Martha's Girls (8 page)
He laughed. ‘In that case, could I just take you out?’
Peggy deliberately misunderstood. ‘I think Mr Goldstein might object to the loss of trade if I went off gallivanting on a Saturday afternoon.’
‘Not now,’ he said quickly. ‘I was thinking about tomorrow. You don’t work on Sundays do you?’
Peggy put her head on one side as if considering his invitation. She was actually working out how she could go out with him without her mother finding out. ‘I could meet you at two o’clock tomorrow.’
He grinned. ‘Where?’
‘Do you know Cliftonville Circus?’
‘Course I do, been round and round there many a time.’
Just then the phone in Goldstein’s office began to ring.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ said Peggy. It was Goldstein reminding her to put dust covers over the pianos.
‘I don’t even know your—’ she said as she came back into the shop, but the door was open and he was nowhere to be seen.
It was around three o’clock when she realised it was gone: a small Bush wireless with a square walnut case and brass knobs. She was in the middle of selling ‘Anything Goes’ by Ethel Merman when, for no accountable reason, she found herself looking at an empty space on the shelf. It looked odd and it was a moment before she realised why. She finished serving the customer, then crossed to the door and hung the ‘Closed’ sign. She was completely calm as she served the remaining customers, but five minutes later she was alone and staring at the spot where the £9/19/11 wireless should have been. How long had it been missing? It was definitely there this morning first thing; she remembered dusting it. Somebody must have stolen it, but when? She pushed aside the feeling of panic. She’d have to tell Goldstein. Oh God, he’d take the money out of her wages. What would she tell Mammy? He might even dismiss her. Then how would they manage with a wage missing? There again, it wasn’t her fault it was gone, hadn’t she told him so many times how busy it was?
Goldstein listened without comment when she telephoned him, then said simply, ‘I will be there shortly.’ Well, she’d be ready for him. Just let him try to blame her and she’d give him a piece of her mind. While she waited for him to arrive, she went through all the sales receipts on the spike, remembering each sale, each customer, trying to build up a picture of who was in the shop and who went near the wirelesses. She couldn’t remember anything unusual. Maybe it had happened at dinnertime while she was in the kitchen. No, she’d have heard the bell. No one came in, except …
Goldstein had rung the police from his home before leaving and a constable arrived just before he did. He was tall and heavily built with a ruddy complexion. Peggy thought he looked like a farmer’s boy and his accent confirmed it. She showed him through to the office where he asked her to sit, then he seated himself behind Goldstein’s desk.
‘Name, address and age please, Miss.’ He didn’t look up when she answered, just wrote the details in his little notebook stopping every now and again to lick his pencil stub. Goldstein came bustling in just as Peggy was explaining how she noticed the wireless was missing.
‘Why is the bolt not on the shop door? Already I have lost one valuable piece of stock; are we inviting thieves in to strip the place bare?’
Before Peggy could speak, the constable stood up and extended his hand. ‘You must be the manager?’
Goldstein drew himself up to his full height. ‘I,’ he emphasised, ‘am the owner.’ Then he removed a pile of ledgers from an ancient dining chair and sat on it with his feet stretched straight out in front of him, his arms folded, clearly put out that his own seat had been commandeered.
The constable continued to question Peggy. ‘And at no point did anything unusual happen?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘Did you see anyone acting suspiciously?’
‘No. It was just an ordinary day.’ She looked at Goldstein and added, ‘Very busy.’
‘What about lunchtime? What happened then?’
‘I made myself some tea and ate my sandwich.’
‘In here?’
‘No, there’s a kitchen in the back.’
Goldstein sat up in his chair. ‘The bolt, did you bolt the front door?’
Peggy turned, didn’t blink. ‘Of course I did,’ she said and looked him straight in the eye.
*
‘So, tell me about this fella a yours.’ Irene and Myrtle sat on the bed with a plate of jam sandwiches cut like door steps between them, nursing cups of tea you could stand a spoon up in. ‘He’s a kiltie, isn’t he?’
‘Well, he comes from Scotland, but he doesn’t wear a kilt!’
A mouth full of jam and bread didn’t slow down Myrtle’s relentless questioning. ‘How’d ye meet him then?’
‘It was funny the way it happened. I shouldn’t have been there really.’
‘When was all this?’
‘Last twelfth of July.’
‘Was he over for the parade, in a band? Was he one of them that throws the pole? See me, I love those Kilties. Best bit a the whole parade, so they are.’
‘No he wasn’t at the parade.’ Irene thought again about the twist of fate that had taken her away from home that day. ‘Neither was I.’ She took a long drink of her tea and stared straight ahead. Myrtle settled back on the pillow sensing that the whole yarn was about to unravel without any questions.
‘It was Theresa, you know, the Catholic girl I told you about?’ Myrtle nodded. Irene went on. ‘I always watch the parade from outside the King’s Hall. Best place, always great fun in the crowd. Theresa stays at home up the Falls and doesn’t go anywhere near the Orangemen. She says to me the week before, “Me and Mary,” that’s another wee Catholic girl we work with, “are going away for the day on the twelfth.”
‘Says I “Where are you going?”’
“Scotland,” says she, “Me an’ Mary are goin’ to Stranraer for the day.”
‘So I says, “Is that not awful far?”’
“Course it’s not, anyway the boat trip’s the thing. Great fun, loads a fellas, music and craic. The bar’s open all day, none of your Ulster Protestant drink laws and they’re not fussy about who they serve.”
‘Well, the upshot of it is, Mary eats a plate of bad herrings and spends the eleventh on her outside privy and Theresa talks me into leaving the country.’ Irene paused, remembering how her legs wobbled walking up the steep gang plank; the crowds of people loaded up with rugs and bags; the rows of packed wooden benches and the banter going nineteen to the dozen.
‘It was a lovely day, the sea was calm, thanks be to God, and we went out on deck. We sailed down the Lough past the Cave Hill and Carrickfergus and out into the sea. And you know what the funny thing was?’ Myrtle shook her head. ‘I was there in the middle of all those Catholics and I was a bit scared. I thought they’d look at me and know … but they were just ordinary people, out to have a good time with their friends and family. We met some boys Theresa knew and had a Guinness with them – tasted nice. When we arrived in Stranraer they went off to carry on drinking, but Theresa told them we hadn’t come all that way to sit in a bar, we wanted to see what Scotland looked like. So, we took our picnic and found a nice grassy bank overlooking a wee beach. We didn’t notice them at first, we were too busy laying out the blanket, unwrapping sandwiches, cracking open the hard boiled eggs. They were on the path above us leaning over the railing. I don’t know how long they’d been watching us before one of them shouted:
“Hey there, save us a bit of that!”
There were two of them in uniform, RAF. One tall and quite dark; he jumps up on to the railing and sits there swinging his legs and he’s the one doing all the shouting. His friend turns away, has his back to us, saying nothing. He’s shorter, kind of sandy auburn hair. Well, Theresa’s not a bit backward in coming forward and she shouts, “Why, what’s it worth?”
“What will you take?” says the dark one.
“Away on with you! I don’t even know you.” Theresa shouts back.
‘Next thing, the dark one’s over the rail and running down the slope towards us, while his friend walks the long way round and down the steps. They’ve got fish and chips. You know how it is, when you smell the newspaper wet with vinegar and you start to drool and you’d do anything for a chip.’
‘Oh aye …’ Myrtle nodded her head in a knowing way.
‘No, it wasn’t like that. We shared the food and they had some beer and we had some brown lemonade. The dark one was called Tommy and his sandy friend was, you’ve guessed it, Sandy. They were based just outside Stranraer.’
‘God, were they pilots?’ asked Myrtle.
Irene laughed. ‘No, they weren’t posh or anything. They were radio engineers.’
‘Sounds posh enough to me. So, what happened then?’
‘Tommy was really taken with Theresa and after a while Sandy said he was going down to the harbour to look at the fishing boats. He nodded at me as if to say come on. I knew what he meant, Theresa and Tommy had forgotten we were there sitting like dummies, while they made eyes at each other.’
‘And did you like this Sandy?’ Myrtle leaned forward now as if Irene might be about to reveal some secret.
‘Ach he was nice enough, a bit quiet. We walked along the harbour wall. He had his hands in his pockets looking at his feet. He told me he was from the North East of Scotland. Right enough, his accent was very strong, hard to make out sometimes. He stopped and talked to some wee boys who were fishing. I watched him. He looked happy, down on his hunkers looking at the fish they’d caught, helped one boy get a fish off the hook. He stood up then and smiled at me, a nice smile, one that you’d give a friend.’
The light had faded, but Myrtle was reluctant to draw the black out curtains and turn on the light, feeling that it might signal the end of the story. Irene went to the window and leaned her head against the pane, trying to conjure up Sandy’s face. Finally, she turned.
‘Time to get ready, ay?’
‘Aye, in a minute,’ said Myrtle. ‘Finish your story. What happened then?’
‘Nothing. It was time to get the boat home. We walked back to Theresa and Tommy, but just before we reached them he stopped and said, “I’m going to be posted overseas again soon. Can I write to you?”
‘I wondered what he’d find to say in a letter, when he’d hardly spoken to me in the hour we’d spent together, but he had a nice smile so I said yes.’
‘So really he’s a pen pal?’
‘That was the idea. Trouble is, he never wrote.’
‘Ah well, sure never mind,’ said Myrtle. ‘Come on, let’s get ourselves dolled up and see what make of man we can meet the night.’
*
John Dossor’s was one of the best night spots in Belfast: resident band, dancing, even lessons for those wanting to do more than shuffle round the floor. It was on the corner of Victoria Street close to the Albert Clock which leaned like the Tower of Pisa on its sandy foundations. Above the door was a banner proclaiming: ‘Grand Halloween Dance’ and inside a flight of narrow, dimly lit stairs ran up to the first floor where an elderly lady in a hair net and rouged cheeks sat behind a table, taking the money and stamping hands.
‘Keep on the right side a her,’ whispered Myrtle, ‘if ye don’t want te be barred.’
On the first floor there were dance studios and posters advertised lessons at one and six an hour. ‘Up again to the dance,’ said Myrtle. Irene turned to follow her then stopped dead. The stairs were lined on either side with young men, some of them wearing ghoulish false faces making spooky noises, laughing, calling to them to come up the narrow space they had left through the middle. At that moment, Irene would gladly have fled, but Myrtle grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up through the loud jostling youths and into the sanctuary of the ladies’ toilets. Inside was already packed, noise levels were high and the smell of disinfectant was slowly being replaced by Midnight in Paris and 4711 cologne. Myrtle found a spot in one corner with a chance of seeing the edge of a mirror and carefully re-shaped the waves in her hair. Irene reapplied the carnation lipstick and offered it to Myrtle who slicked on an extra layer.
‘Here, let’s get into the Halloween spirit. Look what I’ve got.’ Myrtle pulled out two cardboard eye masks, one black with white lace the other pink with black lace. ‘Choose,’ she said, offering them.
‘I don’t know, you pick.’
‘You have the pink, then. I’ll be more daring in the black.’ She slipped the shirring elastic over her head and grinned as Irene did the same.
‘Now we can say an’ do whatever we like and no one will know it’s us!’ Myrtle’s laugh was infectious and soon both of them were giggling away in the corner.
‘God, Myrtle,’ said a thin girl with long black hair, holding a bottle of sweet sherry. ‘How much have you had?’
‘Nothin’ at all, we don’t need drink in us te have a good time.’ She took Irene’s arm and led her back into the corridor. Out of earshot she whispered, ‘She’ll be paralytic in an hour and outside throwin’ up in two.’