Rosie stood up then. Now that the truth was out, there was no point in continuing. She cursed herself for even thinking she could get a job. No one in their right mind would employ a woman with her background. She had intended lying, but the clerks had known instantly. While she carried the name Selby, she also carried its stigma. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised, preparing to leave. ‘It seems I have wasted your time after all.’
‘What are you like at making tea?’
‘Nobody makes it better.’
‘When can you start?’
‘Tomorrow, if you like.’
‘See Meg Benton.’ He gestured to the kindly-faced lady, who readily beckoned. ‘Give her your details, and I’ll expect you to report for duty at nine o’clock in the morning.’ With that, he pushed the chair back and strode out of the office, leaving Rosie too stunned to take it all in.
‘You’re one of us now, dear,’ Meg told her.
Rosie couldn’t believe her ears.
Chapter Fifteen
Rosie had been employed at Woolworths for five weeks. With Danny being well taken care of, and not seeming to miss her too much, she was happy in her work, and learning more by the day. Soon after she started, Robert Fellows went away on a course and one of the clerks fell ill, so it was left to the others to carry the extra workload. Rosie didn’t mind; in fact, she liked to be kept busy, because it made the day go quicker before she went home to Danny. Now though, all the office staff were present, and Rosie had learned a great deal about the running of the place.
‘Open that window, there’s a dear.’ Meg Benton loosened the collar of her blouse. ‘I’ve never known it so hot in here.’ She peered at Rosie from over her tiny rimless spectacles; teetering on the bony precipice of her nose, it seemed that any minute they would slip over the narrow edge, but they never did. ‘Thank you, dear,’ she said, when Rosie threw open the window and resumed her seat.
‘Would you like me to fetch you a cup of tea from the canteen?’ Rosie too was feeling uncomfortably warm. The August sun blazed in through the window, warming everything in its path; including the clerks bent to their work. ‘It’s almost lunch-time anyway.’ She had arranged to meet Peggy in the canteen and, as always, was looking forward to their daily chat.
‘That would be nice, dear.’ Like the other two, Meg always ate her sandwiches at her desk. During this time there would be a smattering of small talk and gossip; the most recent discussion being the hanging of John Christie, found guilty of ‘the most horrifying murders’. Beside this was the recent Commons debate on whether to suspend all death penalties for five years. Meg Benton agreed. Horace Sykes declared: ‘Hang them all’, and Mr Mortimer had little opinion either way. As for Rosie, she still wasn’t altogether convinced that innocent people would not be hanged.
‘If you’re going to the canteen, you might fetch me a glass of water?’ That was old Mr Mortimer. He had worked in this office for many years now, and, as Meg Benton whispered to Rosie on her first day here, he was ‘almost part of the furniture’. With his grey hair and starched white collar, he resembled a vicar. Old- fashioned and blessed with a sharp mind, he kept himself to himself, usually only making his presence known by loudly blowing his enormous nose.
Addressing Horace Sykes, Rosie asked, ‘Can I get you something while I’m down there?’ He was a sullen little man, balding on top but with a wild tuft of ginger hair sticking out over each ear. In fact, old Mr Mortimer had more hair than Horace.
Without looking up, he merely grunted. Rosie took that to mean no. ‘I’ll just finish this,’ she said, feeding the invoice figures into the adding machine. ‘If I leave it halfway done, I’ll forget where I’ve got to.’ Quickly now, she wrote down the sum total and ticked off the spent invoices.
‘Oh, I’m sure you wouldn’t do that, dear.’ Meg Benton regarded Rosie through her tiny specs. ‘You know, it really is remarkable how quickly you’ve picked up the routine here. If you continue to make progress the way you have these last few weeks, I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you were next in line for a wage rise.’ Broadly smiling at one and all, though neither men noticed, she pointed out, ‘Mr Fellows always rewards the good workers, you know, and before long, you’ll be quite indispensable.’
Mr Mortimer blew his nose. ‘Nobody’s indispensable!’ he muttered, glaring at Meg Benton.
Horace Sykes had his say too. ‘I really don’t see how you can call Mrs Selby a good worker. What with Mr Fellows away on a course I’m amazed she could ask for tomorrow off. Selfish, I call it. It will only make more work for the rest of us.’ Since Rosie had made it known that she would not be reporting for work tomorrow, it had been a bone of contention with him.
Meg wagged a finger at him. ‘Now then, Horace Sykes! You know very well why Rosie can’t come in tomorrow.’ In fact, the whole of Blackburn knew that Doug Selby was being brought to court to answer the charge of murder. Smiling encouragingly, she turned to Rosie. ‘Besides, I’m quite certain our newest recruit will bring all her accounts and figures up to date before she leaves today.’ Regardless of what she might say, she didn’t like the idea of having her own workload increased either.
‘My desk will be cleared, I promise,’ Rosie assured them. ‘Even if I have to work through most of my lunch-break.’ As she spoke, the big clock over the door chimed twelve. ‘I’ll come straight back with your drinks,’ she said, rushing from the office.
Outside, she paused, leaning against the wall, with her gaze turned towards the ceiling and her mind in chaos. ‘Bugger you, Horace Sykes!’ she muttered. ‘You make it sound like I’m going on a picnic.’
She was still fuming when she joined the queue for the drinks, ‘One glass of water and a cup of milky tea, please,’ she said. Within minutes the burly woman had put them on a tray, taken her money, and was already asking for the next order before Rosie turned away. ‘Hmph! She’s in a bad mood!’ remarked Liz Rothman from houseware. ‘I expect her old man refused her again last night!’ Rosie left her giggling with her friends. If she didn’t get a move on, she wouldn’t even have time to eat her meat and potato pie.
Though the window was open and allowing a breeze through, the office was stifling after the coolness of the canteen. Mr Mortimer thanked her kindly for the water, taking it quickly from the tray and swilling it down his throat at an alarming rate. The glass had a magnifying effect on his nose and from where Rosie was standing, it appeared to fill the tumbler.
‘If you like, I’ll bring you another glass when I come back.’ Collecting her lunch-box from the top drawer of her desk, Rosie waited for his answer. When none came, she said aloud, in a voice very much like Mr Mortimer’s. ‘Why, no thank you, Rosie, but it’s very kind of you to ask.’ He didn’t even look up, but as she hurried away he blew his nose and said in an odd squeaky voice, ‘All the same, nice of you to offer.’ He ain’t such a bad old geezer, she told herself as she went down the stairs two at a time.
Peggy was seated by the table nearest the door. ‘I’ve got your mug o’ tea,’ she said. Shifting along the bench, she made room for Rosie. ‘How’s it going then, gal?’
Rosie took a refreshing gulp from her tea. ‘By! That’s good,’ she said. Running her fingers through her hair, she pushed it from her face. ‘Apart from it being like a steam bath up there, it’s going all right,’ she answered. Undoing her lunch-box she took out a paper bag. Curling the top back, she inched the pie forward until only half was showing. ‘I can’t stop long,’ she declared between bites, ‘I’ve got a stack of work to do. Horace and Old Mortimer are already making sly remarks about me having tomorrow off.’ She was quiet then, recalling how nasty Horace had been.
‘You ain’t taking notice o’ them two, are you?’ Peggy tapped her consolingly on the hand. ‘Come on, cheer up. Tomorrow will be here and gone before you know it.’
‘I wish the others would see it that way.’ She sighed. ‘Honestly, Peggy… why do some folk get so much pleasure out of being miserable?’ Miss Emmanuel
walked by just then, giving them each a fiery glance. ‘Her and Horace should swap notes,’ Rosie said with a giggle. ‘They’d have a great time being miserable together.’ She didn’t feel like laughing, but it was either laugh or cry, and she had done enough crying to last a lifetime.
‘Bugger her, and bugger Horace!’ Peggy exclaimed. ‘It ain’t them who’s got to face the judge tomorrow.’ Lowering her voice, she added softly, ‘I’ve said I’ll come with you if you like?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘No. Can you imagine if you were to ask for time off an’ all? Likely we’d both lose our jobs.’
‘You love your job, don’t you?’ She had seen a remarkable change in Rosie during these last weeks. Her brown eyes shone like chestnuts and there was a certain sparkle about her that made people stare when she walked by.
‘I feel useful again, if that’s what you mean.’ But it was much more than that, and Rosie knew it. For the first time in years she had a real purpose, getting up in the morning with somewhere to go and knowing that come Friday she would have a wage, enough to pay the bills and even the occasional shilling or two to put by. She alone was responsible for herself and Danny, and she liked that. For too long, she’d felt as though she had shrivelled and died, and now something inside her was beginning to blossom. It was a good feeling. ‘The best thing of all is that Danny really loves staying with your mam.’
Peggy laughed. ‘The feeling is mutual, I can assure you. What! It’s Danny this and Danny that. But he’s a smashing kid. You’ve done a good job with him, Rosie, gal.’ In a more serious voice, she asked, ‘Do you reckon his grandad will turn up tomorrow?’
‘Who knows? He might, but to tell the truth, Peggy, I’ve given up on him.’ Her troubled brown eyes belied her flippancy. ‘All the same, it would be nice if he did, for Doug’s sake at least.’
‘Happen Doug doesn’t want him there?’
‘Happen not.’
‘Do you want him there?’
‘I’m not bothered either way,’ she lied.
‘And Adam?’
Rosie was shocked. Peggy couldn’t have known how, in that very moment, she had been thinking of Adam. ‘Anybody can turn up. As far as I can tell, it’s open to the general public.’
‘I didn’t ask that,’ Peggy insisted. ‘I asked whether you wanted Adam there.’
Rosie thought long and hard. Did she want him there? Yes! Did she love him? Yes! Was she ready to admit it? No! He was married, and so was she. Taking a deep breath she answered truthfully, ‘It would be better for everyone if he stayed away.’ She took another gulp of her tea, then absent-mindedly twiddled her hair between her finger and thumb. Now she was looking at Peggy with fire in her eyes. ‘Why do men always take us for fools?’
Peggy laughed. ‘Robert Fellows could take me for a fool anytime.’ She pursed her lips in a kissing gesture and made clicking sounds with her tongue. ‘Nice bit of all right, he is.’
The mood was lightened, and the minutes ticked away agreeably. ‘I’d best get back. See you later.’ Before Peggy could answer, Rosie had replaced her empty cup on the rack and was soon gone from sight. ‘Like a flaming will-o-the-wisp!’ Peggy chuckled. Rosie’s half-eaten pie was lying on the plate. ‘Waste not, want not,’ said Peggy, tucking in.
At half-past five, Rosie had finished the bought ledger. ‘Good girl,’ Meg Benton said as she put on her coat and left. Half an hour later, Mr Mortimer departed, grumbling at how ‘some people have no consideration for others’. When Rosie asked him what he meant, he blew his nose twice and made a hasty exit.
‘Ah, good!’ exclaimed Horace Sykes as he passed Rosie’s desk on the way out. ‘I see you’ve started entering the stock orders for tomorrow.’ He peered at the pile of sheets before her and, smiling to himself, went on his way. ‘I hope your wife’s burnt your tea!’ Rosie mumbled after him.
When Peggy tapped on the door soon after six o’clock, Rosie was only halfway through. ‘You’ll have to go without me, Peggy,’ she apologised. ‘I’ve got to finish this or my name will be mud round here tomorrow.’ She didn’t want to give either of the men an excuse to complain about her. ‘I did warn your mam I might be late, but she said not to worry… that she’d give Danny his tea.’
‘’Course she will,’ Peggy confirmed. ‘Do you want me to wait for you?’
‘No, thanks. You get off home. Tell Danny I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘All right, but I think you should have left it for them to do. I would have!’ Making ghostly noises, she went down the stairs. ‘Mind the bogey man don’t get you!’ she called out, and her echoing voice sent shivers down Rosie’s spine. Soon everyone but the night watchman would be gone, and most of the place would be in darkness. Frantic, she sent her pen across the pages at a faster pace. ‘If anybody puts a hand on me, they’ll be sorry!’ she warned Mr Mortimer’s creaky old desk. And for the next half hour, even the smallest sound had her peering into every corner.
The office clock loudly ticked away the minutes; tick-tock, tick-tock, the rhythmic sound reverberating from the walls. It was half-past six, then quarter to seven, and still she seemed to be making little impact on the stock sheets.
At five minutes past seven, she turned over the last page and gave a sigh of relief. ‘If I hurry, I might just catch the seven-fifteen tram!’ When a man’s voice answered, she almost leaped out of her chair.
It was Robert, and she had been too engrossed in her work to hear him come in. ‘No need to rush for the tram,’ he said, smiling as he came towards her. ‘I’d consider it a pleasure to take you home.’ In fact, he had just taken delivery of a new Vauxhall Velox, and would welcome the opportunity to show it off.
‘Mr Fellows!’ Rosie gasped with relief. ‘You gave me a fright.’
‘Well now, I certainly wouldn’t want to do that.’ Seating himself on the edge of her desk, he asked with genuine concern, ‘What are you doing still here at this time of night?’
‘As I won’t be in tomorrow, I wanted to get the stock-sheets done.’ She thought he looked incredibly handsome. She had only ever seen him in his office suit, with a sober tie done up at the neck and his fair hair slicked back. This evening, though, he was dressed in brown cord trousers and a grey cotton roll-top jumper. His thick fair hair was tumbling loose about his ears, and he had a sense of devil-may-care about him. For some reason, his closeness was making her nervous. ‘I’m finished now, so I’ll be on my way. Thank you for the offer of a lift, but the tram-stop is only a few minutes’ walk. It drops me off right outside my street, you see.’ Fumbling for her bag, she leaned forward. It was then she smelled the drink on him. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now she could see he’d had one over the eight. ‘Goodnight, Mr Fellows,’ she said, quickly turning away.
‘Please.’ Putting his hand on her arm, he said softly, ‘Let me take you home. Besides, I’ve been waiting for the chance to get to know you better.’ Drawing her to him, he smiled into her eyes. ‘You’re very lovely. As soon as I saw you, I knew you would brighten up this dreary office.’
Rosie was affronted by this remark. ‘Oh? And is that why you gave me the job?’ she asked angrily. She made an effort to release herself from his grip, but his fingers were like iron bands round her arms.
‘At first, maybe. But in those first few days when you showed yourself to be remarkably able, I realised I’d found the best of both worlds… a good-looker who could actually work!’ When he realised she was not favourably impressed with his flippant remarks, he apologised in a sincere voice. ‘Please, Rosie, don’t be offended. I do mean it as a compliment.’
‘I’m sure you do.’ She struggled against him. ‘But I really don’t wish to discuss it. Right now I have a son waiting for me, and I mean to catch the seven-fifteen tram.’
With one mighty twist of her arms, she managed to free herself. Leaving her cardigan draped over the back of the chair, she grabbed her bag and made for the door. But he was right behind her. Before she could open the door, he stretched o
ut his arms and pressed her to the wall. ‘So you won’t let me take you home?’ he murmured brushing his face against her neck. ‘If that’s the way you want it, fine. But surely you won’t deny me one little kiss?’ Swinging her round, he brought his mouth down on hers. The kiss was long and passionate, with Rosie struggling beneath him and his arms wound tightly about her.
Just once he loosed his hold on her, and that was when the kiss was over. ‘I think I love…’
Rosie didn’t give him time to finish his sentence. Taking the opportunity, she lashed out with her foot and caught him on the shins. When he reeled back, she was out of the door and down the stairs. Even before he recovered from the vicious kick, she was running down the street. The tram was just drawing out. Quickening her steps, she reached it before it got up full speed. With one mighty leap she fell on to the platform and straight into the conductor’s arms. ‘A threepenny ticket, please,’ she gasped breathlessly, then fell into the nearest seat and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she peeped out of the window to see how far the tram had got. ‘This isn’t the way to Castle Street,’ she told the conductor.
‘I should hope not!’ he replied, his eyes twinkling. ‘This tram goes to Whalley End.’
It was ten minutes to the next stop, quarter of an hour before the right tram came along, and gone eight by the time Rosie knocked on Peggy’s door. Danny came running down the passage to meet her, and Peggy announced, ‘About time too. We thought you’d decided to stay the night.’ Rosie was tempted to explain there and then, but decided against it. Instead, she made her apologies all round and went home with Danny. Once there, she sat him on her knee, and he told her about everything he’d done that day.
Normally, Rosie was all attention when Danny described his little escapades. Tonight, though, she found it hard to concentrate, because something else was cluttering up her mind. It was Robert Fellows, and that long passionate kiss. It was the realisation that he was a very handsome man. It was the way his eyes made love to her. And, much to Rosie’s astonishment, she was recalling it all with a great deal of pleasure. ‘Watch yourself, Rosie, gal!’ she muttered beneath her breath. ‘He’s probably had more fools like you than you’ve had threepenny tram rides.’
More Than Riches Page 27