Shop Girl

by Mary Portas

  ‘How much does it cost to get to America?’ I had asked Mum one day, as I flicked through a magazine.

  ‘No idea,’ she replied. ‘But why do you want to go to America?’

  I looked up at her. ‘I’m too skinny, and however much I eat it doesn’t seem to make a difference.’

  ‘And what does America have to do with that?’

  ‘Well, they eat loads there.’

  ‘Do they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She started to laugh. ‘Ach! Get away with you! You’re perfect as you are.’

  I looked at her seriously. ‘I need to go, Mum. I really do. It’s easy to put on weight there.’

  She bent down to give me a kiss. ‘Mary Newton,’ she said, as she smiled. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

  ‘But, Mum!’ I persisted. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘But why? Why do you have to go?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I sighed, as I rolled my eyes. ‘Marc Bolan got fat there.’

  Pernod and black

  My stomach lurches slightly as I stand at the bar. Tish has brought me to the New Penny and it’s the first time I’ve been to a nightclub.

  ‘You’ll keep an eye on her, won’t you?’ Mum had said to Tish, as we came downstairs earlier. ‘Don’t forget she’s only fifteen and can sniff out trouble like a bloodhound.’

  ‘I know, Mum, but we’ll be fine. I’ll make sure she’s okay.’

  My mother looked at me. I’d borrowed Tish’s grey high-waisted peg trousers and put them on with a white shirt Katharine Hepburn-style and a pair of platforms. Joe had cut my hair into a short page-boy style and I’d slathered myself in Mum deodorant because I’d seen Tish do it religiously before a night out.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she said, with a smile, then kissing us both. ‘Have a nice time and do what your sister says, won’t you?’

  ‘Course, Mum.’

  We’d met up in the New Penny car park with Susan Durkin and Angela Horne, who’d opened her massive clutch bag to reveal a bottle of Liebfraumilch. After quickly downing it, we walked inside but I had no idea what to order when we got to the bar.

  ‘I’ll have a Pernod and black,’ Angela said.

  ‘Me too,’ I replied quickly.

  My first experiments with alcohol had taught me that everyone seemed to add blackcurrant to whatever they drank and I understood why as I gulped down the Pernod. It tasted like medicine but I forced it down.

  Two drinks later and I can feel the Liebfraumilch bubbling in my stomach. I stagger to the loo. Staring into the mirror, I see two little blackcurrant horns on either side of my mouth. My head feels light as I have a pee and walk out to wash my hands. I wouldn’t mind another drink but haven’t got any money left, and Tish won’t buy me one because she’ll say I’ve had enough.

  A glass has been left on the side of the sink. After looking left and right, I knock its contents back. And I immediately start to gag. Running back into the club, I find Tish in the middle of the New Penny dance-floor.

  ‘Tiiiiiiiiiish!’ I scream, trying to make myself heard above the music. ‘Tiiiiiiiiiiish!’

  ‘What is it?’ she shouts, and I lean towards her.

  ‘I’ve just drunk piss.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’VE JUST DRUNK PISS.’

  Retching and gasping for air, I think of the urine that’s now mixing with Pernod and Liebfraumilch inside me.

  ‘Don’t you dare be sick in here!’ Tish says fiercely, and drags me outside.

  I reel around the pavement as people stare and my sister looks at me furiously. ‘How on earth did you end up drinking THAT?’ she yells.

  ‘It was in the loo. I thought it was brandy or something.’

  ‘And since when do you drink brandy?’ Tish hisses. ‘Look at the state of you! How am I going to get you home? Angela’s dad was supposed to be picking us all up.’

  She drags me down Market Street and into Lucketts cab office.

  ‘Is she drunk?’ the controller says, as he sits eating a kebab.

  ‘AM I DRUNK?’ I roar, as I stagger around on my platforms.

  ‘Get ’er aut of ’ere,’ the controller replies.

  We stand in the road where I am promptly sick. It takes half an hour for Tish to convince the taxi controller that I am well enough to travel in one of his cars.

  ‘This is going to cost me a quid,’ she says. ‘You are going to pay me back every penny, Mary!’

  When we reach home, the world is still whirling. We find Michael in the kitchen. He takes one look at me and tears a strip off Tish. ‘You were supposed to be looking after her!’

  ‘It’s not my fault. You know what she’s like! I’m going to watch telly.’

  Tish slams out of the kitchen as my brother gazes at me. ‘Let’s get you to bed, shall we?’

  Lying down, teeth cleaned and face wiped by Michael, I taste Pernod scratching at the back of my throat as the room reels around me. I swear that I will never drink again.

  Bird’s Eye Super Mousse

  I stare out of the window for the hundredth time. It’s 8.55 p.m. and Chris Miles is nearly an hour late. But however many times I stare down Windsor Road, I don’t see him.

  Embarrassment burns through me. Chris has a motorbike and wears a white suit. He’s a bit naff but I really thought he liked me.

  Dad’s watching TV in the Front Room and doesn’t know I’m going on a date. I’d never dare tell him. But Mum will help sneak me out of the house, like she always does.

  ‘How about a mousse?’ she says, as she walks into the Front Room.

  ‘Muuuuum! I’m not a baby any more!’

  ‘I know. But if you’re sitting here waiting you might as well have something nice to eat.’

  Every problem can be solved by food, as far as my mother is concerned. If I cry, she gives me slivers of meat off a joint; if I am disappointed, she cuts me a slice of cake. Without a word she leaves the room and returns with a mousse and a spoon for me. I open it silently, digging in the spoon and feeling hot tears of rage prick behind my eyes.

  ‘It’s his loss,’ Mum says quietly, as she sits down beside me.

  ‘But it’s so embarrassing! Everyone at school knows we’re going out. What will I say to them?’

  ‘You tell them the truth and keep your head high. It’s not your fault he’s an eejit wilt no morals.’

  ‘But he isn’t!’

  ‘Well, he is if he leaves you sitting here. You’re a lovely girl and he should be proud to have you on his arm. But trust me when I say that it won’t seem so bad in the morning.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’ She puts her hand over mine and squeezes it. ‘Now don’t you be worrying yourself over that fella. There’ll be plenty more where that Chris-no-morals-eejit came from.’

  I dig out the last bit of the mousse.

  ‘Come on, now,’ Mum says. ‘Poldark’s about to start.’ She leans over to kiss me. ‘And have another mousse, why don’t you?’

  Careers advice

  ‘Teaching maybe?’ Sister Angela says. ‘Oh, no. That won’t do at all, now, will it?’

  I’m sitting in a careers advice interview with a nun who has only ever worked for God. My O levels are coming up and I have to pick my A levels for next year.

  ‘So what do you want to study in the sixth form?’ Sister Angela asks.

  ‘Art, sociology and English.’

  I’m still banned from Miss Stephenson’s class but apparently she’s going to be joined by another teacher next year who, I hope, will let me do my A level. There’s also a wonderful new English teacher called Miss Coleman, who gets us to recite poetry, and while everyone else mumbles it at the front of the class, I dress up in costume or theme my recitation. Never knowingly underperformed.

  ‘I was thinking of nursing, maybe, but those subjects won’t do for that,’ Sister Angela says, in her soft Irish lilt, as she looks at me quizzically. ‘How about the secretarial course?’


  I look at her in horror. Secretarial sixth is run by Mrs Duncan, and girls sit in lines tapping out letters on their typewriters, like Stepford Wives.

  ‘I don’t want to be a secretary!’ I yelp.

  ‘So just what is it that you’d like to do, Mary?’

  I know exactly. I want to go to drama school. Mr Harold thinks I could get in but he only runs the drama club in his spare time so he has no idea how you actually get a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art or the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Sister Angela is my only hope.

  ‘I want to study drama,’ I say.

  ‘Draaaaama?’ she exclaims. ‘What draaaaama?’

  ‘Acting, the theatre. I want to go to drama school.’

  ‘But don’t you cause enough drama as it is, Mary? Do you really want more?’

  I look Sister Angela straight in the eye. ‘Yes, I do. I want to be an actress.’

  ‘An actress?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean go on the stage?’ Sister Angela squeaks, as the light finally dawns.

  ‘Yes.’

  As I watch her face turn the colour of a tomato, I realize that I might as well have told Sister Angela that I want to be a prostitute. My acting ambitions are never mentioned again at school.

  Bell’s whisky

  ‘Jesus wept and Mary cried!’ my mother shrieks. ‘Go and get your father, boys! GO AND GET YOUR FATHER!’

  Mum is in the Front Room staring down the road. My father is staggering up it.

  ‘For the love of God, get him into this house!’ Mum yells, as Joe and Lawrence stare open-mouthed at Dad.

  Three hours ago my father left for the pub with Jack Davis. Given that he drank perhaps one whisky a year and never went to the pub, it was a memorable occasion. But yesterday one of Dad’s birds won the Thurso race – one of the biggest there is – and it’s the custom for the winner to stand drinks for the club.

  ‘I’ll have the roast on the table at two,’ Mum had said, as we waved them off.

  Dad’s victory was all the sweeter because he’d snatched it from the jaws of possible defeat. While he was anxiously waiting for the pigeons to come back, he’d had to nip out to an emergency at Clements and told Lawrence to wait in the back garden for the pigeons until he returned.

  ‘But, Dad!’ Lawrence moaned as Dad picked up his car keys.

  Manchester United were playing Southampton in the Cup Final and my brother could not bear the thought of missing a minute.

  ‘I’ll be twenty minutes,’ Dad said, as he gave Lawrence a stern look. ‘Now, get out into that garden and make sure you don’t miss a thing. You have to clock in the first bird the moment it arrives back. Any extra seconds could cost the race, do you understand me?’

  Sunny-natured Lawrence looked as if he was about to have a stroke.

  ‘Do you understand, Lawrence?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  For at least half an hour, my brother had dutifully stood in the back garden – only nipping back in now and again to check on the game. But in the final nerve-racking minutes, as extra time loomed and neither team had scored, he stood transfixed in front of the television, forgetting all about the pigeons as he chewed his nails. Southampton powered the ball to the back of the net just before the referee blew the final whistle, my brothers’ faces went white with horror and Dad walked back in just as Lawrence started to cry.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he roared. ‘Why on earth are you inside? What about the birds?’

  Running out into the garden, Dad found a pigeon sitting on the loft. ‘Do you see?’ he shrieked, grabbing the bird and shoving the tag around its ankle into his clock. ‘Fecking Manchester United losing the cup won’t be a patch on how sorry you’ll feel if I lose this race.’

  Huffing and puffing, Dad had headed off to the club to log his result only to return with his rage forgotten a few hours later. His bird had won.

  ‘I’ll just have a couple,’ he had said to Mum, as he left with Jack for the pub.

  A couple of dozen, more like. Lawrence and Joe shoot out of the house and run down the road. Bouncing off cars as he lurches from side to side, my father staggers into garden walls and trips off pavements. Then Father Bussey’s car turns into the bottom of the street.

  ‘Boys!’ my mother screams, as she runs outside. ‘Quick now! Quick. Quick. The priest is coming. For the love of God, get him inside!’

  But my father is a big man and even heavier now he’s full of drink. Lurching under his weight, my brothers drag him up the road as Father Bussey pulls up outside the Chassels’ house. Getting out of the car, he stares at my mother, who is holding Dad by the scruff of his neck and heaving him up the front step.

  White as a sheet, she drags him inside and slams the door. Dad reeks of whisky as he lurches over to the stairs and sits down, gazing up at her with bleary eyes. ‘Theresa, my darling!’ he says, with a smile.

  ‘Don’t Theresa me, Sam Newton!’ she roars.

  ‘But I won the race. Now come and give me a kiss!’

  ‘A kiss? There’ll be no kisses for you. The shame of it. Now get yourself upstairs and I’ll bring you a cup of tea.’

  With that, Mum marches back into the kitchen and wails. The Sunday joint was resting on the side and the dog has nicked it amid the chaos of his master’s return. It will be weeks before the atmosphere fully thaws.

  ‘Dancing Queen’

  The heat is so intense it curls around us as we sleep and we wake up sweating. It shimmers on the beach as we lie on towels slathered in sun cream and hits us like a wall when we walk out of cafés. It is the summer of 1976.

  I have finished my O levels – the last exam provoking as little worry as the first and all the ones in between – and spent weeks tanning my snow-white skin at Rickmansworth Aquadrome. Lying on a towel next to Carrie and Debbie, listening to a transistor playing 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love’, I feel as if the future is finally starting. After years of watching my brothers and sisters spread their wings, I am finally going on my first proper holiday.

  Mum had booked Tish, Sadie and Don’s daughter Marie and me a room at a B-and-B in Weymouth.

  ‘The landlady’s called Newton!’ Mum had said excitedly. ‘She must be trustworthy.’

  All Tish and I had to do was save our spending money, and I’d hardly touched any of the pay packets from my new job at Boots, where I earned more and could finally raid the cosmetics shelves with my staff discount.

  I’d never known anything like that summer: fires breaking out in scorched forests, tarmac turning sticky underneath our feet and people queuing at standpipes to get water. Weymouth might as well have been Spain as we sat roasting on the beach before going for an ice cream or sausage, egg and chips in a café. The beach was packed with sunbathers who turned lobster red as the sun beat down. People lay in the shallows to cool down, dogs panted underneath sunshades and little old ladies eased sandals off feet swollen by the heat.

  When the sun finally cooled a little, we’d head off to the funfair before visiting the pubs and clubs on the front. Joe had cut my hair into Joanna Lumley’s Purdey style – bleached blonde with dark underneath – and my favourite outfit was a bright red jumpsuit from Miss Selfridge with ‘Shell’ written on it; I cinched it in with a belt saying ‘Eveready’.

  Irresistible.

  ‘You on holiday?’ a bloke said to me one night, as I stood by the bar in a nightclub sipping a gin and tonic.

  The days of Pernod were long forgotten.

  ‘Yeh,’ I said. ‘You too?’

  ‘No. I’m working. I’m a sailor.’

  Just as my interest was pricked, I was sent flying by a pair of hands. Staggering to keep my balance, I saw a girl glaring at me. She was at least two foot shorter but had the look of a Jack Russell about to leap at a Labrador’s throat.

  ‘Are you chatting him up?’ she screamed.

  ‘No! He was talking to me.’

  ‘He fucking wasn’t!’

  ‘Yes. He wa
s.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t. He’s MY boyfriend.’

  ‘Well, he’s hardly acting like it.’

  As the girl squared up to try to take a chunk out of me, Tish stepped in. ‘When will you ever learn to shut up?’ she hissed, as she dragged me off.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault! He came on to me.’

  ‘But you never back down, do you?’

  ‘That girl’s a psycho!’

  ‘But you don’t do anything to help yourself!’

  ‘What was I supposed to do? She started it!’

  But just as Tish was about to yell even louder, a song came on, a song so irresistible that we couldn’t help but stop. It wasn’t Marc, David, Bryan, Marvin or any of the other people we listened to, artists who said something in their fashion and lyrics and gave a voice to kids everywhere. But still my sister and I smiled at each other, troubles instantly forgotten.

  ‘Come on!’ I said.

  Plunging into the crowd, we heard Benny rip down the keyboard for the opening notes of ‘Dancing Queen’.

  Sex Pistols

  Joe, Mum, Lawrence and I are sitting in front of the telly watching the Sex Pistols being interviewed by Bill Grundy. Nationwide recently did a bit on them after they released ‘Anarchy in the UK’ – Johnny Rotten shouting the lyrics with a mad look in his eyes, Sid Vicious snarling at the camera. Thankfully, Mum wasn’t watching or she’d have seen Johnny proclaim that he was an antichrist.

  ‘The cult is called punk, the music punk rock,’ the Nationwide presenter with a bouffant hairdo had said solemnly, as she held up a copy of the punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue to the camera.

  ‘Kids want excitement,’ Malcolm McLaren drawled in reply. ‘They want things that are going to transform what is basically a very boring life right now, and music – young rock music – is the only thing they have.’

  Now the Sex Pistols and their mates are sprawled in chairs in front of Bill Grundy. Johnny Rotten is wearing a mohair jumper and the rest have shaved or spiked hair and are wearing ripped jeans. They are smoking fags as Bill tries to jolly them along, but they won’t have any of it. They’re like a pack of anarchic wolves. Steve Jones has already said ‘fuck’ and Johnny Rotten ‘shit’. My mother’s face is going whiter by the second, as Joe, Lawrence and I hold our breath in anticipation of what will come next.