I took the heavy tray of filled cups and carried it carefully down to the first floor. Balancing it on one hand, I pushed the landing door to open it. A youth as thin as a broomstick held it open for me as I passed through. I saw his face light up at the sight of the tea tray, and I felt dreadful because I could not give him a cup.
It was another waiting room which smelled equally badly and was equally gloomy. There was only one light hanging above a centre table round which a screen had been set. A well-dressed lady sat at the table, a neat row of files before her. At the side of the table on a wooden chair sat an ancient bundle of bones hunched under a thick blanket shawl. Her tiny face, dark from lack of washing, peered anxiously out from the shawl, like a mouse peeping out of its hole. Little hands clutching the shawl across her breast were equally mouselike. She watched me put a cup of tea down by the voluntary worker, and I felt for a second the old woman’s clemmed stomach, the agony of the smell of the tea.
A number of small rooms ran off this waiting room. These were the interviewing rooms, where in reasonable privacy the clients could at last whisper out their difficulties. It seemed to me sometimes that the whole place ran on whispers, as if it were a sacred place where one dared not speak in a normal voice for fear the gods might be disturbed.
I took a cup of tea to each lady in a green overall in the interviewing rooms. In every room was an old-fashioned roll-top desk with a number of baskets of files at the back of them. The baskets were marked ‘Visit’ or ‘Letter’ or ‘In Hand’ or ‘Filing’. The clients were seated on wooden chairs at the side of the desk, and they hardly paused in their recitals to the interviewer as I brought in the tea. In one room, Dorothy Evans was riffling through the file baskets, looking for a missing file. The interview was continuing despite Dorothy’s presence, and I soon learned, like her, to be quiet and unobtrusive in such a situation and never to say anything except, ‘Excuse me.’
When my tray was empty, I scurried up to the kitchen on the top floor. Miss Finch was filling another cup.
‘Take this down to Miss Dane – her office is next to the Cash Department.’
Miss Dane, I discovered, was the Assistant Presence. Since she was not quite so weighed down by responsibility as the Presence herself, she had time to stop her perusal of a mountain of correspondence, to ask me if I was the new office girl.
In case it was not obvious, I said, ‘Yes, madam, I am.’
She was a pretty, dark-haired woman, and she smiled sweetly at me, as she said, ‘I hope you will be happy here,’ as if she really meant it.
‘Thank you, madam,’ I replied warmly, and became her devoted slave.
Tea having been served, Miss Finch and I leaned thankfully against the kitchen counters and had tea ourselves. At that time, Mary Finch was sixteen years old, a year and a half older than me, and this seemed a big gap to bridge, so our conversation was desultory.
After a few awkward minutes, we did another run up and down stairs to collect the dirty cups, and then washed them up. Our overalls still showed wet splashes from our washing up, when we again presented ourselves to Mr Ellis.
‘The index cards are ready for filing,’ he said. ‘Get on with it.’
We obediently sorted the cards into alphabetical order and filed them. Then we took another trip to the basement waiting room to relieve Miss Lester, while she fled upstairs to the cloakroom.
Two new girls to look at caused the clients to rustle in their seats and murmur to each other behind shielding hands. There were no magazines for them to read, so their boredom must have been intense.
Miss Finch sat down at the table and I stood by her and looked around me. One wall was shelved and was packed with fat, dusty envelopes set upright.
‘They’re old files,’ explained Miss Finch. ‘If you can’t find a file upstairs, it may be down here.’ And as if to justify her words, the phone rang and she was requested to check if a certain file was on the shelves.
It was. And to save Miss Barker, K to Z, coming down for it, I was sent hurrying upwards with the grubby envelope. The staircases were rapidly beginning to feel like Mount Everest to me, they were so long and steep.
When I returned, a woman in a faded cotton frock and grey cardigan was standing in front of Mary. She was holding a baby and her stomach was already swollen with another child. Mary wrote down her name and address, and handed the slip to me.
‘You phone it up,’ she said lazily.
I took the slip as if it might bite me and reluctantly went to the little cubbyhole where the phone was. Slowly, I lifted the receiver.
Immediately came the soft hello of the volunteer temporarily manning the switchboard.
I gave the name carefully, spelling it out to make sure that it was correctly recorded.
‘Thank you,’ said the voice from the switchboard very clearly.
I hung up the receiver on its hook and stood looking triumphantly at the phone. I had managed to use the instrument and I could hear on it. Joyfully I went back to Miss Finch. Perhaps, one day, I would be able to manage the switchboard.
CHAPTER TWENTY
After our visit to the basement waiting room, Miss Finch and I spent an hour sorting and filing index cards under Mr Ellis’s eagle eye.
As her fingers flew along the drawers of cards, Miss Finch explained to me in a whisper that at half past eleven we had to go to a famous cake shop and restaurant to collect a sandwich lunch for a Committee, which would meet in the Committee Room on the top floor during the lunch hour. We had also to make coffee for the members, and lay the table.
The walk to the restaurant was not very far, but after all the stairs I had climbed in the course of the morning, it seemed a long way. Still, the fresh air blowing off the river and the bustle of the city were welcome. In this district there was little hint of the frightful effects of the Depression upon Liverpool; just an occasionally empty shop, and a larger number of offices to rent than usual. The businessmen hurrying up and down the street were well dressed, and no unemployed men hung about the street corners.
The lunch was not quite ready, so we waited unobtrusively in a corner of the cake shop and watched the fashionable crowd passing through to the restaurant at the rear. Ladies in flowered or feathered hats with veils drooping over their eyes were greeted by men in immaculate, dark suits, their neatly rolled umbrellas hooked over one arm, black felt hats held in their hands, as they ushered the ladies into the dreamland beyond. I remembered when Mother had been just such a lady meeting one of her men friends in a restaurant for lunch. She sometimes took me with her, as a sop to propriety, I presume.
My eyes wandered to the display counters. Behind the glass there was a wonderful collection of cakes, chocolate éclairs, babas au rhum topped with cream, petits fours in delicate pink, white or mauve icing, French sandwiches oozing with raspberry jam and cream and smothered in icing sugar. There was a fruit cake with at least an inch of marzipan resting on its top. It was flanked by chocolate swiss rolls, and my mouth watered. It all seemed part of a dream of long ago.
‘Here, take this,’ ordered Mary Finch.
She thrust a large confectioner’s box into my hands and balanced another on top of it, while she turned to pay the shop assistant with money given her by the cashier.
‘Be careful,’ Mary warned, as we struggled through the lunch-time crowds. ‘We’ll get into trouble if the cakes are squashed.’
In the kitchen, we set out on plates the pretty cakes and the tiny rolls filled with different meats and wisps of mustard and cress. Then we laid the long, narrow table and made a pot of coffee, wrapping up the latter in tea towels to keep it warm.
With a last glance at the inviting table, Mary Finch hustled me out and down one floor to the silent lift.
‘Committee members are allowed to use the lift,’ she explained. ‘You’d better know how to run it.’
I was dreadfully hungry and this announcement threw me into immediate panic. I foresaw another débâcle, like that of the s
witchboard.
Mary showed me how to start and stop the lift, and then said, ‘Now, you try.’
Gingerly I closed the gates at the main floor, pressed the handle and, with a sense of shock, found that instead of going up we had descended to the basement waiting room. The astonished clients – they were, according to Mary, always to be referred to as clients – had seen all those preceding them sent up to the Interviewing Floor by the stairs and they were obviously surprised at this sudden arrival of a lift.
‘Stupid,’ hissed my teacher, who must herself have been both tired and hungry. ‘Turn the handle the other way.’
I did so, and we shot upwards, passing a bewildered gentleman in a bowler hat standing on the ground floor.
We were at the top again and the lift automatically clanked to a stop. The door of the Filing Department opposite flew open. The Presence’s typist, her face forbidding, asked, ‘Why are you running the lift? The Secretary wishes to know.’
Trouble again. I opened my mouth like a cod fish, but it was Miss Finch who answered smartly, ‘I’m teaching the new girl how to run it, ready for the Committee.’
‘I see.’ The typist returned to her desk.
‘Phew!’ exclaimed Mary. ‘The old geezer’s got the ears of a cat. Now run the lift down, and stop at every floor. Try to get it level.’
We sailed straight down to the basement again, and I whispered to Mary, ‘Caves, catacombs and coal mines, bargain floor.’
Mary started to giggle.
The man in the bowler hat must have decided to walk up the stairs, because the main floor, opposite the tea merchant’s door, was deserted.
‘Graveyards, grizzlies, golliwogs, gamps, goats, tea shop, main floor,’ I announced gravely.
Mary laughed, and waited expectantly for the next floor.
‘Overalls, olive oil, ostriches, offal, first floor,’ I said, in the same sing-song voice of a department store lift girl.
‘Secretaries, sausages, soap, Somalis, shoes, Simnel cakes.’ I flung open the gate at the second floor, stepped out and bowed to Miss Finch as if she were an honoured customer and I a shop walker.
But Miss Finch looked past me, her face immobile. I whirled round. The Assistant Presence was watching me, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
Horrified, I waited for the guillotine to fall. But she was laughing, as she wagged an admonishing finger. ‘The Committee will be arriving. I saw Mr Thompson walking up just now.’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Dane,’ said Mary, and with silent grimaces to each other we descended to the ground floor, while Miss Dane walked up to the Committee Room on the top floor which was not served by the lift.
There was a sound of running feet in the hall, and a young man carrying a brief case almost flung himself into the lift. He was breathtakingly handsome, and his immaculate white shirt showed up a regimental tie to perfection. Before I could close the gates, he was joined by two white-haired ladies wafting a soft perfume with them. They greeted each other; and, after peeping out to see if anyone else was coming, I carefully closed the gates. The three passengers turned towards the gates and waited in silence as we travelled upwards, like a small congregation listening to a priest reciting the Creed.
At the top, I positioned the lift with a series of sharp little ups and downs, and then let the passengers out. None of them had said anything to either Miss Finch or me. The ladies loosened their furs and walked slowly up the remaining flight of stairs, while Miss Finch and I, like little marionettes, ran the lift up and down, ferrying other Committee members. Later, I learned that many of these people were members of old Liverpool families famous for their charities through several generations. They were all concerned by the sad state of their native city, and they gave generously of both time and money in an effort to help their suffering fellow citizens.
As I watched them from under lowered lids, it sometimes felt odd to me that my grandmother and grandfather had probably wined and dined with these people or their parents, had done business with them, had attended balls and concerts with them; and, there I was, so hungry that I could have eaten all the lunch waiting upstairs, running a lift for them as if I was part of the machinery.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I had been tired at the end of the first day of work, but by the end of the second day it seemed as if every muscle had its own particular ache. My imagination boggled at the thought of how many stairs had been climbed, how many miles walked. Even Miss Finch, who was a strong, well-fed girl, looked worn out; and I had done the same amount as she had on less food than a prisoner of war could hope for. As I trailed home, I realised that on the following day I would have to do the same work without Miss Finch’s help.
At the end of the day one of the duties of the office girl, I discovered, was to collect any remaining outgoing letters from their various signatories, put them into their envelopes and take them to the nearby General Post Office and drop them in the letter box. There was always a flurry on the part of the stenographers to bring down last minute letters for signature by the Presence.
The Presence was a very hard-pressed woman and was frequently in the middle of phone calls or interviews, when the letters arrived. The stenographers laid the letters on her desk, thankfully put on their hats and coats and went home. The little office girl stood outside the office and waited for the letters to be brought out by the Presence’s secretary, who was a volunteer; and on some evenings she waited and she waited.
The office clock would tick remorselessly on towards Edward’s and Avril’s bedtime and the hour of night school. My stomach would tighten with fear of Mother’s temper if I was not there to help. And night school teachers could be very sarcastic if one was late for class.
Finally, the letters would be brought out. The pretty secretary would help me put them into their envelopes. Those to be delivered by hand were put on one side. With a smile of relief, the secretary would hand me the ones to be posted; and I would run down the stairs, across the busy streets, and dutifully drop them into the post office’s mighty maw.
At home at last, I took off my hat and coat and hung them on a peg in the hall. There was no night school on that second day of work. But there was homework to do, English essays to write, arithmetic problems to solve, shorthand to practise. Then there were the beds, left from the morning, waiting to be made, dishes to wash up, Edward and Avril to wash and put to bed, clothes to be washed or sponged and pressed, all the thousand and one tasks of a large family. I sighed as I entered the living room.
The room looked different.
Everybody was present, except Fiona and Avril whom I could see through the window. They were skipping in the back yard.
The window!
It was shining clean and the grubby net curtain which usually covered it had been washed.
I glanced around. The big, old-fashioned iron grate with its side oven shone with blacking. The battered wooden chairs had been polished till all the nicks and chips in them appeared covered. The upturned paint drums had been scoured. The mantelpiece, usually littered with bills and replies to Mother’s begging letters, was dusted and tidied, the papers neatly stacked under a well-washed stone; and the alarm clock ticked merrily in the dead centre; it seemed to be sticking out its chest with pride at its pristine green paint and its twinkling glass. The worn linoleum on the floor was speckless and the piece of coconut matting in the centre had obviously received a good beating.
Mother was sitting by the fire. She had changed her work dress for a shapeless, grubby cotton frock and her bare feet were thrust into a pair of old carpet slippers. The varicose veins on her legs showed in sickening knots, and her face was lined with fatigue. She had started to darn the boys’ socks ready for them to put on again in the morning, and she was frowning heavily as she pushed the big needle in and out. She looked up as I entered.
‘Goodness, Mum,’ I exclaimed, as I looked round admiringly. ‘You have been busy. The room looks lovely.’
‘Humph.�
�� She looked down at her darning again.
I eased around the Liverpool Echo and gave Father a cautious peck on the cheek, in the hope that I was forgiven for going to work. And then I leaned over and gave Mother an equally careful kiss. But Mother, for once, did not seem angry with me. She said, ‘Hello, dear,’ rather absently and went on darning.
I picked up Edward and gave him a hug. He laughed at me as I put him down, and then scrambled away under the table, where, judging from the dialogue, Brian and Tony had established a castle. Their imaginations were so fertile that they were able to create a whole strange world out of almost nothing, and it probably saved them in some degree from the effects of the savage reality of our life.
Mother said very mildly. ‘There is some dinner in the oven for you, dear.’
Alan looked up from his book, and said, ‘Hello. It’s sausages.’ He sounded cheerful and his red-rimmed, bright blue eyes were, as usual, friendly in their expression.
I grinned at him, and then I looked back at Mother. Sometimes I was more afraid of her when she was being kind than I was when she was not. Carefully, I moved round the back of her and opened the heavy oven door. Two sausages sat on a plate accompanied by a good tablespoonful of dried up cabbage and a whole potato. I whipped the hot plate over to the table, found a knife and fork and thankfully sat down to eat. From time to time, I took a peep at Mother’s clouded face.
‘The dinner’s nice,’ I said appreciatively. This brought no response, so I added, ‘You must have worked awfully hard today, Mum.’ I looked again round the room and wondered where she had got the soap, the polish and the blacking from. There had never been any money for such things while I had been keeping house. The floor must have been scrubbed with a scrubbing brush, which we did not possess, before it could be shined as it had been.
Father rose, picked the teapot off the hob and brought it to me. He looked down at me with an odd expression on his face – as if he were trying to warn me. ‘Here you are, old girl,’ he said kindly, as he put the pot down on the table. ‘Have some tea.’
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