Anne had tried to make her understand that there would be other girls after the job, and not to pin her hopes on it, so she was very relieved when her daughter came back smiling.
‘I start the Monday after the term finishes, and I’ll be getting seven and six a week.’ Renee danced round the room in great exultation, while her mother shook her head fondly.
‘It’s nine to six, with an hour and a half for my dinner,’ the girl went on, almost singing the words in her excitement.
‘You’ll have plenty of time to come home, then, that’s good, but you’ll be a bit late for your tea. Oh, well, it can’t be helped.’ Anne suddenly felt a touch of sadness that her daughter would soon be entering the adult world and leaving her schooldays behind.
‘Settle down, for goodness sake,’ she said, sharply.
‘I was counting out what I’d need for my fares, Mum, and I’ll manage to give you five bob for my board, for I won’t need to spend much on other things, will I?’
‘No, I don’t suppose so.’ Anne considered what this promised contribution would mean to her. It would make the household finances better than they’d ever been since Jim Gordon died – four pounds five shillings – it was riches compared with what she’d taken in at times.
‘Thanks,’ she said, at last. ‘That’ll be a big help, and once I’ve got the bed paid up, we’ll be better off still. I only hope nothing happens to spoil things this time, now we’re all one big happy family.’
Chapter Five
The tiny office was quite cramped, the only furnishings being one huge desk, with deep drawers down each side, two high stools, and a table where the samples of sweets were laid out for customers.
When Renee Gordon went for the interview at the wholesale confectioner’s, Mr Mackay, the owner, had asked if she had good teeth, and had laughed at her bewilderment. ‘They won’t be good for long in this job,’ he’d laughingly explained.
Once she started working as office girl, she understood why. When the manufacturers’ representatives came in with new lines, they always asked Miss Maitland and Renee to sample their wares first. If their reaction was favourable, Mr Mackay placed an order, so their judgement was valued by the visiting men.
Miss Maitland, in charge of the office, was a cheery, even tempered woman, whose age Renee found it difficult to assess, but guessed at around forty. They got on very well together, and sat side by side at the oak desk in front of the window.
Rather Victorian in his ideas, Mr Mackay didn’t believe in allowing his staff to have a break in their working hours, but, because he was often out canvassing for orders, they kept bottles of soft drinks in the deepest drawer of the desk, behind the leather-bound ledgers. With that, and the sweets from the travellers, they managed to keep their strength up.
Renee’s job entailed folding accounts so that the addresses showed in the window envelopes, and taking orders through to the store. Sometimes she was allowed to answer the telephone, and to write the customers’ requirements into the order book, but although they were mostly fiddly little tasks she was given, she enjoyed it all. Sweetshop owners and newsagents came in, to settle the bills for the confectionery they’d bought, or just to have a look round for anything new which might have been introduced, and it was all strange and exciting to the girl at first. Receiving a wage every week gave her a feeling of independence, and handing over five shillings to her mother made her proud, though she often wished it could have been more. It was a pity she’d so little left to spend on herself, but she felt no real sense of deprivation.
If they weren’t busy, Miss Maitland let the girl experiment with the typewriter, and she was soon tapping away merrily. She wasn’t proficient enough to use all her fingers, but the end result was fairly presentable, and she was thrilled when she was allowed to type some invoices. She took time over them, and they seemed to meet with Miss Maitland’s approval.
It took less than a year for the novelty to wear off, and Renee began to yearn for something different. There was no likelihood of promotion, as Miss Maitland had been there since she left school, and appeared to be one of the fittings. Renee carried on with her now rather boring work until just before her fifteenth birthday, when she saw an advertisement in the newspaper one night for a junior clerkess, aged fifteen to eighteen. ‘Wages twelve shillings and sixpence,’ it said. ‘I’m going to apply for this,’ she told her mother, handing over the paper and pointing to the place.
Glancing at it, Anne smiled. ‘That’s a good idea. Mr Mackay’s never mentioned raising your wages, has he?’
‘No. You see, he just takes on a girl straight from school for about a year, then gets another one. That’s what Miss Maitland says, anyway. He can’t afford to pay higher wages.’ She carefully wrote out a letter of application, stating where she was employed and that she could type, omitting to mention that she used only two fingers on each hand. In a few days, she received notification to call for an interview, and, when she asked Mr Mackay if she could have time off, he seemed quite relieved that she was looking for another job. ‘I can’t really pay two clerkesses, I’m afraid, and all my office girls move on after about a year. Give me a full week’s notice, that’s all I ask.’
Realising that several other girls must have applied for the same position, it came as a very pleasant surprise to Renee when the interviewer asked when she could start work. ‘I’ve to give a week’s notice, so I could come a week from Monday, if that’s all right?’
In September 1938, therefore, Renee began as a junior clerkess with Brown and Company, a branch of a national wholesale food distributor, and the manager called her into his office on her first morning.
‘We expect our juniors to get certificates in shorthand and typing, Renee,’ he told her. ‘We pay the fees, but you must attend evening classes regularly.’
‘That’s all right, Mr Murchie. I’m quite prepared to work hard, and I won’t let you down.’
‘Good. We expect you to pass the Royal Society of Arts at the elementary stage the first year, the intermediate the following year and the advanced in the third year. Depending on that, your salary will rise every year, on your birthday, until you reach twenty-four. That’s the top of the scale.’
An excited Renee told her mother all this at lunchtime, and Anne was suitably impressed. ‘I thought twelve and six was very good for your age, but if it’s going up automatically every year, that’s the right kind of firm to be with. You’ll just have to make sure you pass all your exams.’ Towards the end of September, when the girl went to the grammar school to enrol for the evening classes, she found that the shorthand course involved two hours every Monday, and the typing occupied only one hour each Wednesday. The second hour was devoted to book-keeping, she was told, so she enrolled for that, as well. It might come in handy in the future.
There were two others in the office of Brown and Company. Miss Esson, the cashier, was the person who had engaged Renee as junior clerkess, and was another lady of indeterminate age. She could have been slightly older than Miss Maitland, but it was difficult to judge. Sheila Daun, the clerkess, was only a year older than Renee, so they quickly became good friends, talking to each other so much that Miss Esson sometimes had to admonish them. ‘I don’t mind the two of you chattering twenty to the dozen when you’re on your teabreak, girls,’ she said one forenoon, ‘but not when we’re working. I can’t concentrate for the noise.’
‘She can’t concentrate because she’s frightened she misses anything,’ Sheila whispered, but they stopped talking.
The evening classes, which started in the first week of October, were very interesting for Renee. She didn’t attend on the same nights as Sheila Daun, who was in her second year, but she quickly became acquainted with most of the girls, and one or two of the boys, in her class. The atmosphere was far more conducive to learning than it had been in school, each student being anxious to pass the coming examinations, so she found that t
he two-hour sessions passed rapidly.
It was on the third Monday that it happened. Coming out of the building, laughing and talking with some of her classmates, she bade them goodnight and turned to walk home alone, as no one else went in the same direction. It was very dark, and the street lights were fairly dim, so she didn’t see the figure standing in the shadow of the wall until she was almost abreast of him. When the man stepped out in front of her, she had a momentary stab of panic, until she realised that it was Fergus Cooper.
‘Oh,’ she gasped, quite taken aback. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Waiting for you.’ He walked alongside her, up the hill to Rosemount Place, across into Watson Street, and she was too tongue-tied by the shock of him being there to say anything, although his presence had sent thrills all through her.
‘This was the only way I could think of to get you on your own,’ he said, breaking the silence at last.
‘Oh,’ she said, again, but her heart was jumping madly.
‘You see, I’ve been dying to give you a proper kiss, and there’s no way I can do that in the house.’
Not sure of how she should reply, Renee kept her head down.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me what you think of that?’ Fergus asked, pettishly. ‘Don’t you want me to kiss you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ she breathed, ‘but you said I wasn’t old enough.’ She wished he’d stop speaking about it, and just do it.
‘That was over a year ago, remember, and you’ve grown up quite a bit since then. Have you ever been kissed yet?’
‘No.’ Feeling that she shouldn’t have admitted that, she added, ‘I didn’t want anybody else to kiss me, just you.’
‘That’s more like it.’
They had reached the foot of Watson Street, where the houses gave way to the railings of the Victoria Park, and, there being no one about, he led her through the gates, out of sight of the road, and put his arms round her.
Renee ran her tongue over her dry lips, and waited expectantly, not knowing if she was expected to do anything or not.
She hadn’t long to wait. Fergus bent his head and placed his lips on hers, gently and experimentally, but removed them quickly. She was very disappointed. She’d felt no great thrill, and began to suspect that kissing wasn’t all it was made out to be if this was the proper kiss Fergus had promised.
His second kiss dispelled all her doubts, and she gasped for breath when it was over. Her heart was pounding, her legs were trembling, and, before she had recovered, he was kissing her again . . . and again. His body was pressed tightly against hers, and his hands were sliding up and down her spine.
‘Oh, Renee,’ he whispered. ‘You’re wonderful.’
They stood there for just over ten minutes, then Fergus said, ‘Come on. We’d better stop, before I do something I shouldn’t.’
She would willingly have stayed there for hours, although she shivered with cold when he removed his arms, but he took her hand and guided her back to the street. They walked hand in hand until they were almost home, then he stopped and turned her to face him.
‘I can’t come in with you, Renee,’ he said. ‘We don’t want your mother to know about this, do we? I’ll meet you next Monday.’
‘What about Wednesday?’ she asked, hopefully. ‘That’s my other night for the classes, Fergus.’
‘Sorry, but I play billiards with my pals every Wednesday
. . . It’ll have to be Mondays, I’m afraid.’ He walked away from her then, without even kissing her again, and she stood for a minute, frustrated, and rather indignant that he preferred playing billiards on Wednesdays to meeting her.
She let herself into the house, hung her coat on the hallstand and looked at herself in the mirror. Apart from being slightly flushed, she showed no sign of her experience in the park, but she went into the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water before she joined her mother.
‘You’re a wee bit later, tonight,’ Anne remarked.
‘The shorthand teacher was showing us some new shapes, and we’ve to practise them for next week.’ The false excuse had come to her in a flash.
‘See that you do, then.’
Renee set off eagerly to her evening class the following Monday, but couldn’t concentrate properly on the shorthand lesson for thinking about Fergus waiting for her when she went out. She wasn’t disappointed in his kisses in the park this time, and when he drew away from her at last, she tried to pull him back.
‘Please, Fergus, don’t stop yet.’
‘This is getting too much for me, Renee,’ he said thickly, dropping his arms. ‘You’re tormenting me, and making it harder.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘You’ve definitely made it hard.’
She couldn’t understand why he was laughing, because she could see nothing amusing in what he’d said, so she asked, ‘What’s hard, Fergus?’
He put his hand under her chin and kissed her lightly.
‘You’ll find out. Some day soon . . . very soon.’
She had to be content with that, and they left the park to start their walk home.
Next evening, when she was alone with Jack Thomson in the dining room for a few minutes, he said to her, ‘I saw you walking up the road with Fergus last night. Watch yourself with him, Renee. Don’t trust him, whatever he says, for he’s fooling around with other girls as well.’
‘Don’t be daft, Jack,’ she snapped, angry at having been seen, and angry with him for interfering. ‘Of course I trust him. He told me he’s only going out with them till I’m old enough for him to ask out properly.’
Jack frowned. ‘Don’t believe him. He’s a waster. I’ve heard a few stories about him, and I’m sorry I ever told him about the digs. His folk live in Aberdeen, you know, and they put him out, so I’ve been told.’
‘Jack Thomson, you’re just jealous of Fergus with all the girlfriends he’s had.’ Renee looked at him defiantly.
His responding glare softened suddenly into a long penetrating look which made her blush. ‘Aye,’ he said, quietly. ‘I am jealous, but not for all his other girls, just one.’
‘Oh.’ Renee felt uncomfortable, knowing he meant her. She liked Jack, she liked him quite a lot, but she couldn’t flirt with him like she did with some of the boys at the classes. ‘Fergus is serious about me,’ she said, at last, ‘and I’m serious about him.’
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you, then.’ Jack strode out of the room as Anne came in.
‘What’s wrong with him? He’d a face like thunder.’
‘Why should there be anything wrong with him?’ Renee was still angry that Jack had said those awful things about Fergus.
‘Well, he looked upset about something.’
‘I don’t know what it is,’ Renee said, acidly, as she rose to clear the table. ‘What’s happened to Fergus, tonight? He’s a bit late, isn’t he?’
‘He came home early, and washed and dressed himself, and went out without his tea.’
‘Where was he going?’ Renee half expected her mother to tell her it was none of her business, but she had to ask.
‘How should I know? He doesn’t tell me what he’s doing.’ The sharpness of Anne’s voice made Renee study her. Her mother was taking more care with her appearance these days, and had been brighter than usual recently. Could there be a special reason? Surely she wasn’t . . . ? Surely Fergus hadn’t . . . ? No, no! That was ridiculous. Then she remembered that Fergus had called her mother ‘Anne’ the day they realised Uncle George wasn’t coming back, and the seed of jealousy which had been sown at that time, but had lain dormant ever since, began to germinate.
He’d only been trying to be kind at that time, she thought, hastily. Later on, though, he’d said he admired George for going away, and that wasn’t being kind to her mother. It was very puzzling, and she decided to ask Fergus about it when she met him
next Monday. There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation. There must be!
As soon as she came out of the grammar school the following week, she tackled him about the use of her mother’s Christian name.
‘Good God! What made you remember that? The day your uncle drove off into the sunset? But that’s more than a year ago.’ Fergus laughed as he tucked her arm through his.
‘Let me think. I suppose it must have been hearing George calling her Anne. I didn’t even realise I’d said it. You’re not jealous of your own mother, are you? She’s more than seventeen years older than me, for heaven’s sake.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Renee was contrite. ‘I just couldn’t help wondering about it, but it’s all right now, and I won’t be jealous any more.’
‘I bloody well hope not. I’ve enough on my plate just now without you starting. Lily’s getting too serious for my liking, and I’m trying to shake her off.’
‘Lily?’ Her newly assuaged fears were turned in another direction. ‘What about . . . Eleanor?’
‘Eleanor’s in the dim and distant past. There’s been quite a few since Eleanor, but Lily’s my Tuesday girl, the same as you’re my Monday girl. See?’
‘Fergus Cooper! You haven’t got a different girl for every night of the week, have you?’ Renee did her best to sound lighthearted, but her heart was as heavy as lead at being classed as one of his many conquests.
‘I told you – it’s only till you’re older. You know we’ve to keep this a secret just now. Your mother would go mad if she thought you were going out with an old man of twenty-one, and you not long fifteen.’ His eyes were tender and appealing.
Renee believed him. She had to believe him, otherwise her life wouldn’t be worth living. ‘I’m fifteen and eight weeks,’ she reminded him, as if the extra time made a difference.
‘Look, I’ll prove how much you mean to me.’ They had reached the park gates, so he took her in and guided her towards a clump of bushes near one of the huge trees. Taking off his coat, he spread it on the grass and pulled her down on to it.
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