Albert & Marie

Chapter Two - The Pawnbroker and the Trumpet

Chapter Two - The Pawnbroker and the Trumpet

Albert stood outside Mr Brown’s Pawnbrokers shop in his too-big hand-me-down clothes and stared at the three balls which hung from the sign.

A tap on the window brought Albert back to his senses. It was Mr Brown, an old man with a grey beard, waving at him to go around the side. Albert did as Mr Brown appeared to be telling him and found the shop owner waiting for him at the back door.

“Albert?” Mr Brown asked, though he knew very well who Albert was. “Come in, this is where we do most of our business.”

Albert looked around the stuffy hallway with piles of papers and junk.

“The front is for paying customers who are looking to buy something,” Mr Brown explained. “Those who want to sell come round the back, or they send their children.”

“Why?”

“My dear boy, it’s difficult to admit you have financial difficulties even if everyone already knows you are poor. We offer a service with discretion. There’s a mop and bucket over there, start by mopping the salesroom.”

Albert found the mop bucket, filled it with water from a pump in the muddy lane by the back door. He was careful to clean his shoes before going back in and soon set to work. Before long, he sensed someone was watching him and turned to see Mr Brown at the door.

“I should have given you a scrubbing brush,” he said. “Don’t let me stop you, I just wanted to know whether you realised how much you have landed on your feet.”

Albert did not know what Mr Brown was talking about, so he just kept mopping.

“This is the golden age for pawnbrokers, boy,” Brown continued. “We deal in hard goods and cash and that appeals to people with little money. They trust me more than they trust the bank. You know, there are those who say we prey on the desperate and uneducated, but we help them meet their basic needs. You missed a bit.”

Albert followed Mr Brown’s finger and re-mopped an area he thought his boss might have referred to.

“We are discreet benefactors to those in financial distress, we even have our own trade association. They call me their uncle.”

As he mopped, Albert tried to look around the saleroom. There was jewellery and silverware but many more of the objects were clothes, children’s boots, household objects and tools. He noticed a leather cap and a stick for sixpence each and thought he might ask his dad if he would let him save up some of his wages to buy them. Albert thought he would look very smart if he had a leather cap and stick like those.

“What you see here, boy, is only a fraction of our stock. The items in this room have been here over a year, there’s a storeroom upstairs with much more. People nearly always come back for their goods. Ah, here comes the first customer of the day.”

Albert just looked up in time to see a workman passing the window carrying a bundle of clothes. A moment later, he could hear Mr Brown talking to the man. He stopped mopping to listen.

“Here are your tools, Jim,” he overheard him say. “See you Saturday.”

The back door closed and Albert hurried back to his mopping before Mr Brown returned.

“There you go, what did I tell you?” Brown said as he appeared in the doorway. “There’ll be plenty more like Jim this morning. He pawns his Sunday best to get his tools back, on Saturday he’ll be back with his tools for his Sunday best. Hurry and finish, there’ll be a pile of these before long; I’ll show you where they all go.”

Sure enough, there was a steady stream of business at the back door as customers exchanged Sunday clothes for tools. Albert wondered whether anyone used the front door.

When he had finished mopping, Albert emptied the bucket outside and put it and the mop where Mr Brown showed him.

“Grab that pile of clothes, I’ll show you where we put them,” said Mr Brown, heading up a set of rickety wooden stairs.

Albert could barely lift the pile and only just negotiated the stairs. When he emerged at the top, he could see that shelves filled with many objects and boxes covered the whole of the first floor.

“Over here,” said Mr Brown, showing Albert a nearby shelf. “They’ll be back for these Saturday evening, so it’s best to keep them handy. I assume your father told you we rarely close before 8 pm on Saturday evening, sometimes as late as midnight.”

“Er... no, he didn’t,” said Albert, understanding that it didn’t make any difference; he would have to work whatever hours Mr Brown dictated.

“I’ll pay you 8 shillings a week; you’ll get your money when you finish on Saturday night.”

Albert nodded, he’d never earned money before and, although it wasn’t much money, the prospect was quite exciting, although he knew he would have to hand it straight to his mum for the housekeeping.

There was a knock on the back door and Mr Brown disappeared back down the stairs. Albert put the piles of clothes where he had been told and followed the old man. He found his boss taking a pile of bed sheets off a middle-aged woman.

“I’ll be back at the end of the week,” she said. “If he doesn’t drink his wages.”

She left and Mr Brown handed the bed sheets to Albert.

“Put these on the shelf by the clothes.”

“Why do they pawn their sheets or their clothes?” Albert asked.

“It’s that or the workhouse,” said Mr Brown. “Now get a move on. Today is our busiest day, along with Saturday.”

Albert believed what Mr Brown had said because, from that moment, there was a steady stream of customers and even a queue at the door at some times. He climbed and descended the stairs with bundles of clothes, shoes or jewellery, and Mr Brown asked him to fetch tools from the shelves upstairs. By the end of the morning, Albert felt shattered.

“If they keep swapping their belongings twice a week, how do you make any money?” Albert asked during a lull in which he was eating the roast beef sandwiches his mum had packed up for him.

“I charge a small amount of interest on each transaction, ha’penny a month for loans of up to two shillings and ha’penny for the ticket. That’s where the money’s made. I also charged extra for the clothes and boots I told you to hang, you hung them, didn’t you?”

Albert nodded.

“What if they don’t come back for their stuff?”

“We have to keep it for a year and seven days. After that, if it cost less than 10 shillings, I put it in the shop. Over ten shillings and they have to go for auction. You thought today was busy. Wait until Saturday, that’s when you’ll earn your money. Now, let’s see what you’ve done up there before another customer comes.”

Mr Brown had not even finished climbing the stairs when Albert sensed his displeasure.

“I thought I told you to hang those clothes?”

“I did.”

“That’s not how to hang clothes, boy, they’ll get all creased, that’s exactly what they’re paying us to avoid. Didn’t your mum show you how to hang clothes?”

Albert shrugged.

“Not a wonderful start,” Mr Brown mumbled. “Not a wonderful start at all.”

Albert returned home, disheartened that he had already upset Mr Brown on his first day. He didn’t let on to his mum or dad or his siblings that all had not gone well and was, for once, relieved there was a silence at the dinner table rule. He ate his cold beef with bubble and squeak and mustard pickle while trying to avoid eye contact with his family.

On Tuesday morning, Albert set off with another packed lunch of roast beef sandwiches and hoped that his day with Mr Brown would be more successful but a queue of women at the back door of the pawnbrokers, and Mr Brown glaring at him as he approached, dashed his hopes.

“Where have you been, boy? Take these receipts and get yourself upstairs to fetch these ladies’ irons.”

Albert took the receipts and did as he was told, rushing upstairs where he found a shelf of flat irons. Each one weighed around 4lbs each and he couldn’t carry them all at once so he took what he could and hurried down the stairs.

“Where are the rest, boy?” Mr Brown barked. “Put those down there and get yourself back upstairs and fetch the rest.”

Carrying as many irons as he could, Albert returned down the stairs, trying not to fall, and deposited them next to Mr Brown.

“Be careful, boy. You’d better not scratch any.”

Albert thought most of them looked scratched as it was.

“Well, don’t just stand there, take these upstairs and make sure you crease nothing.”

Mr Brown was pointing to a pile of clothes and more shoes. Albert took them upstairs and tried to hang them as best as he could, but it was no use. When Mr Brown came upstairs, he shouted at Albert again for not hanging the clothes right. Albert tried to watch to learn what he had done wrong, but he just got shouted at again for standing around.

“Mop the saleroom floor before any customers arrive.”

Albert went downstairs and noticed Mr Brown had left the back door half open so, once he had returned from the water pump with a filled mop bucket with water, he closed the door.

He was halfway through mopping the saleroom when he heard Mr Brown’s shouts again. When he turned around, he saw Mr Brown standing in the doorway.

“Did you close the door, boy?” he snarled. “How are we meant to get customers?”

“I thought you’d left it open by mistake.”

“Mistake? You’re the mistake. The door must always stay half open,” his voice became a low theatrical whisper. “Look! There’s one now.”

Albert turned and saw a man.

“Don’t let him see you are watching him,” Mr Brown warned. “He is examining one of the old garnet brooches in the window. He’ll do that for a minute or two. Look at his affected eagerness, as if he contemplated making a purchase. Look away, boy. He is looking round to make sure that no-one is watching him. Here he comes.”

The man slinked into the shop.

“That’s enough mopping,” Mr Brown whispered. “Empty the bucket out the back, you’re unnerving him.”

Albert did as he was told and, when he returned, the man had gone and Mr Brown was holding a set of chess pieces.

“We are the difference between food for that man’s wife and children and empty pockets and bare cupboards. He just needed a little money to keep things going till next pay day. We make sure he has shelter, warmth and something to eat. Some say we encourage improvidence and unthriftiness, but I would like the philanthropists that want to shut us to explain how they would offer the service we do. Take this upstairs and put it with the others.”

Upstairs, Albert found a shelf with several chess sets, watches, silk handkerchiefs, snuffboxes, penholders, brooches, rings, old spoons, prayer books, two violins, three flutes and there, in the corner, a trumpet. Not a cornet, but a trumpet. Albert stared at the instrument with longing and was about to reach out to it when...

“Boy! Come down here! You’re not touching anything, are you?”

“No, Mr Brown, coming.” Albert rushed to the stairs, leaving the trumpet behind.

That evening, his mum had prepared cold beef with bubble and squeak and mustard pickle again, but Albert didn’t mind. It was comfort food after what had been another difficult and long day. Even his parents had noticed that they hadn’t had to remind him to be quiet at the dinner table. They must have thought that a good day’s work was doing him good after years of messing around and getting into trouble at school.

The rest of the week progressed the same, Albert trying not to mess things up and Mr Brown finding fault with almost everything he did. Every time Mr Brown asked him to go upstairs to the storeroom, Albert would take an envious look at the trumpet on its shelf and, frequently he wanted to pick it up and try it out but on every occasion, and quite against his impulsive nature, he resisted.

“I must have been off my chump to agree to take you on,” said Mr Brown when he caught Albert daydreaming over the trumpet.

As he chomped on the dripping sandwiches his mum had sent for his lunch, Albert felt there was no pleasing Mr Brown.

“You should consider yourself lucky, boy,” his employer reprimanded him on seeing his sullen expression. “You could be up a chimney, no you’re too big, well down the pit, anyway. At least this work is relatively clean and there’s a future in pawn broking.”

‘Not for me,’ thought Albert. ‘I won’t last that long and even if I did; he’d have me out on my ear before sixteen so he could pay some other poor apprentice boy a pittance.’

Albert’s father came to meet him and had a brief chat with Mr Brown to see how Albert was getting on.

“To be honest, John, he is making poor progress and is troublesome,” complained Mr Brown. “I only took him on as a favour to you.”

Albert’s dad knew this was not true, but he humoured the old man.

“Give him more time, d**k. I’m sure he’ll work out, we’ve seen improvements at home.”

“Don’t worry about old d**k,” Albert’s dad reassured him, on the way home, after Albert had told his story of trying to please his boss.

“But I can’t seem to do anything right.”

“In all the years I’ve known d**k, he’s always been complaining about something. Come on, your mother’s making meat pudding, if it’s anything like yesterday’s stew, we’re in for a real treat.”

Albert tried to follow his dad’s advice to take everything Mr Brown said with a pinch of salt and he felt he was attempting to please his employer, but still he found himself on the receiving end of the old man’s complaints.

Friday was quiet, so Mr Brown had Albert dusting and cleaning the entire shop to prepare for Saturday, which he said was the busiest day.

He was not wrong. By late afternoon there was a crowd of women at the back door, chatting and gossiping as they waited for their bundles. Albert worked late that day, taking tools and flat irons upstairs and returning with bundles of clothes and shoes. With each trip he glanced at the trumpet but resisted his urges until the end of the day when Mr Brown was busy downstairs packing up. Albert had put the last of the iron’s and tools away and had fetched the last of the bundle of clothes.

Albert looked towards the stairs, then back at the trumpet and then at the upstairs window which overlooked the street. He picked up the trumpet, felt the weight in his hands and examined the shiny brass. He walked over to the window, opened it up and sat on the ledge. Glancing once more towards the top of the stairs, Albert directed the horn of the trumpet outside and tried a few notes.

The sound was bright, sharp and clear, different to the cornet he played in the Boys Brigade, which produced a softer and mellower sound.

“Play us a tune,” someone on the high street shouted.

Albert smiled and gave the best rendition he could of The Bay of Biscay. By the time he finished, a crowd had gathered. They clapped and cheered. Emboldened by his audience, he brought the trumpet to his lips again and belted out The Spotted Cow.

When he had finished, he realised the high street was full of people clapping and cheering, all but one, Mr Brown.

“Put that back, get your stuff and go,” he yelled. “You’re fired.”