Joanna Toye - A Store at War

Beryl would, thought Lily.

Lily was on her hands and knees, trying to brush up the nap of the carpet where a set of glass-fronted drawers had stood, when she was aware of a little cough behind her.

‘Excuse me …’ It was the first time a male voice had spoken to her since she’d stepped through the staff entrance and the first time that day that anyone who might be senior had given her, however nicely phrased, anything but an order or an instruction.

Without looking round – surely it wasn’t Mr Marlow Junior, the floor supervisor? What had she done? What hadn’t she done? – Lily scrambled to her feet. Her hair, tamed by her mum that morning, had gone its own way with the effort of her scrubbing, and she pushed it out of her eyes with the back of her hand. With the other she smoothed down the skirt of her dress, horribly aware of the dust and fluff it had attracted. And she’d been congratulating herself on being put on a carpeted department instead of having to stand on a hard parquet floor all day!

‘Will you be much longer? Only I rather fancy the dining set that we’ve got on promotion in that little area. Sideboard in carved oak, Tudor – well, Tudor style – to the right, draw-leaf table central, a couple of chairs … Think I’ll have room?’

‘Erm, probably, as long as you’re not planning on Henry VIII sitting there with a goblet and throwing a chicken bone over his shoulder as well,’ offered Lily.

‘Hah! Hadn’t thought of that!’ said the young man. ‘But now you mention it …’

‘I was only joking!’ said Lily quickly.

‘I realise that. But I could set the table to make it look more tempting. Sorry, I should introduce myself. James Goodridge. Jim. Third sales, Furniture and Household.’

‘Lily. Lily Collins.’

Lily found herself looking up into deep-brown eyes behind wire-framed glasses. And looking a long way up. Sid was tall, but this lad – Jim – must be well over six foot, and skinny with it – a right bean-pole, her mum would have said.

‘I’m sorry if I’m holding you up. It’s my first day,’ she added.

‘I thought I hadn’t seen you before. Well, seems we’re going to be neighbours.’

‘Looks like it.’

She couldn’t place his accent. Not Midlands, definitely, but not posh, like old Mr Marlow, and not put on, either, like she could tell Beryl was trying to do. It was sort of natural, gentle, like the hills on the calendar her mum kept in the kitchen, the one that had come as a pull-out with Woman’s Weekly at the turn of the year. And then she heard herself saying – a bit forward, perhaps, but he seemed so normal and friendly …

‘Perhaps once you’ve set the table I can come for tea.’

‘You’re on! So what do we need? I’ll half-inch some stuff from Small Household – tray, tray cloth, crockery, teapot …’

‘Cake stand,’ suggested Lily. ‘No cake, we’ll have to pretend that …’

‘Cake stand! Of course! You’re going to be good at this sales lark, Lily.’

‘Well …’ Lily was pleased with the compliment, but cautious. ‘I’ve got to be good at being a junior first.’

‘It’s not so bad. You can soon work up.’

‘I hope so.’

Then, in case anyone was looking, she added quickly:

‘I’d better get on. Or you’ll never get your stuff moved in time for breakfast, let alone tea! You should probably check with Miss Frobisher, but she told me and Gladys she wanted our old sales space clear for you by three o’clock.’

‘Perfect. See you later!’

Lily watched him go, skirting a display of soft toys in his dark suit, watched him stop by Miss Frobisher, checking with her as she’d suggested, presumably, and then bound back up the stairs. He was all angles, tall and gawky, nothing like as smooth as the other salesmen she’d observed, with his wrists poking out from his shirt cuffs, his thatch of dark hair, and his glasses ever so slightly askew.

He seemed awfully nice, though. Friendly. And he’d spoken to her like a human being although he was a salesman proper, and she was a very junior junior.

She might be bounded on one side by bitchy Beryl in Toys, but with Household and Furniture on the other, Gladys an ally on her own department, and Miss Frobisher to learn from, Lily, as she went back to her brushing, felt very fortunate indeed.

Then it happened. The air-raid sirens began their wailing in the street outside. Above her head a bell shrilled, across the floor a whistle sounded, then another, sharper, longer … There was a flurry of alarm, then the buyers took charge, shepherding customers towards the stairs, prising people who were insistent on completing their purchases away from counters, making sure they had their own belongings and, crucially, their gas masks, with them. Lily looked round, not sure what to do, but Gladys was at her side.

‘Wait till Miss Frobisher tells us we can go. Or gives us a customer to take down.’

‘A customer?’ Lily looked horrified.

‘Don’t worry, it’s never happened yet,’ Gladys assured her.

Luckily, because of the disruption of the move, there weren’t many customers on the first floor and within seconds Miss Frobisher beckoned them over and told them to take the back stairs as quickly as they could. Lily had hoped to get away from the ear-splitting bell but another was clanging on the stairs, which with the ringing of feet on stone and the carrying of voices up and down the stairwell – some anxious, some bored, some annoyed – was even worse. And then, worse still, there was Beryl.

‘All we need!’ she cried. ‘Me and Les are going to the pictures tonight! Well, supposed to be!’

She glared at Lily.

‘I hope you’re not going to be bad luck!’

Lily’s first impression of the shelter was its size. It seemed to stretch for miles – well, it must do, if it connected in a sort of dog-leg with Burrell’s basement way down the street. She’d seen newsreels at the pictures, of course, of big air-raid shelters in London and people sleeping in the Underground’s own tunnels. She’d watched grimly as they tucked small children up with their teddy bears, tried to read in the gloom, or knit, or play cards to pass the time, and not to flinch too much in front of the camera when the air juddered with explosions on the streets above. The sirens went often enough in Hinton, because of planes flying over and back to other, bigger towns, but Lily had never had to spend a raid in a public shelter. She didn’t count the one at school, because you knew everyone; you were among friends, and the teachers were in charge, and however frightened you might have been you had to put on a brave face for the younger kids and try and keep them amused – or at least not let them get upset. And if the warning went when she was at home, their next-door neighbours had an Anderson shelter in the back garden, and she and her mum had always taken refuge there.

It had been a right performance getting it installed, Lily remembered. Their neighbours’ backyard had been concreted over, so Sid and Reg, before Reg had joined up, had helped break up the concrete with pickaxes and dig the deep hole to fit the shelter in. Lily had helped pile all the soil from the hole back on top of the shelter, and the biggest slabs of concrete and some fresh cement had been put back to make a sloping roof. Lily had wondered why – was it to make it look nicer? But Mr Crosbie, their neighbour, had laughed in a scornful way and Reg had quietly explained that no one cared about the look of the thing. It was so that any incendiaries would slide off and not burn through.

Lily had hated every moment she’d spent in there. Obviously, there was the being scared, and not just from the moment you heard the whine of the siren. Sometimes, often, she was scared even before. She couldn’t say exactly why, but it was as if since the start of the war – from the time she’d realised what it actually meant – she’d been living with her head constantly on one side, her heart beating that little bit faster, her mouth dry yet needing to swallow, her stomach turning over, the blood in her ears constantly pulsing, alert to anything that could be the sound of a plane. As if that wasn’t enough, there was the damp earthy smell of the shelter, the raw slats of wood to sit on, the battery-powered lamp which would often give out, the stink of the paraffin heater and worst of all, the bucket in the corner, which they’d all had the embarrassment of having to use. Fear played its part there as well.