Megan
The Past Lingers
Megan hung the receiver back on the wall, her smile – the last remnant of the belly laugh she’d shared with Hattie – lingering on her lips.
‘What’s Hattie been on about this time? I thought as you’d wet your knickers, with how you were laughing.’
‘Oh, Phyllis, it were one of her customers. Hattie said this woman came into the emporium, looking like she’d not eaten for days, then by the time she’d gone around all the counters her belly had grown like she were ready to drop twins!’
‘What? How come?’
‘The crafty mare had sewn a pouch into the front of her coat. Hattie said she had the woman hopping like a kangaroo before she was done with her. Then loads of Hattie’s stock kept dropping out – jelly moulds, scrubbing brushes, peg bags. The woman denied all knowledge of them, but to top it all, Hattie ended up giving the poor soul a job! Turns out she’s five kids to feed and no man. So she’s to get to the store at closing time and work along with the other cleaners. It just tickled me. Anyone else would have sent for the police, but not Hattie. She sorts the woman’s life out for her.’
‘Aye, that’s typical of Hattie. Look how she sorted me and Daisy out.’
‘And me, and she did her best for me mam,’ Sally chipped in.
‘Well, I could say that an’ all,’ Megan told them. ‘It was Hattie as first started me on the road to having a business. So I reckon young Freda should make a pot of tea and we’ll have a toast to our Hattie, eh?’
Freda, the latest apprentice and, to Megan’s mind, a good girl, jumped up without protest, though she did have a cheeky quip as she went towards the kitchen. ‘Glad to. It’ll take me away from you lot, as you sound like you’re going down memory lane again.’ Megan saw Freda just manage to dodge the pincushion that Sally threw at her. They all laughed at this.
The banter didn’t continue. Instead, the hum of the sewing machines resumed, leaving Megan looking at six bent heads, three of which belonged to women who were very dear to her.
How different their lives were now, she thought, as she carried on sorting through swatches of material samples. And yes, a lot of it was down to Hattie. Hattie had helped her through the worst of times, had given Megan her first chance to set up on her own and, after she’d lost it all, had encouraged her to start over again, once she had the means to do so. Now look at where she was; she had all of this: a dress shop and design studio, as well as this making-up room where all her drawings became a reality. It was just like Madame Marie’s place had been – the studio of the woman who’d taken her on as an apprentice from the age of thirteen until her marriage.
Part of Megan’s mind closed at the thought of her first marriage. She couldn’t dwell on any of that. It was all too painful, and a long time ago now. And as the world goes, some good had come out of it: her son Billy, for instance. Yes, there were bad times with the lad, but no matter what, she loved him. And then there was her being with Jack – not that she’d ever have been with him if Cissy had lived. Cissy had been Jack’s first wife and a very special person. The bond she and Cissy had shared had been strong. Megan had loved Jack all the time he was married to Cissy, but had never shown her feelings then. To have done so would have hurt Cissy badly. Oh, Ciss, lass, I still miss you. But thou knows, you live on in your Sarah. She don’t look like you – she looks like Jack – but she has your kind ways and bubbly nature.
The bustle of activity in the room around her reminded Megan of Madame Marie’s, as did the smell of the fabrics and cottons, though a new odour mingled with these familiar ones: that of warmed oil, as the electric machines whirred away and heated up. During the Madame Marie years there had been few machines, and those that there were had a treadle to work them. Eeh, if I spent a day on one of them, the backs of me calves knew it.
Those years had shaped Megan’s dream to own her own place, but what she had now wasn’t what she once wished for. She’d gone from wanting to design exclusives for the rich, as Madame Marie had done, to wanting to have as little as she could to do with any top-drawer folk. So now she designed everyday wear and Sunday best for the middle classes, and she was working on a new line for Hattie’s emporium – off-the-peg, affordable clothes for the working class. However, she still did exclusive designs for Lady Crompton and her daughter over at Hensal Grange, and their friend Lady Gladwyn. She owed that much to Lord and Lady Crompton, because indirectly it was their money that had given her this second chance to set up.
But then, they owed her, an’ all – owed her for all she went through at the hands of Laura Harvey, Lady Crompton’s sister. But no, she’d not think about all of that. She’d forgiven the woman as she’d lain on her deathbed, and that was how it would stay. She’d had to, or she and her Jack could never have moved forward.
Sally’s laugh echoed across the room, cutting into Megan’s thoughts and bringing her back to the present. Sally had stood up to help Freda, who teetered across from the kitchen bearing an overladen tray and looking as though she would drop it at any moment. The smile she’d lost came back to Megan’s face at the antics of the girls teasing and having fun at Freda’s expense, though she checked on her apprentice to make sure she was taking it all in her stride.
With the tray safely on the table, Sally turned and indicated that she would pour Megan’s tea for her. Megan felt sadness enter her as she looked at Sally – beautiful Sally, fragile, not in stature, but inside where it mattered, damaged by the horror she’d endured as a child when she’d been raped by a sex fiend. If only the tendrils of pain that clung to her would heal and allow Sally to seek real happiness. But she wouldn’t hear of looking for a husband, or even think of loving any man in that way. At twenty-one, she had carved out a place for herself on the shelf, as they described unmarried girls of her age, and that’s where she wanted to stay.
As she made her way across to Sally and Freda, Megan saw Phyllis and Daisy rise from their benches to join them. Their appearance demonstrated the changes that Hattie had helped bring about in their lives. Their hair – once permanent-waved into the latest fashion to increase their chances of attracting ‘customers’ – was now worn in a natural bob and tied up in a headscarf while they worked. As they no longer had to prostitute themselves, the make-up they had once used to plaster their faces was gone, as were their flamboyant clothes.
They lived a happy life together as a couple, though of course few knew their real status. Most thought they were just spinster-friends, no different from many others who hadn’t been lucky in finding a man, out of the few who came home from the last war. God! It’s hard to believe we are now at war again. Megan’s mind went to Billy. Somehow it felt like she was trading his freedom from that awful place for his life in trying to get him released to the army. This thought set a tremble running through her. Please, God, keep him safe if it works out that he does have to go to war.
Daisy lifted her cup. ‘To Hattie, for all she’s done for us all, and to the continued success of her and Harry’s emporium.’
Megan raised her mug and clinked it against the rest. Freda giggled. The girl didn’t really know what all the fuss was about, but Megan and the others did. They knew they were all the stronger for having Hattie in their lives. Suddenly Megan couldn’t wait for the evening to come. Hattie and Harry were coming over for their tea – a distraction she needed at the moment. Because although she’d let her mind wander around all sorts of events in the past, there were things in the present that were niggling at her – not that she could share them, but it was enough just being with Hattie, her friend from the moment they were old enough to make friends thirty-eight years ago. And even before that according to what they had been told.
Within weeks of their birth they’d been taken from St Michaels, a home for unmarried mothers, to a convent orphanage, and had often been told by Sister Bernadette, the nun who’d devoted herself to them, that they were much happier when together as little babbies than they would have been if she separated them. By, it beggars belief that me and Hattie are going on forty now. Where have all the years gone? And how did we weather it all? I don’t know.
Megan shrugged. One thing she did know: having a hug from Hattie would, and always did, make her feel better about everything.