The Mersey Girls by Sheila Riley

Author:Sheila Riley [Riley, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838893231
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2020-08-17T23:00:00+00:00

15

‘Don’t you miss scrubbing floors and polishing desks?’ Susie asked, feeling that Grace had really rubbed her nose in her new lifestyle, and she wanted to take it out on someone.

‘Is that your way of trying to put me in my place?’ Evie answered. At one time, she would have cowered from the kind of offensive remark Susie made, but not any more, she thought, making her way to the staffroom. The shy, invisible girl who went about her work unnoticed had gone, and in her place there was a competent young woman who knew what she wanted and had every intention of getting it, through diligence and pride in a job. Even when she was scrubbing floors, Evie took satisfaction in a job well done, and nothing had changed since.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Susie was putting the cover on her typewriter, ready to go out for her midday meal. ‘You work too hard.’ Evie was inclined to take the remark as a compliment until Susie added, ‘You make me look like a shirker.’ It was a complaint not a compliment. ‘You wouldn’t catch me working through my dinner hour for nobody.’

‘I didn’t ask you to,’ Evie answered, ‘but I do expect you to finish the invoices and filing before close of business today.’

When Susie came back from lunch five minutes late, Evie was determined she was going to pull her weight. The business was in no fit state to carry skivers.

‘I did my best to keep on top of things,’ Susie said, ‘but I’m no good with numbers. We had another girl, but she was as useful as a wax fireguard. I’ve never seen anyone who had so many ailments in my life, she was bloody neurotic, blamed it all on the war.’

It takes one to know one, Evie thought.

‘The pay in this place is bloody awful, so you don’t get the pick of good staff,’ Susie added, and Evie wasn’t so slow she didn’t see the inference was aimed at her.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ she said pointedly. Game set and match to Miss Kilgaren.

‘Let’s face it,’ Susie continued, ‘what girl wants to work in this dump every day?’

‘Well, you, by the look of it,’ Evie said, ‘but beggars can’t be choosers, I suppose.’ Susie would not last five minutes in any other office.

‘Aye,’ Susie said, ‘the auld man has a soft spot for a sob story.’

Looking up, Evie stared across the room long enough for Susie to realise she understood what she was getting at.

‘I didn’t mean you got the job on account of your past, and having a family to look after, or that you got it because you only live round the corner and you’re a friend of Connie’s or anything like that…’ Susie only stopped for breath when Evie interrupted.

‘I don’t s’pose you work in a place like this for the lovely view either.’ Evie followed Susie’s gaze from the window to where Danny was harnessing horses in a yard full of

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