Family Pride Read online

  “Lucy?” She said putting her basket on the newly scrubbed table. “Have you seen an apparition?”

  “An apparition? All white and horrible? Yes, Mrs Slade! You could say that. Yes, indeed!” The memory of Slimy Slade covered in white powder made Mrs Slade’s flippant remark seem hilariously funny and she turned away to hide her face. In a peculiar voice that sounding nothing like her own, she said, “I’m leaving, Mrs Slade. If you will send round my money for last week, I’d like to go at once and if you want to know why, you can just ask that disgusting husband of yours!” Leaving Mrs Slade still gasping like a freshly caught cod she grabbed her coat and, still giggling uncontrollably, ran out of the house.

  She stopped running as soon as she reached the corner but the bubbling laughter wouldn’t subside. She buried her face in her scarf and walked on towards the park. She couldn’t go home, not yet. She had to think about what she was going to do about another job. Then it wouldn’t be such a blow to her mother when she told her that Slimy Slade had finally driven her to the point of explosion.

  She ached with laughter and squatted to fasten a sandal buckle that was perfectly secure, to hide her merriment from passers-by. Sobering up she collapsed again the moment she stood up. It was no use. Every time she thought of the startled man standing open-mouthed, while she smothered him in powdered pumice she was weak with the humour of it.

  She heard a clock strike twelve and knew she had to go home. The laughter that still curled the edges of her mouth was at last subsiding and in its place was the growing realisation that she had let her mother down.

  Slimy Slade was a fool, that was all, and surely she could have put up with his irritations for long enough to find herself something else? But she knew that while she worked for the Slades there was no time to search for something better. Her mornings were spent at number six Field Street and for the rest of the day she and Polly worked patiently at their craft to fill the suitcase with hand-made items to sell.

  Walking slowly now she thought ruefully of the week’s wages Mrs Slade hadn’t paid her: there wasn’t much chance of getting even that to see them through.

  She climbed the stairs to their room but, once over the threshold, she put aside her worries, forced the light-hearted mood back, told her mother what had happened and the laughter began all over again, and lasted until they ached.

  A Monday was a good day to go to the shops and show them the hand-made accessories she had for sale. Towards the weekend, when trade was more brisk, the buyers were less inclined to look at what she had to offer. The suitcase was far from full, but it would make her feel better if she could sell what they had.

  When she had recovered from the description of her attack on Slimy Slade, she washed and changed into her tidiest clothes. Until something suitable turned up she would have to concentrate on helping her mother fill the suitcase and find more shops in which to sell their products.

  She tried to fight down the feeling of anxiety. A buyer would sense the urgency and hold back or offer less than she was asking in the belief there was a greater than usual need to sell. She managed to sell six of the dozen butterfly brooches and a few beaded milk-jug covers but knew that somehow she had to do better. What she wanted were orders for more goods rather than just emptying the case. She had to act more boldly, stop thinking small. If she could tackle Slimy Slade she could face up to one of the pretentious buyers in some of the more exclusive shops around the centre.

  The shop on Queen Street was one she didn’t often visit. Selwyns was small but expensive and it always took a great deal of nerve to enter. Today, buoyed up by the events of the morning, she went in without hesitation and, when the buyer was sent for, she threw back the lid of her case fitted with its neatly packed compartments and showed her mother’s work with pride.

  Beside the butterfly brooches there were white lace collars fastened to blue sugar paper so their delicate stitches could be clearly seen. There were white and ecru gloves with both straight and frilly cuffs, and lengths of narrow edgings to put on the neck-lines of dresses. From another lidded compartment Lucy brought out navy, pink and blue flowers which were intended to decorate hats: roses and carnations, bunches of pansies and violets, each one a perfectly made marvel.

  “You had belts last time, I seem to remember?” the woman queried.

  Lucy opened yet another compartment and brought out the solitary belt she had left. Made with silvery thread and with its own covered buckle, she displayed it and added, “How many would you require? I can perhaps call back with them tomorrow.”

  “Two dozen,” the woman said casually. “And before lunch if you please. I want them all narrow, like this one but with different buckles on each. Can you do that?”

  “Of course,” Lucy said bravely, wondering if they could manage the splendid order if they stayed up all night.

  A man had come in and seeing the buyer occupied with Lucy, put down his suitcase – a larger one that Lucy’s – and stood patiently waiting. He was obviously a salesman and from the casual way he looked around, his trilby tilted rather rakishly over one eye, the exclusive place did not hold any worries for him.

  Lucy observed that he was an expensively dressed young man, his brown suit and belted raincoat were well fitting and worn with the casual air of someone who knows he looks good. His voice when he called “Good afternoon” to the buyer was well modulated and confident. Glasses framed hazel eyes that crinkled into a smile as he looked at Lucy with undisguised admiration. Straight fairish hair hidden by the trilby he had not removed on entering fell across his face when he caught her eye and doffed his hat to her. She smiled stiffly, hoping she hadn’t been staring too blatantly, and concentrated on what the buyer was writing down. When the buyer handed her the list Lucy surreptitiously stole another glance at the young man.

  He had taken out a notebook and was writing something in it. Then he tore off a page with a flourish and, with the buyer still engrossed in her calculations of the price she was prepared to pay, he pushed it into Lucy’s hand. Meet me in ten minutes at Luigi’s cafe, please, it said in bold, large, scrawling writing. Startled and flattered she could only nod as she went out of the shop.

  Without a thought she went straight to the cafe he had mentioned and stood at the door, but then she lost her nerve. What was she thinking about waiting here anyway? She had to get home as fast as she could and start making the silver-thread belts. Then she thought of the cotton needed. What if they didn’t have enough? And moulds for the buckles. They wouldn’t have two dozen in their stock for sure! She would have to go first to buy more then go home and tell her mother about their impossibly large order. What was she standing here for? There was no time to sit and drink a cup of tea with a strange young man, no matter how handsome.

  She wavered between running across the road and heading for the shop where they bought their materials or pausing just long enough to see him again. Perhaps she could ask the cafe proprietor if she could leave her suitcase there while she ran to buy the thread? She could run faster without it. It wouldn’t take more than ten minutes would it? Then, if she did see him, well, it would be fate, wouldn’t it?

  Teifion watched her reach the cafe, saw her indecision and then watched as she left her case and ran around the corner. She was obviously going on an errand. Well, he had said ten minutes and he’d wait a bit longer in case she was delayed unavoidably. He had seen her several times selling from her rather battered suitcase and had wanted to speak to her. Something about her gentle face appealed to him and made him want to get to know her. He had even followed her home on one occasion in the hope of an excuse to begin a conversation.

  He smiled. They were near a street air-raid shelter and he prayed for the siren to sound so she would have to share the same shelter as he. There was nothing like shared danger to bring people together.

  Teifion had spoken to a man carrying a load of shopping who obviously lived in the same house as the girl and discovered that she and her mother
lived in one room. He smiled wryly. His mother wouldn’t approve of her, snob that she was; one room and sharing a bathroom and a kitchen with God knew who else. She wouldn’t be acceptable to his wealthy aunt either and she was someone he daren’t offend. The girl was attractive though and it would be fun to date her cautiously, for a while, just until he became bored.

  He could take her out of town or to the cinema. That way there was little chance of his parents getting to know about his new girlfriend. The blackout helped enormously. Really, there were plenty of compensations for living through a war he decided: darkened doorways, black silent back streets and air-raid shelters for a bit of quiet loving. So long as he was safely out of the fighting, of course!

  Lucy bought the thread in record time and hurried back to the cafe. Then seeing him standing there with his suitcase beside him she slowed to a walk, conscious of her burning red cheeks. She walked even more slowly across the road to greet him and he held out a hand.

  “Teifion,” he said simply.

  “Lucy,” she replied. “My case is inside.”

  “You’re new at this, aren’t you?” he asked, when they were seated with a pot of tea and a plate of paste and tomato sandwiches.

  “Not really, we’ve only been dealing in a small way up to now, but,” she added, crossing her fingers against the lie, “we’re thinking of expanding.”

  “Taking on more workers you mean?” he asked. “Your goods are hand-made and to your own designs, aren’t they? I asked the buyer in Selwyns,” he admitted.

  “Taking on more workers, yes, that’s what we plan,” she said, wishing it were true so she and her mother didn’t have to face working through the night to fill Selwyns’s order.

  “I travel in ladies lingerie,” he said with a cheerful grin, waiting for the inevitable joke. “It was my sister’s business really but when I failed to pass for the army I took it on, my sister is getting married and no longer needs to work.”

  Lucky her! Lucy thought with some envy. “Our landlady used to work in lingerie, too,” she said, then regretted it. How could she continue with the pretence of being a business woman planning to expand if she admitted to living in one room with her mother!

  Teifion didn’t ask any further questions to her relief. She was flattered by his undisguised interest in her. He was obviously from a wealthy family, his clothes and his general manner suggested comfort and ease. They talked easily for almost half an hour then Lucy, realising how much precious time she had lost, stood to leave.

  “Fancy coming to the pictures tonight?” He asked as they prepared to part outside the door.

  “Sorry, I can’t tonight, I have – a previous engagement.” She was afraid to look at him fearing that his invitation wouldn’t be repeated but he said;

  “Tomorrow, then, I can just about wait ’til tomorrow to see you again.”

  They parted, each stopping to turn and wave as they reached their respective corners, Lucy strolling casually, her empty suitcase swinging at her side. Then, as soon as Teifion was out of sight, she bent over and ran like the wind to ask her mother if they could possibly complete twenty-four belts each with a different buckle by the following morning.

  Polly hid the note deep in her pocket. When Lucy was safely out of the house she would burn it. It was from Mrs Slade, complaining that she had been glad to see the back of Lucy.

  …Who had always been more trouble than she was worth. Making up to my husband and skimping on the work I paid her for. The attack on my poor dear husband when the wicked girl’s advances had been once more firmly refused was the last straw. Only that very morning I’d had cause to complain about the improper way she was dressed! Lucy’s wages will not be sent on and I don’t wish to see hair nor hide of her ever again.

  For the first four or five hours Lucy and Polly chatted happily about their hopes that this might be the beginning of better times, but as the hours passed and the pile of belts grew they fell silent. Polly did the most of the crocheting and Lucy sewed in the ends and finished the buckles. It was the buckles that took the most time. Lucy marvelled at the ingenuity of her mother as each one was completed and trimmed with a variety of flowers, birds and abstract patterns.

  They stopped for a rest and a cup of tea, drinking it well away from the precious order in case of accidents.

  “I hope things will pick up for us, Lucy, love,” Polly said as she neatly sewed yet another buckle onto a belt. “D’you know, I’ve always lived in one room and my mother before me. Strange how a pattern of living will keep on repeating. Just like these belts, one following another, with only a slight variation. I don’t want that for you. I want you to break the pattern. I don’t see why you should accept what I’ve achieved as the normal way to live. Think big and aim high, will you promise me you won’t accept second best? If you settle for second best it’s what you’ll always have.” Lucy looked at her mother in alarm. Was she ill, afraid that she would die and leave her daughter to face life alone? She lowered her gaze quickly, studied her work closely to avoid her mother seeing her fear.

  “If this business begins to grow then we’ll soon be out of this room and into a decent flat, Mam, you know that’s what I’m determined to get for us.”

  “I was determined to change things when I was your age,” Polly went on, snipping a thread and re-filling her sewing needle. “I promised my mother that although we were poor, I’d achieve something, be someone, but fate decided otherwise.”

  Lucy remained silent. It was rare for her mother to talk like this and she didn’t want to stop her reminiscences. “I was going to be married, you know. Ned Phelps was his name, nice kind man he was. I already had you and after suffering years of abuse and disapproval over my decision to keep you and bring you up myself, he was considerate and caring. He seemed to love you like you were his own.” She sighed and momentarily rested her hands in her lap. “Then I slipped and fell down the cliffs when we were on a day out at the seaside. My back was broken and I faced life in a wheelchair. Ned could accept you, my beautiful daughter, but he couldn’t accept that. A disabled wife was too much for him. He just went away one day and never returned.”

  Lucy stood up, dropping the belts and scattering them on the floor to hug her mother. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, forcing back a tear. “And it will be different for me, you just wait and see, Mam.” Then, each lost in their own thoughts, they began again, Lucy picking up the tiny sewing needle and fixing the work around the bone buckles with infinite care. With only a few more buckles left to do, they fell into their respective beds.

  The alarm woke her, still set for the time she normally woke to attend to her work at the Slades’. Lucy looked across to the bed-chair in which her mother slept. Polly was sitting up against her pillows and with the light of a candle was sewing the last of the belts.

  “Mam. How long have you been sitting there straining your eyes?”

  “No matter, they’re finished now. I’ll have a cup of tea if you’d make it, Lucy, then I think I’d better make a start on filling the case again.”

  As they sipped their tea and ate the toast she had made in the kitchen far below them, Lucy’s thoughts drifted to the brief encounter with Teifion and her pretence at being a woman with a sound business. She told her mother about the meeting and about her gentle boasting.

  “The buyer in Selwyns told him the designs are our own and the goods are all hand-made. Mam, d’you think we could expand? If I can get more orders surely there’s someone who’ll work for us and follow our designs?”

  So for that day Polly put aside her work and instead began writing down the instructions for some of their patterns. They were both worried at the absence of anything to show for their day apart from the money for the twenty-four belts and a few more items from the suitcase, but Lucy knew that confidence wasn’t just a smiling face, it was having the nerve to take a risk. Today, with the prospect of meeting Teifion for a visit to the pictures, she felt confidence oozing from her pores. Sh
e had contacted two women who were already adept at handwork and were willing to spend a part of their day with Polly to learn her methods.

  “We’ll need a lot more cottons and silks,” Polly reminded her. “And we’ll have to pay the women for the work they bring. What savings we have will soon go.”

  “It’s the only way out of the doldrums, Mam. We can’t improve our lot without taking a few risks.” Lucy spoke confidently but she, too, was afraid of losing the little they had.

  “Go on then, take the samples and get some orders. Come back as soon as you can so I know what to concentrate on and we’ll make out.”

  Before setting out to meet Teifion, Lucy carefully replaced the paper on which the samples were displayed so the work was looking its best and re-packed her suitcase. Tomorrow she and her suitcase would have the full responsibility for their livelihood. It was a heavy responsibility for her young shoulders.

  * * *

  Teifion was waiting for her outside the picture house. Owing to the black-out she had to walk right up to him before she was certain it was he. He flashed a torch for her to see the steps briefly, doffed his hat in an exaggerated way as he greeted her, and with his arm resting lightly on her waist, ushered her inside.

  Lucy was surprised at how easy she found it to talk to him. There seemed to be not a moment of silence as they waited with the good-natured crowd for the film to commence.

  Outside again, with the thin beam of the torch to guide them through the emptying town, they discussed the film and their respective jobs. On the subject of her “expansion” Lucy was pleased that she could say with reasonable honesty that she had taken on extra staff.

  “Two women who have never sold their work before, but each with a talent in the work my mother and I do – er – that we deal with.”

  “You do some of the work yourself?” he asked as they set off through the dark streets.