a Breed of Women

by Fiona Kidman

  Leonie listened thoughtfully. Then she said, ‘Mr Whitwell, that’s the librarian, is looking for somebody now. Have you got School Cert?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You read?’

  Harriet admitted that she hadn’t done much reading since her arrival in Weyville, but told her about all the books she had tried to get her hands on when she was at school at Ohaka.

  ‘Then that settles it, it’d solve everything for you. Surely your cousin couldn’t mind you doing that?’

  ‘Of course not, she wouldn’t believe it was true. But what about you?’

  ‘I tell you, it’s no good. I haven’t got any more qualifications than I had before. Mr Whitwell talked to them about me, and they’d have taken me, only the chairman of the library committee’s got a real bee in his bonnet about getting someone to qualify in library school. Nobody from Weyville ever has, and he feels its downgrading the library at a national level, so it has to be someone with School Certificate who’d be eligible to do their Library Certificate.’

  ‘That means I’d have to swot?’

  ‘Do you mind?’ Leonie looked at her keenly.

  Harriet thought that she really didn’t have much choice, all things considered. The beginnings of ‘the big plan’ even seemed to emerge from this totally unexpected encounter.

  ‘I hadn’t thought about swotting,’ said Harriet, as honestly as she could, ‘but I can’t see why I shouldn’t.’

  ‘I think you should come and see Mr Whitwell. I’ll take you.’

  It occurred to Harriet when she faced Mr Whitwell that she couldn’t have been a very prepossessing sight In the morning she had dressed badly, she knew she was deathly pale, pie crumbs were sticking to her dress. Yet he liked her, she knew it right away.

  When she had to admit she had no references, he said that he was quite happy to accept Leonie’s recommendation. Provided she could promise him that she would turn up armed with her School Certificate to show to the committee, he could see no reason why she shouldn’t start on Monday week. He rang the committee chairman, who approved the appointment, filled in an application form for her to join the next library school course, and a short while later the girls emerged from the library with Harriet appointed to the position.

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ Harriet burbled to this amazingly generous girl who had not only found her a job but who was a character referee as well; this girl who had been prepared to do this thing even at the expense of her own heart’s desire. She was quite extraordinary, and Harriet’s heart sang.

  ‘I have a best friend,’ she said, laughing out loud.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Leonie sang back, swinging around a lamppost. ‘And up See-de-nee’s backside. With a lamppost.’

  ‘And up Evil Neville’s, too.’

  ‘Down with men.’

  ‘Young men. I like Mr Whitwell.’

  ‘Of course. Of course, we like Mr Whitwell,’ Leonie said joyfully. ‘But he’s not men.’

  ‘My father’s men, though.’

  ‘Stamp him out, stamp him out!’

  The girls weren’t the only ones dancing. A blast of music suddenly blared forth from the top of the street, and a truck lumbered towards them with a loud hailer atop it. ‘We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight, we gonna rock, rock, rock till broad daylight,’ yelled the music. The truck came close and they saw a huge placard bearing the words ‘ROCK ’N’ ROLL JAMBOREE’. Three staggering white creatures stumbled around on the tray of the truck, apparently in time to the music. They were Noddy and Nance and another girl that Harriet didn’t know. She remembered that she hadn’t seen them the previous evening because Sydney had picked her up outside the milkbar.

  ‘Whatever do you think they’re doing?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Didn’t you know they were going in for the rock ’n’ roll marathon? They’re trying to win a hundred pounds for dancing the longest. I guess they must be taking them down to the Town Hall so everyone can watch them.’

  ‘They look awful,’ said Harriet.

  ‘I’ve heard they’ve been going for two days. They’re the last ones left in.’

  The truck crawled past them. None of the contestants looked at Harriet. Nance’s feet seemed to be all bound up, and Noddy’s head looked as if it was the only part of him moving; nothing unusual about that. They looked for all the world like sleepwalkers.

  But I have sleepwalked too, thought Harriet, and now I’m awakening again. Here in Weyville, there is hope, there are dreams, but one wakes to dream. Awakening and dreaming — again she wondered where one left off and the other began. Who are the sleepers? Who are the dreamers? Nobody knows.

  Just as they were parting, Leonie turned to Harriet, and her face lit up. ‘I’ve got a best friend now,’ she said.

  It was a touchstone for each of them, something to hold onto. For both of them it was the first time.

  It was three o’clock when she went back to haberdashery. Cousin Alice was standing with Mr Stubbs, her expression decidedly unpleasant. Harriet eyed her cautiously. Cousin Alice didn’t blink.

  Harriet decided to take up her place behind the counter. ‘Hullo, Cousin Alice. You didn’t tell me you wanted anything. I could have brought what you needed home for you.’

  ‘I certainly didn’t want to come here,’ said Cousin Alice, in a voice of pure chipped ice. ‘Mr Stubbs rang me.’

  ‘Were you concerned about me? That’s awfully nice of you,’ said Harriet warmly. You have a spirit still, a voice inside her whispered.

  ‘Harriet, are you being flippant with us?’ said Cousin Alice.

  ‘Well no, not really. I was just thinking how nice it was that Mr Stubbs was worried about me when I felt so awfully ill. I didn’t like to tell him this morning, but really it was very understanding of him to notice.’

  ‘What?’ said Cousin Alice uncertainly. ‘Then why didn’t you come home?’

  ‘Oh, I was on my way home but I got caught up. Some business cropped up and I’m afraid it took rather longer than I expected. Once I was in the fresh air I felt better, so I decided to come back to work after all. But Mr Stubbs, I’m terribly sorry, I’m finishing up here and starting another job. Would you like to take a week’s notice or shall I finish up today, seeing it’s Friday?’

  ‘Harriet,’ said Cousin Alice, ‘you don’t have another job to go to. Mr Stubbs tells me that you are quite useless. Even Julie Simmons sold haberdashery better than you do. He planned to dismiss you instantly unless you had some suitable explanation about your absence this afternoon. But this story about being ill, if it’s true, Mr Stubbs might reconsider.’ She turned her cornflower eyes on Mr Stubbs, reminding him that she had been a customer for many years.

  ‘But Cousin Alice, I’ve already told Mr Stubbs. I have a new job to go to.’

  ‘No, you don’t have a job to go to,’ said Cousin Alice, in a voice that might have passed for patient if Harriet hadn’t known her better. ‘I checked up with your night-school teacher after Mr Stubbs had phoned me, and …’ Her voice trailed away and they stood looking at each other. ‘It’s true, isn’t it, Harriet?’

  ‘I don’t like typing.’

  ‘Not teaching, not typing, not selling haberdashery. Which, as it turns out, you’re not even capable of doing properly. A little job like selling haberdashery. Could it be that you can’t actually do anything, Harriet?’

  ‘Not anything. Some things.’

  ‘You won’t be starting work in the office. You’ve shamed me in the town where I’ve lived for the best part of a lifetime. None of my family has ever made me ashamed before, yet you’ve done it simply through your inability to sell haberdashery. I am certainly not going to allow you to embarrass me any further by having you go to work in an office owned by an old and respected friend.’

  All of this issued from Cousin Alice in a quietly controlled stream. For the one or two customers of Weyville who wandered through the shop they might have been discussing what they would have for dinner
that night In spite of herself, Harriet began to tremble.

  ‘Are you saying you want me to leave?’

  ‘It might be better if you spent a little time with your parents.’

  Harriet looked at her in astonishment. ‘I’m sorry, Cousin Alice, I meant, did you want me to leave your place? I’ve got no intention of leaving Weyville.’

  It was Cousin Alice’s turn to look bewildered, and she started to betray her agitation. Her chin trembled as she said, ‘You wouldn’t stay here in Weyville and humiliate me. I wouldn’t allow it.’

  ‘And you can’t stop it, either,’ said Harriet. ‘You don’t own Weyville, Cousin Alice, and despite everything you’ve said, I do happen to have a job to go to, and I’m going to start it on Monday week.’

  ‘Where?’ hissed Cousin Alice. ‘Down at the forestry canteen, where all the little sluts from the corner milkbar go for work? Oh, don’t worry, that’s something else I’ve found out about you. A job, indeed. I mightn’t own Weyville, young lady, but I own enough of it to make a difference to you. Do you know I’ve got shares in that mill?’

  Harriet sighed. ‘Don’t you think this is all getting a bit public, Cousin Alice?’ And indeed they had acquired some surreptitious listeners. ‘I start work as a library assistant for the borough council, and I’m studying for my New Zealand Library Certificate. It’s a two-year course and the papers were filled in for me to do it this afternoon. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to be sick.’

  And she was. Right there in the middle of haberdashery, with a mortified Mr Stubbs mopping the boil on the back of his neck, Harriet threw up a neat pie-shaped and pie-coloured little plop of vomit.

  All in all it wasn’t such a bad exit from the haberdashery counter. She didn’t even feel remorse. And at least no one had called her a liar.

  6

  FROM THAT POINT, Harriet felt that she was living a double life in many ways.

  For a long time after the episode in the shop, there was strain between Harriet and Cousin Alice, yet Cousin Alice had no reason to complain. In fact, in the week between jobs, Harriet had caught her on the telephone to her friend with the office job, thanking him fulsomely for having considered Harriet, but explaining that she did have a better job to go to. Of course considering Harriet’s ability this was to be expected, she said, now that she was on her feet.

  Cousin Alice bought her a neat grey tailored suit in good worsted material, which fitted very trimly round the waist and gave her a rather severe and, Harriet hoped, intellectual look. A headache persisted through the following week, and the doctor she visited referred her to an optician who said she must wear spectacles. Again Aunt Alice came to the rescue, though Harriet said firmly that as the glasses were essential, she would accept her cousin’s offer to pay for them on the condition that she repaid them out of her wages over a period of time.

  This transformation in Harriet’s status certainly gave her all the outward trappings of respectability. Her hair was almost long enough to scrape back into a French roll, and she managed a quite passable one, even if it did wisp out of place a bit. Far from making her look like Nance, it gave her an air of austerity that was quite formidable. Both she and Cousin Alice knew that, given time, things would be well between them again.

  As for the job, it really was love at first sight. The first morning she walked in, it was like coming home. Mr Whitwell proved to be a somewhat stricter employer than his outward appearance suggested, but with four young women in his charge, Harriet supposed it was his way of surviving. Every morning from nine when they arrived till ten when the library opened, the girls were required to sort the books back into alphabetical order on the shelves, dust them, stand spine even to spine right along the shelves, and put the books that had been returned the previous day back in their right places. There was a certain amount of pressure on them at this stage, and though they were tempted to talk because this was the only quiet part of the day, Mr Whitwell discouraged it.

  The other girls were pleasant enough, all recruits from the local high school and all grateful they had such a good job in Weyville. One was married, the other two, slightly younger, had worked there for some time; they were all older than Harriet. She felt in them a certain deference, however. It was she who would make the grade, who would qualify, as none of them had done or attempted to do. Grace, the married woman, admitted that she felt slightly resentful towards Harriet. None of the other girls had been particularly encouraged to take her certificate, so Harriet was moving straight into a rather special situation. Still, she liked Harriet, and didn’t really see much point in resenting her. It wasn’t Harriet’s fault that the others had missed out.

  The other part of Harriet’s double life she shared with Leonie. Their intention to rid themselves of men didn’t last long, and social life in Weyville being what it was, things were bound to get complicated.

  Cousin Alice didn’t demur when Leonie was brought home to visit Harriet had sketched in a few essentials about her, and told her that Leonie came from the nearby orphanage. As Leonie had had an important role to play in Harriet’s getting her job (though of course Cousin Alice was spared a number of the details) it was decided that she had ‘risen above things’ and as such, she was given the red carpet treatment.

  One evening, Harriet emerged from work and found Leonie waiting for her.

  ‘Guess what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve been asked to the Rugby Ball. His name’s Chas Campion. Captain of the Rovers.’

  ‘Lucky you, is he nice?’

  ‘Delish. But d’you know what else?’

  ‘Go on. I know you’re going to tell me anyway.’

  ‘Of course I am. It’s about you.’

  ‘Hurry up, then. Don’t keep me in suspense.’

  ‘Just because it’s about yourself. You’re an egotist. Oh, all right then. His mate hasn’t got a partner. He wanted to know if I had a friend.’

  ‘Honest?’

  ‘Of course. Well, are you coming?’

  ‘What do you think? Yes, yes, yes, please.’

  ‘You don’t even know what he looks like.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue.’

  They both started to giggle.

  It was a turning point, though. Cousin Alice’s late husband had been a keen rugby man, and rugby players were decent chaps. She wholeheartedly approved this direction in Harriet’s social life, because, little talent though there was in Weyville, she was now about to meet the cream of it.

  Decked in the green chiffon once again, Harriet awaited the arrival of Leonie, Chas, and the as-yet-unseen partner, Dick.

  ‘I think you should pop your white cardy in the car with you,’ said Cousin Alice anxiously. ‘It could get chilly.’

  Harriet obediently took out her white cardigan, and viewed herself yet again in the bedroom mirror as she did so. Her hair had been set for the occasion and stood in a polite and tidy row of curls across her head. She had bought herself a padded bra, though she wasn’t quite sure that that was necessary, as her breasts had rather a pleasant contour without it. With long white gloves above her elbows and the green swirling skirt which she and Cousin Alice had overlaid with an extra layer of nylon net, she was the complete ball-goer.

  While she was thus surveying herself, the doorbell rang, and she froze. What if she didn’t like him?

  Chas was as Leonie had described him, quite lovely to look at and very physical. The Rovers were the top team in the town and Chas was the top of the team; there was no denying that he was a great catch. He was a young farmer too, working on his father’s farm a little way out of town. If Harriet had stopped to think about it, she would have realised that he and Leonie would not have been compatible in any real sense. Leonie still had visions of some of the unhappy victims of the farmers’ exploitation, who would come wearily back to the orphanage in the evenings. Still, she obviously had none of this on her mind at the moment. She was sparkling, and Harriet felt tre
mendously warm and glad for her friend. This was her night.

  Dick, on the other hand, was almost mute with shyness, and about half the size of Chas.

  ‘This is Dick,’ said Chas. ‘Our wing three-quarter, that’s why he’s a little runt. We don’t have big chaps out on the wing, you should see him run, wow, he sure flies.’

  Dick blushed fiery red at this praise, and everyone sidled round, not knowing where to look next.

  ‘Well, better get going, eh?’ said Chas, used to taking charge.

  Leonie and Chas got in the front of the little Standard Ten, with Dick and Harriet in the back. They were all squashed up together, but the car was really something — Chas’s very own, as Dick whispered in awe to Harriet. Harriet nodded in appreciation of such affluence. She and Chas didn’t seem to come from the same sort of farm.

  As the car moved through Weyville to the Gala ballroom, Dick muttered to her, ‘I don’t go to many balls.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Harriet.

  ‘I — I mean, I hope you weren’t expecting someone different!’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone. I mean, I didn’t know what to expect, so I didn’t And I’ve never been to a ball in my life, so you’ll have to teach me everything. Do you mind?’

  His relief was exquisite. ‘Oh, that’s terrific.’

  ‘What are you two whispering about back there?’ said Chas.

  ‘I was just telling Harriet that I hadn’t been to many balls, and I was just going to tell her that you made me come to this one.’

  ‘You idiot.’ Chas sounded annoyed.

  ‘B-b-but it doesn’t matter,’ protested Dick, ‘b-b-because she doesn’t go to balls either.’

  ‘What about you Leonie? Don’t tell me you don’t go to balls.’

  But Leonie just turned towards him, smiling in the dim light from the street lights. ‘Not in Weyville,’ she murmured.