Colm Tóibín - Brooklyn

Downstairs, she was glad to be alone in the kitchen. Since she did not want to talk, she did not sit down so that she could leave instantly if any of the others arrived. She made tea and toast. She still had not found bread anywhere that she liked and even the tea and the milk tasted strange. The butter had a flavour she did not like either, it tasted almost of grease. One day on the street as she walked home from work she had noticed a woman at a stall selling jam. The woman spoke no English; Eilis did not think she was Italian and could not guess where she came from, but the woman had smiled at her as she examined the different pots of jam. She selected one and paid, thinking she was buying gooseberry jam, but when she tried it at Mrs. Kehoe's the flavour was new to her. She was not sure what it was, but she liked it because it masked the taste of the bread and the butter, just as three spoons of sugar managed to mask the taste of the tea and milk.

She had spent some of Rose's money on shoes. The first pair she had bought had looked comfortable but after a few days had begun to pinch her feet slightly. The second pair were flat and plain but fitted perfectly; she carried them in her bag and changed into them once she arrived at work.

She hated it when Patty or Diana paid too much attention to her. She was the new girl, and the youngest, and they could not stop giving her advice, or making criticisms or comments. She wondered how long it would go on for, and was trying to let them know how little appreciated their interest was by smiling faintly at them when they spoke or, a few times, especially in the morning, by looking at them vacantly as though she did not understand a word they said.

Having had her breakfast and washed her cup and saucer and plate, paying no heed to Patty, who had just arrived, Eilis slipped quietly out of the house, leaving herself plenty of time to get to work. This was her third week, and, although she had written a number of times to her mother and Rose and once to her brothers in Birmingham, she still had received no letters from them. It struck her as she crossed the street that by the time she arrived home at six thirty a whole world of things would have happened that she could tell them about; each moment appeared to bring some new sight or sensation or piece of information. The days at work so far had not been boring for her, the hours passing easily enough.

It was later, when she got home and lay in the bed after her evening meal, that the day she had just spent would seem like one of the longest of her life as she would find herself going through it scene by scene. Even tiny details stayed in her mind. When she deliberately tried to think about something else, or leave her mind blank, events from the day would come quickly back. For each day, she thought, she needed a whole other day to contemplate what had happened and store it away, get it out of her system so that it did not keep her awake at night or fill her dreams with flashes of what had actually happened and other flashes that had nothing to do with anything familiar, but were full of rushes of colour or crowds of people, everything frenzied and fast.

She liked the morning air and the quietness of these few leafy streets, streets that had shops only on the corners, streets where people lived, where there were three or four apartments in each house and where she passed women accompanying their children to school as she went to work. As she walked along, however, she knew she was getting close to the real world, which had wider streets and more traffic. Once she arrived at Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn began to feel like a strange place to her, with so many gaps between buildings and so many derelict buildings. And then suddenly, when she arrived at Fulton Street, there would be so many people crowding to cross the street, and in such dense clusters, that on the first morning she thought a fight had broken out or someone was injured and they had gathered to get a good view. Most mornings she stood back for a minute or two, waiting for the crowds to disperse.

In Bartocci's, she had to clock in, which was easy, and then go to her locker in the women's room downstairs and change into the blue uniform that girls on the shop floor had to wear. She was there most mornings before most of the other girls arrived. Some of them often did not appear until the last second. Miss Fortini, who was the supervisor, disapproved of this, Eilis knew. On her first day, Father Flood had taken her to the main office and she had had an interview with Elisabetta Bartocci, the daughter of the owner, who she thought was the most perfectly dressed woman she had ever seen. She wrote to her mother and Rose about Miss Bartocci's flaring red costume and white plain blouse, her red high-heeled shoes, her hair, which was shiny black and perfect. Her lipstick was bright red and her eyes were the blackest Eilis had ever seen.

"Brooklyn changes every day," Miss Bartocci said as Father Flood nodded. "New people arrive and they could be Jewish or Irish or Polish or even coloured. Our old customers are moving out to Long Island and we can't follow them, so we need new customers every week. We treat everyone the same. We welcome every single person who comes into this store. They all have money to spend. We keep our prices low and our manners high. If people like it here, they'll come back. You treat the customer like a new friend. Is that a deal?"

Eilis nodded.

"You give them a big Irish smile."

As Miss Bartocci went to fetch the supervisor, Father Flood told Eilis to take a look at the people working in the office. "A lot of them started like you, on the shop floor. And they did night classes and studied and now they're in the office. Some of them are actual accountants, fully qualified."

"I'd like to study bookkeeping," Eilis said. "I've already done a basic course."

"It'll be different here, different systems," Father Flood said. "But I'll find out if there are any courses nearby with places open. Even if they don't have places open, we'll see if we can get one open. But it'd be best not to mention this to Miss Bartocci and concentrate for the moment, as far as she is concerned, on the job you have."

Eilis nodded. Soon Miss Bartocci came back with Miss Fortini, who said "yes" after everything Miss Bartocci said, barely opening her mouth as she spoke. Every so often her eyes darted around the office and then, as though she had been doing something wrong, fixed quickly again on Miss Bartocci's face.

"Miss Fortini is going to teach you how to use the cash system, which is easy once you know it. And if you have any problems, go to her first, even the smallest thing. The only way for the customers to be happy is for the staff to be happy. You work nine to six, Monday through Saturday, with forty-five minutes for lunch and one half-day a week. And we encourage all our staff to do night classes-"

"We were speaking about that just now," Father Flood interrupted.

"So if you wanted to do night classes, we would pay part of the tuition. Not all of it, mind. And if you want to purchase anything in the store, you tell Miss Fortini and with most things there will be a reduction in the price."

Miss Fortini asked Eilis if she was ready to start. Father Flood took his leave as Miss Bartocci went to her desk and briskly began to open the post. When Miss Fortini led her to the shop floor and showed her the cash system, Eilis did not want to say that they had exactly the same system in Bolger's in Rafter Street at home, where the cash and a docket were put into a metal holder that was sent through the shop by a system of tubes until it arrived at the cash office, where the docket was marked paid, put back in the container with the change and returned. Eilis allowed Miss Fortini to explain it to her carefully, as though she had never seen anything like it before.