Liverpool Miss by Helen Forrester

a yacht in a fast wind. She had also the grace of a yacht in the wind; but the sweet-shop owner was obviously finding her more trying than graceful and answered uncertainly, ‘Well, now, I hadn’t exactly thought. I need a bit o’ help, that’s all. ’Course she’d have to wash the floor and polish it, like, every day. And clean the window and dust the stock. And when I knowed her a bit she could probably help me with serving, like. I get proper busy at weekends – and in summer the ice cream trade brings in a lot o’ kids, and you have to have eyes in theback o’ your head or they’ll steal the pants off you.’
    Mother sniffed at this unseemly mention of underwear, and then nodded.
    ‘And what would the salary be?’
    I groaned inwardly. I was sure that in a little shop like this one earned wages not a salary.
    The beginning of a smile twitched at the woman’s lips, but she answered Mother gravely.
    ‘Well, I’d start her on five shillings, and if she was any good I’d raise it.’
    Even in those days, five shillings was not much. The woman seemed to realise this, because she added, ‘And o’ course, she can eat as many sweets as she likes. But no taking any out of the shop.’
    I could imagine that this was not as generous as it sounded. After a week of eating too many sweets, the desire for them would be killed and few people would want them any more.
    Mother inquired stiffly, ‘And how many hours a week would she work for that?’
    ‘Well, I open up at half past seven in the morning to catch the morning trade, you understand. And I close up at nine in the evening.’ She paused a moment and then said, ‘But I wouldn’t need her after about seven o’clock. Me husband’s home by then, and he helps me after he’s had his tea.And I close Wednesday atternoons, so she’d have the atternoon off after she’d tidied up, like. Me husband helps me Sundays, too, so I wouldn’t want her then either.’
    I wanted the job so badly that I did not care how many hours I worked, how often I scrubbed the floor. The shop seemed so lovely and warm, after our house, and I sensed that in a rough way the woman would be kind to me. I tried to will the woman to agree to take me.
    A little boy burst through the shop door, leaving the bell tinging madly after him. He pushed past us and leaned against the corner of the counter.
    ‘Ah coom for me Dad’s ciggies,’ he announced, turning a pinched, grubby face up towards the sweetshop owner.
    ‘Have you got the money?’
    ‘Oh, aye. He wants ten Woodbines.’ A small hand was unclenched to show four large copper pennies.
    The cigarettes were handed over and the pennies dropped into the wooden till.
    ‘Now don’t be smoking them yourself,’ admonished the woman, with a laugh.
    The boy grinned at her and bounced back to the door, his bare feet thudding. As he went through the door, he turned and gestured as if he were smoking.
    ‘Aye, you little gint!’ she said.
    The interruption had given Mother time to make a rapid calculation. As the woman turned back to her, she said sharply, ‘There is a law about how many hours a minor can work – and, incidentally a law about selling cigarettes to minors. I am sure that over sixty hours a week – at less than a penny an hour – are far more hours than are allowed.’
    The woman shrugged huffily; her eyes narrowed, giving her a cunning expression.
    ‘I’m sure I don’t know about that,’ she replied tartly. ‘If she doesn’t want the job she doesn’t have to take it. There’s others as will be grateful for it.’ She sniffed, and looked at me disparagingly. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t take her. The sores on her face would put the customers off. I got to have a clean looking girl.’
    I looked at her appalled, hurt to the quick. In front of our broken piece of mirror, I had carefully squeezed each pimple on my face, so that the acne was temporarily reduced to raised red blotches with a fresh, golden scab on each. I had no