Read Online The Safest Place in London by Maggie Joel - Free Book Online
Authors: Maggie Joel
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Nancy, finding herself alone and abandoned for the second time in her short life, her modest ambitions thwarted, wasted little time in self-pity (for her predicament was not unusual, she saw thwarted ambition and families lost everywhere she looked) and soon found herself a position in a hat shop in Bethnal Green Road.
The hat shop was owned by a Madame Vivant who spoke with a heavy French accent though she came originally from Hoxton and was no more French than the hats she sold which were labelled Made in Paris and Made in Milan though they heralded from a large factory in Birmingham. Nancy found herself on five shillings a week in a dingy back room packing and unpacking stock. It was a far cry from the Shoreditch boarding house, but the wages were better and the other shop girls were fun—Miriam, a giggling dark-haired Jewish girl from Aldgate, and Lily, a willowy, delicate-looking girl who walked with a stoopto hide her almost-six-foot height. There was also Mme Vivant’s assistant, a girl called Milly Fenwick, who was a little older than the others, and who only spoke in sharp tones to remind you of something you’d failed to do, but on the whole Nancy considered she had landed on her feet.
Six years passed rapidly. Nancy now knew about hats; she peered at the hats in the windows of the Bond Street shops and dreamed one day of working there. She had, in short, a new ambition. Mrs Silver and the days in the boarding house in Shoreditch already seemed very distant. Perhaps it would have happened, too. At the time Nancy had believed it: her own hat shop, her own girls. There was nothing wrong with ambition. But there was fate, too, and she had not reckoned on that.
They had taken the train to Clacton for the Whitsun bank holiday, herself and Miriam and Lily, a few short weeks before the start of the war but far enough away that war had not even seemed a possibility. On that day—a pleasingly warm and cloudless day, the sort of day that you hoped for on a bank holiday but rarely got—the three girls had ridden the rollercoaster (twice), bathed in the pool, seen the Punch and Judy show and finally, having exhausted the pier, linked arms and run laughing along the esplanade.
And this was there they had run into Milly Fenwick and Milly’s young man, to whom she had recently become engaged.
‘There’s Milly!’ Miriam exclaimed, flapping a hand, her words indistinct as she tackled a wad of fluffy pink candy floss.
There was Milly, frozen on the esplanade with her young man beside her, in her Sunday-best coat and shoes and one of Mme Vivant’s newest and most expensive creations perched on herhead and an expression on her face like she had bitten into a toffee apple and chipped a tooth. But Miriam marched over and demanded, ‘Is this your young man, then, Milly? Why dontcha introduce us?’ And Milly, cornered, said ‘This is my fiancé. This is Joseph.’
‘Joe,’ he corrected her.
Nancy said nothing, offered only a polite smile. Milly’s young man was like any number of young men you might see striding along Bethnal Green Road on a Saturday night: an ordinary face, smooth-shaven, a chin with a dimple in it, and unblinking grey eyes, thick dark brown hair slicked down with Brylcreem beneath a grey felt hat pushed to the back of his head, jacket slung over his shoulder, a collarless shirt unbuttoned at the neck, the sleeves rolled up over thickly muscular arms, hands in pockets and a girl on his arm. And Nancy wondered why him , and why Milly , for they did not look like a match at all. She had imagined Milly with a clerk or a policeman, someone dull but polite. Not this. This man had a swagger. You wouldn’t trust this man at all.
A seagull swooped down and hovered above his head letting out a shrill cry, as though it was calling to him or marking him out in some way, and he shot it a curious look. Then the grey eyes turned to her, looking at her, and she saw his eyebrows go up in slow, dawning surprise as
The hat shop was owned by a Madame Vivant who spoke with a heavy French accent though she came originally from Hoxton and was no more French than the hats she sold which were labelled Made in Paris and Made in Milan though they heralded from a large factory in Birmingham. Nancy found herself on five shillings a week in a dingy back room packing and unpacking stock. It was a far cry from the Shoreditch boarding house, but the wages were better and the other shop girls were fun—Miriam, a giggling dark-haired Jewish girl from Aldgate, and Lily, a willowy, delicate-looking girl who walked with a stoopto hide her almost-six-foot height. There was also Mme Vivant’s assistant, a girl called Milly Fenwick, who was a little older than the others, and who only spoke in sharp tones to remind you of something you’d failed to do, but on the whole Nancy considered she had landed on her feet.
Six years passed rapidly. Nancy now knew about hats; she peered at the hats in the windows of the Bond Street shops and dreamed one day of working there. She had, in short, a new ambition. Mrs Silver and the days in the boarding house in Shoreditch already seemed very distant. Perhaps it would have happened, too. At the time Nancy had believed it: her own hat shop, her own girls. There was nothing wrong with ambition. But there was fate, too, and she had not reckoned on that.
They had taken the train to Clacton for the Whitsun bank holiday, herself and Miriam and Lily, a few short weeks before the start of the war but far enough away that war had not even seemed a possibility. On that day—a pleasingly warm and cloudless day, the sort of day that you hoped for on a bank holiday but rarely got—the three girls had ridden the rollercoaster (twice), bathed in the pool, seen the Punch and Judy show and finally, having exhausted the pier, linked arms and run laughing along the esplanade.
And this was there they had run into Milly Fenwick and Milly’s young man, to whom she had recently become engaged.
‘There’s Milly!’ Miriam exclaimed, flapping a hand, her words indistinct as she tackled a wad of fluffy pink candy floss.
There was Milly, frozen on the esplanade with her young man beside her, in her Sunday-best coat and shoes and one of Mme Vivant’s newest and most expensive creations perched on herhead and an expression on her face like she had bitten into a toffee apple and chipped a tooth. But Miriam marched over and demanded, ‘Is this your young man, then, Milly? Why dontcha introduce us?’ And Milly, cornered, said ‘This is my fiancé. This is Joseph.’
‘Joe,’ he corrected her.
Nancy said nothing, offered only a polite smile. Milly’s young man was like any number of young men you might see striding along Bethnal Green Road on a Saturday night: an ordinary face, smooth-shaven, a chin with a dimple in it, and unblinking grey eyes, thick dark brown hair slicked down with Brylcreem beneath a grey felt hat pushed to the back of his head, jacket slung over his shoulder, a collarless shirt unbuttoned at the neck, the sleeves rolled up over thickly muscular arms, hands in pockets and a girl on his arm. And Nancy wondered why him , and why Milly , for they did not look like a match at all. She had imagined Milly with a clerk or a policeman, someone dull but polite. Not this. This man had a swagger. You wouldn’t trust this man at all.
A seagull swooped down and hovered above his head letting out a shrill cry, as though it was calling to him or marking him out in some way, and he shot it a curious look. Then the grey eyes turned to her, looking at her, and she saw his eyebrows go up in slow, dawning surprise as
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