by Lynda Page
After months of sneaking around, every moment fearing he would be discovered, Al realised all his hard work and dreams for his future had come to an abrupt stop now. He had almost reached the point of being ready to try his luck at getting himself into the world he so longed to be in and now there was no telling whether he would have the opportunity to finish his task, so he desperately blurted, ‘Look, Jackie, I know I …’
She held up a warning hand. ‘It’s the police you need to be pleading your case to.’
He paled, eyes filling with alarm. ‘Oh, Jackie, you wouldn’t report me to the police for this, would you? I know what I’ve done is wrong, but I could end up in jail!’
She incredulously snapped, ‘And you don’t think that’s what you deserve for robbing that warehouse?’
Ginger piped up sardonically, ‘If we’d known it was you behind it, we could have come direct to you for the dresses and saved ourselves a trip to the market.’ Then a thought occurred to her. ‘How much will you let me have that red dress for? And Jackie has a fancy for the yellow one.’
‘Ginger!’ Jackie scolded her. ‘Those dresses are evidence. Do you want to be done as being an accomplice if we’re caught with them? We need to get rid of those we bought off the market too just in case the police decide to search our wardrobes, being’s we know Al.’
Ginger snapped, ‘I bloody well paid good money for those clothes, so ’til Al is safely locked away I shall hide them where the police can’t find them.’
‘Be it on your own head then and don’t expect me to visit you in prison if the police find your hiding place,’ Jackie warned her. She then addressed Al, her tone a mixture of hurt and anger. ‘I can’t believe that I was so wrong about you. I never would have had you down as a common thief. Well, I hope you think it was worth it when you’re locked up in your little cell.’
Al’s mouth was opening and closing, fish-like. He blabbered, ‘I don’t know anything about a warehouse robbery. Honest I don’t.’
‘So where did you get those clothes from if you didn’t steal them then?’ Ginger demanded.
He heaved a deep sigh and said quietly, ‘I … I made them.’
They both looked at him, astounded.
Jackie laughed harshly. ‘Do you think we were born yesterday! Well, if you won’t tell us the truth, we’ll leave it to the police to get it out of you.’
He cried, ‘I did make them, Jackie. It’s the truth I’m telling you. There’s my sewing machine over there.’
They both looked over to the corner of the room where sat an old Singer treadle sewing machine, beside it a table piled with material offcuts and other sewing paraphernalia. There was an ironing board with an old-fashioned iron and a dressmaker’s dummy with an unfinished blouse on it, none of which they had noticed before since their attention had been riveted on the hanging clothes.
They looked back at him questioningly.
Ginger accused him, ‘You’re one of them transwhatsits that likes dressing in women’s clothes? God, to think I’ve been fancying you since you first came here, praying for you to ask me out, and all the time you were a pansy!’
‘I’m neither transvestite nor gay,’ he told her with conviction.
‘So what are you then?’ Jackie asked him.
He heaved a sigh. ‘According to my family and friends, I need locking up in a mental institution and receiving treatment for what they see as my disorder. You’ll more than likely think the same when I tell you about it. But is someone mentally ill or perverse just because they have a dream for themself and are determined to follow it?’
While Jackie and Ginger watched bemused, he walked over to the bed and sank down miserably on it. ‘I was a normal kid who enjoyed playing football and scavenging on bombsites with my mates, but ever since I can remember I’ve also had a passion for designing women’s clothes. I always knew that was what I wanted to do when I left school, and used to sit for hours in my bedroom drawing sketches of my designs when my parents thought I was reading my books. My parents were very strict and had set ideas about the world. A man’s job was providing for the family, and seeing to the heavy jobs around the home. A woman’s was cooking and cleaning, sewing and knitting. I knew they would not be at all understanding of my choice of hobby.
‘The mother of one of my friends used to do dressmaking and alterations, and my mother used to send me down to her with the clothes she needed work doing on. I used to make excuses to stay and watch her cutting out clothes and sewing them up. She was an astute woman and soon cottoned on that my interest in what she was doing was far more than mere politeness. One day as I was watching her attach a collar to a dress, she asked me outright why I preferred to stay in and watch her work instead of playing out with my mates.
‘Being put on the spot like that, I hadn’t time to come up with a plausible excuse so I told her the truth. I thought she’d react the same way I feared my parents would, but in fact it was the opposite. She told me she would teach me how to sew properly if I wanted her to, which of course I jumped at. She also asked me to show her my designs. When I did she told me she thought I had talent and that I should pursue my dream and not let anything stand in my way. So while my parents thought I was out playing with my friends, I was with Mrs Maybury learning all I could off her. Eventually I got to the stage of helping her alter clothes and make new ones for her clients.
‘When it was time for me to leave school I had no choice but to tell my parents that I didn’t want to join my father in the family engineering business but instead go to college and do a fashion degree, with the hope that would get me into a couture house in London as a designer. My father hit the roof, telling me I was unnatural to want to do a woman’s job. He wouldn’t listen when I said that it was a man, Norman Hartnell, who designed clothes for the Queen and it’s men who mostly head up all the big fashion houses. He wouldn’t budge. To him, dressmaking was women’s work and that was that. He flatly refused to fund me through college and demanded I join him in the family firm. If I insisted on pursuing a career as a dress designer, then I was dead as far as he was concerned.
‘I thought my mother was having a seizure, she took the news so badly. She collapsed on the sofa, clutching her heart, and we had to have the doctor fetched to sedate her. She then tried to get him to have me sectioned in a mental hospital, to receive treatment for my “disorder”, and ordered the doctor out of the house when he tried to tell her that there was nothing wrong with me mentally. She was terrified that all her friends would believe her son was a homosexual, although she knew I wasn’t, and she wouldn’t ever be able to go out of the house again for the shame of it. She sided with my father, saying unless I stopped this nonsense then she had no son.
‘I was devastated by their reaction. Without their backing I couldn’t go to college, and without a degree no reputable fashion house was going to consider me as an apprentice, so my dream was at an end. I joined my father in the business. When I told Mrs Maybury she was devastated for me too as she was really convinced that I had what it took to make a name for myself in the world of fashion. I resigned myself to my lot in life and tried to make the best of it. I quite enjoyed office work but my father is not easy to work for. As I said before, he’s very set in his ways. It’s his way or no way. And he didn’t pay me very well as he was of the mind that it would all be mine one day when I was running the show, so until then I could make do. I did the normal things lads of my age did. I hung around with my mates, went to football matches, dances, had several girlfriends … but deep down I resented what I was doing and was miserable.
‘I’d been working for Father for four years when I read an article in a newspaper. It was about a woman who wanted to train to be a carpenter when she left school, but because that was considered to be a man’s job no firm would consider her seriously. She still wasn’t prepared to give up her dream of working with wood. She got a job in a factory to earn some money so that she was able to buy herself some tools and decent cuts
of wood, and set about making pieces of furniture to show potential employers the abilities she had. It was a hard slog for her but finally her persistence paid off as the boss of one firm she went to see took a chance on her. Now she owns that business and is doing very well for herself, with people paying good money to own furniture designed by her and made in her factory.
‘Her story really inspired me. It got me to thinking I should take a leaf out of her book. If I could design and make up a collection of clothes myself, I could take them down to London and tout them around the fashion houses. Hopefully one of them would think I had enough talent to take a chance on me. I was so excited about resurrecting my dream of becoming a designer again. I knew this would mean I would have to leave my job and home as there was no way my parents were going to allow me to turn my bedroom into a workshop and make women’s dresses in there. They have always been strict with me and very dictatorial but I do love them and the thought of being cut off by them was very painful to me. I hoped that if I could make a success of myself then they would see that they were wrong to stop me from following my own path and I would be reconciled with them again.
‘I signed on with an employment agency and got myself temporary lodgings. Cowardly as it was, I left my parents a letter telling them what I was doing, asking for their forgiveness but saying this was something I had to do as I couldn’t face another row with them and to see looks of disappointment on their faces again.
‘I had a little money saved, which was enough to buy what I needed to make a start, but living at home you don’t realise how much things cost. By the time I’d paid out for my lodgings and bought food, then put money aside for bills, there wasn’t enough left to rent a room to use as a workshop. I was beginning to despair that I would ever get my dream off the ground when my luck changed and I came here to Jolly’s. At the start it was just another normal couple of weeks’ cover, but then it turned out to be longer, which I was so pleased about as I like working here. Then the day Sam’s donkey died I came across this place … well, it was the answer to all my prayers.
‘When I investigated I was excited to find that this side of the house hadn’t deteriorated as badly as the other. With a bit of work I could make this room habitable, and after having a scavenge around I found enough furniture to do me. I could get water from the stream nearby. I had to hope that while I was living here the ceiling didn’t come crashing down on me. I knew I was trespassing but it was either risk being caught and paying the consequences or else turn my back on ever trying my luck at becoming a designer, as I knew I was not going to find something like this again in a hurry. Not having to pay any rent or electric or gas bills meant more money from my wage to buy equipment and materials.
‘Once I’d cleaned out the room, I set about getting my stuff up here. I did it all late at night, got a taxi to drop me off a few yards from the staff gate. It took me a few trips to get everything up here. I had to dismantle the treadle sewing machine and bring that up bit by bit then put it all together again. Since I’ve been living here being spotted by either Donkey Sam or the security guards has been my main worry, but the guards hardly ever venture up this end of the camp, and I always crept by Sam’s hut so as not to alert him or his donkeys. Up to tonight I’ve been lucky.’
He then eyed Jackie contritely. ‘I feel very guilty for deceiving you, Jackie, especially that night when I lied about being at the bus stop after you chased me with my wallet, and the other lies I’ve told you to cover up for being here. I’m very close to finishing my collection. I’ve just two garments to finish hemming and a pant suit to make, then I’ll have enough to show what I’m capable of to potential employers. If you evict me from here, I can’t afford to rent lodgings and a workshop, and that means I won’t be able to finish my collection. I need you to know that once I had finished, I wasn’t planning just to up and leave you in the lurch but to stay until you didn’t need me any longer. You have my word on that.’
Al paused long enough to look at the women, particularly at Jackie who had the authority to make or break him, and then his tone turned to one of pleading. ‘Please let me finish, I beg you, Jackie. Can’t you turn a blind eye and pretend you weren’t here tonight? Please?’
She heaved a deep sigh. The usually vocal Ginger was keeping her thoughts on this matter to herself. It was a difficult position Al had put Jackie in. She might well be in trouble herself for knowing he was trespassing and not doing anything about it, so this was her decision and she appreciated the way Ginger was allowing her to make it.
Jackie looked over at the garments hanging on the wall. She could sew on a button or stitch a hem, but as for designing her own dress, cutting it out and making it up, she doubted her efforts would be good enough to be seen outside the house – that’s if they didn’t fall apart on the first trying on. But to her layman’s eyes Al’s efforts were of a quality that would not look out of place in any exclusive dress shop, with a price tag on them that only the wealthy could afford. These were clothes she herself could only dream of owning. Mrs Maybury was not just being kind to Al when she’d said he had talent. Whether he was deemed as good enough by those in the fashion world remained to be seen, but to be the one to deny him the chance to find out … could she live with that?
She fought with her conscience, her loyalty to Drina Jolly against the guilt she knew she would suffer for ending Al’s ambitions. If Drina were in her shoes what would she do? Jackie felt she knew what the answer to that was. After the young Drina had found out first-hand what it felt like to have ambitions but not to be allowed to fulfil them until later in life, she never failed to encourage and support any of her staff when it came to bettering themselves. Jackie was still concerned about leaving Al to live in an unsafe building, but hopefully it wouldn’t deteriorate any further over the next couple of weeks or so until he had left.
All she said to him was, ‘Get your collection finished, and by the time you have hopefully Mrs Jolly and Mrs Buckland will be back. If not the agency will find us another temp to take your place. I will miss you though, Al. You’ve fitted in just great and I can’t fault your work.’
He stared blankly at her for a moment, wondering whether he had misheard her, then his face lit up as he cried, ‘Oh, Jackie, do you mean it? You’re going to let me stay to finish off my collection? Oh, I don’t know how to thank you.’
She smiled at him. ‘You can do that by getting yourself a job doing what you dream of, and making a success of yourself.’
Ginger was just happy to know that the reason Al had not asked her out wasn’t because he didn’t fancy her but because taking girls out hadn’t figured in his plans while he was following his dream. Whether that was in fact the case didn’t figure with her, she just preferred to think it was. She piped up, ‘And when you’re this big fashion designer, don’t forget me and Jackie when you no longer have any use for the sample clothes you’ve made for models to parade in on the catwalk.’
Jackie grabbed her arm. ‘For goodness’ sake, let Al get a job first before you’re hounding him for free clothes. Now come on, we’ve our beds to get to.’ As she dragged her friend out, she said to Al, ‘See you in the morning.’
He winked at Ginger by way of telling her that, should he achieve his wish, clothes would certainly be coming her way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Three weeks later Jackie was sitting in the quiet lounge of the Paradise with Vic, having a drink with him after his session at Groovy’s had ended for the night.
Heaving a sigh, she said to him, ‘Sorry. I’m not good company tonight.’
‘I hope that’s nothing to do with me?’
She quickly reassured him, ‘You know it’s not. It’s just that we’ve been trying to catch the drug dealer and we’re no nearer now than we were when we started looking weeks ago. It really infuriates and disgusts me that this … this mindless cretin is lining his own pockets, not giving a damn what damage he could be doing to others. I’m determined to catch h
im at it and make him pay. Trouble is, I’ve got to the stage that I dread another night spent trawling Groovy’s, and I know Ginger is ready to slit her throat sooner than go again. As for Harold …
‘Well, actually, no. I think his undercover role in the Paradise is helping build his confidence no end, because friendly people of his age have thought he’s a camper here on his own and have asked him to join them, and of course that’s meant he’s had to talk to them and he’s not going back to spend his evenings alone in an empty house, so at least some good is coming out of this. The only saving grace for me is that, except for when you go off to see your family and friends on your day off and sometimes don’t get back until late, I get to see you every night while you’re playing and spend some time with you when your session finishes, so at least I have that to look forward to.’
Vic smiled at her. ‘I’m glad to hear that. But not catching this drug dealer yet isn’t the only reason you’re not yourself today, is it? You’ll miss him, won’t you?’
She lifted her head and smiled at him. ‘Al? Yes, I will. It was very sad seeing him off today. It took me all my self-control not to cry. I just pray he’s got what it takes for a fashion house to take him on. I think any of them would be stupid not to myself. Those clothes he designed and made were exquisite in my eyes. He has promised to keep us informed of his progress. I have told him that if it doesn’t work out then we’ll always find him a job here at Jolly’s, although it might not be in the office as surely Mrs Jolly and Mrs Buckland will be back soon. It’s months now since Dan died.’ Her face was wreathed in sadness. ‘I suppose, though, grief is a difficult thing. There’s no time limit to it after the death of a loved one.’
‘I’d never get over you if you died, Jackie.’
She eyed him, taken aback. She knew Vic liked her very much but was this his way of telling her his feelings for her were more than liking? Although she’d always felt they had an unspoken agreement between them that their relationship would never become permanent because of the nature of Vic’s job, it hadn’t stopped her developing feelings for him which wouldn’t take much now to turn into love, despite her being well aware of the pain this would cause when it was time to say goodbye in a few short weeks’ time.