Polly's Angel (17 page)

‘Oh . . . I see,' Miss Chardwell remarked, turning away. She went rather red as she did so and Polly, fascinated, wondered what she had said. Mammy and Alice's mam, Dora Eccles, talked about women's troubles in hushed voices when the men were about, but loudly enough in all-female company. Still, Miss Chardwell was a teacher, not entirely a woman, so perhaps that made a difference, Polly decided, returning to the playground and her pals.

Out there, she asked Alice and Sylvia about women's troubles but though they both giggled and said it wasn't something you should talk about to teachers, they seemed to have very little more idea than Polly. ‘When you get 'em, you're a woman growed,' Sylvia said, and so not unnaturally Polly thought that it must have something to do with having to wear a bust bodice because your chest bounced about otherwise, and then forgot it. Why should she worry, after all? She had always been taught that badness was always found out and that only goodness was rewarded, but Sunny had laughed this notion to scorn and he had been proved right. She had been downright wicked, now that she thought about it, but she had enjoyed a marvellous day out and was clearly not going to suffer for it. Perhaps, Polly thought, it's just a waste being good. Perhaps a little wickedness now and then added spice to life. Or perhaps she was beginning to grow into a different girl, the sort of girl Sunny liked, but her mammy and daddy – and Tad – might not like at all. As for her guardian angel . . . Polly gave a superstitious little shudder. She decided she would have to think very hard before she risked mitching off school again – her angel might not approve!

Deirdre had decided very soon after Peader got home from hospital that she would have to think about getting another job. She had enjoyed working in the dress shop, but it had been a long day and she knew the children had not liked being left with so much to do. What was more, though the money had been useful, with only four weeks' work it had been impossible to put any money aside, so another job it would have to be, whether she liked it or not. She had always worked as a young woman – until Polly had arrived, that was. Then her menfolk had seen that she had sufficient money to stay at home, and she had been glad to do so, not from laziness, but because she had always felt that children needed at least one parent in the home. So from the moment Polly had arrived Deirdre had concentrated on being as good a mother and housewife as she could possibly be. Oh, she had done small jobs from time to time, taking in washing and ironing to earn something extra towards Christmas, fruit-picking in summer when she could take the children with her, even ‘obliging' a woman in one of the big houses with a few hours' cleaning when Polly and Ivan had both been in school. But that had been casual work, and in a city she knew like the back of her hand. Liverpool was still strange to her; she did not even know in which direction to walk if she wanted to find the sort of houses which would employ staff, and the staff themselves would be strangers to her. She knew herself to be clean, hardworking and of good appearance, but would that be enough? She was in her late forties and thought that was too old to try for shop work. There was, as everyone kept reminding her, a Depression on, and she guessed that shopkeepers would rather employ young girls that they could underpay and overwork rather than a mature woman like herself who would expect at least a show of fairness.

Cleaning in some large private house was the obvious choice, but she was afraid that it might involve taking a long tram ride, which would mean being away from Peader for more hours than she needed to be. Then there was taking in washing, but although she knew some women still did this, the pay was poor, the work incredibly hard, and in winter, Peader would be sitting in a room which was full of the steam of drying sheets half the week, and she was determined not to do anything which might undermine his chances of a complete recovery.

So a couple of weeks after her talk with Polly, when she had despatched the children to school, Deirdre helped Peader to dress and to eat his breakfast, settled him in a chair by the back door with the morning paper, and told him she was going shopping.

‘Shan't be long, me darlin',' she assured him, and he never queried her best hat, a jaunty lilac-pink pill-box with a tiny veil, or her navy coat and skirt with the matching shoes. He just smiled his slow, sweet smile and told her to be as long as she liked, for hadn't he the paper to read now and the good fresh air coming in through the open back door?

‘I'll come out with you this afternoon,' he said in his slow, careful voice which had grown, alas, slower and even more careful since the stroke. ‘If you'll not mind wheelin' me a way?'

Deirdre dropped a kiss on the top of his head and squeezed his shoulder. ‘I love to wheel you, so I do,' she assured him. ‘We'll go down to the docks and watch the shipping if the sun goes on shining. You'll enjoy that.'

‘I'm not so keen on all them handsome sailors watchin' you, alanna,' Peader said, making her smile. ‘I'll peel some spuds for you while you're out gadding.'

Deirdre thanked him, trying to ignore the stab of dismay which went through her. The trouble was, Peader found the knife difficult to handle and sometimes she ended up with what looked more like marbles than spuds. But there you were, trying his hand at small tasks was all part of him getting better, the doctor said so.

‘Well, only if you're bored wit' the paper,' she said as she went out through the back door. She crossed the yard with a brisk step, opened the gate into the jigger and turned and waved, only Peader was already holding the paper very close to his eyes and squinting at the headlines and didn't look up. I'll have to get him some spectacles, she told herself as she made her way down Tatlock Street. But I'll leave it until I've fixed meself up wit' some work, then I won't have to worry about the cost.

It was a fine morning, however, and Deirdre, who had a naturally optimistic nature, found it difficult to remember that the family had fallen on hard times, that she had to work. The truth was, she had been rather lonely since moving from the crossing cottage into the city, and had frequently longed for the women friends she had had in Dublin, and in the village on the Wirral. Her conscience had kept her close to Peader's side, but if she worked, and brought in money, then Peader would realise that she was not being selfish at all, at all, but doing no more than her duty. And if working led to her making friends – Deirdre smiled to herself – then that was just a bonus, so to speak, a piece of good luck for her.

So Deirdre made her way to the Scotland Road and browsed along, keeping a weather eye on the windows for any sign that a worker was needed. And she had not gone far before she came level with a large cafe with the legend
Mathilda Ellis's Dining Rooms
written in fancy gold letters across the very large bow window. And beneath it, tucked into a corner of the frame, was a small white card. Heart beating with excitement, Deirdre bent and read it.

Wanted, a reliable Woman to assist with dinners and teas at Busy Times and to Wait on; supply own Overalls but aprons provided.
She read it, with some puzzlement. That sounded odd! You had to bring your own overalls, that was clear, but they would provide you with aprons. Yet surely, if you were swathed in overalls, you were not likely to need an apron as well. However, it was the first job she had seen – and that meant the nearest to home, so checking her appearance in the window and finding that she still looked neat, Deirdre took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and entered the Dining Rooms.

It was mid-morning, so a few women were sitting at the small tables in the window drinking coffee and talking, but the rest of the very large room was empty. However, there was a till behind a glass panel in one corner and a woman in a navy dress with her grey hair pulled back from her face into a neat bun and a pair of small gold spectacles halfway down her thin nose, was sitting there, head bent, writing in a large ledger. When the bell rang to announce Deirdre's entrance she looked up, then looked down at her work again. She thinks I'm a customer, so she does, Deirdre thought with some dismay. Oh dammit, she won't like it when I tell her it's after the job I've come!

But here she wronged the lady at the till. When Deirdre walked across towards the till and stammered that she had come about the card in the window she half-rose to her feet and gave a very thin, lemony smile. ‘Ah, the job,' she said, with a world of satisfaction in her tone. She raised her voice. ‘Miss Collins, can you come and take over the till for a moment?' she called. ‘I'll go through to the office; I'm interviewing.'

In response a thin, harassed-looking woman came out of the swing door to one side of the room, eyebrows raised. She was clad in rather stained white overalls, had a white cloth tied around her head from which stray locks of grey-streaked hair depended, and looked to be about fifty.

‘Yes, Mrs Ellis?' she enquired in a voice in which Deirdre unerringly detected a touch of Irish brogue. ‘Were you after wanting me? I t'ought I heered me name called.'

Mrs Ellis, for she was clearly the owner of the Dining Rooms, raised her eyes to heaven and said: ‘Yes, I did call you, Miss Collins. This – this person has come about the job. Will you keep the till for me whilst I have a few words with her?'

No brogue there, Deirdre thought. Only sharpness and impatience. Oh dear! But the older woman was speaking again. ‘Right you are, Mrs Ellis,' she said, wiping her hands down the sides of her overalls. ‘But who's to finish making me Yorkshire I don't know, for you're no hand wit' eggs and flour as I've telled you a t'ousand times.'

‘I don't pretend to be a cook,' Mrs Ellis said, lowering her voice but not abating the sharpness of it one bit. She jerked her head at Deirdre. ‘Follow me.'

Half an hour later Deirdre emerged from the Dining Rooms. Despite some private doubts, she felt on top of the world. She had got the job, which seemed to be just the sort of work she could do. She would go in at eleven thirty each weekday morning and remain there until six thirty, when what Mrs Ellis described rather grandly as the ‘evening shift' came on. On a Saturday she had schoolgirls, she said, from the local convent, eager to make some money in their spare time, so Deirdre guessed that the ‘evening shift' was probably made up of the same young girls.

Her own work would consist of laying, clearing and wiping down tables and serving the customers, and when not doing this she would assist with the cooking, which was in the capable hands of ‘my junior partner, Miss Collins'. The washing-up, she was told, was done by a cheerful, cross-eyed woman, who must have weighed ten stone though she was less than five feet tall. Her name was Naomi, and whenever she caught Deirdre's eye she grinned and winked, which, combined with a squint, was somewhat confusing, though Deirdre realised that it was a friendly overture.

Deirdre had been told that she must provide herself with three overalls, preferably white but Mrs Ellis was willing to accept colours until her new worker had earned enough money to purchase the white ones.

‘Skirt and jumper, or a dress, it doesn't matter which provided they are black, clean and in a good state of repair,' Mrs Ellis had told her. ‘We provide the aprons. You will wear your black skirt and top with the white frilly apron round your waist when you are waiting on tables and the overalls whilst doing kitchen work.'

Deirdre had agreed meekly to all this, for the money was a little better than she had imagined; she thought that this was probably because she would be doing the work of two or three people, but reasoned that beggars could not be choosers.

‘Can you start tomorrow, Deirdre?' her new employer had asked. She pronounced the name English fashion, as though it were spelt ‘Deirdree', but Deirdre decided not to correct her. Not yet. Mrs Mathilda Ellis, she had already guessed, was not a woman to take correction lying down. No point in getting her back up before I've even started the job, Deirdre had thought, and was then told by Mrs Ellis that the customers would call her ‘miss', and that she was not to tell them she was married.

‘We are all referred to as miss, except myself,' she said grandly. ‘As the proprietor, I am respected more as a married lady, I feel.'

She had introduced Deirdre to the other waitress too, the one who came in early for the breakfasts and morning coffees and then came back at five thirty to help out with the evening rush. Her name was Trixie and she was a pretty redhead of thirty or so with a roguish twinkle in her green eyes and a ready smile which endeared her immediately to Deirdre.

‘Regardin' your clo'es, if you can't find nothin' black, chuck, we're abou' the same size, so you can always borry from me,' Trixie said in a thick Liverpool accent, lowering her voice when Mrs Ellis had returned to the till to take a customer's money. ‘It ain't a bad job, if your feet'll stand up to it an' you're strong, 'cos the fellers who come in for dinners tips good, ‘specially if you're quick. Of course, ole Ellis is a drawback—' She broke off as Mrs Ellis turned away from the till and came towards them. ‘Well, see you in the mornin', queen,' Trixie said cheerfully, raising her voice. ‘Don't forget, I live over the greengrocer's three doors along, so pop in tomorrer if you wanna borry some blacks.'

‘Trixie's a hard worker, but common, very common,' Mrs Ellis said, as soon as the other girl had disappeared. ‘That accent! But she's quick, and the gentlemen like her.' Deirdre must have looked startled for Mrs Ellis went quite pink and immediately began to talk again, faster than before. ‘Not that I'd dream of encouraging . . . I mean, my girls must be above reproach . . . It don't do to get a name for employing flighty young pieces . . .' The older woman seemed about to lose herself in a maze of half-sentences, but Miss Collins came to her rescue.