Ironmonger's Daughter (14 page)

Robert had sensed that something was troubling the pretty young server, and he was determined to find out what it was that had made her ignore him. Maybe he had inadvertently upset her, he pondered. If it was so, he would have to seek an opportunity to talk to her, and it would have to be done discreetly. It was management policy for the white-collar staff to avoid becoming too familiar with the workers. His father had warned him: ‘If a good standard is to be adhered to, Robert, it is important to keep our distance. Remember, familiarity breeds contempt. The workers know their place, and it is for us to make sure we keep to the status quo. Any deviation might be seen as a form of weakness, and be sure, the workers would most certainly take advantage.’

It was the last Friday of June and after the lunch break most of the management had hurried away to finish their tasks for the week. Robert tarried until the last of the staff had departed from the table and then he sauntered over to the serving hatch and looked through. He could see the girl bending over the large sink, her uniform coatsleeves turned back to the elbows and her hands deep in the steaming water. For a few seconds he watched her, then he called her name. Connie turned with a startled look on her face.

Robert smiled disarmingly and beckoned her over to him. ‘Have you got a few minutes, Connie? I’d like to talk with you,’ he said.

‘Is anyfink wrong?’ she asked quickly.

‘No. I just want a few minutes, if you can spare the time.’

Connie wiped her hands quickly on a roller towel and dabbed at her hot forehead before following him through the door into the dining room. Robert was back at his place at the table and when she walked over he beckoned to a chair.

‘Sit down a minute, Connie,’ he said quietly.

She sat down quickly and looked at him with some trepidation.

‘I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve had the feeling lately that I might have said or done something that has upset you.’

Connie took a deep breath. ‘Of course not, sir. Why should yer fink that?’

He met her eyes and smiled. ‘Call me Robert. It sounds a lot better than sir. Anyway, I just had that feeling. You seem to be a little distant lately. I’ve been missing that friendly smile of yours, if I may say so.’

Connie clasped her hands on the table and looked into his blue eyes. She could feel the exeitement rising from deep within her and she struggled to reply. ‘I . . . I didn’t realise I was actin’ any different, sir . . . I mean Robert.’

He saw the flush in her cheeks and his eyes studied her carefully. He looked at a few wayward strands of her blond hair which had slipped down from under her cap, and at her blue eyes. He noticed her discomfort and he suddenly felt very sorry for her. He reached out and touched her clasped hands very briefly.

‘I hope you like working here, Connie. I wouldn’t like to see you leave us. You’ve brightened up the place. Old Mrs Kerrigan was all right, but I think the job was getting too much for her.’

Connie smiled shyly. ‘I like the job, Robert. It’s much better than the biscuit factory.’

‘Oh, and what did you do there?’

‘I was packin’ biscuits all day long,’ she replied.

Robert looked at her with some concern in his eyes. She was certainly very attractive. She must be around sixteen or so, he thought, and already factory fodder. She would probably end up married before long and have a brood of children to bring up in a grim, tumbledown backstreet. She would probably struggle on like the rest of the local folk and become old prematurely. She had obviously not had a very good education and yet she seemed very bright and intelligent. It was a shame, he thought, and something that he and his father had clashed over many times recently. The elder had maintained that there had to be a supply of uneducated people to work in the factories and shops and it was the way of things. Robert had disagreed strongly. Why should it have to be so? Why shouldn’t working-class people have better chances of education and better housing? Why were there so many gas-lit streets when factories had electrical power? The houses in Ironmonger Street were lit by gas and yet there were electricity cables running down the turning. Peter had called his argument naive in the extreme. The cost of installing electricity was hardly going to be met by the tenants – and how could they be expected to pay more for improvements when they were hard pushed to pay the current rents? Robert’s contention that local firms should seek to buy out the landlords and develop the houses for their workers angered his father. Robert knew that his ideas were considered to be dangerous and typical of university students. Peter had suggested that it was time for him to find out for himself how business worked, as a few months of practical experience might help to mellow his thinking. He would see then that running a factory needed a pragmatic approach. There was no time to dwell on the unfairness of life. Robert was sure that he would never share his father’s views and he felt that he had made a mistake. He should never have allowed his father to persuade him to enter the family business. Now, as he sat with the poor, overworked young girl opposite him, the young man was troubled. Suddenly he realised he had been staring at her in silence. ‘Is factory work the only type of work you’ve done?’ he asked her quickly.

Connie nodded, and a slight smile crossed her face. ‘It was the only sort of work goin’. I s’pose I could ’ave worked in a shop, but it’s Saturday work an’ the wages ain’t all that good.’

Robert looked at her in silence for a moment. ‘How old are you, Connie?’ he asked suddenly.

‘I’ll be seventeen in November.’

‘I suppose you’ve got a boyfriend?’

She felt he was becoming a little too inquisitive, but his face showed a genuine interest and so she nodded. ‘’E’s a sailor. ’E’s bin away at sea fer four months, but ’e’s comin’’ome on leave termorrer.’

Robert smiled. ‘We are still friends, aren’t we?’

Connie laughed with embarrassment and looked down at the tablecloth. When she lifted her eyes to meet his she saw a strange look there. ‘’Course we’re friends,’ she said. She glanced back in the direction of the serving hatch. ‘I’d better get back ter work or Dot’ll fink I’m slackin’.’

‘We’ll talk some again, Connie,’ he said as he got up and buttoned up his jacket.

Connie went back to the sink, her mind in a whirl. There was something in the man’s tone that had both excited and worried her. She wanted to think of Michael’s homecoming and the pleasure of being with him and feeling his kisses once more, but instead she found herself dwelling on the conversation she had had with Robert Armitage. Her face was flushed and her hands were slightly shaking as she bent over the sink.

Bright sunlight filtered through the drawn blinds and, as Connie opened her eyes, she heard the sound of the rag-and-bone man’s barrow on the cobbles below. She looked at the alarm clock beside her bed and sat up quickly. It was nine-thirty on Saturday morning and she realised that she should have been up an hour ago. There was lots to do before she went to Waterloo Station to meet Michael. Connie jumped out of bed and hurried into the kitchen to light the gas under the kettle. While she was waiting for it to boil, she went back into her bedroom and poured cold water into a bowl from the matching blue china jug on the washstand beneath the window. As she looked through the curtains, Connie could see the old street vendor standing beside his barrow and he appeared to be arguing with Mrs Cosgrove. His hands were spread out in front of him in what Connie thought was a gesture of ‘take it or leave it’, and Clara Cosgrove seemed to be dubious, pinching her chin. It was a familiar scene, and she closed the curtains on it.

She slipped out of her nightgown and splashed the cold water over her face and upper body. As she dried herself on the rough towel, the girl studied herself in the dressing-table mirror. As if she was looking at a stranger she had never seen before, she followed the line of her hips as they curved up into her narrow waist. She was aware that she had put on a little weight around the shoulders, and around the tops of her arms and her thighs. Her small breasts were firm and rounded, and as she splashed the cold water on them her nipples grew hard. Connie smiled and then quickly dressed and went out into the tiny back kitchen.

As she sipped her tea and nibbled at the burnt toast Connie glanced at the shopping list that had been placed under her door by Helen as she went off to her early morning cleaning job. It was the usual procedure for Connie to go to the Tower Bridge Road market on Saturdays and she recalled how she had bumped into Michael there not so very long ago. After his months at sea he would probably looked tanned, she guessed, and he would no doubt have lots of stories to tell her of his travels. Would he take her in his arms at the station, or would he merely grin in that way of his and act as though he had only been gone for a few days? Connie swallowed the last of the toast and gulped down the now lukewarm tea. The flat was tidy and the curtains would not need changing for another week at least and the weather was so mild she didn’t need to light the fire. She took down a china shoe from the mantelshelf and tipped it up on the table. It was there she kept the housekeeping money, and the money her mother gave her every other week to pay the rent. Connie had often wondered about where that money came from but Kate waved her questions away whenever she asked.

‘It’s a regular fing from when yer farvver died. While I’m alive the money’ll be there, so don’t let it concern yer, child,’ she always said.

Connie thought that it must be some sort of insurance and, as her mother was not going to enlarge on what she said, she had to leave it at that.

The sun had risen high in the heavens by the time she left. Children were playing in the street and, outside the Richards’ front door, a few business-minded youngsters were busy chopping up apple boxes for firewood. For them, earning pennies on Saturday morning was all important. The money they got took them to the pie and mash shop and to the tuppenny rush at the Trocette cinema to see ‘Flash Gordon’ and ‘Riders of the Purple Sage’. On a good day the pennies stretched to a bag of fruit and a toffee bar as well.

In the market the odour of fish and fresh fruit mingled with the smell of newly baked bread and rolls and at the cake shop a sweet aroma of hot apple pies and jam doughnuts drifted out on the morning air. The calls and the banter of the traders rang out and were drowned as the number sixty-eight tram clattered past. Lines of women queued patiently at the stalls, their pinned-up hair covered with nets and square cloth scarves. Their shopping baskets got heavier and their purses became lighter as the Saturday morning ritual took place. Connie’s shopping basket was on her arm and she stopped to rest beside the Cheap-Jack stall. She cast her eye over the wares and saw amongst the profusion of bits and pieces a small bottle of Californian Poppy. Connie held it up and glanced at the dapper-looking stall-owner.

‘Give us a shillin’, luv. It’s the real fing. No rubbish on this stall,’ he said brightly.

Connie flushed slightly and put the bottle down on the pile.

‘All right, make it tenpence. Yer gettin’ a bargain. I’m givin’ the stuff away terday. I mus’ be mad, but anyfing fer a pretty gel.’

The young girl fished into her purse and took out some coppers. It might be a bit extravagant but, after all, Michael doesn’t come home every day of the week, she thought to herself.

When she had finished the shopping, Connie joined the Bartletts for the Saturday midday meal. Matthew brought back hot pies and mash and a basin of steaming parsley liquor. They all sat around the table in the front room and chatted about the week’s events with the wireless switched on and tuned to a programme of medleys by the Harry Roy band. Connie always looked forward to the Saturday meal. It made a change from being alone. Molly was in a cheerful mood and the two girls laughed and chatted together. Matthew was still working the East End markets and he had managed to earn enough that week to buy a few badly needed groceries. Helen noticed that her husband seemed more relaxed than he had been for some time and she knew it was because he had heard that the furniture factory was opening up again and wanted its old skilled hands back. Matthew was a French polisher by trade and he felt optimistic about getting a regular job again. He joined in the light-hearted conversation and, when Molly asked him to tell Connie about the man in the Old Ford Road market, he looked at Helen and she raised her eyes to the ceiling and grinned at her niece.

‘The times we’ve ’eard that story this week, Con.’

‘Go on, Dad. Tell Connie,’ Molly pleaded, her large round face beaming.

‘Well, it was on Monday mornin’,’ Matthew began. ‘I was in the market early, so I could get me pitch. Yer ’ave ter get there early or yer’ll get squeezed out by the stalls.’

‘Get ter the story, Matt,’ Helen said. ‘Connie ain’t got all day.’

‘Well, I was layin’ me stuff out,’ Matthew went on, ‘when this ole man comes up. Funny-lookin’ ole sod ’e was. ’E ’ad a row of medal ribbons pinned on ’is chest an’ ’is boots were all worn out. There was no buttons on ’is coat. In fact it was tied up wiv string. The ole boy’s face was black as Newgate’s knocker an’ ’e ’ad a dirty beard. It looked like ’e’d bin sittin’ over a wood fire all night. Anyway, I started callin’ out like I always do. “Come on, girls, get yer laces an’ collar studs ’ere. Razor blades an’ ’air-pins.” Now this ole boy is jus’ standin’ there right in front o’ me. I said to ’im, “Do me a favour, mate. Go an’ stand in front o’ somebody else. Yer blockin’ me pitch.”’E didn’t take a blind bit o’ notice. ’E jus’ stood there starin’. I was gettin’ a bit anxious. I mean, yer can’t expect people ter stop an’ buy wiv this ole character standin’ right in front o’ yer. The bloke on the veg stall next ter me told me the only way ter get rid of ’im was ter give ’im a couple o’ coppers fer a cup o’ tea. Well, I tell yer, before I got me ’and out o’ me pocket this ole tramp was ’oldin’ ’is dirty mitt out. ’E grabs the tuppence an’ off ’e trots. Ten minutes later ’e was back, large as life. Well I wasn’t goin’ ter give ’im any more money, so I tried ter ignore ’im. It was nearly eleven o’clock an’ I ’ain’t sold a fing. I was gettin’ worried, I can tell yer. I ’ad ter do somefink quick. As it ’appened I ’ad a few safety razors in me case, so I picked up one an’ took the wrappin’ off. I waved it in front of the ole boy an’ made an ’orrible face, then I called out, “Best razor blades yer can buy. Gavver round gels. See the demonstration.” Yer should ’ave seen the ole boy move. Before yer could say Jack Robinson ’e was off like a shot out of a gun.’