A Perfect Christmas

Chapter FIFTEEN


Cait shivered as a blast of icy wind caught her on alighting from the bus, the second she’d had to catch to reach her destination. She had desperately tried to get back off to sleep after Agnes Dalby had left her bedroom earlier that morning, but had failed miserably. What had finally got her up and dressed was Agnes once again coming up to inform her that Miss Trucker had called yet again for information as to when they could expect Mrs Thomas’s representative to visit, and it became apparent to Cait that the woman wasn’t going to give up until she had been to see them.

There was a freezing mist swirling over the murky canal waters when she made her way over the small hump-backed bridge and down the steps at one side, on to the slippery cobbled path that led to the dozen or so factories and warehouses backing on to the canal. It was only then that she realised she had arrived at the workers’ entrance to the premises and had to retrace her steps, go further up the main road and down the next road off it which led her to reception at the front of the premises. She found herself facing an old building with a tall chimney rising from it and a faded sign on its front: Rose’s Quality Shoes and Leather Goods, Established 1921. It nestled between a coal depot and a tea warehouse. When she arrived in the reception area, the young girl behind the desk wished Cait a good morning and asked what she could do for her.

Cait had barely finished telling her who she was when, much to her surprise, the other girl fairly jumped to attention, as if she had just announced she was royalty, and blurted out, ‘Oh, please go straight up, Miss Thomas. I’ll telephone Miss Trucker to meet you.’

By ‘straight up’ Cait assumed the receptionist meant she was to make her way up the stairs. At the top, she found a middle-aged woman hurrying down the corridor to meet her. She wore a harassed expression on her face but there was also an element of surprise mingled with it when her eyes fixed on Cait.

‘Good morning, Miss Thomas. How very nice to meet you. I’m Jane Trucker, Mr . . .’ she paused for a moment, realising what she had been going to say before she changed it to ‘. . . the manager’s secretary. I’ll show you through. I wasn’t sure whether you’d prefer tea or coffee so I’ve ordered both. As soon as you’re settled, I will inform the kitchen you’re here and have it sent up. I hope that is acceptable to you?’

Cait was wondering why on earth she was being treated like a very important person. Perhaps her mother demanded such attention from those she dealt with here.

Now in the manager’s office, Jane Trucker was standing by the chair to the front of the desk, it being obvious she was expecting Cait to take the seat behind it. Cait thought that was odd, but had no objection to sitting in the red leather chair behind the desk. It might be well-worn but looked to be far more comfortable than the chair opposite.

With a sad expression on her plain face, hands clasped tightly in her lap on top of the shorthand book and pencil she had brought along with her, Jane Trucker said to Cait, ‘I hope you don’t object to my handling this situation, Miss Thomas, only Mrs Thomas usually dealt with Mr Swinton himself. As his personal secretary I did have a certain amount of contact with her too so . . .’

Cait didn’t care at this moment who she dealt with, she just wanted to get this over with and go home. ‘Just what is this urgent matter only my mother can resolve for you?’ she demanded.

Miss Trucker paused for a moment. Obviously what she was about to divulge was causing her distress. ‘Miss Thomas, it’s my very sad task to inform you that Mr Swinton passed away yesterday morning. He suffered a massive heart attack. Obviously we needed to inform Mrs Thomas as soon as possible, as you can appreciate. I have informed Mr Swinton’s widow of the reason why Mrs Thomas hasn’t yet been in contact with her to offer her condolences, but now that you’re here I expect you’d like to be in touch yourself and speak on behalf of the family. I know Mrs Swinton would appreciate that. I have her details.

‘As soon as the funeral arrangements have been finalised, I’ll inform you. We office staff are having a collection for flowers and the factory workers are having a separate one. If you wish me to arrange a wreath on the family’s behalf, I’ll be happy to do so. The more senior staff, myself included, would like to attend the funeral, but we need to ask you first if you have any objection to our taking the time off? Oh, also, I’d appreciate if you’d tell me if you wish me to arrange a car to take you to the church and then the funeral tea afterwards. I understand Mrs Thomas isn’t expected back for two or three weeks, so as her representative I assume you’ll be attending on her behalf? Unless you have managed to contact Mrs Thomas since my telephone call this morning and she’s making her way back as we speak?’

Cait was staring at the woman blankly, wondering why she was telling her all this. Although it was sad, what did it matter to her mother that the manager of the firm that made her husband’s shoes had died? And why was this woman seeking Cait’s approval for the senior staff to attend the funeral? Something odd was going on here, something she couldn’t grasp. She asked, ‘Are you making special arrangements to go to the manager’s funeral for all your best customers?’

Jane Trucker looked a mite embarrassed that she hadn’t thought to do that. ‘I will certainly contact them and make arrangements for those who wish to attend.’ She picked up her notebook and pencil and made a reminder note to herself.

It was Cait’s turn to look at her in surprise. Why had the woman responded as if she were obeying an order? The throbbing headache she had woken up with that morning was returning with a vengeance. ‘Look,’ she said briskly, ‘can we just get on with whatever you called me in here for?’

Jane looked taken aback for a moment. Reg Swinton had always treated her with the utmost respect and courtesy, no matter how fraught he felt. As a professional, she managed to keep her feelings to herself and responded evenly, ‘Yes, of course. Would you like me to ask the senior staff to come up now?’

Puzzled, Cait asked, ‘What for?’

The other woman looked surprised. ‘Well, for you to introduce yourself to them, Miss Thomas, as their temporary boss until Mrs Thomas returns. Presumably then she will let us know if she’s going to be running the place herself as its owner or if she will be looking to find a replacement for Mr Swinton.’

Cait stared at her, stunned by this revelation. Surely she had misheard the woman. But she knew she hadn’t. She had definitely just said that Nerys was the owner of this company. Why had she never mentioned anything about it? She needed a few minutes to herself to digest this information. ‘I need some time on my own. You must have work to do,’ Cait said shortly.

Another show of rudeness towards her proved too much for Jane Trucker and she responded brusquely. ‘Yes, of course. I do appreciate Mr Swinton’s death must have come as a great shock to you, considering how long and how tirelessly he worked for your family.’ She rose from her chair in a dignified fashion. ‘I’ll go and check where that tea and coffee has got to. Please call me on the intercom if you require anything or when you’re ready to continue, Miss Thomas.’

Cait waited for a few seconds after Jane had closed the office door behind her, listening to her stout brogues thudding along the corridor as she made her way down to her own office, before she let her shoulders slump and dropped her head down on the desk. She hadn’t the least idea what was going on. She had never heard that the private income her mother lived on came from the profits of this business. But that was far less of a concern than the fact that it was obvious she was expected to run the company until her mother’s return.

Cait raised her head and sat up straight, staring blindly across the room. Did she come clean to Miss Trucker that she had no idea how shoes were made, let alone how to manage the people who made them?

But if her mother returned from her travels to find that her daughter had successfully dealt with this major crisis on her behalf, she couldn’t fail to see Cait in a more positive light. And then another thought struck. How hard was it to run a company anyway? After all, the workers did everything, didn’t they, and the boss just kept an eye on them to see that the profits were rolling in. If she made a success of running the business on her mother’s behalf, how could Nerys not allow her to keep the position permanently?

She leaned back in the chair to rest her head against it, thinking how to proceed from here.

According to the girls she worked with, it was the menials that did the brunt of the work and kept the business profitable, while the big boss and senior managers barked orders at one another, sitting on their backsides all day behind closed office doors, drinking tea and coffee and planning their expensive holidays. The life of a boss sounded good to her. No sour-faced supervisor breathing down her neck, making sure she did her quota, berating her loudly in front of everyone else for any mistakes, monitoring the times she arrived and left. Cait could come and go as she liked as the boss.

She suddenly realised she was hungry. She could go to the canteen and see what was on offer. But then it struck her that a boss wouldn’t be expected to eat with the workforce. She couldn’t see her mother doing that anyway. There must be a separate canteen that catered for those in charge. She would need to ask Miss Trucker where it was. She supposed first, though, she ought to introduce herself to the senior staff. She had no idea what she would say to them, though.

Then another thought occurred to her. Her clothes hardly reflected her new managerial status. In her hastily pulled-on thick jumper and black slacks, she wasn’t dressed in any manner to gain respect from the workforce. She needed to buy herself some smart new outfits, things that suited the boss of a company. But she hadn’t the sort of money that would take; for the last year all her spare cash had gone on buying things towards the house she and Neil had been going to share after their marriage.

Then a picture of that pile of notes in the safe in her parents’ bedroom floated tantalisingly before her. Cait focused on that vision for several long moments while she came to a conclusion. Surely, in the circumstances, she would be doing the right thing, using some of that to kit herself out with? Her mother always looked immaculate, and as her representative Cait would be expected to do so too. But how did she explan away finding the secret safe and the keys to access it? She was no nearer coming up with a plausible explanation than she had been earlier. But her parents weren’t due home until after Christmas at least, so she’d time on her side.

Excited at the thought of her shopping trip, she was about to pick up her handbag from the side of her chair and get up to go when the door opened and she looked over to see a woman wearing a white overall, with a white net hat concealing her hair, backing her way in, holding a laden tray. She swung around and hurried over to the desk, grateful to be putting the tray down on top of it. She then exclaimed, ‘Phew, that was heavy! I worried all the way from the kitchen I was going to drop it.’

Jan looked appraisingly at the young woman on the other side of the desk and frowned. She was sure she’d come into contact with her – or someone very similar-looking – before, though she couldn’t remember where. She said to her, ‘You’re new, aren’t you? Just like I am today. And got yourself lost, did you, like I’ve just done?’ There was a chuckle in her voice when she carried on, ‘I thought it was bad enough finding myself in the cutting department. Felt a right idiot with all them faces looking at me wondering what I was doing in there, but you’ll really get it in the neck if any of the hierarchy find you in here. This is the big chief’s domain, love. This is my first day, but from the little bit of gossip I’ve heard about the owner she’s far too high and mighty even to introduce herself to any of her employees, except for the manager and his secretary, so if her daughter is anything like her, you could be for the high jump if she finds you in here. Come on, let’s get out of here before she comes back.’

Cait was staring at her stony-faced. If her austere supervisor at work heard one derogatory word said against the boss she would waste no time in disciplining the guilty party. Cait realised she should take the same stance. ‘How dare you speak about Mrs Thomas in such a way? It amounts to no less than . . . than . . . treason.’

Jan gawped at her, stunned. ‘Treason! She’s not the queen . . .’

Cait interjected, ‘But she is your employer.’ Her mind then raced to come up with a suitable punishment and the only thing that came to mind was, ‘Go and collect your cards and leave the premises. And don’t expect to be receiving a reference.’ She then cringed inwardly. She had gone too far. This woman didn’t really deserve to be sacked just for speaking out of turn, but if Cait backtracked now it wouldn’t do her credibility any good.

Just then the door opened and Jane Trucker appeared. She said to Cait, ‘I’m sorry to bother you . . .’ then stopped talking on spotting Jan. ‘Oh, you’ve brought the tray up, thank you. You can leave us now.’

Jan seized the opportunity to make her escape. She scooted out of the door.

Cait said to Jane, ‘I’ve sacked that woman as she was extremely rude about my mother. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere important to go. I’ll be back in the morning. I’ll introduce myself to the senior staff then if you’ll arrange to have them come up to the office . . . shall we say about ten o’clock?’

She made to walk out then but Jane stopped her with, ‘Oh, but Miss Thomas, I’m here to tell you that Mr Lakeland has just arrived. I took the liberty of explaining to him about Mr Swinton and he’s deeply upset, having dealt with him for many years now. He’s asked me to let his secretary know where the funeral is to take place so that he can travel down to pay his respects.’

Cait looked non-plussed. ‘Who is Mr Lakeland?’

‘A very important customer of the company’s. He’s the owner of several shoe shops in and around London and the home counties. He’s here as he has become good friends with Mr Swinton over the time he’s been dealing with us and was passing through Leicester on his way to visit his daughter who lives in Sheffield. Mr Swinton told him that if he wanted to break his journey and drop in, he would show him an early preview of our spring range and offer him refreshments.’

Cait froze, a wave of terror rolling through her. She was in no position to entertain clients, let alone a very important one. She’d be asked questions she’d not be able to answer and make herself look stupid. Neither was she dressed for the part, something she felt was of paramount importance. She blurted out to Jane, ‘I have a really important appointment now that I cannot miss. You’ll have to deal with him yourself.’

Giving the other woman no opportunity to make any response, she grabbed her handbag and coat and rushed out of the room, leaving a dumb-struck Jane Trucker staring after her.

When Jan arrived back in the kitchen, Hilda was stirring a huge pot of gravy with a large metal spoon. She called over, ‘Oh, yer back, lovey. I was just about to send the huskies out for yer. Got lost, I gather. Well, it’s n’ote we’ve not all done when we first started here. The place is like a rabbit warren. You found the boss’s office eventually?’

Jan nodded. ‘Eventually. I had a funny experience when I did, though.’

Hilda frowned at her. ‘What d’yer mean?’

‘Well, there was this young thing in there, looked no more than seventeen, and I took it that she was a new employee like me who’d got herself lost. I told her where she was and that she’d better scarper quick before the boss came back in, because if she was as snooty as I’d heard she was then the girl would be for the high jump. Well . . . then she started spouting off about me committing treason, speaking about the boss like that, and told me to collect my cards. Luckily for me the boss’s secretary came in . . . the lady who fetched me when I came for the interview. She thanked me for bringing up the tray and told me to go. I didn’t need telling twice and left her to deal with . . . well, I suspect that young girl is an escapee from the loony bin, or if not she needs locking up. She’s obviously not right up top to be thinking she can go around accusing people of treason and believing she has the authority to sack them.’ Jan suddenly remembered where she’d first come across the girl. It had been when she and Glen had stopped in the church to rest on the night they’d first met. The girl had been throwing her weight around then too – she obviously made a habit of it.

Hilda was looking at her thoughtfully. If the gossip she had heard had an ounce of truth in it, then she feared her new recruit had just come face to face with the owner’s daughter, who was standing in for her mother while she was away. This probably did mean that the young woman was in a position to sack whoever she liked, whether it was justified or not. Judging by her performance up to now, though, Jan looked as if she would shape up to be an asset and Hilda didn’t want to lose her. As it was, no one had officially told her that a member of her staff had been dismissed for what was perceived as insubordination, although to Hilda all Jan was guilty of was passing on gossip to the wrong person – hardly a sacking offence, in her eyes. Until she was told officially, she wasn’t prepared to take action. She decided not to tell Jan who the young woman she had crossed swords with in the office actually was, in case her new recruit decided to leave anyway. In a very short time they would have a horde of hungry workers descending on them and Hilda needed every staff member she could find to help deal with them.

She told Jan, ‘Well, hopefully, as we speak she’s being carted off back there. Anyway, I’ll send Maggie out with the staff trolley for a week or so until you’ve got your bearings.’ She felt this was best, just in case Jan ran into the owner’s daughter again and she wondered what Jan was still doing here. ‘Can you help Dilys peel the spuds for the chips, and when you’ve done that could you go outside and check all the tables have the right condiments? Salt, pepper, tomato and brown sauce . . . and make sure they’re all filled up. You’ll find what you need to do that in the pantry.’

On the factory floor, Glen had just finished putting a new belt on a welting machine in the Welting, Rounding and Stitching Department. The operator was a thirty-something man who had just returned from having a cigarette outside while his machine was being fixed. Glen said to him, ‘That’s you as good as new. I can’t find the guard, though. It wasn’t on when I stripped it down to change the belt.’

‘That’s ’cos I took it off,’ the man told him. ‘It’s easier to operate my machine without it. It’s just a bloody hindrance.’

‘It might be,’ Glen told him, ‘but it’s there for a reason. To save you from getting hurt.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ll take me chances. It’s harder to do me daily quota with it on.’

Glen eyed him closely. ‘Have you any children?’

His unexpected question surprised the man. ‘What that’s got to do with . . . but, yeah, I have. Five, if yer want the exact number.’

‘Not much work going, I wouldn’t have thought, for a man with a mangled hand or worse. So how will you provide for your five children and wife then?’

The man eyed him blankly. That thought hadn’t occurred to him. Most of the other men, apart from a handful of old-timers, thought guards were for the lily-livered. But now the thought that through his own neglect he could be responsible for ruining his family’s future, all for the sake of being able to ease back a little on his working pace, seemed daft to him. He opened a metal drawer on his machine bench, rummaged around in it until he found what he was seeking, and handed it to Glen.

He took it and patted the welter on his shoulder, saying, ‘Good man.’

Having finished his task, and with the man now back working on the machine he’d just fixed, Glen packed his tools away, picked up the metal tool box and made to return to his office. A man of about his own age stopped him, holding out his hand to introduce himself. ‘Alf Bisson, foreman of this department. I’m also the works union representative. I’m very impressed with you. I’ve been trying to get the men who’ve taken off their guards to put them back for their own safety ever since I started here ten years ago. In your first morning as maintenance man you’ve managed to achieve more than I’ve ever done. It’s a big issue with the union, is safety, but trying to get the men to be responsible for themselves when their daily quotas are at stake is another, despite me warning them if ’ote did happen to them while their guards are off there’ll be n’ote the union can do for them by way of compensation. How yer fixed for getting the others to put theirs back on too?’

‘I’ll try my best. I’ve witnessed with my own eyes what can happen. When I . . .’ Glen just stopped himself in time from saying ‘when I owned this place’. He quickly changed it to: ‘. . . was working at my last place, I saw a man trap his arm in a machine with no guard on as there weren’t such things in those days. I’ve also seen men chop fingers off. After the incident with the arm, I . . . the firm insisted that all machines where possible had guards fitted to them and they stayed on, whether the men liked it or not.’

‘I don’t like talking ill of Reg Swinton as he was a good man to work for but it was his opinion that the men knew what was at stake if they chose to work without their guards on. To me, though, some rules need to be clad in iron, for the good of all.’

Glen nodded his agreement.

Alf smiled at him. ‘You’ll do. If you fancy joining my table in the canteen at lunch, I’ll introduce you to the other foremen.’

Later that evening Glen pushed away his bowl and said to Jan, ‘That soup was good. Thank you.’

She smiled with pleasure. ‘Yes, it wasn’t bad, if I say so myself. Vegetable soup and bread is not what I’d call a proper meal after a hard day’s graft, but we have to watch the pennies until we both get paid. And our first pay packet will be short three days, being’s we started on a Thursday.’ She gave a chuckle as she added, ‘As my old gran used to say after what she called a make do and mend meal, “It filled the ’ole.”’

‘Well, it certainly filled mine,’ said Glen, chuckling. ‘Now why don’t you go and put your feet up while I clear up the kitchen?’

‘Sounds like luxury to me. I’m not used to being on my feet all day and my ankles have swelled up like balloons. I’m going to give my feet a soak in a bowl of hot water.’

A short while later Glen joined Jan, taking a seat in the battered armchair opposite hers next to the fire. Her feet in the bowl of now-tepid water, she was resting her head on the back of the chair and had her eyes closed, appearing to be asleep. Careful not to rouse her, he gently opened out the evening paper he had bought from a corner shop on his way home, but before he could begin reading, Jan opened her eyes and said to him, ‘I’ve been dying to ask how your day went but I thought I’d wait until dinner was past because, you see, well . . . I don’t know whether you’ve heard about Reg Swinton and that the owner’s due in to see to things until a replacement is found? Only the owner’s name isn’t Trainer, apparently, it’s Thomas.’

‘My ex-wife’s maiden name,’ he told her. ‘Either it’s a huge coincidence that the person she sold the business on to had the same name or Nerys changed her name back when she obtained her divorce from me. My gut feeling is it’s the latter. She obviously wanted to disassociate herself from my surname in case people frowned on her for being the wife, or ex-wife, of a criminal. Or perhaps she wanted to make it difficult for me to find her when I was released from prison.’

Jan thought about this for a moment. ‘Or, of course, she could have got married again. I know it would be a coincidence, but Thomas isn’t an uncommon name, is it? One of my schoolfriends was called Diane Brown and she married a man called Archie Brown, so it does happen.’ Jan looked at Glen in concern. ‘So how do you feel about the possibility of bumping into . . .’ she was not sure how to refer to Nerys Thomas – as the ex-wife, that woman, the conniving bitch? So she just said ‘. . . her while you’re going about your job?’

Glen sighed. ‘Well, it worried me that I might, and if so would she recognise me, but thankfully if she did come in today, she never showed her face where I was working. Although I did hear that in all the time she has owned the firm, she’s never once been seen on the shop floor.’ He thought back to the young Nerys Thomas he had met and fallen in love with. He had found her then to be a warm, caring, honest person, one who had never acted as if she would deem a shop floor as beneath her or its workers as inferior. But from what he knew now, that side of her had been all an act. Of the real Nerys, he realised, he knew nothing at all.

Jan was sighing with relief to hear that he’d been spared such a shock. ‘I looked out for you in the canteen at lunchtime, to try and have a word in case you hadn’t heard what had gone on, but I didn’t see you at all.’

‘I didn’t feel like any lunch today. Was too churned up after hearing about Reg Swinton and the fact that Nerys was expected in. I didn’t know how I felt about maybe seeing her swanning about as the big I am, knowing just how she’d got the business. And I was also racking my brains as to how I could best pick my moment to go and tackle her about seeing Lucy, before she had me thrown off the premises and I lost my chance altogether.’

At that moment Jan was far more concerned to hear that he had gone for over nine hours without any food inside him. ‘You will waste away if you carry on like that, going without any lunch!’

‘I told you, I wasn’t that hungry. And don’t forget, I’m not used to eating three square meals a day yet.’

‘No, I suppose not. Anyway, as terrible as it is of me to say, Reg Swinton’s death is a Godsend to us.’

Glen looked at her sharply. ‘It is? How?’

‘Well, your ex-wife’s coming in to manage the place until she decides what to do saves us from risking our necks, getting information from the private files. We can just follow her home one night, can’t we?’

‘Oh, of course, I never thought of that.’ Then a thought struck Glen. ‘It might not be as easy as it sounds.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s hardly likely Nerys will travel by bus, is it? She’ll either drive herself or have someone drive her. We can hardly follow a car on foot.’

‘Oh! How stupid of me not to have thought of that. Do you drive? No, don’t bother answering that as it’s irrelevant. We can’t afford to buy a car anyway.’

‘Well, I’ve decided that Nerys actually coming to the works herself is the best opportunity for me to get Lucy back. As soon as I hear she’s on the premises, I shall go and confront her and demand she allows me to see my daughter – and I won’t leave until she does.’

‘There is a risk to that. I know how important finding your daughter is to you, Glen, but if you do what you plan to, you’ll definitely lose your job. Nerys won’t allow you to carry on working there once she knows who you are.’

He nodded. ‘I know. But I can only hope that as Reg Swinton gave me a job, another firm will too if I use the same story about my background.’

‘Well, at least I’m earning. It will be very tight but we’ll just have to manage on what I’m paid until you get set on again.’

He looked at her, stunned. She was prepared to make such a sacrifice for him? She was indeed a special woman. How would he ever repay her for what she was helping him do?

Jan was saying, ‘Anyway, if she didn’t come in today then it’s Saturday tomorrow so I can’t see her coming in until Monday now. That gives you two days to plan what you’re going to say to her when you go and confront her. I had been going to suggest that we get a tin of white-wash at the weekend and give this place a freshen up, but in light of the fact we might be living on the breadline for a bit, we’d better conserve every penny we can.’

The water in the bowl was by now stone cold. Jan took her feet out of it, and was drying them on one of the cheap thin towels they had bought from the second-hand shop when she asked him, ‘A walk in the park doesn’t cost anything, does it? Weather permitting, how do you fancy that on Sunday afternoon? Make a change from us staring at these four walls.’

Glen was thinking to himself. The more he was getting to know Jan, the more she reminded him of his beloved first wife, Julia. Both were caring women, very easy to be around, respected the fact that he was entitled to make his own decisions. He felt so comfortable sitting here with her that as far as he was concerned their living arrangement could go on for ever. But he knew it would end when their reason to be together no longer existed, whether it had a successful outcome or not. She’d want to go her own way then to build a new life, like he supposed he would. This time last week he hadn’t known she existed, but he did know that when it came time for them to part company he would miss Jan. Hopefully she would want to remain friends with him.

He smiled at her. ‘I’d like that very much, Jan.’

Very much indeed, he thought.