‘You’ve done what?’ Colleen choked when Flora arrived back at their room and told her the news.
Flora gave her a nervous smile. ‘I’ve just paid the first four weeks’ rent on the café. We can move in this afternoon.’
‘Holy sweet Mother, you don’t let the grass grow under your feet, do you?’ Colleen gasped.
‘Well, it’s better than being out on the streets,’ Flora retorted defensively. ‘And it will be up to us all now whether or not we make a go of it.’
They both looked towards Jia Li who was still lying curled into a tight ball on the straw mattress.
‘How is she?’ Flora whispered.
Colleen shrugged. ‘Same as she was when you left. I t’ink the poor girl is in shock, so I do, and is it any wonder after what’s happened to her? To be honest, I don’t t’ink she’s fit to be moved anywhere just yet.’
‘I agree but unfortunately we don’t have a choice.’ Flora looked around the room. ‘Let’s pack up whatever belongs to you then we can start carting it to the café.’
‘Well, the pots an’ pans, such as they are, are mine, an’ the blankets,’ Colleen told her. ‘But if the rooms above the shop are as bad as you say what are we going to sleep on?’
‘We’ll worry about that when we get there.’ Flora had already fetched a pillowcase to start packing their things into and Colleen pitched in to help.
‘I’ll take this first lot round there while you stay with Jia Li,’ Flora told her when they were done. ‘We’ll take her with us on the next trip and hopefully be able to carry the rest of the stuff between us. You can pack whatever else you want to bring while I’m gone.’
Soon after she arrived back at the café to find the closed sign on the door and inside Dora Casey was busily packing a few personal possessions. She let Flora in and told her kindly, ‘There’s some food left in the cold store which you’re welcome to, an’ here’s the key. You can keep the pots an’ pans an’ all, I won’t be needin’ ’em … but just remember this is only a little backstreet café. I doubt you’ll make a fortune wi’ the sort we get in here.’ She suddenly felt sorry for this young girl who was taking on such a big responsibility.
‘Thank you.’ Flora carried her things through to the kitchen and dumped them on the floor, by which time Dora Casey was ready to leave.
‘Right, I’ll be off now then, an’ I’ll see you later in the week when I’ve got the contracts drawn up and … good luck, lovie.’
‘Thank you.’ Flora smiled at her and once she had gone she glanced around her new little empire. ‘I will make it pay … I will,’ she whispered to the empty room, then she left, locking the door behind her to go and fetch Jia Li and Colleen back to their new home.
‘By all that’s holy, you weren’t jokin’ when you said there were t’ings to be done, were you?’ Colleen said when they arrived back at the shop sometime later. They had practically had to carry Jia Li between them and the poor girl seemed oblivious to everything that was going on.
‘It’s mostly elbow grease and a lick of paint that’s needed,’ Flora answered as she gently helped Jia Li onto a chair. ‘But before we do anything perhaps we should get a doctor out to take a look at Jia Li?’
Colleen shook her head. ‘No point in wasting money. There’s nothing they can give her for shock. Time will be the healer,’ she pointed out sensibly. ‘Perhaps if she’s no better tomorrow we should t’ink about it then.’
Flora supposed she was right and as she looked about her her shoulders sagged. Suddenly she was feeling overwhelmed at the amount of work that needed doing and didn’t quite know where they should start, but thankfully Colleen took charge when she said, ‘Show me the rooms where we’ll be living then. I reckon we should get them straight and comfortable before we start down here, so I do.’
Seeing the sense in what she said, Flora led her upstairs expecting Colleen to find fault but instead she was quite taken with their new living quarters.
‘Well, both t’ese rooms are bigger than the one we were all sharing,’ she mused as she stared around her. ‘We could perhaps make one into a sitting room and sleep in the other, and with the use of the kitchen as well we’ll be snug as bugs in rugs. I reckon the first t’ing we should do is get all the rubbish out into the yard then go t’rough the furniture an’ see what we can salvage.’
And so the two girls set to dragging out the empty boxes sending dust and cobwebs swirling into the air. Within an hour all the rubbish was piled in the yard and Colleen rubbed her hands together. ‘There,’ she said with a satisfied smile. ‘We’ll be able to see where we’re going now, but first I t’ink we should have a hot drink and somet’ing to eat. It’s been hours since breakfast.’ Her red hair was coated in dust but her green eyes were bright as stars as she began to think of their new venture. After making a hasty meal of sandwiches and tea between them they managed to persuade Jia Li to eat and drink a little and slowly the colour began to return to her cheeks, although she was prone to bursting into tears every few minutes.
‘Just imagine how angry the old witch will be when she turns up to our old room to throw us out and finds us already gone,’ Colleen chuckled. Some of Flora’s enthusiasm was rubbing off on her now, despite her earlier reservations, Flora noticed with relief, and she grinned back at her. They trooped back upstairs then and threw all the windows open as they sorted through what was left in the two rooms.
‘There’s a double bedstead here,’ Colleen whooped as if she had uncovered hidden treasure. ‘It’s iron and a bit knocked about admittedly but it’ll do when it’s cleaned up and we’ll only have to get a mattress for it.’
‘Mrs Casey told me about a second-hand shop not far away that sells respectable things,’ Flora agreed. ‘We might get one there and a single bed too, then we can all sleep comfortably.’ Their search also revealed two mismatched fireside chairs which were in desperate need of recovering and a table and two chairs.
‘If we buy some material I can recover the chairs and perhaps make some curtains to match,’ Flora mused. ‘I’m a dab hand at needlework. Connie taught me, it was one of the things they had to learn at the posh school she attended. But I think I should start to make a list now of the other things we’ll need. I reckon there’s just time to go there and get everything before it shuts.’
She set off for the second-hand shop armed with a list of essentials, leaving Colleen to sweep the rooms out and clean the windows. They had settled Jia Li into one of the old chairs upstairs by then and she had fallen into a deep sleep, which Colleen was happy about. ‘Sleep is the best medicine of all,’ she whispered to Flora, who nodded in agreement.
The shop turned out to be an Aladdin’s cave of every sort of furniture imaginable and Flora wasn’t quite sure where to look first. It was owned by an elderly, stooped Jewish man who was wearing a small black kippah on his straggly grey hair and had a long white beard. Although he appeared very old, Flora soon discovered that his brain was as bright as a button.
‘Many bedsteads to choose from,’ he told her, spreading his hands and Flora was surprised to hear that he had a broad American accent. ‘This one is very beautiful.’ He led her to a fine solid brass one, looking at her eagerly in anticipation of a sale, but Flora shook her head.
‘No, thank you, it is lovely but I need something cheaper,’ she explained.
Hiding his disappointment, he led her to another plain iron one and this time she nodded. ‘That looks more like it, how much?’
He named a price and she shook her head. ‘Too much,’ she told him and began to barter until they finally came to a price that was agreeable to both of them. They moved on to the wash stands then, and Flora haggled until she got one that she considered was a fair price. The old man knew by then that despite her youth she was not one to be messed with and even threw in a jug and bowl in the price.
‘You sure know what you want to pay, missy,’ he remarked with a grin as he led her further into the shop to find some more items that were on her list.
She grinned back at him. ‘Yes I do,’ she said boldly. ‘So how come you don’t sound like a Jewish gentleman?’ she dared to ask eventually and he chuckled.
‘My parents came here when I was just a tiny baby,’ he answered. ‘So I suppose you could say I have Jewish blood flowing through American veins, although I still practise the Jewish faith.’
Flora laughed as she pointed to some oil lamps, for there was no electricity in the café as far as she knew, and in no time they were haggling once more. Gradually she worked through the list until the things she had bought were piled high by the door. As she paid old Mr Schwartz she smiled with satisfaction, until it suddenly occurred to her – how was she to get all these things back to the shop? There was far too much for her to carry.
‘Never fear, my dear.’ The old man stroked his beard. ‘For just a small fee I can have my young Efrayim deliver them all to your door, yes?’
Flora sighed and handed over yet more money, already beginning to wonder if what she had left would cover the cost of everything else they needed to do. The four weeks rent and what she had just purchased had already made a large dent in the money and there was still paint and cleaning materials to be bought. Still, she thought, as a young boy appeared and began to load her things onto a large handcart, it was all necessary so she may as well just get on with it and shame the devil. It was far too late to back out now.
It took young Efrayim two journeys with the handcart to deliver everything and by then Flora had already visited a hardware shop and bought buckets, bowls, a mop, and anything else she thought they might possibly need.
When she got home, Jia Li was still sitting in the chair, staring vacantly into space. Her heart sank at the sight of her devastated expression, but at least she wasn’t still curled up into a little ball. As for Colleen, she had made a wonderful start on the two rooms. They were now swept clean and she had even managed to scrub the windows so the place looked a lot brighter.
‘Right!’ She rolled her sleeves up enthusiastically as she examined what Flora had bought and pounced on the whitewash. ‘I’m going to paint the walls before we put the furniture in place then when the bedroom’s done we’ll have a go at getting the beds up.’
So, for the rest of what was left of the late afternoon the two girls worked side by side painting the walls in what was to become their bedroom and finally, just as darkness began to fall, the first room was finished. The walls were cleaned and the floors had been mopped and mopped again.
‘It’s goin’ to look grand when you’ve made the curtains, so it is,’ Colleen said as she stood, hands on hips, surveying the results of all their hard work.
‘It is,’ Flora agreed. ‘Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll have time for sewing for a while. We need to get cracking on the downstairs as soon as we’ve finished up here. We can’t afford to stay closed for a day longer than we need to.’
‘Sure, and don’t I know that,’ Colleen agreed. ‘But don’t forget, it won’t always be this hard. When Jia Li has got over what happened today and is feeling better we’ll have three pairs of hands to get t’rough the work.’
The two girls looked over to where the pretty Chinese girl sat, fast asleep again, and smiled at each other. They were both exhausted and knew that there was still a lot of work ahead but they were confident that together they could make a go of things, or, as Flora jokingly told her friend, ‘We’ll die in the attempt!’