The Mersey Daughter (Empire Street #3)(65)
‘As you wish, Fawcett.’ He looked at her askance but didn’t press the point. ‘But just one thing.’
‘Sir?’
‘You might wish to visit what passes for the powder room around here before the car arrives.’ He leant even closer and astonishingly touched her nose. ‘You’ve a smudge, Fawcett.’ Gently he stroked the tip of her nose, and then dropped his hand as a big grin broke across his face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘So, would you like to do that, Ruby?’ Rita’s eyes danced with pleasure at seeing the delight on the young woman’s face. She’d waited until she knew when Pop would be free to take them to the farm on his wagon, rather than get Ruby’s hopes up only to find Pop was on extra duties and they couldn’t go. Yesterday he’d told her he had a definite day of leave, or as definite as anything could be in wartime, and she felt confident that she could broach the idea. Now she was glad that she had. She felt she owed it to Ruby; the young woman had helped more and more around the place, even though she still hated talking to anyone in the shop. Rita had attempted to make her look more like her age by giving her some of Sarah’s cast-offs, but it had been only partially successful. Ruby still held herself as if she was afraid of the world for most of the time. Now, though, her expression was transformed.
‘Really, Rita? Really? I can go to see Michael and Megan? Oh, I’d love to. I’ve missed them so much.’ Ruby clasped her hands to her chest. ‘They’ll have grown tall, won’t they? I can’t wait. You’re too kind to me, honest you are.’ Her lip began to tremble and for a moment Rita feared she might cry.
Rita moved around the shop counter and put her arm out to Ruby. ‘Not a bit, Ruby. You’ve been such a help. I’d never have thought of that way to sort things out with our supplier. You’re an asset to the business, that’s what you are.’
Ruby glowed. She’d had more praise this morning than she could ever remember. Finding her way through the complexities of the account books hadn’t been any trouble at all; arrangements of figures made complete sense to her. It was talking about them afterwards that was the problem, because whenever she’d tried to mention money to mean Elsie Lowe in her previous life, there had been a row. Ruby hated rows. They scared her – one of many things that scared her. Now, though, she was getting the best reward she could have wanted. She loved Michael and Megan and felt deeply protective of them. It was one of the reasons she’d felt so safe with Rita all those months ago when she’d been rescued by her – she could tell Rita would defend her children as fiercely as was necessary. You had to trust somebody like that.
She pushed back a wisp of blonde hair that had escaped one of her few precious kirby grips and decided to raise something else she’d found. She’d never get a better moment. It was just the two of them in the shop; the early rush of customers had gone, and Violet wasn’t due until after lunch, to take over when Rita went on her nursing shift. ‘I was counting boxes,’ she began.
‘Boxes?’
‘Yes, in the storeroom. They should match what you paid for, but some are missing.’
‘Yes, that’s the idea,’ said Rita, ‘but you know, Ruby, it doesn’t always work exactly like that. Things get lost, or misplaced, or now and again something isn’t available but we get sent a replacement. It’s never completely accurate, I wish it was.’ Privately Rita knew another reason for the discrepancies was that Violet never could quite manage to keep a proper tally of what came in, what went on the shelves and what substitute goods arrived. She’d carry on talking to the customers instead of breaking off to make a note, and then forget the details later, if she wrote them down at all. It was the price Rita paid for having the help of her gregarious and generous sister-in-law.
‘I know,’ Ruby said solemnly. ‘But certain things go missing regular.’
‘It wouldn’t be sherry, would it?’ Rita grinned. They both knew who’d be responsible for that. Rita had decided the easiest course was to turn a blind eye to Winnie’s pilfering. After all, it was technically her shop still, even if she’d shown no interest for months on end, and rarely ventured downstairs any more. In the end it made Rita’s life easier.
Ruby shook her head seriously. ‘Not sherry. It’s food, tinned food. Luncheon meat, or beans, things like that. It’s mostly once a fortnight. I’ve been counting.’
Rita remembered being unable to find a delivery of Spam a while back, but hadn’t noticed such a thing since. ‘Black market, do you mean? Is Winnie up to her old tricks, I wonder?’ she said, thinking aloud. Ruby looked blank. Of course she wouldn’t be aware of the goings-on at the shop in the early part of the war, with Winnie holding back choice goods for her favoured group of friends, or taking secret deliveries from the docks. The shady world of the black market was one of the things that Ruby would find hard to understand. She liked everything to be straightforward, not full of secrecy, hints, nudges and lies.
‘Doesn’t sound like it, though,’ Rita went on. ‘Beans and luncheon meat – it’s not as if it’s luxury produce. Yes, they can be scarce, but there’s so much more you’d make a bigger profit on. It doesn’t make sense.’ She sighed. ‘Leave it with me, Ruby. I’ll think about it. If you reckon you know exactly when things go missing, maybe we can keep a special eye out the next time we guess it might happen.’