Patricia Burns - Follow Your Dream

‘My—you’re quite good at that, aren’t you?’

‘Come out with me tonight,’ James said.

Wendy put a hand to her head, smoothing an imaginary stray lock back into place. ‘Oh, no—just because you’ve got a stripe up already, it doesn’t mean I’ll go out with you. Maybe if you get made a sergeant.’

She gave a superior smile. They both knew that national servicemen hardly ever got made sergeants.

She made for the door.

‘Is that a promise?’ James pressed. He knew he could get the trade qualifications needed. He already had the skills from his time at the garage. He could certainly get to be corporal. After that, being made even an acting unpaid sergeant depended on someone dropping out.

Wendy looked back at him over her shoulder. ‘Maybe.’

He would make it, James resolved, if it was the last thing he did.

‘BUT I don’t want to work in a shop!’ Lillian protested.

Easter was fast approaching, and with it her last weeks at school. Now she was fifteen, she could leave and get a job. Staying on till the end of the school year was out of the question. Gran was annoyed enough that she had to stay on till the end of term. She was even more annoyed that Lillian should question her choice of a job.

‘Don’t want has got nothing to do with it, young lady. You’ll do as you’re told.’

‘But I want—’ Lillian hesitated. She wanted so much to be a dancer. The thrill of those precious few minutes on stage at the bandstand had confirmed everything she had always imagined. Hidden in an old chocolate box at the bottom of her underwear drawer was the newspaper picture of her receiving her prize from the carnival queen. She got it out and looked at it whenever she was feeling low, and it always gave her a boost. But it was no use even trying to explain this to Gran. In fact, it was important that she kept quiet about it. What Gran didn’t know about, she couldn’t forbid.

‘I want to be a hairdresser,’ she said, surprising herself. Her Aunty Eileen had been a hairdresser.

‘That means a long apprenticeship with you earning next to nothing.’

‘Well, if money’s the thing, I’ll work in a factory. I’d earn more in a factory than at a shop.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. Our family has always worked in shops. We had a shop once, after all. We’d still have it now, if there was any fairness in this world.’

Lillian knew she was defeated once Gran referred to the shop.

‘Yes, Gran.’

‘Your sister says there’s an opening at Dixon’s, in the household department. You’ll go and apply for it tomorrow.’

The last thing Lillian wanted was to be working at the same place as Wendy. After the way she had behaved towards James, Lillian could hardly bear to look at her. She muttered something that sounded like agreement, but in her heart she was refusing. She marched straight out of the house, fuming. Why wasn’t her life her own? Why couldn’t she do what she wanted? She walked to the High Street and went along looking at the shop windows. Halfway up, one of the shoe shops had a notice in the window— Junior wanted. Lillian went in and asked to see the manager. A tall man with thinning hair was fetched. He looked at her over his half-moon glasses.

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve come for the job. In the window,’ Lillian said.

As the words came out of her mouth, she could hear that they sounded stupid. She should have planned this better.

‘My name’s Lillian Parker. I’m leaving school at the end of this term,’ she explained.

‘I see. Right. And what makes you think you are suitable to work here?’

‘I…I’m very interested in shoes,’ Lillian improvised. ‘And I’m used to looking after people. My family has a guest house and so I’m dealing with the public quite a lot and I know how to be polite and find what people want.’

That sounded much better. She was surprised at herself. She gave a tentative smile. The manager did not respond.

‘I take it you can make tea?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Lillian said. What had that to do with selling shoes?

‘And can you handle money? Eighteen and elevenpence ha’penny, what’s the change from a five pound note?’

‘Four pounds, one and a ha’penny,’ Lillian said promptly. That was easy. She had been doing shopping since she was five years old.

The manager nodded. He went and took a red stiletto from one of the displays and handed it to her.

‘Go into the store room and find the other half of this pair,’ he said.

Lillian went through the door at the back of the shop. It was dark and cold out here and the floor was bare, unlike the cosy carpeted brightness of the shop. She found the light switch and gazed at the shelves and shelves of shoeboxes, stacked right up to the ceiling. Where to start? She scanned the rows, looking at the pictures on the ends of the boxes. The nearest ones were all men’s shoes. She found the ladies’ section, dismissed the flat styles, scanned the stilettos. There—at the top! She grabbed a stepladder that was standing nearby, climbed up, checked the size, pulled out a box. Inside was just one shoe, the partner of the one she was holding. She scampered into the shop.

‘There!’ she said, triumphant.

The manager looked vaguely surprised. ‘That was very quick.’ He offered her a trial of a month.

It wasn’t a very exciting job, as it turned out. On her first morning, the manager set her to dusting the shelves.

‘Have you finished that?’ He ran a finger over the surfaces. ‘Yes, well, that’s all right. You can go and put the kettle on now and start making tea for the mid-morning break.’

After that, she was set to sorting out the stand containing the shoelaces. By the end of the day, she had hardly touched a shoe. She certainly hadn’t spoken to a customer. That set the pattern. As the junior, she was mostly cleaning and tidying, fetching things for the other staff and running errands for the manager. But it was her job and she made the best of it. It was nice to put on her own clothes in the morning instead of hand-me-down school uniform, and to be called ‘Miss Parker’ in front of the customers. It was lovely to get her little brown paper envelope of money at the end of the week, even if most of it did have to go to her mother for her keep. She was a grown-up now, taking her own place in the world.

A small corner of her heart hoped that this might help her when it came to seeing James again. Mostly she felt totally humiliated when she thought of their last meeting. However much she told herself that it had all been Wendy’s fault, she knew she had behaved badly. Of course he was going to treat her like a child if she shouted at him then blubbed all over him like that. What had made her do that? She couldn’t understand what had happened to her. Being with him seemed to bring on a sort of madness, making her lose all self-control. Every time she thought of it, she wanted to curl up and die. But then there had been that wonderful, wonderful moment when he’d taken her in his arms. She relived that a thousand times, making it end differently in her imagination. Maybe, just maybe, when they next met he would see this young woman who worked for her own living and not just a scruffy kid. The thought kept her going until the next blow fell.

‘James had some worrying news in his last letter,’ Susan announced one evening. Now that she and Bob were engaged and saving up for a house, they spent a lot of evenings at each other’s homes rather than going out to the pictures or dancing. This particular evening, Lillian was sitting at the table in the kitchen reading a library book while Bob studied for his banking exams and Susan knitted him a jumper. Bob merely grunted at her statement, but Lillian was instantly alert.