The Girl From Seaforth Sands (28 page)

However, a train journey of such length was a delightful novelty for Amy. She had been lucky enough to get a corner seat, and now she settled down to gaze out of the window and reflect how her life had changed since she had met her friend.

It had all begun with the evening classes, of course. Miss Maple, who taught shorthand, typewriting and bookkeeping, was startled and impressed by the speed with which Amy assimilated knowledge. After barely two terms in her class she had suggested that Amy might like to try for a position as an office junior, which had just
become vacant in the Adelphi Hotel. She pointed out that Amy would have to continue with her classes in the evening for some considerable while, but that working in an office all day, instead of in the fish market, would greatly increase her chances of passing the necessary examinations.

If it had not been for Ella, Amy reflected now, she might never even have applied for the post, but Ella had taken her in hand as soon as Amy had explained about the job.

‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Amy, but the very first thing an interviewer will notice is your clothing and general appearance,’ Ella had said. ‘You really should do something about your hair and complexion, you know. I realise it’s difficult for you with a large family crammed into a little house, but you’ve got really pretty hair. If it were washed regularly and well cut to get rid of split ends, then it would do a great deal for your appearance. And though your complexion is good, just a touch of pencil on those fair eyebrows would give your face more . . . more character. I hope you don’t think I’m being critical, love, but jobs for women are scarce and if you really want to get one . . .’

‘I know you’re right.’ Amy had sighed, looking despairingly at her reflection in the small mirror which stood on the dressing table in the girls’ room. ‘The truth is, Ella, that when my mother was alive she used to wash my hair every week, regular as clockwork, and we had a bath every week, too. But now I’m working on the fish stall, it doesn’t seem to matter what I look like, and Suzie’s so mean with hot water that I’m lucky to get a bath once a month. As for clothes . . .’

‘I’ll lend you something suitable,’ Ella said
eagerly. She looked critically at her friend. ‘Yes, I’ve got a lavender blouse with a high neck and long, full sleeves and a navy skirt with a frilled hem which will suit you very well and impress the interviewer, whoever he or she may be. Tell you what, Amy, you come and stay with us the night before the interview and we’ll send you off the next morning, neat as a pin and smart as paint, and if you don’t get the job I’ll eat my new chapeau.’

Amy had been delighted to fall in with this suggestion and, despite Suzie’s grumbles, had insisted on a lengthy hot bath in the scullery the previous day. Back in the girls’ room, Ella had scrubbed Amy’s hair until the water ran clear, while Amy cleaned her nails with an orange stick. When Amy’s abundant auburn locks were dry, Ella piled the red-gold tresses on top of Amy’s head, holding them in place with three curved tortoiseshell combs. Only then did Amy don the clothes which Ella had set out and presently, looking at her reflection in the mirror, she had seen a young woman she scarcely recognised as the Amy Logan who served each day behind Mrs O’Leary’s fish stall. The blouse clung tightly to her slender figure, the well-tailored skirt emphasised her tiny waist and the face which smiled back at her was pink and white from vigorous washing, the large, hazel-green eyes bright with excitement. ‘Oh, Ella,’ Amy had breathed rapturously, ‘I never knew I could look like this – why, you could take me for a real lady.’

‘You
are
a real lady, goose,’ Ella said, laughing, ‘and once you’re away from that wretched fish market and working in an office or a shop or something similar you’ll know I’m right. Of course I hope you’ll get the job at the Adelphi, but there’s
bound to be stiff competition, so we mustn’t despair if you don’t get offered the very first position you apply for. And having seen how nice you can look, dear Amy, I’m sure you’ll want to keep it up. Now, it’s time you were off. Good luck!’

Amy had duly gone for the interview, along with a great many other young ladies of her own age, and had been waiting to hear whether she had got the job when Mrs O’Leary had her fall. Sluicing down cobbles when they finished work one evening, she had stepped back on to her empty bucket and had fallen heavily. She had made light of the accident at first, though it was clear she was in great pain, but the next day her sister had come to the fish stall to tell Amy that Mrs O’Leary’s leg was broken. Two days after that Mrs O’Leary had asked Bill and Amy to call on her and had told father and daughter that the doctor who had set her leg had said that she would be unable to walk on it for three months. ‘For as you know, I’m past seventy and I’ve an uncommon heavy frame,’ she said frankly. ‘What’s more, I don’t fancy employing someone to help Amy out just for three months, so it seemed to me and Bridget that the best thing would be for me to retire and sell the business.

‘As you know, I rent the stall from the council,’ she told them, sitting in a fireside chair, with her injured leg resting on a stool drawn up before her. ‘But I’ve a good little business and the money I’ll get for it will give me a bit of a nest egg for the years to come, though me and me sister have always put a bit by, like.’ She looked from Bill to Amy and back. ‘But your girl’s worked hard for me, Mr Logan, with never a moan or complaint, and you’ve let me have the pick o’ your catch even when you might have sold it better elsewhere, so I’s offering you first refusal, like.’

She named a sum and Amy waited for Bill to consult her or to say that they could not afford it, but instead he leaned forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his knees and said earnestly, ‘To tell you the truth, Mrs O’Leary, I’ve known ever since me illness the winter before last that I’d have to give up the fishing, lerrit go to a younger man. Gus is capable and finds the fish, and Albert’s near on as good. I reckon if they takes on young Paddy Keagan the three of them will do just about as well as we did when I were aboard. But I’ve no mind to retire yet, so I’ve been looking about me for a nice little business. And what could be better than the stall? It’d keep it in the family, like, and now young Becky’s in school I’d mebbe get me wife to give a hand.’ He turned to Amy, sitting on a stool at his feet, and patted her shoulder. ‘If you wanted to run the stall wi’ me, queen, that’d be just grand, so don’t think I’m trying to ease you out. But ever since you started them evening classes at the YWCA last September I’ve knowed you had your eye on an office job of some sort.’ He turned back to the older woman. ‘So the answer’s yes, Mrs O’Leary. I’ll buy the business with the greatest of pleasure and take over as soon as it’s all signed and sealed.’

Amy had gone to her evening classes that night with a light heart. Although she had longed for the opportunity to work in an office and use her newly acquired skills, she had felt that by so doing she would be letting both Mrs O’Leary and the family down. But her father’s buying of the fish stall changed things completely and her heart swelled with love for Bill, who had understood her yearning to be something other than a fish seller, and was now happy for her both to move out of her home and to take up different employment.

For Bill had made it plain, as the two of them had made their way to the tram stop, that living in a room share in the city with friends of her own age was the natural thing to do. He told her that with himself on the fish stall, the boys running the boat and Suzie selling the shrimps, they should be able to manage very nicely without Amy’s money coming in. Secretly Amy doubted that Suzie would agree with him, but she cared nothing for that. At first she would have her work cut out to feed and clothe herself, and pay her share of the rent, for office juniors got very little more than she had earned on the fish stall. She did not, however, intend to remain an office junior for ever. She had been overawed by the appointments of the great hotel, though the offices, when she reached them, were far from plush. She was to work in a small room with five other girls, sitting at plain deal desks with their typewriting machines before them.

‘We have a policy of promoting from within,’ the office manager told her. ‘So the successful candidate might rise to giddy heights if she stays with us, Miss Logan.’ And with this in mind, Amy had been glad to take the job when it was offered. Ella and Minnie immediately said she must move in with them and Amy did so, quite content with a mattress on the floor and with a diet which consisted largely of porridge, bread and margarine, and the oddments of fish which her father saved her from the stall, though while on duty the staff were given their meals at the hotel.

She had been a little in awe of Minnie at first; the other girl was five years older than she and worked as chief assistant in Bunney’s china department, earning a good deal more than either of the others. She and her widowed mother had originally lived in the lower half of a house in Huskisson Street, opposite St Bride’s church, but after Mrs Miniver’s death, Minnie had retained the largest room for her own use. Some months later, however, loneliness had impelled her to put a notice in a newsagent’s window, asking for a room sharer, and Ella had applied.

The two girls had got on famously, but had found the rent of such a large room in such a pleasant neighbourhood difficult to find; hence Ella’s invitation to Amy and subsequently Amy’s own suggestion that they should ask Ruth to join them.

It had been, Amy thought now, gazing out at the flat fields of Cheshire as they passed the window, a good move for everyone. She visited the house in Seafield Grove at least once a month, sometimes oftener, and though Suzie had been strange and stiff with her at first she had managed to hide her animosity under a pretence, at least, of friendliness. Bill and the boys were always glad to see her, though Paddy was apt to mutter some excuse and leave the house as she entered it. He was living with the Logans once more, since Aunt Dolly had died soon after Amy had moved into the city and, though Gran had always behaved as if Aunt Dolly was nothing but a burden, she had not survived her sister by many weeks. So the house had been let to someone else and Paddy had moved back into the boys’ room.

The train, which had been puffing along slower and slower, drew to a halt. Amy peered out and saw that they had reached Crewe. Every seat in the carriage had been taken and a great many men were standing in the corridor outside. There was a great deal of bustle and movement as people began to rise from their seats and push their way out on to the platform, while others reached up to the luggage racks for their possessions, heedless of those still seated. In the ensuing scramble Ella managed to get a place beside Amy and the two of them smiled at each other as the train began to fill up again. ‘That’s a bit of luck,’ Ella observed, settling herself into her new seat. ‘I wonder how many people on this train are bound for Hyde Park, like us? Did you notice there are a great many women aboard? I saw one woman on the platform with a purple, green and white riband under her jacket, but I couldn’t read what it said. I’ll be bound she was one of us, though.’

‘I expect lots of them are heading for the rally,’ Amy agreed. She and the other girls had their sashes beneath their jackets and did not intend to reveal them until they reached the rallying point in Hyde Park, where they were to march on the Albert Hall to hear the speakers. Amy was secretly fairly indifferent to getting the vote, which she thought was of little or no importance, but she understood Mrs Pankhurst’s point that in order to get equal opportunities with men, women must first have a say in who ran the country and how they did it. She had supported the suffragette movement ever since that first memorable rally before St George’s Hall, but neither she nor the other girls were active members.

‘We’re too young and too poor to be able to risk a term of imprisonment and bad marks against us,’ Ella had said long ago, when the matter
came up for discussion. ‘We aren’t going to chain ourselves to railings or throw ourselves under steam locomotives, but we’ll do what we can to show our support for the movement.’ So when the girls heard of the rally in London, and realised that it was to take place just five days before the coronation of King George and Queen Mary, they had decided, recklessly, to blow their week’s holiday and the money they had saved up on a week in the capital. They had managed to get lodgings quite near Euston Station, where they would cheerfully sleep two to a bed, and planned to attend the rally, to see the sights of London and, on the day before the coronation, to take up good positions somewhere along the route. They had brought with them umbrellas, a warm coat and a blanket each, and intended to spend the night on the pavement rather than miss the wonderful spectacle of the royal procession.

‘I think we ought to go straight to our lodgings and leave our suitcases,’ Ella said, as the train began to pick up speed once more. ‘Euston Station is a huge place so we’ll have our work cut out to find the other two. The train is so crowded we can’t possibly search for them until we reach London. Is Ruth wearing her poppy hat? That should be easy to spot.’

Amy chuckled. ‘Yes, I think she is, and Minnie’s got that carpet bag with the red fringe. Anyway, they’ll be looking for us too, remember.’

‘True,’ Ella said. ‘I suppose the thing to do is just to stand still. Then when everyone else is gone we’ll be able to spot each other easily. Oh, Amy, I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for years. Dear old London, I’m longing to see it again.’

‘What a glorious day!’ Amy lay on her back on the cool green grass, gazing up into the blue sky above her. ‘And isn’t this the most beautiful place you ever saw, Ella? Aren’t I glad we decided to have a day off from sightseeing before the coronation tomorrow. Mind you, when you suggested Hampton Court, I remembered old Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII and all that history stuff, and thought that we were in for another boring old museum. But this is prime!’

Ella, lying beside her on the grass, smiled and rolled on to her tummy. Propping herself on her elbows, she reached for the bag of buns they had bought earlier, selected one and proffered it to Minnie and Ruth sitting beside her. ‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ she admitted, taking a large bite out of the bun in her hand, ‘but to tell the truth, Hampton Court is one of the few places around London I’ve never visited before myself. So coming here was a bit of a gamble.’