The Women in Black Read Online Free PDF

very carefully and with a spooky sense of danger, was ‘Lisa’.
    This was the name she had chosen for herself several years before: she disliked the one she had been given more than she could say, and had long since resolved to take another at the first opportunity. This was the first opportunity.
    ‘Lisa Miles!’ cried a voice; and Lesley-Lisa sprang to her feet and followed a woman into the small room where the interviews were being conducted.
    ‘Well, Lisa,’ said the woman—and Lesley’s new life, as Lisa, commenced.
    How very simple it was: she was sure she would get used to it immediately. She sat up very straight, like a Lisa, and smiled gaily. Now it would all begin.
    Miss Cartright, who was conducting the interview, looked piercingly at the teenager seated before her: one had to be careful to get the right kind of girl here at Goode’s, even if she was only a temporary hired for the Christmas rush and the New Year Sales which followed. This one was at least evidently intelligent: the form she had completed showed that she was about to sit for the Leaving Certificate. But what a face! What a figure! She had the body and the mien of a child of around fifteen, and an immature one at that: small and thin, even skinny, with frizzy blonde hair and bright innocent eyes behind utilitarian-looking spectacles. Still, she would look more adult in the black frock: her own clothes were impossible—obviously homemade, and not well-made either: a little cotton print frock, with badly set-in sleeves, and a peter-pan collar. Poor kid.
    Lisa, having ironed her pink frock—which was her best—with the greatest care, and wearing her high-heeled shoes with a brand new pair of nylon stockings, was confident that her appearance approached the condition of Lisa-ness as nearly as was possible in all the circumstances, and sat on, smiling and eager and absolutely oblivious of Miss Cartright’s inner thoughts.
    ‘And what are you thinking of doing, Lisa,’ asked Miss
    Cartright, ‘when you leave school?’
    ‘Well, I’m going to wait and see what my Leaving results are,’ said Lisa, looking vague.
    ‘I don’t suppose you mean to make a career in the retail trade?’said Miss Cartright.
    ‘Oh, no!’ cried Lisa.
    Miss Cartright laughed.
    ‘It’s quite all right, Lisa. It doesn’t suit everybody. But as long as you are working here, you will be expected to work hard, and as if it were your permanent job. Do you understand that?’
    ‘Oh, of course ,’ said Lisa, desperately. ‘Of course ; I do understand. I’ll work very hard.’
    And Miss Cartright, thinking it might be rather quaint to see the girl in such a context, decided to put her in Ladies’ Cocktail, where she could give a hand to Magda in Model Gowns now and then because, although she looked so childish, she was evidently bright as well as willing, and might be quite useful, all things considered.
    ‘You start on the first Monday in December, then,’ she informed the new Sales Assistant (Temporary), ‘and your wages will be paid fortnightly, on Thursdays. Now we will go and see about your black frock.’
    It was only now that she realised that it was very unlikely that there would be a frock which would fit this skinny child. Oh, well:perhaps she would grow into it, once the strain of the examinations was behind her. Lisa followed her from the room, up the fire stairs to the Wardrobe Room, and so enchanted was she at the idea of wearing black that she did not care in the very least that the frock she was given was one size too large, she being an XXSSW; for in any case, she had never ever had a frock which fitted properly.
    The interviews for temporary staff had been held on a Saturday afternoon, after Goode’s—and every other shop in the city—had closed for the weekend, and Lisa had arrived just at closing time, when the streets were still busy with people going home or to the pictures or to restaurants. Now, a good hour later, she emerged from the