It was the Other Side’s money that let me stay at school to take A-levels. Then my scholarship had taken me to Queen’s. After seven years passing the back of the students’ union every day on my way to school, I got off the bus one stop earlier and stepped into a different world. It was luck. Pure luck. I had my books and my hopes for the future, these girls had their skimpy black skirts and their long hours of hard, poorly paid work.
‘Well then, how do you fancy a career in catering?’ Ben and I were sitting in our usual seats at the top of the double decker, our first week’s pay envelopes torn open on our knees.
‘Not a lot,’ I replied. ‘If this was all you had to live on you wouldn’t have much of a life, would you?’
‘No, not even if there were two of you and there was equal pay.’
I laughed wryly and counted the crumpled notes in my hand. We had worked so hard, sharing the same dreary jobs, working the same long hours. Ben had ten pounds, I had only seven.
‘It’s one thing if you’re earning book money,’ he went on, stuffing the notes into his pocket, ‘it’s another if it’s all you’ve got. Are you going to have enough for going to Clare, Lizzie?’
I’d reassured him that I’d be fine for I knew he’d offer to help me. I couldn’t let him do that for I knew what he was planning to buy. The newly published book he hoped might help him to make sense of his mother’s condition would cost several weeks’ work.
‘It’s exploitation, Ben, isn’t it? But what can one do? What can anyone do?’
‘Political action, Lizzie. Probably the only way. But that’s not my way. It needs a particular sort of mind and I know I haven’t got it. I’ll have my work cut out to make a decent doctor. What about you?’
I told him I didn’t really know about me.
The first thing I noticed as I opened the door of Delargy’s shop was the smell. This time, unlike the post office, it brought the happiest of memories: small shops in Ulster, in villages where I had done messages for various aunts, places where you could buy everything from brandy balls and humbugs to groceries and grass seed, packets of Aspros and pints of Guinness. There had been many such places in my childhood and I had loved them all.
Surprisingly, the shop was empty but for a single customer, the little lady in the black coat whose hatpins I’d studied closely in the post office queue. A pleasant-faced girl in a blue overall had come from behind the counter to pack her shopping bag. As she fitted in the packets of tea and sugar, she listened sympathetically to what the old lady was saying.
‘And they want to put me out and knock the whole row down.’
‘But Mrs McGuire dear, they’ll have to give you a new house, or one of the bungalows. Wouldn’t that be nice for you now, and no stairs to climb?’
The girl glanced at me and made a slight move as if to come and serve me but I shook my head. ‘I’m not in a hurry. Do you mind if I have a look round?’
‘Do, miss, do. I’ll be with you shortly.’
We exchanged glances over the head of Mrs McGuire, who was completely absorbed in her problem. Indeed, they were very nice, she agreed. And a nice price too. Where would she get seventeen shillings rent out of her pension?
I moved away in case my presence would disturb them and began to examine the contents of the long, low-ceilinged room. A solid wooden counter ran the whole length of one side. Behind it, shelves filled with packets and boxes rose to the ceiling, except at a central point where a large clock with dangling weights ticked out the separate minutes of the day. Against the counter leaned bags of dried goods, barley and rice, lentils and oatmeal, each with its polished metal scoop thrust into the mouth of the sack ready to measure into the pan of the shiny brass scales on the counter. Beyond the end of the counter, a low-arched doorway led into a passage which gave access to the stable yard outside.
On the opposite wall was the bar. Empty now. But the fluorescent light was on. It reflected in the rows of bottles and glinted off the well-polished seats of the high stools. At the furthest end of the bar, a new Italian coffee machine had just been installed. It sat, still partly draped in its polythene wraps, looking across the worn floorboards to a stand of Wellington boots and a rack of Pyrex ware.
I wandered around slowly. Who would buy the bottles of DeWitts Liver Pills, the mousetraps with the long-life guarantee, the shamrock-covered egg-timers, the hard yellow bars of Sunlight soap? And what would the same people make of the contents of the freezer, tucked between a pile of yard-brushes and a display unit of the blue and white striped delft I’d met at the cottage. Prawn curry. Chicken dinner for two. French beans and frozen strawberries. Unlikely substitutes for the bacon and cabbage, the champ, or the stew Mary had cooked for our supper on these last evenings.
Below a small counter laid out with newspapers and magazines, I found some exercise books. The notebooks I’d brought with me were filling up rapidly and these had the wide-spaced lines I liked. As I turned one over to look for the price, I heard voices in the passage leading to the stable yard.
‘Now don’t worry, Moyra. You concentrate on Charles and I’ll see to the stock. Paddy knows what’s needed here and Mrs Grogan won’t let you down in the hotel.’
There was a woman’s voice too, light and pleasant but further away.
‘I’ll come in this evening to make sure all is well, but I won’t come up to you. You look tired yourself.’
The voice intrigued me. It had something of the intonation of the voices I’d been hearing all around me since I arrived, but it was more formal. With her sharp ear for social distinctions, my mother would pronounce the owner either ‘educated’ or ‘good class’, depending on the mood she was in.
‘Are you all alone, Kathleen?’
I glimpsed the figure who strode across the empty shop to where Kathleen had just closed the door behind Mrs McGuire. I busied myself with the stand of postcards as he followed her glance.
‘It went quiet a wee while ago, so I let May and Bridget go for their tea,’ she explained. ‘They hardly got their lunch atall we were so busy. It’s teatime in the hotels, that’s why it’s gone quiet.’
He nodded as he listened to her. I had the strange feeling he was watching me out of the corner of his eye. A rather striking man. What some people might call handsome. A strongly shaped face, rather tanned, dark, straightish hair. He seemed to tower over Kathleen who was about my own height.
‘I’ve been talking to Mrs Donnelly and I’ve told her I’ll take care of the stock till Mr Donnelly is better. Would you let me have a note of anything you can think of. It’s so long since I’ve done the ordering I shall probably be no good at all.’
Kathleen laughed easily at the idea and said she’d start a list right away. He moved towards the door leading out into the Square and then, as if he had forgotten something, he turned and walked back towards me.
‘I’m afraid the selection isn’t very good,’ he said, as I looked up from the postcards. ‘We’ve some new colour ones on order from John Hinde, but there seems to be some delay.’
His eyes were a very dark brown and he was looking at me carefully, as if he was possessed by the same curiosity I had come to expect, but was too well-mannered to let it show.
‘I don’t honestly think they do justice to the place,’ I replied, nodding at the inexpensive