The Rainbow Years (14 page)
Authors: Rita Bradshaw
Amy nodded. Aunt Kitty was smiling about it but she could still recall the anger she’d felt when Aunt May had barely expressed her thanks once the tickets were in her hand. Her voice a little subdued now, she said, ‘I’d better get off home, Aunt Kitty, or I’ll be late for my dinner.’
The interview and then the talk with Mr Mallard had taken longer than she had expected, and she was loath to give Mr O’Leary and her granda any excuse to go for her again. They’d taken the tack of ignoring her existence since the previous episode and she found she preferred it that way.
‘Aye, all right, lass, we’ll talk on the way and you can tell me everything that happened so’s I can tell your grandma. She likes to know all the ins and outs where you’re concerned. I’ll nip in quick before your granda gets home.’
Amy nodded. ‘Thanks, Aunt Kitty, but tell Gran I haven’t told them at home yet so I don’t know if Aunt May will agree to me going.’
‘Oh, she will, hinny. The extra money will speak for itself and the place is perfectly respectable, after all. Mind, Father Fraser would find fault with it, no doubt. The last time he called on me mam he was going on about the waitresses’ hemlines at the Grand being too short. The Grand, of all places. But your Father Lee is all right, isn’t he?’
The last carried a note of wistfulness. Amy knew Kitty had had several run-ins with her priest lately; he didn’t hold with women being employed in positions of authority when men were out of work. He had made Kitty feel so uncomfortable about her promotion at the laundry that she hadn’t been to Mass in weeks. Amy inclined her head again. ‘Father Lee is lovely,’ she agreed. ‘Uncle Ronald often says him and Father Fraser are like chalk and cheese.’
‘I can think of a better word than chalk to describe the old misery.’ Kitty grinned but Amy had to force a smile. She’d feel better once she’d faced them all at home.
Chapter 6
‘You’ve done
what
?’ May’s voice was shrill.
what
?’ May’s voice was shrill.
‘Got another job,’ repeated Amy, adding hastily, ‘and it pays two shillings more at least than Mrs Tollett’s.’
She had arrived home just in time to help her aunt dish up the evening meal and everyone was now tucking in. It had been Perce and not her granda this time who had turned to her a few moments before and said, ‘Cutting it a bit fine, weren’t you? What delayed you?’ And she had answered, matching her tone to his, ‘I’ve got another job, I had the interview this afternoon.’
‘What do you mean,
at least
two shillings more?’
at least
two shillings more?’
She might have known her aunt would pick up on that. Amy put down her knife and fork. ‘It isn’t a housemaid’s job,’ she said, aware everyone except the three youngest children and little Milly in her high chair had stopped eating to stare at her. ‘It’s at Callendars in High Street West and it’s waitressing. I get ten shillings but then sometimes there’s tips on top of that.’
‘Ten shillings?’ Perce chipped in and again his tone caught Amy on the raw. ‘They’re having you on. Who’d pay ten shillings plus extras to a bit lass still at school?’
She had known Perce wouldn’t like her working at Callendars. It would suit him to think she was stuck away in Roker in that quiet guest house cleaning and making beds and the like, not seeing a soul. The realisation hit in the same moment that she acknowledged she’d also been aware Bruce would react as he was now doing when he said, ‘I’ve heard talk of this new place and it pays well although they’re particular who they take. Amy’s done all right for herself if she’s got in there.’
‘Aye, I’ve heard talk an’ all.’ Wilbur’s lip curled.‘Some bloke with more money than sense from the south thinking he can set up here with fancy ideas and not much else. There’s not many who can afford to waste money on a meal out, and if they can, they want good honest plain food, none of your highfalutin rubbish. He won’t last the year. She’s better at Tollett’s.’
Amy didn’t move, and the expression on her face did not alter. Quietly she said, ‘The manager explained to me today that they are serving a variety of food for different pockets and tastes and keeping the prices down. The café is for fried fish and soups and that sort of thing, and the tea shop is for morning coffee and afternoon tea.’ She ignored her grandfather’s snort of contempt. ‘The main restaurant caters for business functions and wedding receptions and that sort of thing, as well as for respectable people who just want to have a square meal and a pleasant evening out. The nearest place that’s anywhere similar is in Newcastle, so Mr Mallard is convinced they’ve got lots of scope.’
‘Lots of scope my backside!’ Perce glanced round the table. ‘I’m with Granda on this. You know where you are with working as a housemaid. It’s steady money for a steady job.’
Amy stared at her cousin. She hadn’t realised until this moment just how much she disliked him. ‘At Mrs Tollett’s I’d be working from seven in the morning until seven at night six days a week, and the housekeeper acted as though she was doing me a favour in allowing an hour off for my dinner.’
‘So?’ Mr O’Leary came in with his two pennyworth. ‘A bit of hard work never killed anyone.’
‘It didn’t do my mam much good.’ The minute the words were out she regretted rising to his provocation. She had promised herself she would keep calm whatever was said, and here she was biting back in the first minute or two. She looked away from the florid face with its big pockmarked nose as she said, ‘The whole point is it’s more money at Callendars right from the start and if everything goes well as they expect it to, it would be good to be in right from the start.’ Kitty had told her to mention that. ‘If it doesn’t,’ she shrugged her shoulders, ‘there’s always something like Mrs Tollett’s.’
‘You think you can just pick something like Mrs Tollett’s up whenever you want to?’ Wilbur asked scornfully.
Amy faced him. ‘Aye, I do.’
Her answer seemed to floor him for a moment but he managed a ‘Huh!’ in reply.
May entered the fray again. ‘When would they want you to start?’
‘The day after I leave school.’
May nodded and then turned to Ronald who had said nothing thus far. ‘What do you think?’
Ronald didn’t answer his wife directly. Instead he looked at Amy and said, ‘Do I take it the two shillings would be extra board to your aunt?’
He was throwing her a line and Amy took it. She nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said quickly. ‘If it’s all right with you, Aunt May,’ she glanced at her aunt, ‘I’d keep any tips and use them for my tram fare, along with the shilling we agreed I’d have when I was going to work for Mrs Tollett, but I would give you nine shillings for board.’
‘Then I’d say with the slump worsening she’d be as well to take the job,’ Ronald said mildly. ‘To my mind there’s no guarantee she would be kept on somewhere like Mrs Tollett’s any more than at Callendars the way things are going round here.’
May didn’t look at her father or her father-in-law when she brought her eyes away from her husband’s face. She smoothed her apron and said, ‘That’s settled then but I don’t know what Mrs Tollett will say. I think I’ll write and tell her. She’s got a couple of weeks to get someone else so it’s not as if we’re leaving her in the lurch.’
Wilbur made a sound in his throat which was somewhere between a growl and a sigh but did no more to break the silence which followed as everyone began eating again. Amy wasn’t tasting her food.
She’d done it.
Her legs felt trembly with reaction. And without anything like the scene she’d imagined on the way home, thanks to her Uncle Ronald.
She’d done it.
Her legs felt trembly with reaction. And without anything like the scene she’d imagined on the way home, thanks to her Uncle Ronald.
Exactly a week later, on Saturday morning, Amy received a letter from Mr Callendar asking her to call in and see him ‘on an urgent matter of some importance’. The letter burned a hole in the pocket of her skirt all morning as she blackleaded the range, scoured the kitchen flagstones with soda, whitened the front doorstep and bleached the pavement and went about the hundred and one jobs her aunt had lined up for her.
She waited until she and Kitty were seated on the tram into Bishopwearmouth later in the day before she showed her the letter. ‘Do you mind if I go there first before we go to Gran’s?’ she asked when Kitty’s eyes had scanned the couple of lines of writing.
‘Aye, you go, lass.’ Kitty tried to hide her disquiet. ‘Mam’s asked me to pick up a pound of scrag ends and some rabbit pieces from that butcher she likes in Crowtree Road. She’s got it in her head some of the others aren’t above trying to pass off the odd dead cat and worse, and she might be right at that. You don’t see as many moggies round here as you used to. Anyway, I’ll be thereabouts when you’re done or waiting outside. And don’t worry, I’m sure it’s something and nothing.’
Amy nodded but she felt there was something ominous about the letter and she sensed Aunt Kitty thought so too.
There was a small group of men on the other side of the road opposite Central Station when they alighted from the tram, some leaning against the wall, some with their hands in their pockets. Amy knew without looking that they were out of work. There were men at most corners these days, caps and mufflers on and boots patched and shined. They all had the same dead look in their eyes. She always found it painful to see them but today, with the letter in her pocket, it was worse. She didn’t know what she’d do if something had happened to stop her working at Callendars, and Aunt May had already written an apologetic note to Mrs Tollett.
The café seemed busy when she pushed open the door although the tea shop was only half full from what she could see. She was about to approach one of the waitresses when Mr Callendar himself walked through the far door at the back of the café. She watched him hesitate as he caught sight of her and then he was walking towards her, a smile on his face. ‘Miss Shawe.’ He extended his hand and shook hers, saying as he did so, ‘Thank you for responding so promptly.’
‘You said it was urgent, Mr Callendar.’
‘In a manner of speaking.’ He let go of her hand, glancing around him. ‘Let’s go to my office, it’s quieter there.’
He was embarrassed
. As Amy followed him across the café, the butterflies which had been fluttering in her stomach since she had first read the letter were now doing a fandango. Was he going to sack her before she had even started the job? What had she done wrong?
. As Amy followed him across the café, the butterflies which had been fluttering in her stomach since she had first read the letter were now doing a fandango. Was he going to sack her before she had even started the job? What had she done wrong?
Mr Callendar opened the door into the corridor and then stood aside for her to precede him, before leading the way up the stairs to his room on the first floor of the building.
‘Please be seated, Miss Shawe.’ He gestured to the chair in front of his desk and only sat down once she had. Then it seemed as though he didn’t know how to begin. He stared at her before reaching into one of the drawers in the desk and bringing out an envelope.‘Before I show you this I would like to assure you that no one else but myself has read it.’
His words were meant to reassure Amy but they had the opposite effect. ‘What is it?’
In reply he pushed the envelope across the desk. ‘This must have been slid under the door sometime on Tuesday night because I found it when I arrived Wednesday morning. Fortunately I’d come in very early to clear some paperwork so no one else knows of its existence.’ The name and address on the envelope had been put together using pasted letters cut from a newspaper, as had the message on the single piece of paper inside.
Dear Mr Callendar,I understand you have recently taken a Miss Amy Shawe into your employ as a waitress. I wonder if she told you the truth about her background, namely that her mam was nothing more than a common prostitute who wasn’t married to Miss Shawe’s father. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this really the type of person you want working for you? I would have thought your customers have the right to expect better. Because you are not from these parts I wasn’t sure if you knew the facts, but believe me, everyone else does. It wouldn’t reflect well on your establishment if the news got around that it was being used for immoral purposes, and I have reason to believe that Miss Shawe is certainly her mother’s daughter in this respect.
It was signed simply, ‘A wellwisher’.
Amy’s mouth had fallen open slightly as she read the poison. She could hardly take it in for a second and then her head snapped up, her breathing sharp. ‘This isn’t true,’ she declared hotly. ‘My mam wasn’t a - what this letter says. She wasn’t. It wasn’t like that.’
‘Please don’t upset yourself.’
‘She wasn’t married when she had me but that wasn’t her fault. He, the man, strung her along and . . . and . . .’ No, she couldn’t cry. Please, please, don’t let me cry. She swallowed against the massive lump in her throat. ‘He did die in the war like I told you,’ she said, her face burning, ‘and it was only then my mam found out he was married. But she never went with anyone else. That’s all lies.’
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