She’d felt sick with anxiety before she’d even tried to follow Mr Smith’s brisk instructions, but that had been nothing to the horrible churning feeling that had gripped her stomach when a customer had complained loudly about her slowness and then she’d gone and given him the wrong change.
After that the day had gone from bad to worse, leaving her filled with panic and despair. She’d seen from the look that Mr Smith had given her at five past five, when he’d told her to clock off because the evening shift was about to start, that he was angry with her because of all the mistakes she’d made. She’d let Matron down, she knew, and soon she was going to have to admit to her that she’d deliberately not kept her appointment with Mrs Robbins in Article Row.
Now, still wearing her second-hand uniform, her head down, and tears not very far away, Agnes headed for the steps that would take her out of the station and into the daylight, gasping as she was almost knocked flying.
Immediately a pair of male hands gripped her, a male voice saying, ‘I’m sorry. Are you all right?’
Those words – the first of any kindness she had heard all day – were too much for her and to her shame she couldn’t stop herself from bursting into tears.
Immediately the young man – she could see through her tears that he was a young man – pulled her into the privacy of a shadowy area against the wall and announced, ‘You must be the new girl that started at the ticket office this morning. I’m Ted Jackson, one of the drivers. What’s wrong?’
‘Everything,’ Agnes told him tearfully. ‘I made a customer cross because I was too slow and I got his change wrong. Mr Smith is really angry with me, and I know he’ll give me the sack and then Matron at the orphanage will be upset because I’ve let them down.’
‘Orphanage?’
‘Yes. I’m an orphan but I can’t stay at the orphanage any more because they’re going to be evacuated, and anyway you can’t stay once you’re fourteen. I was lucky that they let me stay for so long.’
The poor kid looked as pathetic as a half drowned kitten he’d once rescued from the river, Ted thought sympathetically.
‘Look, I’m not due to start work yet, so why don’t you and me go upsides and have a cup of tea? It will help calm you down,’ he suggested, putting his hand under her elbow and leading her back towards the steps.
Agnes experienced another surge of panic, but a different one this time. Matron was very strict with her girls, and Agnes had never ever been alone with a young man.
‘Come on, it’s all right, you’ll be safe with me,’ Ted assured her as though he had guessed what was worrying her. ‘Got two sisters of me own at home, I have.’
They’d reached the top of the steps and somehow Agnes discovered that she was being bustled into a small café where the woman behind the counter greeted Ted with a broad smile.
‘Your usual, is it, Ted?’ ‘Nah, just two cups of tea this time, Mrs M.’ He glanced at Agnes and then added, ‘And a couple of toasted teacakes.’
A toasted teacake – Agnes’s mouth watered. She hadn’t been able to eat the egg sandwiches she’d brought with her for her dinner because she’d been so worked up and upset.
The café was only small but it was homely and looked clean and welcoming. It smelled of strong tea and hot toast. The counter had a glass display case in which there were some scones and sausage rolls and sandwiches. Opposite the counter was a window with a sign in it saying ‘Café’. A row of wooden tables and chairs ran the length of the wall from the doorway, past the window and into the corner of the room. There were red and white checked cloths on the table and the same fabric had been used to make curtains for the window. Brown linoleum covered the floor, and the two women behind the counter serving the customers were large and jolly-looking.
‘You don’t want to take too much notice of old Smithy,’ Ted advised Agnes once they were settled at a table, their mugs of tea and toasted teacakes in front of them. ‘His bark is worse than his bite.’
‘But I got everything so wrong.’
‘That’s only natural on your first day.’
‘I couldn’t remember which line was which, or any of the stations,’ Agnes admitted in a low voice. ‘I’ll be sacked, I know I will, and then Matron will be cross with me as well, especially when she finds out that I didn’t go to Article Row like she told me.’
‘Article Row? What were you going there for?’
‘To get myself a room. The vicar’s wife had told Matron that there was a room there for me and I was supposed to go round yesterday to see it but I didn’t . . . I couldn’t.’ Her eyes filled with fresh tears. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to stay at the orphanage.’
‘What, and end up stuck in the country? That’s daft. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you go round to this Article Row after you and me have finished our tea? You can tell the landlady that you made a mistake and that you thought it was tonight you were supposed to go. That way you won’t get into trouble with your matron and you’ll have somewhere to live.’
Ted made it all seem so simple and so sensible. He made her feel better, somehow.
‘I’ll still lose my job. Mr Smith told me that I’d got to learn the stations on every single line, or else.’
‘Well, that’s easy enough to do,’ Ted told her.
Agnes’s eyes widened with hope and then darkened with doubt.
‘I mean it,’ Ted assured her, adding, ‘I could teach them to you if you wanted. See, my dad worked on the underground as a driver all his life, and now I’m doing the same. Grown up with knowing what the lines and the stations are, I suppose. Dad used to sing the names to me when I was a kid and lying in bed.’
‘Sing them to you? You mean like . . . like hymns?’ Agnes asked in amazement.
‘Well, not hymns, perhaps, but like what you might hear down at the Odeon, you know . . .’ He cleared his throat and began to sing in a pleasant baritone, as though to a marching tune that he had made up.
‘Here’s to the Piccadilly –
Cockfosters, Oakwood and Southgate,
Arnos Grove, Bounds Green and Wood Green,
Turnpike Lane, Manor House and Finsbury
Park,
Ar – sen – al
Holloway Road, Caledonian Road
King’s Cross and Russell Square,
Holborn, Covent Garden and Leicester Square.’
Agnes was entranced. Ted made learning the names of the lines and their stations seem such fun.
Her obvious awe and delight had Ted’s chest swelling with pride. He was an ordinary-looking lad, of only middling height and a bit on the thin side, with mouse-brown hair and vividly blue eyes. His smile was his best feature in his opinion, and his ears his worse because they stuck out so much. He had long ago accustomed himself to the fact that his looks weren’t the sort that girls made a beeline for, so he’d learned to compensate for that with his friendliness – not that he was the kind to go chasing after girls. He’d got his mum to help out after all. But something about Agnes’s plight, coupled with her awed delight, touched his heart. Ted reckoned that the poor little thing needed someone to look out for her and give her a hand, and he’d as soon do it himself