Off the Rails Read Online Free PDF Page A

their employers, happen it were best not to know.
    Mrs Norridge winked at him. ‘Nipped out the back and bought two more,’ she explained, ‘soon as he brung ’em in. They got an account at Mr Cullen’s. I often does it. Eat hearty, boy.’
    He ate very hearty. The pigeons were delicious, cooked to such perfection  that the flesh fell from the bones. And when they’d eaten every morsel of the main course Mrs Norridge took a tray and disappeared upstairs, returning with the remains of a sizeable cherry pie with a dish of cream. I shall live well here, he thought, as he put the first spoonful of pie in his mouth. They might not be taking much trade but they’re comfortable if they can dine like this.
    ‘Good?’ Mrs Norridge asked.
    ‘Aye,’ he told her, happily. ‘Gradely.’ He took another mouthful and savoured it. ‘They don’t do much in the way of trade,’ he said, speaking casually.
    ‘You can say that again,’ Mrs Norridge said. ‘I don’t know how they make out some weeks. Course it was all different when old man Bell was alive. They had plenty a’ custom then. He was up to all sorts a’ tricks to bring ’em in.’
    ‘What sort of tricks were those then?’
    ‘Oh, all sorts,’ Mrs Norridge said. ‘He used to write out little cards – Mr Bell respectfully begs to inform his customers that the new spring cottons have arrived or the new broadcloths or whatever it was – an’ stick ’em in the windows. That sort a’ thing. An’ then they’d come a-trooping in to see what was what. Knew ’em all by name he did. All their fancies. Cracking jokes and making ’em laugh. It was like a party in there sometimes. Couldn’t hear yerself speak fer cackling an’ laughing. Can you manage the rest ’a this pie?’
    He held up his plate.
    ‘More like a morgue nowadays,’ she said, as she served him the last of the pie. ‘Creeping about, never saying nothink. Mr Richard makes enough row coming home, hollering and shouting, I’ll grant you that, but he never says nothink to me. An’ that last boy they had was worse than useless. Never said a blind word to anyone the whole time he was here. She threw him out after six months an’ I can’t say I blamed her.’
    So, he thought, for all her ums and ahs and that odd way of hers, Mrs Bell can be tough. ‘’Twill be different now I’ve come,’ he said, licking the last of the cream off the serving spoon. ‘Watch an’ you’ll see. I’ll have the shop full in no time. I’ve got ideas.’
    ‘You got plenty a’ sauce,’ she said, removing the spoon. ‘I’ll say that for you.’ She lifted her head and listened. ‘They’re a-coming down,’ she said.
    There was only one more thing he needed to find out. ‘Do I sleep here, Mrs Norridge?’
    ‘In the store room,’ she told him, carrying the plates to the sink. ‘Now get back to the shop, for pity’s sake.’
    He was standing by the shelves pretending to tidy the rolls of cloth whenMrs Bell rattled her keys into the room. ‘Leave that,’ she said. ‘Time you – um – learnt about cloth if you mean to be – um – ’prenticed. Follow me.’
    He followed her into a small dusty room, where rolls of new cloth stood in line against the walls, wrapped in rough linen and carefully labelled, and piles of boxes were heaped one on top of the other in every available space, and he caught a glimpse of a truckle bed half hidden in the furthest corner, and there he was instructed, and tried to look interested, and repeated what she told him, to show that he understood her. But his thoughts were spinning away in a completely different direction. He was surprised to see how much stock they had and even more surprised to think that it was all hidden away. It seemed total folly to him. What was the point of explaining the difference between hand prints and roller prints or cottons and calicos, when so few of them were in the shop? They should be on the shelves and draped in the windows, he thought,