Fire Read Free

home—especially a woman with a child—and think how confusing it must be for poor little Susan and how did Rob’s work shirts get ironed if no one was at home to do them? Louise insisted that she’d pointed out dozens of times that Rob wore overalls to work, and that poor little Susan was as happy as a sandboy with her other grandmother, and if anyone was suffering it was her, Louise, because she missed her daughter.
    Louise added, ‘Nothing’s changed. I don’t think it ever will. Mind you, Rob’s mum thinks it’s common to eat shop-bought cakes. She’s just that sort of person.’
    For a moment the four of them silently pondered the awful notion of not eating shop-bought cakes.
    ‘Well, they say you can’t choose your relatives,’ Allie said eventually.
    ‘No, unfortunately, you can’t,’ Louise agreed. She looked at her watch. ‘Oh God, only five minutes left. Is everyone else really busy today?’
    ‘We’re rushed off our feet,’ Daisy said. ‘We’re mostly doing hats for the queen.’
    They nodded. Daisy and the other milliners were flat out making hats for wealthy women to wear to receptions when the queen finally arrived in Auckland in just over a week’s time. Between Christmas shopping and the royalvisit, everyone at Dunbar & Jones was busy, from the office staff on the top floor down to the storemen in the basement.
    Allie dug in her handbag for her cigarettes. Irene and Louise did the same: only Daisy didn’t smoke. After they’d lit up, inhaled deeply and relaxed back into their chairs to enjoy a last, peaceful few minutes before returning to work, Allie asked, ‘Is everyone going to the staff picnic?’
    ‘We are,’ Daisy said. ‘I’ve made a new sundress specially.’
    Louise said, ‘So are we. Susan can’t wait. Rob told her Santa Claus will be there. I hope to God he is this year.’
    Allie frowned. ‘Is she old enough to know who Santa is?’
    ‘Crikey, yes,’ Louise replied. ‘She knows exactly where presents come from at Christmas time. Santa’s house at the Norf Po, apparently.’
    ‘And I suppose Mr Max will be Santa again this year,’ Irene said. ‘He needn’t think I’m sitting on his knee.’
    I bet you would if you could, Allie thought, still smarting slightly.
    Irene read her mind and laughed. ‘Look at him, though, he’s fifty if he’s a day! His heart would give out!’
    Louise, who believed very strongly in the sanctity of marriage and knew about Irene and Vincent Reynolds, looked disapproving.
    ‘He’s forty-eight, actually,’ Daisy said. ‘Terry told me.’
    ‘And how would Terry know?’ Irene asked.
    Daisy just smiled, comfortable in her conviction that her beloved fiancé, who was only a year older than her, knew everything.
    ‘Apparently he really enjoys it, Mr Max,’ Louise said,‘handing out presents to all the kids. It’s very generous of Dunbar & Jones, isn’t it?’
    Irene slid the ashtray closer and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘I’m off to the loo, then it’s back to the salt mines.’
    On their way out they met Vincent Reynolds coming in. His hair was immaculately pomaded and as black as nugget, and his moustache bracketed his top lip like a set of spare eyebrows. He slowed as he passed Irene and gave her a long, greasy wink. She simpered and Allie looked away, annoyed at the stab of envy in her stomach. But Vince Reynolds was repulsive and Allie wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot barge pole. It was more that Irene, of whom she was genuinely fond, already had a perfectly nice husband, and it wasn’t right that she was, well, dallying.
    Allie hurried down the two flights of stairs to the first floor where she worked. Before nine in the morning and after five at night, when the store was empty, she rode on the escalator because it was such fun, but during opening hours staff were supposed to use the stairway behind the scenes at the rear of the store that zigzagged from the third floor all the way down to the basement. Mr