The Telephone Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Nothing. Leave me alone.’ Stepping back, Clare bumped into her stool and almost overbalanced. The stool wobbled then fell backwards against a coat stand that Millicent grabbed just in time and set back upright. Meanwhile, Clare rushed across the salon, through a door and out of sight.

  What now? Millicent wondered. For a few seconds she hesitated but then the distress she’d witnessed on Clare’s face brought her to a decision and she quickly followed her through the door, up some narrow, uncarpeted stairs on to a dark landing with three doors leading off it. She looked and listened, floorboards creaking as she went along the landing, hearing no other sound until she came to the far end. Then she heard a woman crying behind the closed door and knocked on it. There was no answer so she took a deep breath, turned the knob and walked in.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Clare lay face down on a narrow bed in the far corner of the room. There was a washbasin in the opposite corner and some basic furniture – a wooden chair at an old-fashioned washstand and a two-bar electric fire set in the grate. There was a wireless on a shelf in the alcove on one side of the chimney breast alongside several pairs of shoes and in the other a green chenille curtain screened what Millicent supposed was a clothes rail.

  ‘I’m sorry, Clare,’ she began above the noise of the traffic filtering in through the open window. ‘The last thing I wanted to do was to upset you.’

  There was no response but the crying had stopped and Clare lay perfectly still.

  ‘You know me – always rushing in where angels fear to tread. But I’m only trying to help.’

  Slowly Clare turned on to her back then sat up and straightened the pink satin eiderdown beneath her. ‘You’re not,’ she muttered.

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘Helping. If word gets back to Mrs Parr, I’ll be in serious trouble.’

  ‘For being upset?’

  Clare sighed and nodded. ‘I ought to go back down.’

  ‘Where’s the rush? The other girls will cover for you while you give your face a wash.’ As Clare showed no sign of standing up, Millicent eased the conversation forward, at the same time taking in more details about the room. She noticed that the washstand acted as a kind of dressing table, with an unframed mirror propped against the wall and a row of bottles and jars containing perfumes, powder, lipstick and cleansing creams lined up carefully. Strings of glass beads and cultured pearls were hung from the back of the chair and a small, white cardboard box full of brooches and rings stood open on the window sill.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Clare demanded, standing up and coming between Millicent and the washstand. Her cream linen dress was badly creased and her smooth hair ruffled.

  ‘Nothing.’ There was perfume and costume jewellery but no family photographs, no personal touches. Millicent guessed that the dress rail behind the curtain was crammed with up-to-date clothes. ‘I’m not looking at anything.’

  Clare seized the box of jewellery and thrust it at Millicent. ‘Presents, if you must know! All from the man whose name you mentioned.’ She went across the room and pulled back the green curtain. ‘Dresses, too.’ She took a rose-pink satin one trimmed with matching chiffon from the rail and held it against her slim figure. ‘Aren’t you jealous, Millicent? I’ll bet Harold Buckley doesn’t buy you anything like this.’

  Millicent frowned and took a step backwards.

  ‘Now you don’t feel so clever, do you?’ There was a note of triumph in Clare’s voice as she slid the pink dress back on to the rail.

  ‘How did you know about me and Harold?’

  ‘I saw you two in the King’s Head, remember? As a matter of fact, I know him from when I worked as a loom cleaner, straight after I left school. He was far too friendly with me, if you know what I mean. Then he gave me the sack when I refused to play his game.’

  Millicent took the blow then feebly attempted to cover her tracks. ‘He’s a friend of the family, that’s all.’

  ‘What family, pray? You only had your father when we were at school, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Yes, and a fat lot of good he was.’ A drinker and a dead loss, unable to cope after Millicent’s mother had deserted them when Millicent was eight. She never spoke about her miserable childhood, but that was why she’d had to develop a tough shell and grow up fast, to look after herself and make her own way.

  ‘Exactly. We were in the same boat as schoolgirls and we’re in the same boat now.’ Clare gave Millicent a challenging look.

  Millicent shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Oh, some things are similar, I admit. We both have secrets for a start. And we both have to fend for ourselves. But I feel as if I’ve had more practice.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Clare objected. ‘You’re only guessing.’

  ‘Well then, put it this way – at least I look as if I can take care of myself.’

  ‘Whereas I don’t?’

  The gloves were off and Millicent spoke openly. ‘It’s what I was saying to Norma and Cynthia – you’re too perfect-looking for your own good and yet you go around in a sort of dream. You must have men swarming around you and unless you’re on your guard, it would be easy for you to drift into something that you couldn’t get out of.’ She gestured towards the dresses and the jewellery.

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ Clare’s voice faltered and she shook her head. ‘Sidney buys me these presents to show me how much he cares. It’s what every woman dreams of.’

  ‘And he takes you out in his car and shows you off to all his friends, does he? You’ve been to Sheffield and met his family?’

  ‘No, but I’m sure I will soon. When he’s ready.’

  ‘He won’t ever be ready.’ Millicent shook her head. ‘Don’t you see?’

  ‘He will,’ Clare insisted. But the fact that Sidney had never once mentioned his family struck home, although she’d never admit it. ‘And yes, he does take me out in the evenings and I do meet his friends, so there!’

  ‘Is that where you’re going tonight – to one of these “soirées” that Sidney holds?’ Millicent knew that she was pushing Clare close to the edge again – she could see it in her eyes, which were shot through with fresh panic. ‘Whereabouts is it – in town or out in the country? What will you wear? Will it be the pink dress or the white one hanging next to it?’

  ‘The pink, I expect.’ Though she tried her best to hold her head high, fear clawed at Clare’s chest and made her breathless. The gathering was in fact out of town with people she didn’t know. Sidney himself was unable to come and collect her. That was why she hadn’t wanted to go.

  ‘And who’s Vincent?’ Millicent asked quietly.

  That was it – she’d pushed an inch too far and, without answering Millicent’s question, Clare fell wordlessly down the chasm, spiralling out of reach.

  Norma, Cynthia and Millicent had the rest of the weekend to mull over Clare’s predicament. After the hairdresser’s they’d spent half an hour talking it through in the Lyons’ café then gone their separate ways.

  Maybe Millicent’s wrong, Cynthia thought during her bus ride home. Rich men did fall in love with poor girls and marry them, and not just in fairy tales – especially girls as beautiful as Clare. Perhaps Sidney Hall is just taking his time, going slowly, paving the way towards a proper introduction of Clare into his family circle. Meanwhile, he was showering her with gifts because he truly loved her.

  ‘Are you sure we’re on the right track?’ Norma meanwhile asked Millicent on the long walk out of town along the towpath, carrying their hats so as not to flatten their newly styled hair. Wispy clouds drifted across the late-afternoon sky and were reflected in the dark brown water of the canal. ‘We’re not making two and two add up to five?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Millicent insisted. Rusting tin cans and old newspapers littered the cinder path. A bare-headed man in waistcoat and shirtsleeves stood on the deck of a stationary barge, smoking a pipe and staring at them through a cloud of pungent smoke as they walked briskly by. �
�All that silk and satin, the perfume and make-up he makes her wear. It proves Sidney is trying to turn Clare into something she isn’t.’

  ‘Don’t you think a lot of men do that?’

  ‘Douglas doesn’t,’ Millicent pointed out.

  ‘No, he likes me the way I am.’

  ‘That’s my point.’ Millicent went back to considering what more they could do to help Clare.

  ‘Douglas is different to most men,’ Norma insisted. ‘And before you ask – no, I haven’t given him his answer yet. And yes, I do know he won’t wait for ever.’

  Millicent grimaced then moved on. ‘Anyway, you didn’t see the look in Clare’s eyes when I mentioned tonight’s soirée, as if she was teetering on the edge of a cliff.’ The memory sent a shiver down her spine. ‘Up till that point, I hoped I was on the way to making her see sense. It was just the one little question about Vincent that pushed her over the edge.’

  ‘I know. We heard the sobs.’ Norma recalled how raised voices from the room upstairs had made Barbara put down her scissors and rush up to calm Clare down and usher Millicent back into the salon. Then there’d been silence from upstairs and hardly a word spoken as Margaret had finished with Cynthia then started on Millicent’s haircut.

  ‘Clare has been doing her level best to keep the blindfold on,’ Millicent said as they climbed some steps from the towpath up on to Canal Road, to be confronted by delivery boys on bikes weaving through traffic, sturdy dray horses pulling a beer wagon, cars tooting their horns, a brown and yellow tram laden with shoppers on the way home from town. ‘She’s been telling herself that Sidney’s intentions are honourable, flying in the face of evidence to the contrary. We all know that there’s none so blind … But tonight is when she’ll finally have to face up to the facts – I’m sure of it.’

  Norma thought again of the lurid stories in the newspapers then let out a quiet groan. ‘We’ve missed our chance, haven’t we?’

  Millicent nodded. ‘It looks like it. But at least we can say we tried.’

  They came to Ghyll Road and the parting of ways – Norma up Albion Lane and Millicent on to Heaton Yard, each counting their blessings in comparison with Clare.

  For the rest of the weekend they basked in the calm waters of normality – Millicent striding out with her rambling group on the Sunday, Norma taking her mother to chapel then making a picnic tea for her and Douglas before the two of them cycled out to Brimstone Rock.

  Cynthia, meanwhile, found little time to sit down and study since Uncle William’s demands came thick and fast. There was a pile of ironing to catch up on. After dinner on Sunday, he made her take up the carpets to hang them over the washing line and beat every speck of dust out of them before her mother came for tea.

  ‘I saw you gallivanting off with that Evans chap on Friday night, and don’t think I didn’t.’ William gave a suggestive curl of his lip as he watched her beat the last of the carpets. ‘No slacking now, Missy. There’s still silver to polish and floors to mop.’ He stomped back into the house with his stout walking stick and lumbered down the hallway.

  On and on, relentlessly, with just enough time for Cynthia to spare a thought every now and then for whatever might be going on between Clare Bell and Sidney Hall.

  There were compliments on the Monday morning from Molly and Brenda when Cynthia went in to work.

  ‘Who’s got a swanky new haircut?’ Brenda winked at her as she took up position at her switchboard.

  ‘Very sophisticated,’ Molly agreed.

  ‘No talking. Take the lights!’ Ruth cried.

  ‘Where did you get it done?’

  ‘At Sylvia’s,’ Cynthia whispered, routes and rates booklets tucked under her arm.

  ‘Take the lights, girls. Come along, please!’

  Molly sat down next to Millicent. ‘We still need a shilling from you for the gramophone, remember? Everyone else has paid up.’

  ‘You can have it next pay day,’ Millicent promised.

  ‘Lights, please!’

  And so the week began in a flurry of flashing lights and the connecting of cords, voices on the line, operators listening on headsets and enunciating carefully into speaking horns, supes patrolling the aisle.

  As usual, Cynthia thrived on the fast pace but the build-up to another midweek test put a strain on her nerves and she made sure she studied well past midnight on the Tuesday evening.

  ‘Good luck,’ Wilf told her as she stepped off his bus at the stop on George Street on Wednesday morning. He gave her hand a squeeze.

  ‘Ta – I’ll need it.’

  ‘A brainbox like you will breeze through, don’t you worry. I’ll wait for you by the cenotaph after work,’ he promised. ‘Then you can tell me how you got on.’

  Cynthia’s head buzzed with facts and her heart raced as she entered the exchange. The part of the test to do with the history of the telephone would be straightforward enough, and likewise the technical aspects of the Strowger system for storage and redirecting of information. But it was routes and rates that would really test her knowledge – there was so much to learn.

  ‘Good luck!’ Norma and Millicent called in unison as she walked down the aisle towards the supes’ office.

  ‘The poor thing looks as if she’s getting ready to walk the plank,’ Norma murmured.

  ‘Don’t forget about the new 999 Emergency system,’ Millicent called after her. ‘It won’t reach this exchange for a good while, but we’re still expected to know about it. That’s the sort of thing they’ll throw in to trip you up.’

  Beset by nerves, Cynthia disappeared into the office.

  ‘Hello, London.’ Millicent took her first call of the day and efficiently connected the long-distance caller to a local number.

  ‘Hello, caller. I’m afraid the line you require is busy. Please try again later.’ Norma had flicked a rear key to no avail. Her board went dead for a while and she glanced at Cynthia in the office, head bowed, scribbling down answers for all she was worth. Another light went on and Norma grew alert as she recognized the number as the one belonging to Sylvia’s Salon. ‘Hello, caller. Go ahead, please.’

  ‘This is Mrs Parr. I wish to speak to Mr Hall on 351, please.’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Parr. Please hold the line.’ Norma sat bolt upright at her board as she connected cords and opened the line. Once more she glanced down the aisle to see Ruth enter the office to supervise Cynthia’s test and she decided it was safe to leave her headset in place and listen in.

  ‘Hello, Sidney. This is Phyllis. I haven’t interrupted your breakfast, I hope.’

  ‘Not at all. I was going to call you later, in any case.’

  ‘I’m sure you can guess why I’m ringing.’

  ‘Yes – to find out how our new arrangement went on Saturday.’ There was a pause and the chink of a china cup against a saucer. ‘The goods proved satisfactory, by all accounts.’

  Norma took a sharp intake of breath and kept on listening.

  ‘Excellent. There was some difficulty at this end, according to Barbara and Margaret. But it was all cleared up by the time Vincent arrived.’

  There was another pause and the sound of a door closing in the background. This seemed to Norma to provide Sidney with an opportunity to speak more openly. ‘It still needed a little persuasion on my part, but after I’d had the necessary words with her, Clare went out and made quite an impact, you can be sure.’

  ‘As expected. She is exceptional, after all.’

  For a while, the cool, suave tone of the overheard conversation confused Norma and it was only the introduction of Clare’s name that convinced her that Mrs Parr and Sidney were discussing a person and not an object.

  ‘So much so that we now have a number of customers who wish to secure her services,’ he went on callously.

  ‘Excellent again.’

  Norma shut her eyes and held her breath, as if this would block out what she was hearing. It meant that she didn’t notice Ruth leave the office to resume her patr
ol.

  ‘Our next client has put in a request for this Friday evening – no name, of course, but needless to say a highly respectable person. Vincent will do the honours, as before, and see that the goods are delivered.’

  Norma’s mouth felt dry. Her eyes were still closed and her earphones were clamped to her head when she felt someone bump into the back of her chair. The force of the collision swung her round to face Millicent and she pushed her headset back from her ears.

  ‘Sorry.’ Millicent made a great show of apologizing while rolling her eyes in the direction of the approaching supe. ‘Clumsy me!’

  Ruth marched towards them, demanding an explanation. ‘Millicent, why have you left your switchboard without permission?’

  ‘I needed an urgent and there was no one to ask. I’m sorry – I couldn’t wait.’ She rushed off as if desperate before the supervisor could stop her.

  Norma heaved a sigh of relief. It had been a close call. Another few seconds and Ruth would have caught her red handed. As it was, she had to wait on tenterhooks without listening in again until the supervision lamp came up to show that the call between Sidney and Mrs Parr had ended.

  For the rest of the morning, time dragged. Cynthia finished her test and handed in her answers then sat in with Brenda for a final period of observation before she was given a switchboard of her own.

  ‘Miss Ridley says that if I pass my written test, they’ll put me to work properly,’ she informed Millicent and Norma when she joined them in the restroom for their dinner break. ‘I can hardly wait.’

  They received the good news quietly and Cynthia picked up a tension in the air. Millicent stood with her back to the window, her face in shadow, and Norma sat on a chair in the corner while Molly and two other women pored over a list of gramophones for sale in the music shop next to the library in the centre of town.

  ‘Do you two fancy a breath of air?’ Norma spoke deliberately then stood up and shepherded Cynthia and Millicent out across the foyer into the street.

  ‘What’s up?’ Millicent asked.

  Norma swallowed hard. She wanted to spare Cynthia’s feelings but on the other hand she couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘I’m afraid there’s bad news about Clare and Sidney Hall. Mrs Parr put in a call to him this morning.’