‘The mines?’
‘They’ve lost a lot of men to the Forces. They’re going to have to replace them somehow, and it’s one job women can’t do.’
The vision of a blackened Jim humping coal was even worse than one of him jabbing someone with a bayonet.
‘You, a miner? You can’t be serious.’
Jim looked at her straight, sincere.
‘Lily, please. Put yourself in my shoes. In all conscience, how can I stay here selling tray cloths, day in day out – if we had any to sell? How do you think that makes me feel?’
‘Well, all right …’ It made him deeply unhappy, she could see. ‘But—’
‘If you don’t see me as a miner or a steelworker – and I’ll give you that, you could be right, then at the very least I could jack this in and go home. There’s plenty of work on the land.’
Of course! Jim had grown up in the country – his mother had moved away from Hinton and met his father there. She would be over the moon if he made that choice. And farming was a reserved occupation.
Jim suddenly tutted and looked at his watch again.
‘All this talking – you’ve made me late!’
He stood up and pushed his bowl of plums and custard towards her.
‘You can have this. I’m not hungry anyway.’
Lily looked up at him, speechless.
‘See you,’ he said casually.
He smiled briefly and walked away.
Lily looked down at the bowl in front of her. She found she wasn’t hungry either. In fact, she felt rather sick.
Surely he – she – hadn’t had a reprieve from the Army just for him to go off somewhere else?
Dinner break over, plums untasted, Lily went back to her department with a heart that felt as if it was strapped into the Big Dipper at Blackpool Pleasure Beach – as if it hadn’t had enough ups and downs lately.
Instinctively she glanced across to Furniture. Jim was nowhere to be seen, but Gladys, busy straightening the rails, mouthed ‘Delivery’, which gave Lily some relief. At least that explained his absence. He wasn’t up on the management floor handing in his notice. Yet. Even so, Lily found it difficult – impossible, actually – to share Miss Temple’s outrage over the fact that Gentlemen’s Outfitting had received a quantity of caps when Miss Frobisher had had children’s pixie hoods on order since before Christmas.
‘It’s getting ridiculous!’ Miss Temple complained, but her indignation only emphasised Jim’s point. If they couldn’t get the goods to sell anyway, Marlow’s would be happy to let staff go. Why shouldn’t Jim take the decision for them?
The afternoon dragged. It more than dragged, it positively limped towards five thirty and going-home time.
At last the final customer had left, the department was tidy, and Lily could make her escape. Jim had returned to his department mid-afternoon, and her plan was to intercept him before he got to the back stairs and gave her the slip. She’d spent the hours since dinner, when she was pretending to listen to Miss Temple, formulating her plan. She might not have any hope of persuading Jim out of this notion of leaving, but she could at least urge him not to do anything hasty. It was her only hope.
But it was not her day. Before she was halfway across the sales floor, she saw Mr Simmonds approaching. Like an avenging angel he bore down on Jim, his famous clipboard turned, in Lily’s mind, into a flaming sword. She couldn’t tell from that distance whether he had a particularly shark-like look in his eye – which would have sat rather oddly on an avenging angel, she realised.
But whether he had or not, could Lily trust Jim not to take the chance to blurt out that he was thinking of resigning? Surely Mr Simmonds, ex-Army as he was, would heartily endorse it. The mood Jim was in, he’d probably convinced himself that Simmonds thought he was ducking his duty anyway.
Whatever, it was too late. Mr Simmonds steered Jim through the double doors to the stairs – and Lily’s chance was gone.
Miserably she trudged home. Even the first catkins on the alder trees in the park couldn’t cheer her, nor the blackbird chirping from a chimney pot as she turned into their street.
Inside the house, she found her mother pinning on her hat in readiness for another evening of rolling bandages. Wordlessly, but smiling, Dora nodded towards a postcard on the mantelpiece.
Standard Forces’ issue – and Sid’s writing!
Lily snatched it up.
Greetings, all! it began – a typically cheery Sid opener.
Sorry I couldn’t make it back when my darling brother was home, but I’ve finally managed to get some leave! It’ll be midweek, unfortunately, only 24 hours, and not quite sure when (here something was crossed out in blue pencil – more likely an expletive than a revelation about his travel plans) but before the end of the month for sure. Will write again as soon as I know. Toodle-pip! Sid.
Lily turned her eyes to the heavens and gave a sigh. Thank goodness! Maybe it was a sign. Maybe all Mr Simmonds had wanted to talk to Jim about had been that afternoon’s delivery. Maybe there was still time for her to urge Jim to take his time, and not to rush into anything. Then when Sid came back on leave she could get him on side. And if anyone could talk some sense into Jim, or at the very least jolly him out of the state he was in, it was Sid – lovely, funny, but still sensible Sid.
‘There’s only pilchards for tea,’ Dora said, hat now firmly anchored. ‘But there’s plums and custard for afters. I hope you didn’t have them for your dinner.’
Lily turned and gave her mum the first genuine smile of the afternoon.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t.’
Dora had hardly been gone five minutes – Lily hadn’t even changed out of her work clothes – when she heard what were unmistakeably Jim’s footsteps coming down the entry. She certainly hadn’t expected him back this soon – his conflab with Mr Simmonds hadn’t taken long. Was that a good thing or a bad? Breath bated, she waited for the gate, the latch, the back door, bracing herself for what she might be about to hear.
She thought afterwards that she should have braced herself a bit more firmly, because the door was flung back on its hinges, and suddenly Jim was there, shouting ‘Lily!’ and almost cannoning into her.
Lily leapt back.
‘What is it?’
Jim was grinning from ear to ear.
‘Those shark eyes of Mr Simmonds? Turns out they see more than you or I could ever suspect! But I think you’ll like it!’
Pilchards had never been an especial favourite of Lily’s, but that night they could have been – what was it that posh people ate? – oysters? lobster? – well, whatever it was, they didn’t taste like pilchards usually did. Though that might have been thanks to the bottle of ginger beer that Jim had nipped to the outdoor to get.
‘Something to celebrate, eh?’ he said as they chinked glasses.
‘Definitely,’ Lily replied.
The crisis was over. Jim wouldn’t be leaving after all.
‘I hate to say “I told you so”, Jim,’ chortled Lily.
‘But you’re going to anyway. As if you haven’t already, about a million times.’
‘Well, it’s true—’
Jim