Minerva's Stepchild

by Helen Forrester

  Just before lunch time, a thin waif of a girl wearing large horn-rimmed glasses came out of a door on the other side of the room.

  With an apprehensive glance at Mr. Ellis, she crept over to me and said in an almost inaudible voice, "The cashier would like to see you during your lunch hour." She sniffed, and I saw that she had been crying. It looked as if she had been in even more trouble than I had.

  "The Cash Department is over there," she added, pointing to the room from which she had come.

  I smiled up at her. "Thanks. I'll come."

  She managed a glimmer of a smile back and then fled through the door she had pointed out to me.

  Fear of what lay in wait in the Cash Department was added to my fear of the telephone.

  I knocked at the Cash Department door, and a female voice snapped, "Come in."

  I entered. The room was partly divided by a frosted-glass screen and at first appeared to be empty. I paused.

  "Well? " snapped the same voice again, from behind the glass screen.

  I approached cautiously. Behind the screen, at a littered desk, sat a small, gray-haired woman. She looked at me almost belligerently. "What do you want?"

  "You sent for me, madam. I am Helen Forrester."

  "Hmm." She looked me up and down, and her nose wrinkled in distaste.

  She turned around and took two folded blue garments from a shelf behind her. These she almost threw into my arms.

  "Your wraparounds. You will wear them at all times in the office and will keep them clean. "

  "Yes, madam."

  "You will be paid on Friday afternoons. Such a nuisance to have to pay a single member of the staff on a weekly basis. What is your full name and address? And age?"

  I told her.

  "Very well. You can go." She turned hack to her desk, and I tiptoed out.

  The general office was empty, except for an elderly lady in a pretty gray dress who was manning the telephone. She nodded to me as I went out.

  I went up to the cloakroom on the top floor of the building. This had been shown to me when I arrived, by a hurrying lady in a green wraparound whom I had met on the stairs. I laid the two blue wraparounds on the floor under the hook where I had hung my coat, and wondered what to do. There was nobody about and the silence seemed unearthly. I began to cry, my head pressed against my coat.

  I had no money to buy lunch, and there had been no bread left after breakfast to bring with me. Both parents had left me severely alone, to get myself ready for work and Edward ready to go to Alice's. Feeling like a pariah, I had taken the cheerftil little boy to his new friend's and he had stayed with her without a murmur, and then I had walked to work.

  There was no doubt in my mind that my parents were united in their attitude that I should find going to work so difficult that I would eventually be thankfial to return to housekeeping.

  At the memory of their stony faces, I felt suddenly weak. I moved to the wash basin and clung to it, as my legs began to give under me. Wild colors flashed before my eyes, and I felt myself sinking into oblivion. I knew from experience that I rarely passed out completely, so I clung to the wash basin until the world stopped swimming about.

  I cupped my hand under the cold tap and drank some water, slurping it up and splashing my face. Greatly daring, I decided to have a wash. My face was soaped as it had never been soaped in the past three years. I rinsed and rinsed in gorgeous hot water, then dried myself on the spotlessly clean roller towel.

  The light was poor, but in the mirror I could see green eyes with black rings around them, peering out of a face dead white except where it was blotched with acne. Short eyelashes hardly showed on the reddened eyelids. Smooth eyebrows looked verv^ black below a rough fringe of brown hair. I grinned nieftilly at myself. The teeth thus exposed looked good—the cavities at the back did not show.

  The wash had done me good, and as nobody disturbed me, I washed my glasses, dried them on the towel and put them on. The face in the mirror came into sharper focus, and I could see again how defeatingly plain I was. How I longed for a perfectly straight nose, like Fiona's, instead of the high-bridged, haughty-looking Forrester nose.

  Without a watch I did not know the time. Meanwhile, I needed to sit down, and there was no chair in the cloakroom.

  Hesitantly, I looked along the line of blue wraparounds hung neatly on their owners' hooks, and saw beyond them a door leading off the cloakroom.

  Very quietly, I approached the door and opened it.

  I was in a small passage. To my left, an open door revealed a neat kitchenette. It had a big window and was bright with light. Another closed door faced me. When I turned its handle, it gave a sharp click.

  "Hello. Come in, ' said a soft feminine voice very cheerfully.

  Embarrassed that I had disturbed someone, I swung the door wide and stood dithering on the threshold of a small room that seemed packed with furniture bathed in dazzling sunlight. Light from a skylight poured down onto the burnished brown head of a thin woman, about twenty-five years of age, who was seated behind a typist's desk. She had an open paperback in one hand and was eating a sandwich. Her long, narrow face radiated good humor. She had a beautiful pink and white skin, delicately accentuated by good makeup, and light, brown eyes gazed at me through very large horn-rimmed glasses.

  "Hello, come in, " she said, as she put her book down on top of her typewriter. "What brings you here? You must be the new telephonist."

  "Yes," I replied. "I'm sorry to intrude. I was looking for somewhere to sit down."

  "Oh, take Miss Short's chair for a while. She won't mind. " She pointed to a swivel chair by another typist's desk. "Like a sandwich?"

  "Thank you."

  I willed myself not to snatch from the proffered square of greaseproof paper. Carefully, I took the tiny triangle and made myself eat it in several delicate, polite bites, when I really longed

  to bolt it down. It was a cucumber sandwich and reminded me poignantly of long-ago iifternoon teas. The other girl ate the two remaining sandwiches and tossed the empty wrapping into the wastepaper basket. She insisted on my sharing a small piece of fruitcake with her.

  I smiled at her as I ate the cake, and asked, "Are you somebody's secretary?"

  "No." She laughed. "I'm just one of the also-rans. I do any typing jobs they want. "

  "Could I ask your name? " I queried. "I don't know the names of any of the staff, and it's terribly difficult when answering the phone. "

  "Well, I'm Miriam Enns. And Miss Short and Miss Brown work up here. Miss Short is the head typist. Then Miss Danson in the Filing Department is the secretary to Miss MacAdam, who runs the place. You probably saw her when you applied for the job."

  "I did. " Then I added without thinking, "The Presence. "

  "The what?" Miriam chuckled delightedly. "That's lovely. But you're right. She's a great lady, and she works very hard, although she is so frail. " She swung around on her chair, took a piece of paper out of her stationery stand, and put it into her typewriter. "I'll make you a list of the staff—it won't take a minute. I don't know the numbers of their phones on the switchboard, but I can tell you which floor they're on. "

  She rattled away on the machine, while I sat quietly watching her. She seemed to me the nicest person I had met for a very long time, and as I watched her long, slender fingers flash over the keyboard, a new emotion welled up in me—a great desire to give and receive friendship.

  "That Ellis man should have seen that you got a list like this," she said irritably, as she whipped the paper from the roller and handed it to me.

  "Thanks, " I said happily, as I carefully folded up the paper. "Is he the only man on the stiiff?"

  "No, there's one more. But I think Ellis finds it hard in a sea of women. "

  I did not venture a comment. I was a bit afraid of Mr. Ellis, who did not approve of la-dee-da accents.

  "Ha'e you got a wraparound yet?" asked Miriam. She took a packet of cigarettes out of her own bkie wraparound pocket, s
truck a match from a box on her desk and hghted up.

  "Yes."

  "Better put it on. We lowly types wear blue ones. Senior staff—the social workers—wear green ones."

  I nodded agreement.

  There was the sound of the cloakroom door being opened and slammed, and running feet.

  Miriam glanced at her wrist watch. "It's twent'-fi'e past," she said. "Better put on your wraparound and go downstairs—or Ellis will be after your blood."

  I jumped up. I felt a lot better.

  "Thank you for your help," I said wannK', looking down at the pixie face of my new friend.

  Miriam had the same type of wide, red-lipped mouth as Fiona had, and she smiled broadly up at me. "When you get desperate, come up here," she advised. Her smile became a yawn and she took off her glasses and rubbed her merry, brown eyes with her knuckles.

  "I'd love to, ' I assured her enthusiastically.

  "Shut the door as you go out. Miss Short doesn't like it left open."

  Obediently I closed the door iifter me. I paused in the passage outside, my hand still on the door knob, feeling again the wann friendliness of the girl in the typing room. For the first time since arriving in Liverpool, I had talked with someone fiiirly young, who spoke as I did and treated me as an equal.

  The aim of the organization in which I found myself was to niiike the poor aware of the many charities available to help them, to counsel, to provide a little legal aid given voluntarily by a few city lawyers, and to disburse, in the most constructive way, ftmds donated to the organization itself. The senior staff provided a friendly ear for sorrows to be poured into and sympathetic visitors to the sick and other house-bound people; they also tried to aid the elderly and the many despairing mothers who, under impossible circumstances, struggled to make ends meet. Though they were not well paid, all the staff had shining, neatly combed hair.

  clear skins, and well-fed bodies. Their clothes were fresh looking, and everything matched, as was the fashion. I was thankful to be shrouded in a wraparound.

  Filled with dismay at my lack of knowledge, not only of the telephone, but of the myriad social nuances, the courtesies, of this new world, I struggled on to the end of the day. The other girls, with a hasty "good night" ran for their trams, and I trudged slowly home, head bent against a blustery wind. A cup of tea brought to me during the afternoon had reduced the pangs of hunger, but I felt very weak. Night school would begin at seven o'clock, and I wondered how I would manage to get there in time. I badly needed food, warmth, and a little comforting encouragement that tomorrow I would do better.

  When I slowly opened the door of the back room, I saw that Father was seated in the old easy chair, deep in a book. I wondered why he was not reading in the front room, but decided it was probably too cold for him in there. Alan, his blond cowlick swinging over his forehead, was seated on a small upturned oil drum by the fire. His head was bent over an exercise book while he did his homework.

  Brian, Tony, and Avril were sailing an imaginary ship across the floor. Brian was shouting to his bosun, Tony, "Ahoy there. Bill. Belay there." And then to Avril, he called, "Hard astarboard, you lazy landlubber." And Avril laboriously turned a huge, imaginary wheel. They were so absorbed in the game that they did not reply when I said, "Hello, children. . . Hello, Daddy. . . Hello, Alan..."

  Father and Alan looked up from their occupations and nodded acknowledgment in a vague, guarded way, then went back to their reading. Only baby Edward, who was whining steadily, toddled toward me, to put his arms around my legs. I picked him up and hugged him, in an effort to assuage the terrible sense of emptiness within me, and carried him into the kitchen from which came the clatter of dishes.

  Fiona was filling the sooty tin kettle from the tap, and she half-turned and smiled at me timorously in the flickering light of the candle on the draining board. Beside her. Mother was emptying teacups into the soapstone sink. She said, "Oh, you've come, have you? You are late."

  I stroked the back of Edward's scurfy head, as I answered, "It took a long time to walk home."

  I looked uneasily at both of them. I sensed that something had gone wrong. I could almost smell it. And it was my fault. I could see it in Mother's stiffened back and frozen look as she swung around to the back door, teapot in hand, to empty the leaves down the outside drain.

  "Down?" requested Edward, and very slowly I slid him onto the worn tiles, my eyes on Fiona, in the hope that she would give me a hint while Mother's back was turned. Her eyebrows went up, and she gave an almost imperceptible shrug. She seemed scared, and turned hastily back to the kettle, which was running over with water.

  Mother clicked her tongue when she saw the overflow.

  "Fiona, you stupid girl. Empty some of it out. Put the lid on and then put it on the fire."

  Obediently, Fiona did this and then slid past me into the back room, to put the kettle on to heat. Edward toddled after her, and I could hear him saying to Brian, "Me, too. I want to play."

  I was left to face Mother. "You had better get yourself something to eat, " she said frigidly.

  I had begun to tremble. It started in my legs and worked its way up, until all of me seemed to be shaking. Was nobody interested in what had happened to me? Surely, normal curiosity would have brought a question or two. Whatever had happened in my absence must indeed have been terrible to blot out all remembrance that this had been my first day at work. I waited for the blow to fall, as I whispered, "Yes. I am very hungry."

  I turned to the kitchen table, upon which lay half a loaf of bread and a very misused-looking pat of margarine sitting on its wrapping paper. "Can I make some tea?"

  "Yes, " replied Mother. "The milk is still on the table. That's all the bread we've got. " She went swiftly into the other room and I heard her pass through to the front hall.

  I closed my eyes, as if by shutting out the world, I might persuade the trembling to cease. I wanted to seize the spongy piece of white bread, tear it apart and stuff it in my mouth and gobble it down. I could have eaten the margarine in big, revolting chunks. But Mother's words had gone into me like a sharp hat pin.

  what she had really said was, "You should not eat anything. If you do, the children will not have any breakfast."

  But I had to eat. So I took up the knife and very carefully, because my hands were so unsteady, I cut a slice off the loaf and put some margarine on it. Despite a throat tight with misery, I ate it, standing there, staring down at the gray surface of the table.

  When I went into the living room to ask Fiona for some water from her kettle, to make a cup of tea, she was aimlessly watching the game of ships. I touched her shoulder. She jumped and turned toward me, her expression unaccountably defensive as if she expected to be struck. I saw that she had been crying.

  At my request, she took the singing kettle oflF the fire and brought it into the ill-lighted kitchen.

  I asked in a low voice, as I put a pinch of tea into a cup and poured water on to it. "What's up, Fi? What has happened?"

  She looked suddenly as if she would burst into tears again. "Oh, Helen. I did a terrible thing. Mother and Father are furious. And they're awfully cross with you, too, for not being here ..."

  Fiona was nearly as tall as I, and I put my arm round her lanky frame. "What is it, Fi?" I asked, through chattering teeth. But she just put her head on my shoulder and cried harder, long, slow sobs. My own despair was forgotten in the new fear of what had happened to upset her so much.

  "What is it, Fi? " I implored again.

  She gave a huge snuffle and began to mutter into my ear.

  "Well, some men came with a big van—and they hammered on the front door until I simply had to answer. And they said they had come to collect the furniture because we were behind in our payments. And both Mummy and Daddy are so angry because I let them in, and they took it." She lifted her face toward mine, and then said desperately, "But I couldn't help it, Helen. They were so big—and one of them put his foot in the door so that I could
n't slam it shut. I was so scared, Helen. " And she began another flood of tears.

  "They really took it away?"

  "Yes. The front room is empty. "

  I began to chuckle quietly, so as not to draw Daddy's attention.

  "It's nothing to laugh about, Helen," Fiona whispered forcefully. "It was terrible."

  "There, now, Fi. Don't cry. Don't you see? We don't have to pay for it anymore. That's five more shillings a week in the house. It's glorious. Think, five shillings will buy at least twenty more loaves a week. That's two loaves a week each. Cheer up, love."

  Fiona wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  "Oh, no, " she said harshly. "No such luck. Father says we have to go on paying, whether we have the fiirniture or not. It's in the agreement. "

  My trembling ceased entirely at this sudden revelation. I looked at her unbelievingly.

  In my innocence, I knew nothing of installment-buying agreements or how they were abused by some companies doing business in the city. Many, many people were caught up in this vicious system, and many of them paid for years, because they either failed to read the small print in the agreements they signed or they did not understand the jargon in which they were couched. My parents had apparently fallen victim to the blandishments of some salesman—who was, perhaps, himself desperate for the commission he would get on the sale.

  "We do, Helen. We have to pay."

  I looked wildly around me, for someone or something on which to vent my frustration.

  "Where was Alan when all this happened?" I demanded savagely. "Couldn't he have helped you keep the door shut? "

  "He wasn't home from school. It wasn't his fault. I left Avril with him and ran on ahead. I wanted to have the tea ready for you when you came home. " She looked piteously at me and sobbed again.

  "Never mind, Fi, dear. You did your very best. Don't cry anymore. I have to go to night school. And I must get Edward and Avril off to bed."

  I patted her on the shoulder, took a large breath and strode into the living room. "By-byes time, darling, " I said to Edward, and with a laugh swept him up off the imaginary ship. A few minutes later, I forcibly dragged Avril away from the game to have her face, hands, and knees hastily wiped before popping her into bed. Brian and Tony began to quarrel as to who should be thrown