A Distant Dream (12 page)

‘It’s only a Lyons tea shop, love,’ her dad reminded her.

‘It wouldn’t matter to me if it was a scruffy old greasy-spoon café,’ she said. ‘I feel as though I have finally rejoined the human race.’ She looked at them earnestly. ‘Honestly, nothing in my life before has ever been as good as knowing that I am not ill any more and I can have a normal life again.’

‘You have to go for regular check-ups for a while, though,’ reminded her cautious mother, who had been with her at the hospital when the specialist had given her the good news. ‘And you must keep the appointments just to be on the safe side.’

‘I will, don’t worry.’ May had also been told not to overdo things at first; that normal life would initially tire her and she was to have plenty of good food, rest and fresh air. Other than that she could live her life as she wanted, including working. Her post-operative crooked shoulder had proved to be permanent and it made her seem a little awkward at times, but she was so used to it, it wasn’t a problem for her. ‘There’s no way I’ll put my health at risk.’

They ate their main course, had one of Lyons famous round ice creams for dessert, followed by coffee, then headed off into the crowds outside. The overwhelming emotion for May in all of this was the joy of feeling like a normal human being again; a part of things with a right to be here. She didn’t have to be ashamed any more and it was such an uplifting feeling.

She and her mother headed off to investigate the contents of the dress shops, arranging to meet her father at Oxford Circus station in about an hour.

Dick headed towards Hyde Park through the crowds in Oxford Street, lost in thought. This was a very joyful time for him and his family. Having lost one child, it had seemed for a while as though May was going to be taken from them as well. But by some miracle she had been spared and he thanked God for it. His wife had been devastated by the whole thing, and for the first time in two years she now had cause to be happy again. This was why he had such a dilemma on his hands, because something had come up that he needed to speak to her about and he didn’t have the heart because he knew she wouldn’t be pleased with what he had to say.

Oh well, he thought, heading into the park, the trees stripped for winter, the sky a deep, relentless grey, making the Serpentine look dark and chilly, he didn’t need to do it just yet. He wouldn’t spoil her happy day.

May was in high spirits when she went into Bright Brothers store a week or so later, still flushed with the joy of knowing that she had returned to good health. Noticing that the lingerie counter was without customers, she went over to pay a social call.

‘Hello, Miss Matt,’ she said brightly.

‘Miss Stubbs,’ responded the older woman with what could only be described as a gasp of surprise followed by a look of utter horror, while a junior assistant looked on with interest. ‘What brings you here?’

‘I’m on my way upstairs to the personnel department to see about a job,’ May explained.

‘A job
here
?’ she said incredulously.

‘Well, yes, of course,’ replied May, finding the remark odd since she would hardly come here looking for a job anywhere else.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Miss Matt with barely veiled disapproval. With an effort she managed to arrange her face into a more sympathetic expression. ‘How are you feeling now, my dear?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ replied May. ‘I’m better. I have been given the all-clear by the doctor.’

‘You look healthy enough, I must say,’ said Miss Matt as though astounded, ‘but . . . er, they do say that you never truly get better from
that
illness.’

‘I don’t know who told you that, but I’m sure they must have been misinformed,’ said May, her spirits dampened by the woman’s cold and pessimistic attitude. ‘People do sometimes have a permanent recovery.’

‘Mm, perhaps they do. But a word to the wise, my dear,’ began Miss Matt, leaning forward and speaking with an air of confidentiality. ‘Why not save yourself the humiliation of going to the office upstairs? They won’t give you a job here.’

‘But I’m an experienced counter assistant,’ May pointed out. ‘I’d be an asset.’

Miss Matt twisted her face as though what she was about to say pained her. ‘Here at Bright Brothers we work in close contact with the public, as you very well know,’ she stated unnecessarily. ‘They wouldn’t dare to put their customers at risk by having you work here, especially not on the counter.’

It was as much as May could do to keep her hands off the woman; she actually wanted to physically attack her and erase that smug look from her face. But she merely said, ‘I’m not a risk to anyone. As I have just told you, I am better.’

‘You haven’t just had a touch of flu, my dear,’ the other woman pointed out in a condescending manner. ‘What you’ve had could linger.’

Furious now, but clinging to her damaged self-confidence, May said, ‘It did linger but now it has gone, thanks to the skill of the medical profession. With respect, Miss Matt, I suggest that you check your facts before holding forth on that particular subject. It’s bigots like you who take the humanity out of the human race.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that,’ objected the older woman, turning scarlet with rage, while the junior, a girl of about fifteen, watched closely, enjoying the proceedings enormously. Very little in the way of entertainment ever happened around here, and there was nothing like a good old barney to liven things up.

‘I dare quite easily as it happens,’ said May with a defiance she hadn’t known she possessed. ‘Fortunately I am not intimidated by people like you, so I will make my way upstairs. Goodbye.’

With that she marched towards the stairs, angry, hurt and absolutely determined not to be beaten by this terrible prejudice.

‘So you are fully recovered then, Miss Stubbs?’ said the man in the personnel department at Bright Brothers, looking at her employee file.

‘Yes, completely better, thank you,’ she confirmed. ‘The doctor has told me that I can return to work.’

‘Mm.’ A thin, balding man in a dark suit and white starched collar, he had his elbows on his desk and his pyramided fingers supporting his chin. ‘Don’t you think you would be better suited now to work that is less physically demanding? A sitting-down job of some sort; in an office, perhaps.’

‘But shop work is what I know,’ she explained. ‘As my file will show you, I have been fully trained by Bright Brothers and I did very well in the job.’

‘But the nature of the work here demands that you are on your feet all day,’ he pointed out.

‘Yes, but as I have just told you,’ she began, increasingly frustrated, ‘I am fit and healthy now, so the job won’t be a problem.’

‘The thing is, my dear,’ he began, peering at her over his spectacles, ‘here at Bright Brothers we insist on our staff being totally reliable, and with the type of illness that unfortunately struck you down, you wouldn’t meet our requirements as far as that’s concerned.’

‘Can you tell me why, please, since I am no longer ill?’ she asked determinedly.

He stroked his chin meditatively. ‘Because an illness like the one you have had could very well leave you vulnerable to other conditions, which would mean you taking sick leave. That would be very inconvenient for us.’

‘So Miss Matt thinks I am still infectious, and you are convinced that I’ll let you down, when I have assured you both that neither of these things are the case,’ she told him.

‘I’m very sorry, Miss Stubbs, but we have nothing suitable for you at the moment,’ he informed her, rising sharply to indicate that the interview was at an end. ‘I wish you well and hope that your recovery continues.’ He walked to the door and opened it for her. ‘Goodbye, my dear.’

May marched out of the store fuming. She had heard rumours of this sort of thing when she’d been at Ashburn but hadn’t realised they were so devastatingly true. Well, this wasn’t over by a long chalk. She would keep trying until she did get a job, and prove that she was worth employing.

The morning rush was over at the Pavilion and Flo and Dick were busy filling shelves and catching up with administration. All the tables in the café were taken but nobody needed serving, so Dick decided that he could put it off no longer. He would speak to his wife about what was on his mind.

‘The thing is, Flo, something has come up that I need to talk to you about,’ he began.

‘Yes, dear,’ she said absently, checking the paperwork related to a cigarette order from the wholesaler.

‘With all the talk of war that’s around at the moment, there is work for skilled men at the docks,’ he said. ‘They are building and repairing ships and they need men like me.’

She paused in what she was doing and looked at him. ‘I’m glad there are jobs about, dear, but it doesn’t affect you because you work here,’ she said.

‘Mm.’ He scratched his head worriedly. ‘Look, I know how much this place means to you, and us working here together, and I enjoy it too. But you are the heart and soul of the Pavilion and—’

‘What are you trying to tell me, Dick?’

‘Thanks to you, I was saved from the misery of unemployment, but the truth is, I miss my trade, Flo,’ he blurted out. ‘I want to go back to it.’

‘But I need you here.’

‘You could employ someone to take my place and pay them what the business pays me,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll be earning good money down the docks, so we’ll be better off financially.’

She gave him a studious look. ‘You’ve already looked into it, haven’t you?’ she guessed.

He nodded, looking sheepish. ‘Some blokes down the pub were talking about it, so I called in at the Labour Exchange to find out about it.’

‘Mm, well I can’t say I’m not disappointed, because we’ve built this business together.’

‘No, Flo, you built it and I helped,’ he corrected. ‘And you’ve done a really good job.’

‘Well, the idea of working with a stranger doesn’t appeal to me at all, but I won’t hold you back, Dick,’ she told him. ‘If you could give me time to find someone suitable, then you can go and see about getting back into your trade with my blessing.’

He gave her an affectionate hug, then they went back to what they were doing, both lost in their own thoughts.

May was so full of her dismal experience at Bright Brothers that evening, her parents didn’t have a chance to tell her their own news for a while.

‘People are so misinformed,’ she said, having recounted the experience. ‘But I am not going to give up. I shall keep my eye on the local paper, and if I continue to get turned down, I shall make a complaint at the Labour Exchange.’

Flo and Dick listened sympathetically, making encouraging comments, then eventually told her of their plans.

‘Blimey,’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s a shock. You’ll be very much missed at the Pavilion, Dad. The customers really like you.’

‘Maybe they do,’ he said. ‘But I can help out on a Saturday afternoon to keep in touch.’

‘So you’ll have to find a replacement for him then, Mum,’ May remarked.

Flo nodded. ‘I shall put an advert in the
Gazette
as soon as I can,’ she said.

An odd silence fell as they were all struck by the same thought.

May spoke up quickly before the idea had time to develop. ‘As much as I would like to take Dad’s place at the Pavilion, it would be too easy for me. I have to prove that I can get a job outside of the family,’ she told them. ‘It’s really important to me.’

‘Of course, love,’ said Flo, obviously disappointed. ‘I can understand that.’

‘I can help out, though, while I’m waiting to get fixed up, if you would like,’ she offered.

‘I would love that,’ Flo enthused. ‘We’ll pay you a proper wage, of course.’

‘The only thing is, you might lose customers when people see me there, given the lack of knowledge among the public in general over TB.’

‘They’ll get used to it,’ said her mother, ‘and anyway, I’ll take a chance on it.’

‘I’ll still be applying for other jobs, though, Mum, so it won’t be a permanent arrangement.’ May thought it wise to mention the fact. ‘A family job will be lovely but I still have something to prove. I can’t give up without a fight.’

‘Of course not, dear,’ Flo agreed.

‘So can I go ahead and get myself fixed up with work at the docks, then?’ said Dick.

‘Yeah, I should think so, Dad,’ said May. ‘It will probably take me quite a while to get a job. If my experience so far is anything to go by, I doubt I’ll be inundated with offers.’

‘Employers’ stupidity is our gain,’ said Flo, who was delighted at the prospect of working with her daughter. She wanted her to find employment independently, of course, but she would enjoy having her around in the meantime.

Working at the Pavilion was a joy for May. She had helped out at odd times before so knew the ropes, and there was such a warm and friendly atmosphere. She had a few disapproving looks at first, but when people realised that nothing awful happened to them as a result of being in contact with her, they relaxed and accepted her.

Because she wanted to do the job as well as her father had, she even volunteered to take her turn rising early to prepare the newspapers for the rounds. When her mother suggested that it might be too much for her, May reminded her that that was exactly the sort of attitude she was fighting against.

She continued to apply for jobs. When she had no success, she decided that she had to do something more about it than just fuming inwardly.

‘Our job is to supply candidates to employers who need staff,’ said the male clerk at the Labour Exchange, a dark and dismal place mostly inhabited by men. ‘We can’t force them to take anybody on. That’s their choice. So I’m afraid there isn’t anything we can do about your problem, Miss Stubbs.’

‘But not only is it unfair, it’s also very silly not to take on a fit person just because they’ve been ill in the past,’ she told him, having already explained about the prejudice she was experiencing.

A middle-aged man with greased hair and a bored expression, he emitted an irritated sigh. ‘I can’t be held responsible for the attitude of employers,’ he told her. ‘They pay the wages so that entitles them to hire whoever they want.’