Christmas for the Shop Girls Read online

  The next couple of hours were like nothing she’d ever known. In all her time at the store, Lily had barely glimpsed behind the scenes on Ladies’ Fashions. Now she was ushered through to the changing rooms like a proper customer to be handed one garment after another and told to try them on. She doubted the buyers would have been muttering quite so critically, though, if it had been a customer scrambling in and out of the clothes!

  Eventually, like witches round a seething cauldron, the buyers went into a huddle over a pile of edge-to-edge jackets and a consensus emerged. Sally and Gloria, both nearly nineteen, would model what the buyers called the more sophisticated numbers: Lily was to model dresses and suits for a younger clientele. Sally and Gloria seemed flattered and Gloria simpered accordingly. Lily was pleased too and not surprised: she’d looked like lamb dressed as mutton in some of the clothes.

  ‘And her hair!’ she overheard one of the buyers lament.

  Lily defensively touched her wayward blonde curls. None of this had been her idea!

  Sally, a pale-skinned redhead, nudged her.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘They’ll do our hair. I heard they’re getting Monsieur Paul in.’

  ‘And Elizabeth Arden’s doing the make-up,’ added Gloria.

  ‘In person?’ asked Lily, just to needle her. Gloria was a pert brunette who wore a high hat, as the local saying had it. She’d already applied to the WAAF where she hoped – no, intended – to meet an officer – and not just any old Pilot Officer, but a Flying Officer at least, she’d been heard to say.

  Outside of work, Lily liked to look nice if she could, but it wasn’t easy on her wages, not to mention rationing. Most of her clothes were pass-ons or what she could find at jumble sales, altered to fit by her mum, Dora. She couldn’t believe all this fuss over a few frocks!

  By now it was now mid-afternoon and, to Lily’s relief, she heard the words ‘tea break’. Then, the girls were told, there’d be a proper rehearsal, during which, Miss Wagstaff informed them, they would learn to walk. There was evidently more to this modelling lark than met the eye.

  When she emerged onto the sales floor for her break, a transformation had taken place. The catwalk was in place and violent purple felting was being nailed over it. At the top end, where the three girls would emerge, was a sort of slender pyramid, wrapped round with a gold lamé cloth. The gilt chairs had been laid out in rows and, on a little dais, a lectern had been set up with Jim’s potted palm to one side. Here, because every fashion show needed a compère, Mr Simmonds would stand to announce the models one by one.

  Lily looked around for Jim, but he was in conference with a couple of brown-coated porters, of whom Les, Beryl’s husband, was one. Suddenly Beryl herself, in dudgeon as high as it could be, accosted her.

  ‘Lily! What the blinking hell’s going on back there?’

  ‘Oh, Beryl – haven’t they told you?’

  ‘I know the models aren’t coming, but only ’cos Gladys told me! Wagstaff’s told me nothing except to keep out the way till the Marlow’s part of the show’s been decided. A nice way to treat your grand finale!’

  As she’d struggled in and out of various outfits, Lily had overheard the buyers discussing the problem of who would model the finale wedding dress now the London models wouldn’t to be there to carry it off.

  ‘I think it’s Gloria who’ll be your bride,’ she said.

  ‘I thought as much.’ Beryl tossed her head. ‘Always pushing herself forward, that one.’

  Lily swallowed a smile: she’d thought much the same about Beryl when she’d first met her as another junior at Marlow’s. But when Beryl had fallen pregnant it was Lily she’d turned to in a panic, and they’d become friends. Now Beryl and Les were married, happily, and the proud parents of little Bobby.

  ‘You’re being very good about it,’ said Lily. ‘You must be fed up it won’t be a proper model swanning up and down.’

  Beryl shrugged.

  ‘I’d prefer someone with a bit of class to that jumped-up piece, but it’s still a great chance for me, all those mothers and daughters in the audience. I know Marlow’s customers’d usually turn their noses up at a dress from a place like mine, but, well, it’s like me with Gloria. What choice has any of us got? There’s a war on, isn’t there?’

  Lily didn’t need reminding of that when the rehearsal began: Miss Wagstaff would have given the average regimental sergeant major a run for his money.

  ‘Glide, don’t stride!’ she hectored as Lily came down the catwalk. ‘And eyes front! Keep your head still! You’re in a fashion show, not a searchlight battery!’

  Then she made Lily glide all over again with Mr Simmonds reading his lines: she was taking no prisoners there either.

  ‘Kindly stick to the script!’ she boomed. ‘I know what’s there, I wrote it myself! Number Thirteen – a versatile skirt suit in heather mix tweed by Harella, not Marella!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ sputtered Mr Simmonds, ‘but that’s not what it says here.’

  Lily had never seen him so cowed.

  ‘I can’t account for the typist’s butterfingers!’ Miss Wagstaff cut in. ‘It’s Harella, take my word for it! From the top, please. Back you go, Lily!’

  By six, when the store closed briefly before the show started at seven, Lily was a mass of nerves. Worse was to come.

  ‘You’d better start with this one,’ Miss Drake instructed the hairstylist, Monsieur Paul. ‘She’ll need the most attention!’

  Thanks, thought Lily, sitting down at Monsieur Paul’s gesture. He was small and whippet-thin, his skinny legs emerging from what looked like an artist’s smock. He ran his fingers through Lily’s hair, making it more unruly than ever. He pulled it this way and that, examined the roots, then the ends, and not so much shook his head as gave a little shudder. Was it her imagination or, as he covered her with a slithery pink cape, did he actually say under his breath ‘Quelle horreur’?

  He began by yanking her head this way and that, smothering her hair in some pungent lotion and twirling it about with the end of a vicious-looking comb. Then he inserted rollers, blasted it with hot air, tugged the rollers out and doused the whole thing in hairspray. At the end he offered her a mirror, but before Lily could take it, Miss Drake reappeared and shooed her into another cubicle for ‘make-up’.

  Having her hair pulled had been bad enough, but it was nothing to the agony of having her eyebrows ‘tidied’, which Elizabeth Arden’s top salesgirl, a lady of mature years, said was necessary to ‘bring out those lovely eyes’. Having brought them out, she made Lily open them even wider while she applied mascara, then caked her face with powder – ‘“Dawn Blush” is the shade for you, dear. Remember that when you get your next pay packet!’ After that, Lily hardly noticed the lipstick and rouge go on.

  Thrilled with her work (and a possible sale – though she’d be lucky) the saleswoman stepped back and handed her a mirror.

  ‘Quite a transformation!’ she crowed.

  Lily was speechless. She’d never used more than a slick of pale lipstick and the tiniest bit of boot-black on her eyelashes. Now she looked like a panda with a high fever. A panda in a blonde wig.

  Giving up the chair to Sally, she staggered off, trying not to look at her reflection in the long fitting-room mirrors. She found that Miss Naylor, the Schoolwear buyer, had arrived to chaperone the models while the Fashion buyers took a break and changed into their finery for the evening.

  Miss Naylor and Miss Wagstaff were friends, but Lily was wary of her. She and Miss Frobisher had had something of a set-to before Christmas; Miss Frobisher had won and Miss Naylor had not been best pleased.

  She nodded coolly at Lily, whom she saw as a Frobisher ally, and then towards some sandwiches and lemon barley water on a trolley.

  ‘Have something to eat,’ she ordered. ‘You’ll need it.’

  Lily nodded – you didn’t say no to Miss Naylor lightly – but her stomach rolled at the thought. She poured herself a glass of lemon barley
to show willing, and thankfully Miss Naylor spotted a couple of juniors giggling together and rushed off to deliver a lecture. Lily went in search of Gloria and found her in a quiet corner.

  As a Cosmetics salesgirl, Gloria was considered competent to do her own make-up, so was already painted and preened. She was sipping from a hip flask which, she said, her boyfriend, Derek, had managed to smuggle in.

  ‘Have a nip,’ she said. ‘Better than lemon barley! Calm your nerves.’

  Lily shook her head.

  ‘Not for me, thanks,’ she said. ‘But you’re not nervous, surely?’

  ‘Only that seeing me as the bride might give Derek ideas,’ scoffed Gloria. ‘As if I’m going to settle for a salesman off Shirts and Ties!’

  In Number Three – ‘a go-anywhere day dress in a pretty powder blue – note the contrast trim and neat self-belt – just 60/- and 11 coupons’ (‘just!’) – Lily peered out from behind the fitting room curtain. It was ten to seven.

  She’d managed to blot off the worst of the make-up, making rather a mess of the cloakroom roller towel, but it couldn’t be helped. The lipstick had worn off anyway, with all the nervous lip-licking, and she’d tried to loosen the concrete hairdo by waggling her fingers through it.

  Out in front, the audience were arriving and the string quartet was tuning up. Beryl, wearing a sash with ‘Beryl’s Brides’ on it, was handing out programmes. Gladys, who’d sneaked round earlier to tell Lily she’d begged to stay on and watch the show, was standing to one side with Miss Frobisher. Jim was beside a pillar, deep in conversation with Evelyn Brimble.

  Might have known she’d be there, thought Lily: she was, after all, engaged to Mr Marlow’s son, Robert. Presumably he was somewhere about too … yes, there he was, talking to a burly, florid man in a chalk-stripe suit with a carnation in his buttonhole. New money, as some of the older assistants at Marlow’s, used to serving the district’s gentry, would have sniffed.

  As Lily wondered if she dared try to wave to Jim, Mr Simmonds came up to his little dais and took the microphone.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. On behalf of Mr Cedric Marlow and his staff, may I welcome you to this very special event for the store. We look forward to an evening of dazzling fashions, modelled for you tonight by some of our very own staff members, who have been practising all afternoon to give you a truly memorable evening. Without further ado, could I ask you to kindly take your seats so that the show can begin!’

  There was a buzz of chatter as staff shepherded the most important guests – including Robert, Evelyn and her parents, Sir Douglas and Lady Brimble, to seats in the front row beside Mr Marlow himself, who was smiling benignly.

  Cedric Marlow was nearly seventy, very much of the old school of shopkeeping, and it showed. He was semi-retired now, leaving the floor supervisors in charge of day-to-day operations, but he liked to keep a guiding hand on the tiller (or stick his oar in, as Jim had been heard to mutter) – as with the London models’ expenses. But the staff respected him; Mr Marlow had built up the store from the small draper’s shop that his father had started, and Jim wasn’t alone in giving him credit for that.

  ‘That was decent of Simmonds, wasn’t it?’ Sally, in Number Two – ‘a light woollen dress by Atrima – note the clever use of colour for the placket and mock pockets’ – appeared behind her. ‘He must have written that himself – Wagstaff would never have given us a mention!’

  Lily was still hoping to catch Jim’s eye. At that moment he looked up and gave her a huge grin and a thumbs-up.

  ‘Good luck!’ he mouthed.

  At least he still recognised her. Perhaps the evening wouldn’t be too bad after all.

  Chapter 3

  And it wasn’t. To Lily’s amazement, it went surprisingly smoothly. Any shyness she’d felt about cavorting around in her bra and knickers in front of the others had long gone and the juniors helped, holding dresses open so that Lily could step into them, untangling Gloria when she got her hair snagged on a button. And instead of criticising, the buyers were so keen that their own departments’ offerings would shine that they were positively encouraging.

  ‘Head up, shoulders back!’ Miss McIver urged. ‘You’re doing really well!’

  ‘Don’t forget the bias-cut yoke when you hear Mr Simmonds mention it! Just point to it – and a nice smooth turn at the end like last time!’ added Miss Drake.

  The bridal finale was Number Seventy, and by the time the girls reached the high sixties, evening wear, Lily was almost enjoying herself. Then Gloria, coming off and ceding place to Sally, suddenly clutched at a curtain and went pale.

  ‘I don’t feel so good,’ she said. ‘Gone all light-headed.’

  Miss Naylor was there like a shot with a velvet-buttoned stool.

  ‘Sit down, head between your knees!’ she commanded, shoving Gloria onto it.

  Lily, half in and half out of a dress and with a junior holding Number Sixty-Nine ready, didn’t like the look of it. None of them had touched the sandwiches, and what Gloria had been taking sips of all night wasn’t lemon barley water, she knew. Despite her position facing the floor, Gloria remained a greenish white.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ she moaned. ‘I feel sick! And dizzy! You’ll have to find someone else to do the bridal.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Miss Wagstaff bore down on them.

  It was too much for Gloria. She clapped her hand over her mouth and pushed past her. Miss Wagstaff whirled around and went in pursuit.

  ‘Gloria! Don’t you dare get anything on my Hardy Amies!’

  Miss McIver was gasping like a landed fish, but Miss Drake rounded on Lily.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to improvise. Lily – I need your help.’

  The next five minutes passed in a blur. Sally had looked perplexed when frantic hand signals from Miss Drake had kept her twirling at the end of the catwalk three times, and then had been made to twirl again when she made it back to the fitting room end. The quartet’s playing had become somewhat manic, but Mr Simmonds had manfully burbled on about the dress Sally was showing being ‘perfect for cocktail wear or, er, going on somewhere afterwards, um, Mr Hitler and his activities permitting,’ which had even raised a laugh.

  Now, the quartet starting scraping away at the Wedding March and Lily stepped onto the stage, just a few paces behind the bride. Miss Frobisher, the epitome, as always, of class and sophistication, preceded her in the Brussels lace, the tiara and the veil, with Lily in Number Sixty-Nine.

  One of the juniors had rushed out to whisper to Miss Frobisher that she was needed urgently, and another to tell the musicians, but there’d been no way of warning Mr Simmonds about the change of model without alerting the audience. And as she and Miss Frobisher glided past, Lily couldn’t help but notice his expression. Shock, of course, but also something she couldn’t quite put a name to, then a frantic scrabbling for his script.

  His blurb about the wedding dress was the same, but Lily’s delicate ice-blue dress, ‘a charming little number with a sweetheart neckline, perfect for any young girl’s debut’ became, thanks to his quick thinking, ‘and also, of course, suitable for any momentous occasion.’

  If there was a slight hiatus, the audience didn’t notice: they’d broken into spontaneous applause. As they made their way down the catwalk, Lily looked to left and right as much as she wanted – Miss Wagstaff could take a running jump. She could see several mothers and daughters squinting at their programmes – hopefully intending a visit to Beryl’s Brides.

  As Lily and Miss Frobisher executed a complex turn at the end of the catwalk, her boss gave Lily a conspiratorial smile. And as they swished past Mr Simmonds again, Lily was able to study his expression more closely. It was something like awe.

  The show was over, the audience was gone, and, backstage, the buyers were supervising the re-hanging of the clothes. Gloria, pale and wan, had been poured into the arms of Derek from Shirts and Ties, and Sally was getting stuck into the c
urled-up sandwiches.

  Lily had been walking on air when she’d stepped off stage, and her head was still buzzing with the applause.

  ‘Well!’ Miss Frobisher was back to normal, in her navy worsted suit. ‘Not quite what I expected from the evening!’

  Even so, she’d taken it all in her stride – or rather glide, which seemed to come naturally to her.

  ‘I hope you didn’t mind, Miss Frobisher.’ Lily was also back in her own clothes. ‘But when Gloria came over all funny—’

  She couldn’t say what she really thought, which was that she’d always thought Miss Frobisher would be perfect. She looked like a model anyway, tall and slim, with her honey blonde hair in its perfect French pleat, and she’d been a bride – it was only Marlow’s tradition that stipulated that all female staff were addressed as ‘Miss’, married or not.

  ‘I didn’t mind in the least,’ Miss Frobisher said now with a smile. ‘I rather enjoyed it. And you did very well yourself, Lily. But you should get home. It’s late.’

  ‘And we’ve got work in the morning.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. Take a couple of hours off tomorrow morning in lieu of tonight and come in for eleven. You can tell the timekeeper to check with me if he makes a fuss.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  Miss Frobisher was the best of bosses – firm but fair. She’d seen early on that Lily had potential, and she encouraged it – pushed her, even, sending her off to do sickness and holiday cover on other departments to widen her experience.

  Lily said her goodnights and went out on to the sales floor, where the activity of the afternoon was happening in reverse, the purple felting being taken up and the catwalk dismantled. Jim, in shirtsleeves, was stacking chairs. Lily went over to him.

  ‘Let me help.’

  Jim stopped what he was doing and grinned.

  ‘A bit beneath you, isn’t it? Now you’re a top model.’

  Lily swiped at him and caught him on the arm.

  ‘You’re right. I’ll help but I can’t stay long. My mink-lined chauffeur-driven limousine’s waiting.’