A Job for Susan (The Susan books) Read online

  “Financial crisis, as per usual,” said Midge.

  Bill looked up from his toast and honey.

  “Worse than usual,” he said.

  “I don’t know, Bill,” said Susan, “every time we come home for the holidays, you seem to be desperate for money.”

  “It’s not for me this time,” said Bill, “it’s for Oxfam. A chap came and lectured to us at school and I got carried away with all the ghastly pictures of those poor little starving kids ... and I put down my name for ten pounds...”

  “Ten pounds!”

  “Yes, well, I know, and I was just going to cut it down to ten bob but the old Vulture, you know what a sarcastic beast he can be, asked me if I’d come into a fortune and I said of course not, I could easily earn ten pounds in the Christmas hols and he said no going to your father, mind, and I said no, of course not, my father wouldn’t give me ten pounds even if I did go to him—”

  “You’re absolutely right,” said Uncle Charles, flinging down his paper and hurrying off to see if his old car would start.

  “—and so there I was, stuck with this promise of ten pounds—”

  “It’s perfectly simple,” said Charlotte impatiently, “I’ve told you. You go back at the end of the hols and say you couldn’t manage ten pounds, here’s seven and sixpence—”

  “Yes, but I’ll feel such a fool,” said Bill. “And mean too. If you had seen those starving kids…”

  “What have you got?” asked Susan.

  “Four and eleven,” said Bill.

  “Well, you can earn something, can’t you?” said Susan. “Aunt Lucy can surely find some paid employment for you—?”

  Bill said gloomily, “I worked my fingers to the bone last Easter, saving up for my stamps, and d’you know what I made?”

  The girls shook their heads.

  “Eight and fourpence.”

  Everybody looked reproachfully at Aunt Lucy, who laughed unfeelingly.

  “You could sell your stamps,” Midge suggested.

  “Well, I thought of that, naturally, but Stobbs is the only chap I know who is interested and he doesn’t want them; he has better ones himself.”

  “But surely you can get lots of jobs in the village?” asked the ever-optimistic Susan. “I mean, well, f’r instance, when it snows you can make pots of money, cleaning paths et cetera—”

  Tessa slowly turned her head and looked out of the window. The trees in Tollgate Road, the tulip tree in front of the house and the chestnuts and the huge old elms in the gardens of the picture-gallery opposite, all looked very bleak and wintry, but there was no sign of snow. “But it’s not snowing,” she murmured.

  “Well, I know that,” said Susan, “I only meant that if it snows, and it’s bound to, sooner or later, there are lots of jobs, clearing paths and—”

  “But—” began Tessa.

  “Yes, well, skip it,” said Susan hurriedly. Tessa often made her head reel. “Have you tried to get a job in the village, Bill?”

  “I’ve scarcely had time,” said Bill, “we only broke up yesterday, and I had to go over my stamps and—”

  “Then we’ll go down to the village,” said Susan briskly, “and show it to Tessa and see everybody and fix up a job for Bill…”

  “Thanks, Susie,” said Bill, more gloomily than ever. He should have known better than to mention a word of his troubles to that old busybody Susan. There was nothing Susan liked better than bossing people up and helping them, and sometimes that was fine and worked out splendidly, but sometimes, well... He wondered if he would have another slice of toast to cheer himself up... but then he remembered all those starving little kids and didn’t...

  In view of the fact that it was the first morning of the holidays and that Tessa and Susan had already done one set of breakfast dishes, Aunt Lucy very kindly let them off the washing-up; and the four girls and Bill put on a great many clothes, because it was mighty cold even if it wasn’t snowing, and set off down the village.

  II. A JOB FOR BILL

  THE first thing that the girls noticed was a new restaurant. A nice old-fashioned draper’s shop had gone—although not its charming Georgian frontage—and in its place was a rather grand-looking little restaurant.

  “Hey, what’s this?” asked Susan, stopping to look.

  “It’s called the Wichwood Steak-house,” said Bill, “and it’s rather posh. We’ve never been, but Daddy says he will take us, one evening, maybe Boxing Day—”

  Susan, her eyes gleaming, didn’t care about that. “But Bill!” she said, her hand practically on the handle of the white door. “This is just the thing!”

  The others gaped at her.

  “What use d’you imagine Bill would be in a restaurant?” Charlotte asked. “Don’t forget that they don’t have little boys nowadays to turn the spit, it’s all done by electricity. Little boys turning spits went out in the eighteenth century.”

  “Spits!” said Susan, who had never heard of them, anyway. “Not spits, dishes! People earn fabulous sums washing dishes, students working their way through college and all that jazz. You’d make ten pounds in no time!”

  “Oh gosh, Susan,” said Bill, dismayed at the prospect of washing dishes all through his holidays. Aunt Lucy’s dishes were bad enough. “I’m only twelve! Aunt Lucy still makes me go to bed at eight o’clock! All the dish-washing would come after that, surely?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” said Susan, dashed. She brightened immediately. “But we’re not twelve, we’re fifteen! Aunt Lucy lets us stay up till all hours in the hols, and as for Mum—I think that she has forgotten that we used to go to bed earlier than grown-ups—” She caught Midge’s eye. “Midge, what about it?”

  “No,” said Midge.

  Susan turned to Tessa. “Tessa?”

  Tessa looked hunted. “Wash dishes every night, Susan?” she asked, and thought longingly of Aunt Rachel.

  “Yes,” said Susan coaxingly. “To help Bill—”

  “Are you out of your tiny mind, Susie?” said Midge in her laziest drawl. “I couldn’t wash dishes every night to save my life, far less Bill’s face! Come on—”

  She moved off down the village street, followed reluctantly by Susan and thankfully by the others, looking for something to divert Susan’s attention from dish-washing.

  She found something almost immediately. Instead of the rather dingy antique shop which had been there before, in its place was a very attractive little shop, painted white, which called itself THE LITTLE GALLERY.

  “What’s this?” asked Susan.

  “It’s a picture-gallery,” said Bill.

  “Well, we can see that,” said Midge, “but who does it belong to? Where did it spring from?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” said Bill. He obviously didn’t care either; he wanted to get on. His mind was on the cake-shop at the other end of the village, next to Louella Foster’s bookshop, where it was just possible that the girls might stand him his elevenses.

  “Let’s go in,” said Charlotte.

  “Good idea,” said Susan. “They might give you a one-man show or whatever it’s called.”

  “They might give me the Crown Jewels,” said Charlotte. “Besides, I’m not so interested in being a painter any more; looking at Old Masters for a year has given me a nice healthy dose of inferiority complex. I’m going to study the history of art and get a job in an art gallery or a museum or somewhere. I’m hoping to go to the Courtland Institute, didn’t you know?”

  Susan didn’t know. She was perfectly willing to hear all about this latest—and surely last?—move in Charlotte’s career, but Midge had pushed open the door.

  So they all trooped in. The little gallery was very nice indeed. It had white walls, an iron staircase painted black spiralled up to a black door, and another staircase went down into a basement. On the walls were some very extraordinary pictures; one, for instance, was an enormous expanse of white paint, enlivened by one red dot. Round one wall of the gallery ran a wide ledge, on which w
ere placed an assortment of strange objects made out of what looked like twisted bits of metal. An even stranger object, roughly the shape of an egg, but an egg gone mad, stood on a pedestal in the middle of the floor, one twisted length of metal hanging down from its side. A small, slim girl, with very short dark hair, was half-heartedly pushing a mop over the red-brick floor.

  She glanced up, looked rather startled, as well she might at this sudden rush of customers, but recovered quickly enough, smiled, and said good morning.

  The girls muttered good morning. Bill said nothing. He was gazing fascinated at the mad egg. Then Charlotte said, a little doubtfully, “But... but… aren’t you Maggie Zimmerli?”

  The girl grinned. “Yes,” she said, “and you’re Charlotte Carmichael, how—” but she didn’t get any further because Susan got very excited.

  “Maggie Thingummy!” she said. “But you’re our landlord—landlady—well, you’re it, anyway!”

  Charlotte and Maggie had met vaguely at parties, so everybody was introduced to everybody else. Susan was especially delighted with her landlord, who was not a bit like Sir Arthur Symes, the only other landlord she had previously encountered, and who, as everybody knew, was a perfectly dreadful old man who ground the faces of widows and orphans in the dust.

  “What an absolutely heavenly job!” said Charlotte.

  Maggie looked surprised. “D’you think so?” she said. “These bits of twisted wire give me the creeps. And I know that you’ll scarcely believe me, but we’ve had worse. Downstairs is better, it’s a sort of craftsman’s market. Wichwood is stuffed full of artists and people like that and they bring things to Miss Hughes, who owns the gallery and is my boss. If she likes them, then she will try to sell them. She’s marvellous, she can natter for hours about this stuff”—she waved a disparaging hand at the metal objects—“it takes me all my time to remember the artist’s name. This one’s easy, it’s Smith—”

  “Why on earth did you take the job, then?” asked Charlotte. “I’m green with envy.”

  “Oh, well, a job’s a job. Besides, there’s a dear little flat upstairs that goes with it. Do come up and see it and we’ll have some coffee—”

  This sounded like a perfectly splendid idea, but Susan, always poking her nose into something, as Midge muttered, that wasn’t her business, said, “Can you leave all this valuable art unattended?”

  “Valuable!” said Maggie. “I reckon it’s about as valuable as a snowball in Eskimo-land. Who would steal it? Besides, I can lock the door.”

  “And what about the customers?” asked Susan. Honestly, thought Tessa, you’d think she didn’t want coffee. “Because we could stay and watch the gallery, couldn’t we, Midge? Couldn’t we, Tessa?” She looked eagerly round at them.

  “No, we couldn’t,” said Midge flatly. “I want some coffee and Tessa couldn’t watch a... a... cockroach, could you, Tessa love?”

  “Well I don’t know,” said Tessa, missing the point as usual, “I’ve got a weapon—” and she picked up the mop which Maggie had leaned against the ledge, and flourished it.

  “Mind the exhibits!” yelled Susan, and Tessa hurriedly lowered her weapon. “What are you doing with that mop anyway, Tessa? Where did you find it?” she demanded.

  Tessa flapped a vague hand. “Just there,” she said.

  Maggie laughed and took the mop. “I was mopping the floor when you came in,” she said. “I should really have been scrubbing it. This dark-red brick floor looks perfectly splendid, but it shows every speck of mud. Our Mrs. Mop went off to spend Christmas with her married daughter in Bromley; it’s too dreary for anything, doing the cleaning as well—”

  “As well as what?” said Susan.

  “As well as looking after this piffling exhibition. When Miss Hughes is here, at least I get a day off, but she has gone away for Christmas— You don’t know a nice reliable charlady who wants a job, do you?”

  They didn’t, so they all trooped upstairs and Maggie locked the door. “It’s all right, really,” she said to Susan, “there’s a bell outside, and believe me the customers don’t hesitate to use it. You’ll see, they’ll be hammering on the door in about two seconds, if they want in. And there’s one of those electronic devices that buzzes when they get in, so the exhibits will be quite safe—”

  Nobody, fortunately, seemed to want to come in, so the coffee party went on undisturbed. The little flat was charming, very gay and prettily furnished, and was soon filled with the heavenly aroma of freshly-ground coffee.

  “Real coffee!” said Charlotte, impressed. “Not instant coffee out of a tin?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind instant coffee,” said Maggie, “hut we were never allowed to have it. My great-grandfather was French, you see, so we’ve always had to make proper coffee. He was a painter, actually—”

  “Oh, what was his name?” said Charlotte. “Anybody famous?”

  Maggie laughed. “Zimmerli, naturally,” she said, “and no such luck. No, I’m afraid the poor old chap was a bit of a flop. He lived at the time of all those terrific artists you’ll have read about, Charlotte; Impressionists they’re called, Cezanne and Monet and that lot. He did have one claim to fame, he was a friend of Utrillo, in fact they worked at the same studio. Have you heard of Utrillo—?”

  Everyone had, even Tessa.

  “—yes, well, of course, he’s famous and his pictures are worth thousands, but poor old Zim’s—everybody called him Zim—just aren’t.”

  This was disappointing, as it would have been nice to meet the great-granddaughter of a famous painter. But after all, Susan thought, the coffee was fab and you couldn’t have everything. Eventually, after promising to come again, they tore themselves away from the cosy room and Maggie reluctantly supposed that she had better get back to her duties.

  Susan said, in her nosy but very good-hearted way, “If you don’t like art and painting and all that jazz, Maggie, what do you like? What do you want to be?”

  “A cook, actually,” said Maggie unexpectedly. “I must take after my grandfather. He came to London and started his own restaurant. And I was all set to go to Paris to learn properly but I don’t know now if I’ll be able to go—”

  However odd Susan might think Maggie’s choice of a career, it would be a terrible pity if she weren’t able to follow it. “Bet you that there’s not enough money since her grandmother died,” Susan whispered to Bill and Tessa as they stood at the black door and watched the others clatter down the spiral staircase.

  “Then there’s another job for you, Susan,” murmured Tessa. “Finding money for Maggie—”

  “Hey!” said Bill. “No need to put ideas in Susie’s head. She has to find a job for me first—”

  Susan stopped dead on the stairs, almost causing a major collision. Her eyes were riveted on something in the gallery below. “Och, your job’s no problem, Bill,” she said. She charged down the stairs and picked up the mop.

  “Maggie,” she said, “does it have to be a charlady? Would a charboy do instead?”

  “A choirboy?”

  “No, no, Bill has a nice voice, but he hasn’t made the choir yet—”

  Tessa tugged Midge’s sleeve. “Midge,” she said, “do you know what Susan is talking about?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Midge gloomily, and she was right; there was Susie calmly offering Bill’s services to Maggie as a charboy.

  Bill was disgusted. “Susie, no,” he said. “Scrub the floor!”

  “Oh, go on with you, Bill,” said Susie, “you’ve scrubbed the kitchen floor often when Mrs. Taylor has been off—”

  “Once or twice,” Bill admitted reluctantly. “But look at the size of our kitchen floor compared to this place! And there’s downstairs as well and Maggie’s flat!”

  “Goodness, Bill,” said Susan, “I’m surprised at you! You want a job, don’t you? And Maggie wants a charlady—”

  Tessa pulled Midge’s sleeve again. “What’s all the argument about?” she asked.

  Midge w
as grinning. “Bill’s going to scrub Maggie’s floor for her,” she said.

  “Oh, is that all,” said Tessa, disappointed. “I thought that Bill was going to sing—”

  Bill was looking positively hunted by this time, but Maggie, who seemed to think that it was all a great joke, was saying temptingly, “Five bob an hour, Bill, you’ll get through most of it in an hour. Shilling extra for doing my washing-up—”

  “There you are,” said Susan, “it’s money for old rope; you’ll make nearly three pounds by Christmas—”

  Maggie, still with a broad grin on her face, said apologetically, “Well, not quite, perhaps, we don’t have our Mrs. Mop on Sundays—”

  “And only an hour or so,” Susan was getting quite carried away, “you could get lots of other jobs! I bet we could fix you up all over the village, I bet people will be queuing up for you—”

  But Susan had gone too far and Bill rebelled. “Have you gone completely bonkers, Susie?” he said. “Spend all the hols charring?”

  “Not even for those poor little starving kids?”

  “No.”

  “Och, Bill—”

  “Susie, I won’t,” said Bill, goaded. “I—”

  “But you will come to me, Bill, won’t you?” said Maggie.

  “We-e-ell—” said Bill, weakening.

  “Bang-on,” said Susan. “And we’ll help you, Bill. You’ll get the cash, of course, but we’ll all come down and help you. You’ll be finished in no time—”

  “Finished is right,” murmured Midge.

  “What time do you want us to start in the morning?” Susan was saying and Maggie was still grinning and asking if eight o’clock would suit them? So that everything would be spick and span by nine, when the gallery opened?