debbie fetched the caddy from its shelf and began to make a pot of tea. ‘But I never thought he’d turn violent the way he did. And his language! He told me he worked at Lime Street station but he swore more like a docker than a railway porter.’
Debbie, pouring the tea, laughed. ‘I expect railway porters can swear just as well as dockers when they let themselves go,’ she observed. ‘But Mam, surely you can get another nurse to replace Pennymore. It’s a shame, because we’ve got on so well, the four of us, but I dare say there are other nice nurses eager to get lodgings near the hospital.’
Jess shook her head glumly. ‘Unfortunately, nurses aren’t well paid so we’ve always let them have the rooms cheap,’ she said. ‘That didn’t matter when I was earning, but it may well matter now. And I don’t imagine that nurses will be exactly keen to share a house with someone who has been sacked. So things may be difficult, for a while at least. In fact, you could say our future looks rather bleak.’
Debbie set the mugs of tea carefully down on the table, then suddenly remembered her own news. She leaned across and clasped her mother’s hands. ‘Oh, Mam, I am a fool. I’ll forget me own head next! Our future isn’t that bleak, ’cos I got meself a job, just like I said I would. I’m working at Deakin’s Dining Rooms as a kitchen helper. I’ll get two hot meals a day and seven and six a week to start, which goes up to ten bob if I give satisfaction. It’s a long day, eight till eight, but I don’t mind that.’
Jess beamed at her daughter. ‘Well done, queen,’ she said. ‘It may not be a fortune, but every little helps . . .’
‘. . . as the mermaid said when she wee’d in the sea,’ Debbie cut in, and was pleased to see her mother smile. ‘Look, Ma, you’re not to worry. You’re a fully trained nurse with heaps of experience, so you’re bound to get a job, and a well-paid one too. Everyone keeps saying that factories are paying good money so you could try there, for a start.’
‘I can’t imagine what working in a factory is like, or whether I’d be any good at it,’ Jess said, rather doubtfully. ‘Nursing has been my whole life, ever since I left school, though of course when your father was alive I didn’t have to work. But when I think of the unfair treatment I’ve received from Matron . . . well, I believe I wouldn’t go back if they paid me double. I was thinking of having more lodgers and charging them much more, as well, because I’d be at home all day and able to make cheap, nourishing meals, but I can see it wouldn’t do. If there’s one thing Mr Bottomley has taught me, it’s that male lodgers can cause a deal of trouble, and we can do without that, so I’ll start job hunting tomorrow. Right now – when I’ve finished my cup of tea, that is – I’ll go back to the corner shop and put another advert in for a lodger, only this time I’ll specify that it must be a female.’
Debbie was wandering along the Scotland Road with a large canvas bag in either hand. It was bitterly cold but she was feeling at peace with the world for it was Christmas Eve and she had just spent an enjoyable couple of hours not only getting her mother’s messages, but also buying Christmas presents for those she loved best. She had had, perforce, to finish her summer job on her return to school, though they had kept her on from four o’clock till eight o’clock on Thursdays and Fridays and all day on Saturdays. But when December came the Dining Rooms were so busy that she had been promoted to waitressing, and this – oh joy – meant that in addition to her wages she got a great many tips. Debbie loved being a waitress. She enjoyed the customers’ cheerful banter and the air of excited anticipation which was almost palpable as Christmas drew nearer. And, of course, she enjoyed the increase in her take-home pay. She had asked the manager, rather shyly, if she might do some waitressing even after Christmas, in order to keep her hand in, so to speak, and, to her secret astonishment, he had agreed, adding the rider that she had worked longer as a washer-up than any other girl he had employed and so deserved the reward of more congenial work when it was available.
So now Debbie loitered outside the brightly lit shops, for though it was nine o’clock at night few had yet put up their shutters and customers thronged the pavements, spilling out into the roadway and clustering round the tram stops like bees round a honey pot. Despite Mr Chamberlain’s ‘Peace for our time’ speech, there were still mutterings of war, but just now everyone was in a festive mood. Debbie was pondering the advisability of spending some of her tip money on a second-hand winter coat as she passed the front of Paddy’s Market. She saw customers gathered round Mrs Finnigan’s stall, which was where she usually bought decent, part-worn clothing, but decided that she could scarcely give coat buying her full attention without setting down her marketing bags, so turned once more for home. Her mother would be in the kitchen, no doubt preparing something delicious for the late supper they always shared when Debbie was working. Even though she had enjoyed a good meal at Deakin’s, the thought of an appetising mutton stew or beef casserole made her step out a little faster.
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