by Rosie Clarke
Sol agreed. We said goodnight and I went up to the nursery. It was my habit to look in at James before I went to bed. He was sleeping peacefully. I was glad that both Nanny and Mrs Rowan were over forty. Otherwise we might have lost them to the government’s war work.
As I went back to my own room, I frowned over the worn carpet on the nursery stairs. It had been repaired once, but I could see that it was beginning to fray again in places. Something must be done about it or it might become dangerous in time.
Alone in my bedroom at last, I took out Jack’s letter and slit the envelope with a silver paper knife Sol had once given me. There were three sheets covered in Jack’s bold script.
He told me what was happening in America, of the changes in attitude towards the war, and how strange it was to see so many men in uniform on the streets.
‘In London it was not unusual, but here it seems odd,’ he wrote.
Yet it is a change I welcome, Emma. I have always felt it was a war that all right-minded men should want to fight. We cannot allow Hitler to get away with the terrible things he has done. We have to beat him, and do it in such a way that no one will ever dare to commit such atrocities again. But enough of war, my darling. My thoughts are always with you. I wonder every day what you are doing and hope that you are happy and well. If you write to me, Robert will see that your letters are sent on wherever I happen to be. He and Jane are good people, my darling. I trust them to look after you while I’m away. I’m sending you a parcel. It will arrive in the usual way …
I laughed, then read his letter again twice before folding it and putting it away in the drawer next to the gifts he had given me.
How long would it be before I saw Jack again?
Tears stung my eyes. How I hated this war! It had robbed me of Jon. Would it take Jack, too?
I would not allow myself to dwell on such morbid thoughts! Jack had promised to come back, and somehow I believed he would. Jack was too confident, too full of life to be defeated by a little thing like war …
Chapter 9
‘I wish you had let me know you were ill,’ I said and bent to kiss Pops on the cheek. He was sitting in his chair in the front parlour, but he looked very frail and I thought he probably ought to be still in bed. ‘I would have come over sooner if I had known.’
‘If you visited us now and then, you would have known Pops hasn’t been at all well for a while,’ Mrs Reece said, giving me an angry look. ‘But I suppose we are not really important to you now. You’ve forgotten us, just as you’ve forgotten Jon.’
Something in her eyes at that moment made me wonder what she had heard. I had never tried to hide my friendship with Jack, but she couldn’t know that we had become lovers on his last visit. No one else knew that for certain, though both Sol and Margaret suspected it. Neither of them would have told Mrs Reece, however.
‘That’s not fair,’ I said, controlling my urge to strike back. Losing my temper would not help anyone. ‘I shall never forget Jon. Nor you and Pops. I know I haven’t been to visit for a while, but it has been difficult. There is so much to do these days I’ve been opening a new shop with some friends, that’s besides working in the showroom and helping out at the club. I like to take James to the park on Sundays. It’s the only day I have with him.’
‘We understand,’ Pops said and caught my hand. He gave me his sweet smile. ‘I know you come when you can manage it, Emma. I wouldn’t let Dorothy telephone you, because I know you have so much to do – but I am very glad to see you now. Sit down and talk to me, my dear. Tell me what you’ve been doing …’
I did as he asked, spending far longer than I had intended with him. I would be late for work, but that would have to take second place for once. Seeing him so poorly had made me feel guilty for neglecting him. To be perfectly honest, I would have been glad of an excuse not to visit Jon’s mother, but I really loved Pops. If anything happened to him I would miss him – and it would make coming here to this house even more of a duty.
‘I really will try to visit more often,’ I promised as I kissed Pops goodbye later. ‘Take care of yourself.’
‘You take care of yourself, Emma.’ He studied my face anxiously. ‘You do look a little tired, my dear. You should take more time to relax yourself. You’re not overdoing things, are you?’
‘No …’ I sighed. ‘It’s just that I can’t sleep sometimes …’
I lay awake often at night, thinking about Jack, about the war – and all the people who were no longer with us.
Pops squeezed my hand. ‘It isn’t much of a life for you, Emma. You should get out more, enjoy yourself.’
‘At least I’m enjoying getting our new shop ready,’ I said, and smiled at him. ‘It gives me something to think about … makes things a little brighter somehow.’
‘The war will be over one of these days,’ Pops promised. ‘You are very young, Emma. There are a lot of good things out there waiting for you. You just have to be patient.’
I smiled and thanked him, but I was thoughtful as I caught a bus home. There were times, often when I was alone at night, when the waiting seemed unbearable, but there wasn’t much else we could do. We just had to make the most of what we had, and at least I had good friends – and my shop.
We called our shop Charm & Elegance, and it was an instant success.
Our first customers were all Jane’s friends, of course, but within hours we had women coming in off the street, more out of curiosity than anything else at first. However, when they saw the beautiful things we had on offer, many of them were keen to buy. Some purchased whatever took their fancy then came back the same day with a garment of their own to sell, then bought something else from the rails. They stopped for a cup of tea and a chat, and went away vowing to tell all their friends about us.
The idea of being able to part exchange their unwanted clothes seemed to amuse and intrigue everyone who came in, and the sales were even better than I had expected.
‘One woman bought three dresses from me this afternoon,’ Margaret told me when we were talking at the end of our first week. ‘Not one of them would fit her, but she has three granddaughters who are apparently very good at sewing and she was thrilled to be able to get such lovely material. The dresses all have very full skirts and I am sure her granddaughters will be able to make something rather nice with the material; she was pleased anyway.’
‘So our idea is working?’
‘Your idea, Emma.’ She smiled at me. ‘I was beginning to think we would sell out in a few weeks and have nothing left to offer, but two of Jane’s friends brought a load of dresses and costumes in this morning. Most of them are perfectly wearable for anyone a size or two smaller. One of them changed hers for a pair of evening shoes that I had never worn because they pinched my toes after I’d bought them, and the matching bag. The other lady took that black velvet cape of your grandmother’s. That was a lovely thing, Emma, and the fur trimming alone was worth the price we had put on it.’
‘Yes, it was nice,’ I agreed. ‘Gwen’s trunk turned out to be full of treasures, didn’t it? And the money I gave her was useful, even though she didn’t want to take it. Some of the dresses went back to Edwardian days. Grandmother must have bought them when she was a young woman, before she was married, and like you she hardly wore them. She had put them away so carefully that some of them could have been new. Jane wore a pretty apricot silk tea gown to a cocktail party. She said everyone thought it was wonderful, and so of course they wanted to know all about the shop.’
Margaret nodded and smiled. She was enjoying herself, as both Jane and I were. Serving in the shop was like being amongst new friends.
Sol was intrigued by our success.
‘I thought it would never work,’ he told me some weeks later. ‘But I suppose a man sees these things differently.’
‘I don’t suppose it would have caught on so well if it were not for the war,’ I said truthfully. ‘But women get very bored with wearing the same things all the time
. And most of us have something that we bought before rationing came in and never wore because it just wasn’t right. In my case, it was a silk blouse that didn’t suit me. Usually, I would simply put the offending article right at the back of the wardrobe and forget it was there, but the chance to sell it and buy something else is tempting with the way things are just now.’
‘Well, you might find something you can use in the storeroom,’ Sol said looking thoughtful. ‘There are some boxes of dresses that go back twenty years or more. I’m not sure exactly what’s there – a few end of line oddments, or stock that didn’t sell and was too outdated to keep on the rails. I wrote everything off years ago, so they’re not on the books. I suppose someone might cut them up and make something out of them. You’re welcome to take whatever is there, Emma. They are of no use to me.’
‘Thank you. I’ll see what I can find.’
By the end of six weeks, most of our original stock had gone, but the rails were bulging. The idea had certainly proved popular, and we soon had a thriving little business. Quite a few of our customers were women who had lost everything when their homes were bombed.
‘We’ve been given extra coupons,’ they told us as they searched the rails for bargains. ‘But it’s so hard to find anything nice these days. Some of your things are old-fashioned but good quality. All it takes is a little time and thought to make something really smart.’
Most of the women who came in found something they liked, and often they would come back a few days later to show us what they had made from whatever they had bought.
‘You ought to advertise to buy things,’ my mother said when she came up to visit me in the spring. She had been to the shop and bought several bits and pieces she intended to use for trimming a new dress for herself. ‘If you put a little card in other shop windows, Emma, I’ll bet you would get lots more replies. I’m sure there must be no end of women with things put away who have never heard of your shop.’
‘At the moment we are buying as much as we can hold,’ I told her. ‘If I went round to people’s houses, we would need to move into bigger premises!’
I did not particularly want to expand the business. It was already taking up more of my time than I had anticipated. Besides, I believed it was a novelty. Already, some of Jane’s friends had stopped bothering to come in, but now we were getting most of our trade from the ordinary woman off the street. Besides, I was sure that once the annoying restrictions on clothing were eased, everyone would naturally prefer to buy new clothes.
However, there was no sign of that happening just yet. The war was still claiming too many ships. Our little island was suffering from the need to concentrate on importing vital supplies, and instead of easing, the shortages were getting worse. We were constantly being told we must manage with less of everything. It was no longer just a case of drawing a line on the bath to make sure we didn’t use too much water, now we were short of things like shaving soap and razor blades. Some women were using beetroot for lipstick and soot for eye make up.
Fashion was being dictated not by French designers, but by the Board of Trade in London. Hemlines were to be shorter in line with the new Utility label. We, as manufacturers, had been told to limit the number of styles we could have on offer in our showroom. However, we were still able to provide a service to customers who wished to purchase their own cloth and have it tailored to their own requirements.
The tailors of Savile Row were in demand by those wealthy clients who still required suits that might cost up to thirty guineas each, but our customers were the shopkeepers who sold to ordinary women who needed ready-made dresses, and we were bound by law to restrict our lines to very basic designs. The dresses were shorter than would have been worn a year or so earlier, the skirts usually straight without gores or flares. Sleeves were often short, and the collars were plain, the trimmings regulated to cut down on the amount of material needed. We were not allowed to produce one of our most popular dresses, which had a full, fine pleated skirt that swished as you walked.
‘I’m sorry,’ I found myself apologizing over and over again to our regular customers. ‘We can’t make that style for the time being. We’re not even allowed to use extra braiding.’
‘The government is bent on ruining us all,’ Sol complained. ‘It’s hardly worth the effort keeping going at all these days.’
It was not surprising that many women were finding ways of getting round the restrictions in whatever way they could. Good for our little shop, but soul destroying for the millions of women forced to go without. Their men were away fighting; they were finding it more and more difficult to feed their families, and now they were expected to go out to work for at least a few hours every week.
England was in the grip of austerity, and as the months wore on and the papers continued to print almost nothing but bad news, it became harder and harder to find something to be cheerful about. And yet we managed it somehow.
Jane had become a special friend, and when she discovered our social club for servicemen, she went to some trouble to find supplies of tinned foods for us and insisted on taking her turn at making the refreshments and washing up.
‘We should have a children’s party,’ Jane said when Christmas loomed on the horizon once more. ‘I think we should get someone from our embassy to play Father Christmas.’
During the summer of 1942, Sol had surprised me with the news that he had sold the factory and what remained of our government contracts.
‘We haven’t come out of it too badly,’ he told me. ‘You will have five hundred pounds to come, Emma. The rest of your investment is safe and sound, but I thought you might like to have a bit of cash to play with?’ His eyes were warm with amusement. ‘Now that you’re in business for yourself. You could open another of your shops. Have a chain of them perhaps?’ He was teasing me, of course. I had definite plans for the future, but for the moment I decided to put my money away safely. The government was urging us to buy War Bonds, but Sol refused to buy a single one himself.
‘They’ve damned near ruined me as it is,’ he said. ‘I’ll not trust them with a penny.’
I invested a few pounds out of a sense of duty, but most of the money went elsewhere.
Now that Sol no longer had the factory to worry about, he was able to spend more time in the showroom. That meant I was able to cut down my own hours, and I volunteered to do three afternoons a week answering phones for the Fire Service. Sometimes, I had to drive a control vehicle for them, and that often meant travelling through streets which had been attacked by enemy bombers. The raids were not as frequent or as heavy as during the blitz itself, but were perhaps even more devastating when they happened, not just in London but all over the country. Many of our cities were being relentlessly bombed with terrible consequences.
It seemed to me to be the worst year of the war. We had so little to look forward to and so much to fear.
Even Jack’s letters did not always get through. There were months when I heard nothing from him; then in the spring of 1943 I had six all together. Some of them had obviously been delayed.
I read them eagerly. Jack had been in action. He did not say where or when, just that he was well and hoped he might see me quite soon.
‘I can’t promise, Emma,’ he had written.
But I think I may be sent to London in a few weeks time. You never know, your bad penny might turn up one of these days …
I hoped so much that he would come, but the days passed and I heard no more and my hopes of seeing him began to fade.
‘Jane’s Christmas party for the children was such a success,’ I said to Sheila that morning. It was June and the weather was being kind to us. ‘She is talking of having another when the schools close for the holidays. Why don’t you bring Lizzy, and your cousin’s children? Jane has managed to get some sugar and we are going to have sticky toffee – there will be jellies and cakes, and various other treats. We’re going to have the party outdoors if the weather is fine, probably in
the park, and then we’ll have plenty of room to organize races and games with prizes for the children.’
‘I don’t know …’ Sheila’s eyes didn’t quite meet mine. ‘I’m busy most weekends. I shall have to see what I feel like. I might bring them if I haven’t anything better to do.’
I couldn’t argue with her, though I knew she spent several evenings a week at the social club – and not just helping out either.
Pamela had complained to me about her just a couple of days earlier.
‘She doesn’t pull her weight,’ Pamela had said. ‘I know she is a friend of yours, Emma – but it’s not fair. If I’m on with her, I end up doing all the work while she’s out there dancing with the men. Or drinking …’
‘What do you mean, drinking?’
Pamela hesitated, then nodded, as if making up her mind. ‘Some of the men bring alcohol in with them. We’ve tried to stop it, Emma, but it’s impossible. Especially since the Americans have started coming. They always seem to have a bottle of bourbon, and they share it with the girls. Sheila has been very nearly drunk on a couple of occasions when she left here. I spoke to her about it once, but she told me to mind my own business. If she wasn’t your friend … well, I would have told her we didn’t need her kind here.’
I frowned. ‘What do you mean, Pamela? Her kind?’
‘Well, you know.’ Pamela had been married six years before the war started. Since then her husband, Tom, had been given home leave only once, but she had never to my knowledge looked at another man. And it wasn’t because she hadn’t had offers. All of the woman who worked at the club were asked out regularly. ‘She never goes home alone, Emma. Mostly she leaves with an American soldier these days, but if he isn’t in that night she goes with someone else.’
‘You believe she takes them home?’ I thought about it, then shook my head. ‘I’m sure she doesn’t, Pamela. She lodges with her cousin, and there are four children in the house. She wouldn’t take men there … her cousin wouldn’t stand for it, surely?’