Mrs Boots Goes to War

by Deborah Carr

  She watched Gladys leave and braced herself, aware that he had suffered injuries to one side of his face, determined not to show any shock at his appearance when he entered.

  Seconds later, the door opened once more, and Gladys stepped into the room. ‘Mr Joseph Blythe, Lady Boot,’ she announced before motioning for him to enter.

  ‘Thank you, Gladys,’ Florence said, standing to greet him. She was interested to see the young man she had met only once as a baby, so many years before. ‘That will be all.’ She looked at Joseph for the first time, shocked by the vivid red scar like a map across one side of his face. The other side was untouched and very handsome. She felt a fist grip her heart tightly and forced a smile. He was staring her straight in the eyes, his jaw clenched and his expression defiant. He obviously didn’t want to be there. ‘Unless you’d like a cup of tea, or some other refreshment, Mr Blythe?’

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  She asked him to take a seat and once they were both sitting clasped her hands together resting them on her desk. ‘We’ve met before, but you won’t remember it.’

  Her comment took him off guard. Florence was relieved when he appeared to forget his determination to be standoffish. ‘I wasn’t aware that we had,’ he answered, confused.

  ‘It was when you were a tiny baby. I visited your mother and grandmother at their home to speak to them about something.’

  He didn’t say anything further but stared at her. Florence watched him studying her and could see he was surprised by what he found. ‘My mother has always spoken very highly of you, Lady Boot, and of your husband. She said you are very kind and once helped her when she needed it most. It’s the reason she managed to persuade me to come here today.’

  Florence relaxed slightly. ‘You’re a very honest young man,’ she said. ‘I like that. I’m glad to see you here today and relieved that my letter found your mother. I wasn’t sure if she would still live at the same address. She is well, I hope?’

  ‘Yes, very. She’s happy, which is the most important thing to me.’ He looked down at his hands resting on his legs. ‘At least she was until –’ he hesitated for a second – ‘I came home.’

  Florence wondered how she would feel if this was John sitting opposite her. She hoped that people would be kind and not treat him any differently to how they would if he hadn’t been injured in this way.

  They sat in companionable silence for a few seconds. She liked this direct man and wanted to help him find a way to settle back into Nottingham once more, as she hoped others might do for John if fortunes were reversed.

  ‘Now I remember,’ Florence said. ‘Your mother called you Joey when you were small.’

  He smiled and although the scarred side of his face creased oddly his eyes lit up. ‘She still does.’

  ‘Well, Joseph.’

  ‘Please, call me Joey,’ he said, his voice losing the tightness that he it had initially held. ‘I feel that, as this isn’t the first time we’ve met, it’s the correct thing to do.’

  Florence was happy to see him soften towards her and lose some of his defensiveness. She wondered if this barrier he had built up against others was recent or if it was something he had always had as the son of an unmarried mother. Poor boy, she thought, he can’t have ever had it easy, and now he had to contend with a scar that he had no way of covering up.

  ‘Thank you, Joey. I suppose you wonder why I asked your mother to send you to me?’

  ‘She thought you might be able to offer me work at one of your factories.’

  ‘That’s right. Do you have particular skills that you’d like me to consider when finding where to place you in the business?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘I’m strong, despite this,’ he said raising his right hand to show where he had lost two fingers. ‘I write well and I’m good at addition.’ He shrugged. ‘To be honest with you, Lady Boot, I’d just be happy to get back to normal and earn a weekly wage to help my mum.’ He looked down at his hands once more. ‘I think something out of the way might be best.’ He looked her in the eye again. ‘I don’t want to put off any of the customers by them coming face-to-face with this.’ He indicated his scarred cheek.

  Florence hated to see this gentle young man being so self-deprecating. ‘Joey, I know you have had a lot of changes to –’ she hesitated, struggling to find the right words – ‘get used to recently, but you have so much going for you. You need to value yourself and then others will do the same. Don’t let what’s happened hold you back from living the full life you are meant to enjoy.’

  ‘Thank you, you’re very kind. I know you mean well, Lady Boot, and I appreciate you trying to help me. For now, at least, I’d rather have a role behind the scenes in one of your stores or factories. If possible, that is.’ He looked down at the desk. ‘If I’m honest, I’d rather not go out at all in the daylight.’

  Florence couldn’t hide her shock. ‘No, Joey. You mustn’t think that way, not for a second.’ He tore his gaze up once more to stare her in the eyes. ‘The scars you bear are a mark of your bravery. They’re not something to be embarrassed about.’ She hoped she hadn’t overstepped that invisible line between trying to be helpful and just being downright annoying. After all, she didn’t really know him at all. ‘You are a heroic young man, and don’t you ever let anyone’s ignorant behaviour let you think otherwise.’

  He raised his eyebrows and Florence could tell he was surprised by her outburst. ‘Maybe one day I’ll be able to see this mess of my face in the way that you describe, Lady Boot. I do hope so. For now though, I find it difficult to ignore the shocked looks some people give me. A few have even stopped in front of me, stared and whispered behind their hands to the person with them.’

  ‘But that’s shocking.’

  ‘I agree. I hadn’t realised how cruel people could be about something like this, and at a time when there must be many other men with similar injuries walking around.’ Florence had to concentrate on keeping her temper in check. ‘My mother thinks that when those particular people see me, it probably reminds them that what happened to me can happen to their loved ones fighting away.’ What he said made sense to Florence, but it was no excuse to be cruel to someone. She was about to say so when he added, ‘Others are simply disgusted by my face. Like my ex-fiancée.’

  Pain dripped from his words and Florence wanted to hug it away. His face reddened and Florence realised he wished he hadn’t been so open with her.

  ‘All I can say to that, Joey, is that some people are shallower than they should be. I think you should take as little notice of them as you possibly can.’ She tried to imagine the depth of his pain when his fiancée cast him aside. ‘You are worth so much more than these people who hurt you with their thoughtless actions.’

  She placed her palms down on her desk, aware that the best way to help Joey was to give him some way to feel needed while keeping his mind off his pain.

  ‘I think we need to take the next step towards making your future as satisfying as I know it can be,’ she said, hoping to reassure him. ‘I need to look into my files and find a couple of vacancies that I feel might be suitable for you. Do you mind returning to my office to see me again tomorrow?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  Florence opened her diary and ran her finger down the list of appointments she had set out for the following day. She was already booked up for the day and had promised Jesse to take time out to eat lunch with him in his office. It was the only time she could adapt to fit in Joey’s visit. She knew that once she explained everything to Jesse, he wouldn’t mind shortening their lunch break.

  ‘Come back at noon tomorrow. I’ll go through what vacancies I’ve found for you and we’ll take it from there. Will that be all right?’

  His mouth drew back into a wide smile. ‘Thank you, Lady Boot. I’ll be here. I suppose I should have given you a little notice before coming today as well, shouldn’t I?’

  Florence laughed, presuming he had noticed the long list of
appointments in her diary. ‘It would have saved you coming back tomorrow, but no matter.’ She stood and walked around her desk to the door. She waited for him to join her and proffered her hand for him to shake it. ‘Everything will work out eventually, Joey. I know it will.’

  ‘My mother said you were a determined lady,’ he said, his smile slipping slightly. ‘I hope it’s not rude to say that?’

  Florence thought back to the meeting she had had with Nellie and then her mother’s anger in this very office and then about her visiting their home with her offer of a position of work for the young, terrified woman years before. ‘It isn’t. And I’m not surprised your mother did say that of me.’

  She realised that he was contemplating whether or not to say something. Florence waited for him to speak but when he wasn’t forthcoming, she decided to probe him slightly.

  ‘Was there something else you wished to ask me?’ she asked, hoping he would open up a little more. ‘Please, feel free to ask anything.’

  He glanced at the silver-framed picture of her three children with Jesse that she always kept sitting on her desk and pointed to it. ‘It’s just that I met your daughter, when I was in France.’

  Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t this. ‘You did? When?’

  ‘On my way back to Blighty,’ he said wistfully. ‘It had been a long and arduous journey, and, if I’m honest –’ he raised his hand to almost touch the damaged side of his face, stopping just before the tips of his fingers connected with the raised, red flesh – ‘I was in a foul mood and a lot of pain. When the train stopped and we were all told to disembark to wait for the next one bringing us to Calais, I wasn’t impressed. I didn’t want to speak to anyone or get off the train. Word reached me and the lads I was with about some English ladies running a canteen. We decided to make the most of our wait and fetch a cup of good old English tea. I’d been desperate for a decent cuppa since leaving Blighty.’

  He stopped speaking and looked at Florence, his expression sad. ‘I wasn’t ready to speak to no ladies, not even with a dressing covering this.’

  Florence’s heart ached for the young man who had gone through so much trauma. ‘But you did get off and go to the canteen, I hope?’

  He nodded. ‘Didn’t have much choice. I was taken there by the lads. They were starving and had heard from someone that the food was tasty.’

  Florence thought how undomesticated her youngest daughter had always been. ‘And what was it like?’

  He smiled for the first time since starting to relay his story. ‘Good. Very good, in fact. It was like a tiny corner of England had been transported to Northern France,’ he said wistfully. ‘It cheered me up no end, despite myself.’ He laughed. ‘I spoke to that lady too,’ he said indicating the photo once again. ‘It’s strange to think I’ve met your daughter so far from home, isn’t it?’

  Florence thought so, too. ‘Tell me more,’ she said. ‘I’ve read accounts of soldiers passing through Margery’s canteen but not spoken to one directly.’

  ‘I think she’s very like you, if you don’t mind me saying so, Lady Boot?’

  ‘I don’t mind at all. In what way?’

  His face reddened. ‘I don’t know either of you properly, but you both have the same strength about you somehow. And –’ he thought for a moment – ‘a kindness that a person can’t miss. Although,’ and he laughed again, ‘I can’t imagine many people would cross either of you. I think you’re both rather formidable.’

  Florence burst out laughing. She loved hearing someone being so honest and she imagined that her daughter would be just as amused.

  ‘You don’t mind me saying such things, I hope? I’d hate you to think me insolent.’

  Florence shook her head. She picked up the photo of her three children with Jesse and gazed at Margery’s determined expression. ‘I hadn’t noticed how alike we were before,’ she said, proud to think her daughter favoured her in such a way. Placing it back down on her desk again, she grinned at him. ‘I have no issue with you describing us in this way at all. In fact,’ she said, ‘I think you’ve summed us both up pretty well.’

  ‘She’s an incredible lady. Your daughter and the other ladies working with her are doing a grand job in France, Lady Boot. I have to say I felt much better after spending a short time in her canteen, as did the lads I was there with.’

  ‘That’s marvellous to hear. I’m sure my husband will be delighted when I tell him the difference our daughter’s canteen made to your journey home.’

  She showed him to the door. ‘Until we meet here tomorrow, then, Joey.’

  Gladys appeared from her office. ‘Please, Mr Blythe, come with me and I’ll show you out.’

  Florence walked into the office that Gladys and Enid shared. ‘Enid, please find me all the vacancies that you think will suit a young, fit man, then bring them to me this afternoon.’

  She left Enid to her work and returned to her office and stared once more out of the window down to the pavement. A couple of minutes later she spotted Joey crossing the road and stopping to talk to an older woman. The woman reached up and placed her palm on the unblemished side of his face before the two of them turned and walked away down a side road. Florence realised the woman had been Nellie and was relieved that she would be able to help the devoted mother find her beloved son a place in the Boots company.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Florence struggled to bid farewell to yet more of her girls. It broke her heart to see them leave. Some of them had come to Boots straight from leaving school and she had thought them settled and happy in their work. Each assured her that they had been, and she had to believe them. She had hoped that as time wore on fewer would go, but with the scarcity of food and the Women’s Land Army being formed, along with the many adverts encouraging women to give their labour voluntarily in the countryside, more of her girls left Boots to do just that.

  She supposed it was the thought of working in the countryside as opposed to a town and being in a factory all day. Thankfully few of her shop assistants left, but she knew that if she lost many more of her women to the arms factory at Chilwell, or as Land Girls replacing the farm workers who had left their jobs to enlist, then she was going to have a problem finding enough staff to carry out the work to provide all that they made at Boots.

  Only the previous month Ethel, her under-housemaid, had left to go and work on a farm, living with three other field workers. Before leaving she had, so Harriet her lady’s maid had told her, been boasting to Mavis, one of the other maids, that she intended looking for a handsome farmer to marry. Weeks later Harriet told Florence, one evening as she dressed her hair for a dinner party, how differently things had turned out for poor Ethel.

  ‘I think,’ Harriet said, choosing a few metal hairpins from the pot on the dressing table, ‘that Ethel was rather shocked to discover that not only were there no handsome farmers living on the farm, but few men at all. Apart from an ancient man who was the father of the farmer’s wife.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Florence said, hoping things improved soon for the naïve young girl, ‘but has she made any friends among the other women she’s living with?’

  ‘I think she gets on well with one of them, but she doesn’t like her Gang Leader very much, according to Mavis. Apparently, the better educated girls or more enthusiastic girls are given those roles and the one in charge of Ethel didn’t take to her too well.’

  Florence wondered how many other men and women had left their homes and all that they knew to race off to what they expected to be a more exciting, fun life, only to discover that it was extremely hard work and most of the time in not very pleasant surroundings.

  ‘Do you think she’ll want to return here to St Heliers, at all?’ Florence asked, concerned that now she had taken on Lena to replace Ethel she might have to find work for both of them should Ethel ask for her old job back.

  Harriet shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I doubt it though. I think it would be too embarrassing
for Ethel to come back after the way she boasted to Mavis about her exciting new role.’

  ‘But she’s writing to Mavis telling her how dreadful it all is now so that really doesn’t make very much sense.’

  ‘No, not really,’ Harriet agreed, her voice clear although she was holding a couple of hairpins between her teeth. ‘She also mentioned that she was working on the fields planting, that it’s backbreaking work and how she hopes to be one of those chosen to learn how to steer the plough.’

  Florence thought of the small, skinny girl and couldn’t imagine her being able to work a field let alone control a horse and plough but said nothing.

  ‘As sweet as Ethel could be,’ Harriet said, ‘she was always a little dreamy and unrealistic.’

  ‘Poor girl,’ Florence said, feeling very sorry for Ethel and the predicament she had found herself in. ‘I hope she settles in soon and starts to enjoy working at the farm as much as she expected to.’

  ‘As do I, Lady Boot.’

  It wasn’t only the garden at St Heliers that now had been turned over to vegetables. Florence noticed the last time she went to Lily’s that her pretty little front garden was now reduced to a narrow border alongside the front path. The rest of the space had been put to growing vegetables, some in the beds and others in terracotta pots of varying sizes. It made sense to make the most of the outside space you had, Florence thought as she passed cabbages, carrots, beetroots and tomatoes held up by willow branches tied at the top with string. Lily had a small household to feed and what better way to supplement their meals than to grow as much as they could, especially now that as well as the food supplies dropping the prices seemed to be increasing far too quickly for everyone’s liking. She wondered how the poor families without outside space were managing to cope through the crisis.

  She had heard some of her girls speak about how their husbands or fathers had managed to obtain their own plot to set up an allotment. A lot of them were on land previously given over to nature or wasteland that most people ignored. Other councils set up plots for locals in the town park nearest the shops, and some even used public land, converting it to allotments so that people could grow vegetables.