“Auntie Bessie! I wish someone would remember that I’m nearly seventeen!”
* * *
The department store was awe-inspiring, with its soft carpets, glass-cased displays and the aloof lady assistants who seemed to look down their noses at her. She was un-nerved and instead of enjoying the rare treat of buying something new, began to wish her mam had chosen a coat and brought it home on approval as she had in the past.
A selection of coats were held out for examination, not to Gilly but to her mother, then those Fanny approved of were taken from their hangers for Gilly to try on. The tissue paper that filled the sleeves crackled softly as the assistant removed it and placed it on a chair. Tall, angular, and very off hand, the woman held the garments too high so Gilly had difficulty getting her arms into the sleeves, emphasising that the assistant resented dealing with an unimportant child.
All the time, Fanny looked towards the stairs as if wanting to run away and leave them to it. She answered the assistant’s stilted remarks in a half-hearted way. Like the air from a pricked balloon, Gilly’s excitement left her.
All the coats seemed tight and stiff and uncomfortable. Surely she should be enjoying this? Why was her mother showing so little interest and looking about her as if she was already anxious to be finished with the whole business. Gilly felt unreasonable anger towards Auntie Bessie, why hadn’t she refused to help out by minding the shop! Another day with more time and when Mam wasn’t miles away would have been worth waiting for.
Until today all Gilly’s clothes had been bought in the childrens department, chosen and brought home by her mother and this first time in the fashion salon should have been an exciting mile-stone in her growing up. Instead it made her feel gauche and more of a child than ever.
No longer listening to the occasional remarks made by the assistant and her mother, she was surprised to see the assistant walk away and trip lightly down the stairs to the lower floor.
“Where’s she gone, Mam? Leaving it for another day, are we?”
“To look for something more suitable, in the stockroom.”
“Oh.” Gilly lowered her head in disappointment.
The woman returned with three coats across her arm and, seeing them, Gilly’s heart sank even lower. These were school coats, double-breasted, buttons marching up to the neck, small collar edged with velvet, pockets trimmed in the same neat and dull way and, horror of horrors, a small-brimmed hat to match. Although rigid with newness, the coat and the hat were almost identical to the ones she hoped to abandon for ever. What would Paul Green think of her if she wore such a thing? Stock room indeed! These were from the childrens department!
“Mam,” she pleaded. Her mother refused to look at her. The assistant forced her arms into the tight, silky-lined sleeves.
After being persuaded into trying on a mulberry tweed for the second time, even though she had not liked it sufficiently to try it once, she whispered to her mother, “Mam, I’m not enjoying this, can we go somewhere else? Cardiff perhaps?”
“When have I got time to go to Cardiff!” Her mother spoke loudly so the assistant could hear and she and Mam shared a haughty smile.
“If young madam weren’t so long in the arms, Mrs Collins, we might have an easier choice. Long in the arms and so slim in the body.” She made Gilly sound deformed. The ribbon had come out of her plaited hair and she bent down to pick it up, taking the opportunity to pull a face at the unfeeling assistant. Mam saw her and frowned disapproval.
Pressure from her mother made her accept the mulberry-coloured coat even though she had set her mind on a light blue, with a swinging back and wide revers. And she was horrified when the assistant produced the hat, which had been hidden in tissue paper, and pushed it down on her head. Hair swinging loosely now, jutted out from above her ears before falling to her shoulders, she looked like a child and felt as simple as poor Uncle Ivor.
“Mam,” she pleaded again. But Fanny nodded her acceptance and took the money from her purse. She was obviously supporting the snooty assistant. “I won’t wear it, Mam.”
“Of course you will and be thankful.”
“If this terrible war continues,” the assistant said in her plummy artificial accent, “they say clothes will be rationed too and we won’t have any choice at all.” The woman drooped elegantly to Gilly’s height to whisper, “Mother knows best, my dear.”
The coat was wrapped with layers of tissue and packed in a bag and handed to Gilly to carry. She took it sadly and after one more pleading look at her mother, walked towards the staircase while the offensive garment was paid for.
It was all rush then. A quick visit to Macy’s sweet-shop to spend Uncle Sam’s money. The glorious mixture of cuttings were chopped out of the bottom of the glass jar with a long, dangerous-looking knife and put into a triangular bag for herself and the same for Ivor. She glanced at each one, examining the contents and weighing up the best of the two to keep for herself. Her favourite, Winter Mixtures, were included in one and as Fanny hurried her along the busy pavement she wriggled her fingers into the other bag and took a large assorted ball of stuck-together sweets which she stuffed onto her mouth. Then she put that bag aside for Ivor. A few extra sweets were a slight recompense for having had such a disappointing afternoon. The conglomeration of sweets was so large she still couldn’t speak around it when they reached home.
The reason for her mother’s haste was apparent as soon as they reached the shop. Gerry was waiting in the back room, his long elegant legs spread across the hearth rug in front of the oven range fireplace, a cup of tea at his elbow, the radio murmuring beside him.
“At last,” he said, standing to greet Fanny. “I thought you’d forgotten. I was just about to give up on you and go to see if there was someone else more keen to accompany me.” Gilly thought he was joking, yet there was slight censure in his voice, a hint of hardness about his moustachioed mouth and, although her mother laughed, she too seemed a little unsure.
“It takes for ages when you let them please themselves, Gerry,” Fanny sighed. “With my mam it was ‘here you are, take this and be grateful’. Still, we’ve got it now.”
“Let me see your new coat then,” Gerry smiled and Gilly handed him the hateful bag.
“I don’t like it. I didn’t choose it and I’ll never wear it,” she said quietly. As he took it from her with a frowning glance at Fanny, Gilly ran from the room and went to tell Granfer.
“Go and get it then and let me have a look,” Granfer pleaded. Then he closed his eyes and waited while Gilly went back down the thirty-four stairs and up again carrying the coat.
“Colour’s nice,” he said as the coat was held up for him to see. “Put it on and twirl around like those models do in the films.”
Determined that he should agree with her about its complete unsuitability, she put it on and pulled the hateful hat down like a small bucket on to her forehead. Granfer could see at once why Gilly hated it, it made her look like a child. He made a shrewd guess why Fanny had made her buy it, too. With her cap set at Gerry Daniels it wouldn’t do to have a daughter looking too grown up. Gerry wouldn’t like being a step-father to a girl who who looked sixteen. Best Fanny kept her looking about twelve.
He studied Gilly’s defiant face and wondered whether to support her or persuade her to accept what her mother had chosen. He decided on the former.
“Bugger me, Gilly, it’s fine – for throwing over the horse when it’s raining!”
She collapsed into peals of laugher and, taking off the offending hat, threw it across the room. “I knew you’d see how horrible it looks. Can you tell Mam what you think of it? Please, Granfer.”
“She’ll be coming in to say goodnight before she goes off galivanting with that Gerry Daniels, I’ll tell her then. Take it back on Monday she will for sure. Don’t you worry.”
Happy now, she put the hat on again and pranced around, trotting in the air with her hands in imitation of a horse. While they were still laughing at the
foolish joke the door opened and Paul Green came in. Behind him were his parents, Shirley and Derek.
“Hello, Mr Jenkins. Hello, Gilly,” Paul said, stepping forward to shake Granfer’s hand. “They said it was all right to come up.”
Younger than her husband, Shirley Green looked far too lacking in years to have a son of sixteen. She was a pretty, shapely and vivacious woman of thirty-two. Artificially bleached hair fell around her pert face like a cloud and emphasised her dark blue, black-lashed eyes. Wearing a brilliant blue blouse under a boxy navy jacket and sparkling with jewellery, she filled the sombre room with radiance. Her only son, Paul, had been born before her seventeenth birthday, a few months after she had married his father.
Derek Green was a small, surly-looking man of fifty, whose father, Nathaniel, was still living at the age of eighty and still hated Granfer Jenkins for things that had happened in their youth. Derek had inherited that hatred of both Granfer and the amiable Sam, although he managed to hide it from most, and he was determined to make his father’s bakery into a large and successful business and leave Sam Jenkins without a penny.
Shirley went to the bed and kissed Granfer and then turned to Gilly, who was trying to sneak her way out of the awful coat before Paul looked at her again.
“New coat, Gilly?” Shirley asked, while Derek and Paul went to the bedside to talk to Granfer. “Let me see.”
“No, er, it’s going back. Mam made me chose it and I hate it and – it’s going back. Granfer will talk to Mam and tell her it’s horrible and… it isn’t mine, I wouldn’t wear such a thing… it’s going back.” This beautiful woman, with an aura of richness and sweet perfume and vibrant colour unnerved her completely and she wished she could vanish and never come back.
Taking a filmy blue and cream scarf from around her own neck, wafting Californian Poppy around them, Shirley placed it around Gilly’s shoulders. She opened the buttons of the coat and spread the neck of it into an attempt at lapels. She frowned, shook her head, then re-arranged the scarf within the opened collar. Stepping back she looked at Gilly and smiled ruefully.
“You’re right, it has to go back. Would you like me to come with you and help you chose a coat? Derek can spare me for an hour or two on Monday, can’t you Derek, love?”
“Mam won’t—”
“Mam won’t mind,” Shirley finished for her. “No, of course she won’t. I’ll go and tell her when I’ve had a word and a cuddle with your Granfer, and I’ll call for you at two o’clock on Monday, right?” Dismissing the subject she went then to the bed and smiled at Granfer and kissed him again.
Tell her, she’d said, Gilly mused hopefully. Not ask her but tell her. Perhaps she might persuade Mam after all, she thought, with a surge of hope that made her heart leap. And suddenly the day was brighter. She knew that Mrs Green wouldn’t be afraid of disagreeing with that stiff-necked sales lady. There might be a battle of wills but Auntie Shirley would win! She slid the coat off her arms and folded it carefully. With a shy, furtive glance at Paul who continued to ignore her she ran downstairs. Best not to mention anything to Mam. Not now while she was fancying herself up to go out with that Gerry Daniels. Best leave it to Mrs Green. She was smiling as she went in to the shop where Auntie Bessie, wearing a white overall and with a white, starched cap on her head, was talking to one of her friends.
“Start getting tea shall I, Auntie Bessie?”
“There’s a love. Your Mam is all fuss and feathers getting prinked up to go out with Gerry. I’ve sent Ivor for some chitterlings to have with pickle but Gawd knows when he’ll be back, or if he’ll have remembered what he went for. Better make it boiled eggs.”
Gilly went into the back kitchen and cut some bread and margarine. It was a rule of the family since fats were rationed that they saved the butter for Sunday tea and ate what was left, if any, on Monday and occasionally on Tuesday. There was a pan of bacon bones cooking on the living room fire ready to make pea-soup for Monday, so she put the pan of water ready for the eggs on the gas stove, although Mam might call it an extravagance. She cut some slices of cake and then settled to wait.
She heard the noisy laughing goodbyes from upstairs and the sound of the men’s footsteps accompanied by the sharper high heels of Mrs Green. She curled herself tighter and crossed as many fingers as she could manage. Would Mam be persuaded to let her go shopping with Shirley Green? It seemed too wonderful an event ever to happen to her.
She was sitting in her favourite place on the back stairs where no one would see her but from where she could hear what went on in the living room and the shop. Leaning forward not to miss a word she heard the argument her mother offered in favour of Gilly keeping the sensible coat and she heard with a gasp of disbelief, which she quickly stifled with her hands, how skillfully Shirley Green over-ruled her. Auntie Shirley just went on talking as if Mam wasn’t saying a word, let alone disagreeing and saying no! Shirley went chattering on about what time she would call and for Mam not to expect them back too soon as it was a special treat she had planned for Gilly.
Gilly hugged herself and, afraid now of her mother coming to look for her to demand an explanation, she went back into the kitchen to see if the water was boiling for the eggs. She stood, senses glazed with excitement, staring down into the bubbling saucepan without seeing it. If the pan had boiled dry she would have been unaware. Shopping for a new coat with Auntie Shirley of all people. Oh, how she’d make that sales woman behave herself.
“Are you busy, Gilly?” Paul came through the doorway and saw her staring down into the bubbling water, her face glowing with excitement and the sight made his heart do strange things.
“Busy? No, I’m just thinking of Monday. Your Mam is taking me shopping, Paul. I’m that excited you’d never believe.”
“I’ve brought a couple of apples for Ianto,” he said, showing her the fruit. “Go out and see him, shall we?”
Leading the way to the stable, Gilly thought she had never had such a perfect day.
“Dad’s got this van now and it’s faster and it holds more bread, but I miss the horse,” Paul said as he patted Ianto’s smooth coat. “Dad plans to have a second van before too long. He has great plans for the business once this war is over. But I don’t think I want a part of it. He’s planning it for me but it isn’t what I want.”
“You don’t?” Gilly frowned. She hadn’t thought about it in any depth but had assumed that with a family business to inherit one day, Paul wouldn’t have wanted anything else. “Have you told him?”
“Come on, Gilly, you know as well as I do that you can’t tell my dad anything he doesn’t want to hear.” He sounded bitter and Gilly guessed that the subject had been a source of contention in the Green family.
“What d’you want to do?”
“That’s the trouble. I don’t know. I only know that I don’t want to take over from Dad.”
“I haven’t thought beyond helping Mam and Auntie Bessie and the uncles,” she said. And eventually getting married to someone like you, she thought as she studied his serious hazel eyes and the long straight hair that fell across them. He turned to walk back to the house. “Come and show me the coat when you get it,” he said. “I hope it’s one you really like.”
“With your mam with me, I’m sure I will. There’s kind she is to help.”
“She likes you, Gilly, we – we all do.”
She turned from him in happy embarrassment. Her hair had fallen from its plaits again, and one of the ribbons fell to the floor. Paul picked it up and, after examining the knot with a small tangle of her hair caught in it, he put it in his pocket.
* * *
In the department store on the following Monday, Gilly pointed out the assistant who had sold her the coat and Shirley went straight into the attack.
“I want a refund if you please, and be a quick as you can, as we have to get the bus for Cardiff.” Cardiff? Gilly held her breath. Could Mrs Green really mean it?
“I’m sorry, Madam, but I’ll have
to have more details – there are several things to be considered first.”
“A refund and be sharp about it.”
“I’m afraid—”
“Now,” Shirley said smacking her small hand on the counter for emphasis. “Or I’ll see the manager and ask why you sold a totally unsuitable coat to this young lady.”
“Unsuitable?”
“Totally. An error of judgement some would be dismissed for.”
Confused and bewildered the sales lady disappeared with the coat and the receipt and returned at the trot with the money. Shirley scooped it up and swept out of the shop with a red-faced Gilly almost running beside her.
The train ride into Cardiff was accompanied with delightful chatter. Auntie Shirley seemed full of talk, seeing people at the stations they passed and being reminded of incidents to share with Gilly. A fund of stories spilled out of her laughing, glossy mouth.
Gilly was enthralled. Mrs Green was behaving like a friend instead of a contemporary of her mother. But, she decided with a happy smile, Shirley Green wasn’t a contemporary of an older generation and she doubted if she ever would be. It was as if the dazzlingly lovely woman was opening a door to another world, a far wider world where anything was possible and where duty didn’t mean misery and where happiness wasn’t a sin. But there was more to come.
They tried seven shops before Gilly and Shirley declared themselved satisfied. The coat they chose was a check in West of England cloth that was smooth to the touch. In shades of blue with a touch of off-white in the pattern it looked expensive and Gilly wondered guiltily if Shirley had spent more than Mam had given her. She didn’t care. She’d pay Mam back. It was worth doing without her five-shillings a week wages for months to own such a beautiful coat. It had patch pockets on the hips with the check pattern aslant and, when the belt was tightly fastened around her twenty-two-inch waist, she could see at once that it gave her shape. Her breasts had yet to develop but the nipped in waist and the neatly gathered top gave the illusion of a perfect figure. She would never take it off!
Family Pride Page 4