Lavender Lane (Larch Tree Lane #4)

Chapter Eight

Ilsa Platt walked from the free parking area just outside the town centre to the dress shop where she worked, which was on a small side street near the central shopping area.

She’d been worried about the owner for a few weeks. Ms Hayton hadn’t looked well, and she’d disappeared a few times for an hour or two. The first time she’d said simply, ‘I have a dental appointment.’ But after that, she’d simply said, ‘I’m nipping out for an hour or two.’

Ilsa knew something was wrong, seriously wrong, just knew it. Ms Hayton didn’t usually get bad moods and was a decent boss to work with. But bad things happened. No one could keep them out of their life completely. Ilsa was living proof of that.

Her heart sank every time she arrived at work and saw that unhappy look on the older woman’s face. She and Megs, the other shop assistant, kept wondering what was wrong and discussing the rumours that were beginning to circulate. Was the shop really about to be sold as people were saying?

If so, how would it affect her? Would these new owners close the shop down completely and turn it into something else, or if they kept it open as a ladies’ dress shop would they sack her and Megs and bring in their own people? Who might be buying it, anyway? No one from Essington St Mary, that was certain. Someone would have known more about them if they’d been local. Ilsa and Megs might not have been born in the valley but they met enough members of the public to be aware of a major rumour like that.

It couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Ilsa. She had very little money saved because she could barely manage to pay rent as well as feed herself and buy petrol for her rattletrap old car on the miserable amount she had been earning lately. Well, she’d been working only three or four days a week for the past year, depending on how business was going, and unfortunately sales had been going increasingly badly, so as the year passed it had become more often three.

It would be easier for Megs than her if the two of them lost their jobs. She was living with her boyfriend so had someone to help her out financially if necessary.

Ilsa had worked full-time when she started here three years ago, and had been renting a nice little bedsitter. Then business at the shop had gradually slowed down, partly because it stocked old-fashioned clothes for older women, and she’d been given the choice of reducing her hours or finding another job.

The trouble was, there were very few other jobs going and she liked living here in this quiet little town, didn’t want to move back to a busier place, so she’d moved to cheaper accommodation instead and adopted a much more frugal lifestyle. It cost nothing except a bit of wear on your shoes to go for a walk and nothing whatsoever to borrow books from the library. She felt sure business would pick up again eventually. Upturns and downturns usually came in cycles, didn’t they?

But as the downturn continued at the shop, she grew increasingly pessimistic about her prospects.

Her employer, Ms Hayton, was in her mid-seventies and until recently she had seemed in good health, but she’d lost a lot of weight recently and, well, she just looked unwell.

The following Monday, Ms Hayton made a beckoning gesture when they arrived and called, ‘Don’t open up yet, girls! I need to speak to you both first.’

Ilsa and Megs exchanged worried glances as they hung their outdoor things on the hooks in the tiny space that was both cloakroom and kitchen, but didn’t speak their fears aloud.

When they went into the office, Ms Hayton said, ‘No need to bring another chair, Ilsa. This won’t take long enough to be worth you two sitting down.’

She took a deep breath, sighed and gave them a sad look. ‘I’ve got cancer and that’s nudged me into selling the shop.’

Two gasps greeted this.

‘They think they can cure it but I need to start treatment straight away. The new owners are going to take over from tomorrow onwards and I shan’t be here, because I’m going into hospital.’ She took a deep, shaky breath and added, ‘So today will be my last day of work and I’ll spend most of it clearing my things out of the building.’

‘Your regular customers will miss you,’ Ilsa ventured.

‘Yes, and I’ll miss them. But there you are. Things happen. Let’s get back to you two girls.’

She always called them girls, but though Megs was only twenty-two, Ilsa was getting on for thirty now. She wasn’t a girl by anyone’s standards and given the start she’d had in life, she had never felt young and carefree like Megs.

‘These new people will employ you two till the end of this week so that you can show them where everything is and get ready for a sale of unwanted goods. On Saturday, which will be your final day, they’ll pay you an extra week’s wages in lieu of notice and any accrued holiday pay. I don’t hold out any hope of them continuing to employ you, because they’re going to run it with their daughter, who is about your age, Megs. So if you can find another job anywhere else you should grab it with both hands, whatever it is.’

There was dead silence, then Megs asked, ‘What about references?’

‘I’ll give you some really good ones on shop stationery today before I leave.’ She gave the two young women a wry smile. ‘You can write them yourselves and put exactly what you want in them. You can type them up neatly, Ilsa, then print them out and I’ll sign them. After that the two of you can make as many copies as you see fit on the shop’s photocopier.’

‘Thank you,’ they chorused.

‘Don’t hesitate to praise yourselves in these references, mind. You’ll need to tell any future employer that you’re very good value as employees. And actually you both are and I thank you for your unstinting help over the past few years. You’ve worked well for me and just as well with one another.’

She waited a moment or two then asked gently, ‘No other questions?’

They shook their heads so she clapped her hands, said ‘Chop! Chop!’ and they went to work with the familiar words ringing in their ears for what would probably be the last time.

But Ilsa caught a glimpse of her employer sitting weeping in the office later in the day. She felt sad for Ms Hayton and worried sick about her own future. This was going to change her life, and not in a good way, she just knew it.

You’d think she’d be used to having her life upended, but you never got used to dealing with massive changes that you didn’t want and, she had thought sometimes, that she didn’t deserve.

The new owners were a very smartly dressed middle-aged man and woman, and they said their daughter would be joining them later in the week.

Mr Sharples didn’t indulge in or encourage any small talk, and Mrs Sharples dribbled words now and then. Ilsa was instructed to go through the shop and storerooms above and behind it with Mr Sharples to answer questions and to leave attending to customers to Megs and Mrs Sharples, since it was a quiet time of day.

Ilsa and the new owner went through the shop and the building with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. He didn’t miss a single detail as far as she could tell. He’d brought a box of light bulbs with him and put them in as they moved through the cellars. She was surprised at how far these stretched and how many outbuildings there were behind the shop. She and Megs had been forbidden to go further into these areas than absolutely necessary and since there hadn’t been any light bulbs in most areas, they hadn’t been tempted to go fumbling through the darkness.

She didn’t find the Sharples couple at all friendly and wouldn’t like to be served by them, that was certain.

She didn’t volunteer any extra information to them, just worked as directed and counted off the days until she could stop working for these cold fish.

However, when Saturday came, the daughter still hadn’t arrived and Mr Sharples asked her if she’d work another week for them, since Penelope had been delayed.

She agreed, of course. She’d looked for jobs in the paper but seen nothing even suitable to apply for advertised.