Voices in the Street Read online

  He disappeared through the kitchen door while I sat on the edge of my seat. Within a few minutes he was back with a small woman dressed entirely in black. In her black dress and black sensible shoes she resembled a crow. She could have stepped straight out of a Jane Austen novel without so much as changing a curl. I almost gasped out loud in dismay when I realised she looked very old. Another thing was that while Mr Alf may not have noticed my clothes Miss Thomson certainly did. Behind her spectacles, her dark-eyed gaze swept over me. I realised she wasn’t impressed by this young, gawky apparition standing in front of her, and with bare legs as well.

  ‘When you start on Monday, you will need to wear a uniform which is a black skirt, black jumper and a white apron, cuffs and cap. Also stockings to be worn at all times,’ she said, making sure I got the message.

  Mr Alf must have sensed my dismay at this request because he started to say, ‘Perhaps we can let the young lass have an advance on her pay to let her buy an outfit …’

  Miss Thomson’s frosty frown made him lapse into silence and he disappeared back into the kitchen.

  You’re frightened of her as well, I thought. Well, that makes two of us.

  I could cheerfully have choked this manageress who looked like a relic from a previous century, an age, no doubt, when everyone wore black and had oodles of aprons, caps and cuffs stuffed away in drawers similar to Mrs Miller’s hankie drawer.

  As I hurried back home, I did a mental journey around my wardrobe and had to concede that I didn’t own anything with the remotest tinge of black. Mum, however, was delighted with my news and, like myself, felt that the anticipation of tips softened the harsh reality of the reduced wage.

  She glanced at the clock in dismay when I mentioned the uniform. ‘Eh wish we knew about this job earlier. Eh could have got a line from the Star Stores tickie man.’

  Actually, I didn’t want anything from the Star Stores because they never seemed to have anything that fitted me, or, more importantly, that I liked. Ever since that fruitless search for an outfit for Margaret and George’s wedding, I had made a point of not going inside the shop. On that occasion, I had been saved by Mrs Knight’s American frock but that was then and this was now and I couldn’t see a uniform winging its way across the Atlantic Ocean.

  What we did have was Vi, our old neighbour from the street who now lived a few hundred yards away in Marryat Street. She had worked in the hotel trade before getting married so I was dispatched at once to enlist her help. She came home with me, still wearing her tea apron and carrying a couple of stiffly starched white caps, very pretty little things edged with lace. ‘This is all I could find from my hotel outfits but I think my friend Grace will be able to help out.’

  Grace lived in Littlejohn Street and I arrived there via the Barrack Park, out of breath. She was out but her husband kindly had a rummage in a drawer and produced one small, white frilly apron. I was dubious about taking it in case his wife needed it but he waved away my hesitation, ‘Naw, naw, just you take it. Eh’m sure Grace has loads of these but where they are, God knows.’

  Back home, Mrs Miller had handed in an old black skirt that she had worn at some time in the long distant past. I was beginning to wish I had signed on the dole. ‘It’ll be far too big but if you unpick the seams and take it in, it should be fine,’ she said. She also handed over a black knitted jumper and a cream blouse with frilly cuffs and collar. ‘If Maureen wears this blouse under the jumper, it’ll look like cuffs and a collar,’ she said.

  I knew everyone was being kind and I really did appreciate it but I tried to dismiss from my mind the vision I would present at work on the Monday morning with this array of borrowed bits and pieces.

  Betty didn’t help when she whispered, ‘Eh haven’t managed to make … a you-know-what.’

  She was obviously referring to the bra but that was the least of my problems. The uniform was taking shape but I hadn’t mentioned the stockings in case Mum offered me her thick lisle ones.

  ‘Eh don’t suppose you’ve any stockings, Betty?’ I asked, more in hope that anything. I wasn’t surprised when she said no.

  Mum always said I had what she referred to as a ‘moochin face’ but how Hannah, who lived in the next close, got to hear about the job I will never know. She appeared at the door on the Sunday with a pair of nylons in her hand.

  ‘Eh’ve just worn these a couple of times but got a wee ladder in one of them. Eh’ve washed them and was going to repair them but if they’re any good to you, you’re welcome to them.’

  Nylons! The magic stockings that came from the good old USA during the wartime shortages were like gold dust then. Even now in the 1950s, nothing was ever thrown out and nylons were no exception. Any ladder was immediately sealed with a dab of nail varnish before being repaired at home with matching thread or else invisibly mended at the Sixty Minute Cleaners. Most women clung on to their nylons like grim death and it wasn’t uncommon to see some legs covered with tiny red or pink dots, almost as if the nylons had the measles.

  On the Monday morning I viewed my tout ensemble with a jaded eye and reluctantly set off for Castle Street with the distinct impression of having jumped out of the fire into a volcano. I had just left behind one unimpressed gaffer and was now contemplating the disapproval of another, albeit female, one.

  During the weekend, Mum had mentioned the long history of the Auld Dundee Pie Shop, as it was called. Grandad had been a regular customer when the shop was in the Vault, that warren of narrow streets behind the Town House, sadly now demolished along with a good part of medieval Dundee. As Mum said, demolishing the Town House was sacrilege and there was great protest at the time. Still, the Wallace family had made the successful venture into Castle Street as well as premises in Broughty Ferry and the Hilltown. Had I but known it, I was about to enter one of the happiest periods of my life. This was in the distant future and as I surveyed the restaurant in the early morning light, it still had that faded, neglected appearance as if time had passed it by.

  I timidly knocked on the door. A woman’s face appeared and she gesticulated with her hands. She looked like a demented refugee from the Punch and Judy show, waving her arms about and pointing towards the edge of the door. Faced with my incomprehension and totally blank expression, she mouthed, ‘Go round the back. In the close.’

  This close was beside the shop and I nervously entered it, quite sure there must be people about because of the babble of voices drifting out. The narrow entrance opened out into a paved courtyard. I soon traced the source of the voices which turned out to be a small, open-fronted shed full of bakers, having their break and early-morning smoke.

  The woman who had pointed me towards the close was waiting and we walked through the hot, stuffy bakehouse which had a wonderful mixture of smells from the night’s out-put of baking. We then went through a deserted and silent kitchen and into the dining room. The woman, who had red cheeks and lovely dark, curly hair introduced me to the other two waitresses who were laying the tables with crisply laundered tablecloths. ‘Eh’m Nan and this is Margaret and Marian. You’ll soon learn what to do every morning.’

  As I went around the vast room, laying out cruet sets and sugar bowls, I was relieved to see some of the staff were young. I really believed after my departure on the Saturday that the staff must be in the same age group as Miss Thomson. When the work was finished, we sat down to our breakfast which was hot rolls and cookies straight from the bakehouse. I found out that Nan was married with two children, Marian was engaged to a baker called Alex and Margaret, who was a very glamorous girl with golden blonde hair, was surprisingly single.

  Miss Thomson made her appearance about eight-thirty and I was taken into the tiny back office to get a list of working conditions demanded by the indomitable manageress. She fixed me with a stern, beady eye which left me in no doubt who was the boss around the place. Then to make matters worse, she decided what she would call me. ‘So you’re not sixteen yet? Hmm, in that case I’ll call you �
��The Bairn”.’ Like all unwanted nicknames, it stuck to me like glue and lasted for my duration at the restaurant.

  Before twelve o’clock, she decided to put me on a station, which was what each collection of tables was known as. My two tables were right beside the kitchen door and were always the last to be occupied. Within a few minutes, the place was packed with people and I was amazed at the transformation from the empty, churchlike silence that had been my first impression to this clamouring jungle. The clatter of cutlery and crockery interspersed with the hypnotic babble of voices and the rhythmical swishing sound of the kitchen doors.

  Miss Thomson approached with four customers, all working men by the looks of them. I had served a couple of customers before this quartet’s arrival but they had come in singly and now here I was, faced with a positive mob.

  ‘Four pehs and beans and four cups of tea, missus,’ ordered one of the burly characters. ‘Also tomato sauce and brown sauce and four plates of bread and butter.’

  They were obviously hungry so I darted away to the bakehouse where racks of bridies and pies awaited any ravenous patron. I couldn’t carry all the tea and bread and pies so I had to make three journeys. I hovered around the table, trying to put everything down but it wasn’t easy. Dressed in my black and white I must have resembled an agitated penguin who had escaped from the zoo and the men were getting agitated as well.

  ‘Just put everything on the table, missus, and we’ll sort ourselves out.’ said the burly man, while I glanced around the room in panic, frightened that Miss Thomson would overhear their loud voices.

  Fortunately, a large queue had formed outside the door and she was too busy slotting people into seats like some gigantic jigsaw to notice my agitation. By now the kitchen was also a hive of activity and noise. Eric, the fish fryer, tossed his battered fillets into smoking hot fat where they violently sizzled and the chef pranced around serving huge portions of steak pie surrounded by a mound of boiled potatoes and vegetables.

  The waitresses sped back and forth with trays laden with heavy plates, trying to keep out of the way of the bakers who regularly passed through on their way to replenish the shop’s stock. I was mentally kicking myself for thinking the place was bypassed. In fact, it seemed as if the entire population of Dundee and district dined at Wallace’s.

  It was easy to see why the place was popular. Judging by the amounts of food on the plates, the menu had obviously been compiled for the ravenously hungry appetite that didn’t know such words as calories or cholesterol.

  When the four workmen left, I was delighted to see they had left me a sixpence tip. By the end of the day at six-fifteen, I had sore, tired legs and one and threepence in tips. Mum had said I could use some of the tip money for new clothes and I thought at this rate I would soon be the proud owner of the black, fashionable skirt in G. L. Wilson’s window.

  Mum was as good as her word and she got me a Provie cheque which I had to repay every week from my tips. Now that rationing was well and truly over, shop windows were once again filled with a large selection of goods.

  Grafton’s clothes shop in the Murraygate was one such shop with a tempting display. With the credit cheque almost hot from the press, I made a beeline to the shop during my time off one morning. As well as the mundane skirt and jumper I had to buy for work, I also chose a bright emerald-green coat with a fashionable wide flared hem and a wide belt.

  Mum almost had a fit when she saw it. ‘For heaven’s sake! What made you pick such a bright colour? Folk will be able to see you from ten miles away.’

  But I liked it, I was the one who had to wear it and I planned to show it off to Betty on our next trip to Robbie’s which we still made once a week. Betty loved my coat. As regulars at the dance hall we were asked up to dance by the young men who also went every week. We still had our early curfew but what was very worrying was the fact that Betty seemed to get breathless more easily now.

  And she was beginning to question this restriction with her mother. ‘Why can Eh no stay on at the dancing till it’s finished like other folk?’ she stormed at her mother one night as we were about to set off.

  ‘Well, Betty, if you don’t come back early like Eh tell you, then you’ll no be going.’ Mrs Miller sounded adamant. She turned to me. ‘Now, Eh’m making you responsible for Betty. Eh want her home by ten o’clock or else.’

  Quite honestly, I was now beginning to worry about my pal’s health. To start with, she hardly took a rest between dances and by the middle of the evening her lips seemed to take on a darker blue tinge which I hoped was down to the lights in the dance hall. At twenty past nine, I gathered our coats and bits and pieces from the cloakroom but she wouldn’t come home.

  ‘Eh’m staying here till it closes,’ she said quite firmly.

  ‘Well, you do that, Betty, but it’ll be the last time you ever get to the dancing,’ I replied, equally firmly. ‘Just you remember that.’

  It was the nearest we had come to an argument since becoming friends all those years ago. She looked as if she would ignore me but the thought of being forbidden to come won the day and she stomped off to put on her trousers and coat. By the time we reached the house, I was alarmed to hear her gasping for breath. It was like that day when she had run after George and me.

  The next day Mum said I had to go next door. Mrs Miller ushered me into the bedroom where Betty lay like a fragile doll. The doctor had been called out and he diagnosed a chest infection. Betty was to be confined to bed. Her mum sat beside us, clearly keeping an eye on her daughter and although Betty glared at her, she stayed firmly in her chair.

  ‘What kind of day have you had, Maureen?’ Mrs Miller asked. ‘Have you had a lot of folk in the restaurant?’

  As it was, we had experienced a very busy day because of the farmers. Once a week, on market day, hundreds of farmers arrived in the city. After their business was concluded, they arrived in droves, spilling into the dining room with their country conversations and thick, tweedy suits and bonnets which were always firmly attached to their heads.

  ‘We get such a laugh at Nan – she’s one of the waitresses,’ I explained to my audience of two. ‘Before the farmers come in, she puts on a dab of scent and she calls it “Coty de Coos”. Then Chris, the cashier, who sits in her wee cubicle at the door, says the farmers all look alike, a bit like the Chinese.’

  Betty laughed and her mum looked amused.

  ‘And another thing, they speak like this, Fit like’s yer tatties, or My grieve marks oot the dreels for the neeps,’ I said, trying to imitate one of the farmers but not getting the accent right. ‘There’s one farmer who wears a suit that Eh’m sure is made from binder twine. Every time he moves, long strings fall off his jacket. It’s so funny.’

  ‘You must get a lot of customers in the morning as well.’

  ‘Oh we do, Mrs Miller. This morning Eh had two women who had me in a pickle when they asked for two “sair haids”. I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about but Margaret showed me the cakes with thick icing and wide paper bands around them. That’s “sair haids”, seemingly. The paper bands look like bandages.’

  I could still recall my confusion that morning when the two women arrived. Quite snappy spoken, they bellowed, ‘Two teas and two sair haids!’

  One of them wore a bright headscarf with printed views of Vancouver splashed all over it while her pal wore a very chic lime-green chiffon scarf. They were obviously two women not to be messed with.

  It was time to go but Betty looked upset when I stood up to leave. ‘Eh’ll no manage to go to Robbie’s next week. Will you just go on your own?’

  ‘Oh no, Betty, Eh’ll just wait till you’re better, so you’ll have to hurry up and get out of bed.’

  Mrs Miller came to the door with me and confirmed what I suspected, that it would be a long time before Betty went dancing again. Although I loved my night out, I couldn’t bear the thought of going out without her. Mum said we could maybe go to the pictures once a week instead.
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  Mum and I had been regular picture fans before moving to Moncur Crescent. We often visited the Empire and Tivoli but our main haunt was the Plaza on the Hilltown. Now we could go to the Odeon on Strathmartine Road and although that seemed a good idea I just knew I was going to miss my dancing night.

  Then, as fate intervened, I met Violet at the end of that week as I made my way towards work. She was still working at Keillor’s as were Zena, Margaret and Mima.

  ‘We’re going to the Palais next Tuesday. Do you want to come with us?’ she asked.

  I mentioned Betty and her illness.

  ‘Well, just come with us until she’s better. Then you can both go back to Robbie’s.’

  I had to admit it was a great suggestion and I agreed to meet them at McGill’s shop at the top of the Wellgate at seven o’clock the following Tuesday. I decided not to mention this new arrangement to Betty because I didn’t want to upset her. After all, it was only a temporary thing until she got better.

  On the Tuesday night, I joined the four girls and we set off in high spirits at the thought of an evening out at the dancing. When we reached Tay Street, a long queue had formed, stretching snake-like almost to the Overgate. The minute I stepped into the interior, I was captivated. Whereas Robbie’s was small, smoky and intimate, the Palais was light, roomy and very elegant.

  The downstairs cloakroom was posh with large mirrors and comfy chairs. There was even a perfume machine on the wall which dispensed four different fragrances, Chanel No. 5 being one of them, I think. It cost sixpence a ‘scoosh’ and was the scene of many a misjudged aim, sometimes missing the paying recipient and hitting the person standing behind.