The Telephone Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘They’ll be queuing up,’ the man agreed as he turned to greet a couple of newcomers. ‘Now then, let me buy you a pint, lads?’

  Millicent looked in the mirror and saw the reflection of Wilf and Alf Middlemiss heading towards the bar. She soon learned from the conversation that two of the three men propping up the bar were taxi-driver pals of Alf. It was as she’d hoped – the King’s Head was the pub where they congregated after work.

  ‘Hello, Wilf,’ she said as soon as he noticed her.

  ‘Blimey, Millicent. What are you doing here all by yourself?’

  His surprise seemed overdone until she saw him weighing her up against the blonde woman in the red dress and the girl in the low-cut top and the reason why they were here struck her all at once. It wasn’t only taxi drivers who gathered in this pub, she realized. But she looked steadily at Wilf and held up her empty glass. ‘I’d have thought that was obvious.’

  ‘Let me buy you another.’ Gallant Alf stepped in and ordered a second Dubonnet. ‘How are you, love? I take it you’ve got over the shock of witnessing what happened at the hairdresser’s?’

  Millicent fell into small talk with kindly Alf, at the same time keeping an eye on the comings and goings in the room. She learned that he and Wilf had come here to talk through the possibility of Wilf filling in for Alf when the latter wanted to take some time off.

  ‘There’s no point my taxi sitting around doing nothing when I’m not working, is there?’ he explained. ‘Wilf’s a good driver, so why not let him have the use of the car to earn a few extra bob?’

  ‘It’s easy – all I have to do is apply for a licence,’ Wilf explained with his usual bravado.

  ‘That’s nice of you, Alf.’ She saw the woman in the low-cut top go off with the older man, leaving the woman in the red dress alone at the table. ‘It means you’ll have to tear yourself away from Cynthia once in a while, though, Wilf.’

  He accepted her teasing comment with a cheeky grin. ‘Talking of which, can you give Cynthia a message from me? Tell her that Mum’s invited her to tea at the lodge on Sunday.’

  ‘I will if I see her.’ Millicent gave a casual reply, wishing to avoid having to tell Wilf about the argument but he was too quick on the uptake.

  ‘Why wouldn’t you see her? She lives with you, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, but we’ve fallen out over something that happened at work today, that’s all.’ Still stalling, she saw in the mirror that the very man she’d been hoping to see had at last arrived. ‘I expect it’ll soon blow over,’ she told Wilf with a distracted air.

  ‘Good evening, Vincent.’ Stanley greeted his new customer. ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘The usual, please.’ Vincent Poole took off his cap and smoothed down his already sleek hair as he approached the bar and said hello to his fellow taxi drivers.

  Millicent kept her eye on him through one of the angled mirrors. Her skin tingled with anticipation and she lost interest in the conversation with Wilf.

  ‘Millicent?’ he prompted. ‘I said – do you happen to know where Cynthia is right now?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t – I haven’t seen her since this morning.’

  ‘Rightio – I’ll see if I can track her down.’ Wilf quickly drank up and went, leaving Alf to drift into conversation with the other men at the bar.

  Millicent swivelled on her stool and caught Vincent’s eye. ‘Hello again,’ she said with what she hoped was an inviting air.

  He shook his head with a momentarily puzzled expression.

  ‘We met yesterday – in the Lyons’ café.’

  Realization dawned. ‘That’s right, we did. Millicent, isn’t it?’ He moved towards her, sliding his glass along the bar. Then he reached into his breast pocket to pull out a packet of cigarettes and offered her one.

  ‘I don’t, ta.’

  Vincent took one for himself and lit up. ‘Twice in two days,’ he commented, using his fingertips to pick a shred of tobacco from his glistening tongue. ‘I’m in luck.’

  She gave a brittle smile and held his gaze, ignoring the landlord’s and Alf’s blatant curiosity. ‘You certainly are. You wouldn’t normally find me out in town on a weekday evening.’

  ‘So why tonight?’

  ‘I’m drowning my sorrows – that’s why. And I can assure you, I’ve got plenty of them.’

  Though Vincent wouldn’t strike anyone as the sympathetic type, with his spare, lined face and suspicious grey eyes, he drew closer to Millicent. ‘I bet you do. Margaret told me that you’re the telephone girl from the George Street exchange. I mean – the telephone girl.’

  She nodded and shaped her answer carefully. ‘The one they sent to Sylvia’s Salon, worse luck.’

  ‘It can’t have been a pretty sight.’ His narrowed eyes were fixed intently on her face, as if trying to drill through her skull and read her thoughts.

  Millicent shuddered inwardly. ‘The worst was over by the time I got there, thank heavens.’

  Poole probed further. ‘Still – you probably had to hang around until the police arrived, listening to the girl’s sob story.’

  ‘Oh no – Clare didn’t say a word.’ Millicent was desperate to look away but instead used all her will-power to keep on staring back at him. Whatever happened, he mustn’t suspect her of ulterior motives. ‘What could she have said? It was clear to everyone what had happened – to me, the police, the ambulance men.’

  Vincent closed his eyes as he drew long and hard on his cigarette. Then he gestured towards her glass. ‘Is it doing the trick?’

  ‘Drowning my sorrows, you mean?’ She sighed and leaned in as if to share more confidences. ‘No – I’ve got a lot on my plate besides that. Take today – my supervisor at work only went and threatened me with the sack.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ Poole flicked ash on to the floor, to a hard stare from Stanley. ‘Another Dubonnet should help take the sting out of that.’ Ordering Millicent a third drink and taking her lightly by the elbow, he steered her away from the bar towards a corner booth.

  ‘I could do with something to tide me over while the union sorts it out for me,’ she went on. ‘The GPO doesn’t pay me my wages while I’m suspended.’

  ‘Could you, now?’ His expression changed from ingrained suspicion to a new kind of measured interest that took in her mass of glossy dark hair and her generous curves. She was here alone in the notorious King’s Head, wasn’t she, and surely she must know the score. His mind headed off along a new track. ‘What kind of work are you looking for?’

  ‘Oh – you know …’ Her skin had begun to creep in earnest and she reached for the new drink that Stanley had brought to their table. On his way back to the bar, he had a passing word with Alf Middlemiss who shot her a disappointed glance before turning his back. ‘Why? Do you know of anything?’

  ‘I might,’ Poole said in the guttural tone that set her nerves further on edge.

  ‘Anything at all,’ Millicent insisted with deliberate innuendo, allowing her gaze to rest on the girl in the red dress who had stood up to greet a portly, unsmiling man of around fifty wearing a straw panama hat, an expensive linen suit and a blue silk tie. The man spoke briefly then turned and left. The girl swiftly picked up her handbag and followed.

  Poole, too, followed the sequence of events then raised his eyebrows at Millicent. ‘Leave it with me,’ he grunted, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray and putting on his cap, ready to go.

  It took everything she had to remain seated and looking up at him with a willing expression. ‘How will you let me know? I won’t be passing the taxi rank on my way to the exchange while I’m suspended. Shall I arrange to meet you here?’

  ‘Whoa, not so fast.’ Her eagerness brought a cold smile to his lips. ‘Give me a day or two to have a word with a couple of people I know.’

  Her bright expression faltered. ‘A day or two?’

  Poole nodded. ‘There might well be a vacancy for what we have in mind, but I’m only the driver in thi
s business so I need to check with my boss first.’ He moved away swiftly without bothering to say goodbye.

  Millicent drained her glass. Have I put on a good enough act? she wondered. And if she had, was she ready to take the next step, closer still to the centre of the vice ring run by Phyllis Parr? I am – more than ready! she told herself, her head swimming so badly that she almost lost her balance when she stood up to leave.

  Stanley watched the scene impassively as he dried glasses behind the bar. Alf took a step towards her then changed his mind. Millicent swayed, righted herself and headed for the door.

  Outside it was still light and there was a steady stream of people coming down the steps of the Spiritualist church. They flowed across the street towards the bus stop, past the cenotaph and the names of the sons and husbands they yearned to contact – a list carved in white stone – captains, corporals, gunners, in alphabetical order, since death in foreign fields was no respecter of rank.

  ‘What’s wrong with her? Why doesn’t she speak?’ Clifford Denton, the duty defence solicitor stood outside Clare’s cell and spoke quietly to Thomas Wright, the prison medical officer.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ came the reply. ‘I still haven’t managed to get a peep out of her – neither have any of the warders, as far as I know.’

  ‘So is she fit to plead?’ The solicitor was mildly intrigued. It wasn’t every day that he was assigned a case like this. Or rather, the case was humdrum enough – the stabbing of a husband by a jealous lover, or vice versa – a crime passionnel, as the French called it. But the perpetrator here was out of the ordinary – unusually young, for a start, and exceptionally beautiful. He stared at her through the sliding panel in the cell door, realizing straight away that there was capital to be made out of the accused’s good looks in front of a jury.

  Clare sat on her bed and stared ahead, seemingly unaware that anyone was outside the door. In her hand she held a sheet of paper – a request from Millicent Jones for a visiting order that she hadn’t even bothered to read.

  ‘I’ve found no evidence of mental illness,’ Wright said uneasily. He was older than the solicitor, who struck him as over-confident and a touch brash in his broad pinstriped suit and wide blue and yellow tie. ‘How can I, since she’s refused to answer any of my questions?’

  ‘Let’s hope I have better luck.’ Denton was prepared to give it a go, at least. He opened up a file and entered the date – Friday 24 July – and the name of the accused – Clare Bell.

  ‘There’s bruising to her neck, shoulder and wrist,’ Wright observed. ‘Fading now, of course, but still visible.’

  ‘Thank you – that might be useful.’ Jotting down the information before entering the cell, Denton was struck again by Clare’s perfection and by how she had no reaction to him whatsoever. She simply gazed straight ahead without blinking, her skin smooth and pale as marble, her dark eyes unseeing. He introduced himself and waited for her to respond.

  She sat perfectly still and unaware.

  ‘Do you know why I’m here?’

  Nothing. Not a flicker of her eyelids, not a twitch of the hands resting on her lap. Denton cleared his throat. ‘We have to build a defence before the case goes to court. I have to be ready.’

  Clare heard a voice speaking into the void that engulfed her but it was distant and had nothing to do with her. It meant nothing. There was a dark blue shape in the room – that was all.

  His approach needed to be more direct to shock her back into the here and now, he decided. ‘You’re charged with murder, Clare. That brings with it a mandatory death sentence unless we can find some mitigating circumstances.’

  Words made no sense. Food was brought to the cell and taken away uneaten. She lay down at night but didn’t sleep. People in uniforms came and went.

  ‘Do you understand what I’m telling you?’ he asked. Perhaps she wasn’t ill but mentally retarded. If he spoke more simply he might get through to her. ‘The police think you’ve killed someone – a man named Sidney Hall. There will be a trial. A jury will decide whether or not you’re guilty. It’s my job to defend you.’

  Clare didn’t hear. She was falling into blackness and silence.

  ‘Won’t you tell me what happened? How did you get those bruises? … Clare, can you hear me? I can’t do anything for you unless you give me your version of events …’

  Nothing, and again – nothing.

  The bruises were still there to see. Three distinct marks on her neck, the result of strong pressure. In a spirit of desperation, Denton added another note to his almost empty file – Attempted strangulation? Possible self-defence?

  ‘It’s the best I can do,’ he told Wright on his way out. ‘Let’s hope it helps her escape the noose – that and the fact that she’ll have all the men on the jury on her side as soon as they take one look at her.’

  ‘And they talk about justice,’ Wright muttered to himself. He was tired after a call-out in the middle of the night and had no idea whether or not Clare Bell was guilty. He would be called as a witness and vouch for her fitness to stand trial. What more could he do in the circumstances?

  Friday came at last – almost the end of Cynthia’s working week, since she had to work on Saturday morning but had the afternoon off to help her mother and father pack up. She’d stayed with them for two nights at Ellis’s insistence but after tonight she had no idea where she would be living.

  ‘Eat humble pie, the way I had to do with William,’ Beryl had told her in no uncertain terms. ‘Go back to Millicent and tell her you’re sorry. If she’s as good a friend as you say she is, she’ll let bygones be bygones.’

  Cynthia wasn’t so sure. ‘She and Norma could both lose their jobs over this,’ she’d reminded her mother.

  Her father surprised her again by standing up for her. He’d insisted she hadn’t done anything wrong. ‘You make sure you stick up for yourself if this Millicent woman has a go at you.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad – I’ll try.’ She had to face up to the fact that sooner or later she would have to go back to Heaton Yard, if only to collect her things. Perhaps early Saturday evening, she’d thought.

  The support from Ellis at home had been in stark contrast to her treatment from Molly and Brenda at work, who had not said a word to her since Wednesday. This wasn’t so bad when they were all busy at their switchboards, but it was torture during dinner breaks when they’d made a great show of cutting her out of their conversations or else passed catty remarks within earshot.

  ‘Some people don’t know the meaning of the word gratitude,’ Molly said to Brenda. It was Friday dinner time and she had no intention of letting Cynthia off the hook. There were three other girls in the restroom besides Molly, Brenda, Cynthia and Ruth who observed everything without comment.

  ‘Millicent and Norma have hearts of gold. They were good enough to take a certain someone under their wing and look at the thanks they got.’

  Brenda stared at Cynthia then sighed loudly. ‘Some people always look after number one and that’s a fact.’

  Cynthia tried to pretend that she hadn’t heard but the hostile stares soon became too much for her and she fled out on to the street, only to run into Bert who was standing in the doorway to the barber’s shop.

  ‘Who’s sorry now?’ was his opening gambit as he leaped out in front of her.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Cynthia sounded as weary as she felt. She crossed the street to take a breath of fresh air by the cenotaph, hoping that Bert wouldn’t follow.

  But he was like a terrier down a hole, goading her with comments about her being turfed out of house and home. ‘Who’s sorry that she didn’t stick it out at Moor View, eh? It would have been a darned sight better than taking a room in Millicent’s house – which by the way, Uncle William still doesn’t know about.’

  ‘Don’t tell him,’ Cynthia pleaded. First Molly and Brenda, and now Bert – she really was at the end of her tether.

  He laughed. ‘Fat chance. The old devi
l would as soon shoot me as let me anywhere near him. Anyway, it makes no difference, since I hear she’s about to give you your marching orders.’

  ‘Who says so?’

  ‘No one. I work things out for myself, ta. Why else would you be back at Aunty Beryl’s house?’

  ‘And why don’t you mind your own business?’ Out of the corner of her eye, Cynthia noticed Phyllis Parr, immaculate as usual in her dove-grey two-piece, get out of a taxi, cross George Street and approach Sylvia’s Salon. She unlocked the door then disappeared inside. ‘Anyway, Bert – since you know everything about everyone, when is the hairdresser’s going to reopen for business?’

  ‘Why – what’s it to you?’

  Before she had time to answer, she was distracted by the sight of Wilf jumping out of another of the taxis at the rank and hurrying towards her. At last, here was someone who wasn’t against her. She waved and ran to meet him.

  ‘Whoa!’ he laughed as she flung her arms around his neck. ‘Where have you been? I ran into Millicent at the King’s Head a couple of nights back and I thought something was up. I was worried about you.’

  After leaving the pub two days earlier, Wilf had been doing his best to get in touch with Cynthia. He’d tried first at Heaton Yard but the house had been in darkness. The following day he’d been on an early shift then pressed into doing overtime, so it was only today that he’d had another chance to try to track her down. Still no luck at Millicent’s and none of the neighbours seemed to know where Cynthia had gone. ‘I’ve been looking for you all over the place.’

  Cynthia gave a garbled account of where she’d been and why. After the stinging experience of being sent to Coventry by her workmates, the relief of sharing her problem flooded through her. ‘I didn’t mean to get Norma and Millicent into trouble,’ she insisted with tears in her eyes.

  Wilf sent Bert packing then led Cynthia to a nearby bench and sat down beside her. ‘I’m sure they realize that.’

  Cynthia took a deep breath. ‘I wouldn’t bank on it. And I hate to think what Millicent will say to me if and when I do get up the nerve to fetch my things from Heaton Yard tomorrow evening.’