4
‘Happy New Year!’ Olivia shouted in Nancy’s ear as the crowds jostled around them.
‘Happy New Year!’ Nancy shouted back just as she was shoved in the back by a drunken man trying to make his way to Nelson’s column. ’Whose idea was this again?’ she laughed.
‘It’s still better than being stuck at home with my parents. I should have stayed in Paris. I bet the celebrations are a lot more civilised there,’ Olivia replied as they watched another drunken reveller attempt to climb the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree.
‘Happy Christmas, darlin’!’ A man clutching a beer bottle staggered up to Nancy.
‘I think you’re a week late for that.’ Nancy said, rolling her eyes.
‘Stuck up cow,’ he growled and walked off, managing to spill some of his beer down Nancy’s new coat as he went.
‘Not the best start to 1964.’ Olivia handed Nancy a handkerchief.
‘No,’ Nancy said thoughtfully as she dabbed at the damp patch left by the beer. ‘Let’s hope it improves.’
‘We may as well head back home before things turn nasty.’ Olivia grabbed Nancy’s hand, and they weaved their way through the crowds and onto Pall Mall. ‘The tube’s going to be a nightmare. Let’s walk.’
They headed in the general direction of Chelsea, where Olivia’s parents owned a large townhouse with views over the River Thames.
‘So what’s your New Year’s resolution?’ Olivia asked as soon as the crowds had thinned enough for them to walk side by side.
‘To save enough money to join Patty’s yacht crew.’
‘Has she still got that mad idea of sailing around the world?’ Ever since Olivia and Nancy had first met Patty at school, she’d been hatching plans for ambitious sailing trips.
Nancy was annoyed. ‘It’s not mad at all. Men have been doing it for centuries.’
‘In big sailing ships, not little yachts.’
‘Patty’s bought a big ocean-going yacht, nothing like the little things you’ve watched me manoeuvre around Dashford Bay.’
‘I don’t care how big it is, the only way you’re getting me on a yacht is if it involves a champagne reception with canapés.’
‘I’m sure we’ll get champagne at the end. ‘ Nancy laughed.
‘After months at sea! You’ll be positively feral by the time you get back to Portsmouth.’
‘We get a few stops en route. It will be a big improvement on spending the winter sitting in an office. You’ve got no sense of adventure!’
‘How does that fit in with being groomed to take over the family business?’
‘You really think my father wants me to take over running his beloved business? He thinks all women are fit for is keeping a nice home and producing babies. I’m allowed to do some secretarial work to keep me out of mischief until a suitable man is willing to marry me, but that’s all. Not that running a factory is my idea of fun.’
‘Manufacturing car headlights not lighting you up, then?’ Olivia grinned.
‘Ha ha!’ Nancy had no desire to spend the rest of her life working at G Smith and Son Ltd. She was only tolerating it now to save enough money to fund her place on Patty’s trip. Her grandfather had set up the business in a small garage in the centre of Coventry in the 1920s, but now her father ran the large sprawling factory it had evolved into. When he retired, there would only be Nancy and her older brother Eddie in line to take control. And Eddie was a budding actor who preferred much more artistic pursuits.
‘Has he given up on Eddie ever taking an interest in manufacturing?’ Olivia asked.
‘I think so. Eddie’s got his sights set on Hollywood. And I don’t mean the one in Birmingham. Car headlights are nowhere near as appealing as film set lights as far as Eddie is concerned. What about you?’
‘I’ve not considered car part manufacturing as a career.’
Nancy chuckled. ‘I meant your New Year’s resolution.’
‘I’m not bothering with one of those this year. I”m enjoying life in France. I don’t want that to change for a while.’ Olivia looked thoughtful. ‘If you’re fed up, why don’t you come and live with me?’
‘I’d need a visa or something. And what would I do?’
‘Paint views of the Seine?’
‘You remember what our art teacher used to say to me? “Even Jackson Pollock would consider your creations messy, Nancy.”’
‘Write a book, then. You were much better than me in Creative English classes.’
‘And how will that earn me enough money by June?’
‘June? I thought Patty was planning to set sail in September?’
‘She is, but she needs my financial contribution by June, and even if it was September, I’d have barely finished the first draft of a book by then, let alone got a publishing deal. Looks like I’m stuck in Coventry for the time being.’
‘It’s not like you to be this negative.’
‘I’m sorry. The postman delivered a Christmas card from Billy before I left home yesterday.’
‘The Hot Ozzie?’ Olivia grinned. She obviously remembered Nancy’s racy tales of how she’d spent last summer on the North Devon coast. ‘And what did he have to say for himself?’
‘He won’t be able to get over here from Australia again. He’s getting married.’ Nancy tried to hide the disappointment in her voice, but Olivia knew her too well.
‘You were expecting him to come back, weren’t you?’
‘I suppose I hoped he would.’ Nancy sighed. Billy, with his cheeky attitude and, let”s face it, very fit body, had been the most exciting thing that had happened to her so far. He’d taught her how to surf and a lot more than besides. English men, at least the ones in her social circle, were plain dull by comparison.
‘You didn’t fall in love with him, did you?’
‘No.‘ Nancy wasn’t so sure about that. ‘He was just fun, that’s all. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut.’
‘So join me in Paris. There are plenty of attractive, eligible men there.’
‘I’m not looking for love. There’s no point if I’m only going to be there for a few months. I don’t need a man holding me back.’
‘We’ll see,’ Olivia said, not looking convinced. ’As you need to earn a living, you could work in the English bookshop near my apartment. They’re always looking for new staff. Father dearest knows the owner, Madame Dubois. She seems charming whenever I go in there. I’m sure he could pull a few strings to get your paperwork sorted quickly.’
Olivia’s father was a civil servant who did something important in the Foreign Office, which probably explained how Olivia had got a job as a translator at NATO HQ as soon as she’d graduated from Oxford last year.
‘I don’t think my French is good enough. It wasn’t my favourite subject at school. I wouldn’t have got any marks if I hadn’t copied your homework,’ Nancy said.
Olivia had always been top of the class. Her regular summer holidays to the Dordogne must have helped. But as there wasn’t much call for speaking French in Devon or Coventry, Nancy doubted she could even manage to introduce herself now.
‘You don’t need to be fluent. You’ll be dealing with customers who can read English. And you’ll be amazed how much you’ll pick up just by being surrounded by French people.’
Nancy and Olivia walked on in silence for a few minutes while Nancy pondered Olivia’s suggestion. It would beat being wolf-whistled at by the men in the press shop whenever she had to walk the length of the factory. And the bookshop job would probably pay as much as her current one, given how little her father thought she was worth. But there was a flaw in the plan.
‘I can’t see my loving, caring papa going for that suggestion,’ she said. ‘Education is wasted on girls, Nancy,’ she added, doing a passable impression of her father in rant mode. He’d quashed any hopes she’d had of going to university, so she very much doubted he’d be up for funding a trip abroad, particularly Paris. His opinion of the French was unrepeatable for reasons he wasn’t prepared to divulge, but the implication was it had something to do with the war.
‘Why don’t you tell him that improving your foreign language skills would help the factory’s export department?’ Olivia suggested.
‘But I don’t want to work in the export department. I can’t think of anything worse. They’re not exactly the most dynamic of people. Audrey never smiles and reeks of mothballs. And Alec, her manager, has raging halitosis and no idea that deodorant has been invented, which is rather unfortunate given he only ever wears nylon shirts.’
‘But you wouldn’t have to go back to the export department. Once you’ve escaped the clutches of G Smith Son, the world’s your oyster. No one will be able to force you to return to the family business.’
Olivia had a point.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Nancy said.