Midnight is a Place (25 page)

"I wish to work here," said Anna-Marie in her best English.

"You're too little."

"Others are smaller," said Anna-Marie, who had noticed a couple of girls busy sweeping up wool waste in the yard with brushes and dustpans. "I have eight years. And I am clever."

"Cool, too," said the manager, looking at her with slightly more favor. "Oh, well, I daresay we can use you. Got your mother's consent?"

"
Je n'ai pas
—I have not a mother."

"Father, then?"

"My father is dead also."

"Nobody to make a fuss if you fall under a truck, eh?" said the manager agreeably. "All right, we'll try you. Start as a claw-clean - er." He lifted his voice and bawled, "Rose Sproggs!"

A woman came hurriedly across the yard, threading her way between the wagons loaded with bales of wool. She was thin and anxious-looking, somewhat hard-featured, with her hair done up in a kerchief; it was hard to guess her age, but she might have been somewhere between eighteen and twenty-five.

"Here's a new cleaner for you," said the manager. "What's your name?" to Anna-Marie.

"
Je m'appelle
—I am call Anna-Marie Minetti."

"Too long. We'll call you Anna. Take her and show her what to do, Rose."

"Reet, Mester Gravestone."

"How much do you pay me?" said Anna-Marie, ignoring the impatient beckoning of Rose.

"Shilling a day."

"Is not much."

"Take it or leave it. That's all kids get."

"Coom on," said Rose. "I haven't all day to listen to thee argue."

Anna-Marie followed, shrugging.

Rose looked her up and down and said, "Pigtails'll 'ave to coom off."

"
Quoi?
"

Rose led the way to a small workshop at the yard end where crates were made and minor repairs carried out.

"Loan us thy shears, Jim," she called to a man in a carpenter's apron and, without more ado, cut off Anna-Marie's braids.

"They might get caught oop in t'machineiy, ye see, luv," she explained, not unkindly. "Better lose thy pigtails than thy head. Onyway it's a rule. Want to keep them?" She handed the two small black braids to Anna-Marie, who silently put them in her pocket. "Now tha'll need an overall; well, tha can have Janey Herdman's; she got roon down by a troock. It's in the combing shed—this way. Follow me, and look sharp; the troocks runs all over, and they doosn't wait for thee to step aside."

Although Lucas had talked to her a little about the factory and given her a vague idea of its workings, Anna-Marie soon became confused as she followed Rose among the dirty black buildings, sometimes through narrow passages, sometimes across wide yards, or through workshops filled with clanging machinery.

"Right," said Rose as, having equipped Anna-Marie with a short calico overall that tied at the back, she led the way down a long narrow gallery.

"Now, this 'ere's one o' the combing sheds. These things are called claws, see, an' they comb the wool. An' it's your job to keep cleaning them out, for they soon gets chocked oop wi' all the dirt and scrubble that's in the raw wool."

All the way along the wall facing them were a series of curved heavy metal claws, something like those of a claw hammer, but about three feet long. They were rising and falling the whole time in continuous succession, giving the effect of a giant piano having scales played on it by an invisible performer. The claws fell onto a mass of wool, which was stretched over a rotating drum underneath a grating.

"Now, this is what tha does," said Rose. She climbed on to the grating, which was a couple of feet above floor level, and walked along it, expertly pulling the wool waste out of each pair of claws as it rose up, with the action of somebody pulling hair out of a comb. "Do that, see?—walk all along the shed—it's twenty yards—then coom back an' start agen."

"Nothing else?"

"Nay, there's nowt else to a claw-cleaner's job. Claws gets chocked oop reet quick. I'll pop back from time to time to see how th'art getting on—I'm the overseer, sithee. Dinner break's at noon, has tha brought soom crib?"

"
Pardon?
" said Anna-Marie, who found it hard to follow; Rose had a very broad accent, and many of the words she used were unfamiliar.

"Has tha brought owt to eat? Oh, well, tha can have a morsel o' mine; anoother day, best bring a bite o' bread an' cheese. You can eat it down on the floor there. Now, the Friendly Lads'll be sure to be roond soon enow, pay them, or they'll be making trooble for thee."

"Who are the Friendly Lads?" asked Anna-Marie, though she had a fair guess.

"'Tis the Friendly Society. They look after you if you're sick, an' they argues about higher wages wi' the chaps as roons th'mill, but mostly what they doos is collect money from the folk as doos the work. Tha cannot argue wi' them, or they'll shoov you into the mincer."

"Are they the same ones who collect up at the infirmary?"

"Aye, it's different collectors but the same society. Now I must be away to the other combing sheds. Don't let the claws get clogged, or the machine'll stick, and Mester Gravestone'11 give us the rough side o' his toongue; besides, it's dangerous."

And Rose jumped nimbly off the grating and departed.

Faced with the endlessly rising and falling row of claws, Anna-Marie had a moment of panic—if only they would stop for a moment, just so that she could look at them calmly. But they did not stop, and so she climbed up on to the grating and began to move along it, as Rose had done, snatching the waste from each pair of claws as it came up.

She soon discovered that unless she nipped out the waste matter with great speed and judgment, her fingers were pinched against the next pair of claws coming up—the snatch had to be made at exactly the right moment. It took her some time to gauge the proper speed and sequence of movements; before she had got it right, her fingers had become stiff and black with bruises. Even after she had learned the motion, it did not do to let her attention slip for a second. Rose had walked along the row quite casually, with her eyes on the door or the floor, talking over her shoulder while she pulled out the waste, but if Anna-Marie took her eyes off her hands for a moment, she was in trouble. Moreover the waste that was picked out by the claws tended to be full of prickles and splinters, which also jabbed into her fingers and made them very sore.

By the time a whistle blew, presumably for dinner, Anna-Marie had decided that it would be hard to find a more stupid or disagreeable way of earning one's living. Picking up cigar ends was far preferable. The cleaning could easily be done better some other way, she thought; if one could devise a pair of wooden tongs, say, held together by a pin, perhaps with leather tips—

"Hey, oop, lass!" called Rose. "Tha can knock off, now. Twenty minutes for crib."

Anna-Marie was glad to stop. As well as her aching fingers, she was having trouble with her eyes, and was obliged to shut them for a couple of minutes. They were so dazzled by the endlessly flowing rise and fall of the claws that she felt quite giddy; it was a relief to sit down on the floor. Another girl called Biddy hopped up onto the grating and continued cleaning out the claws; Biddy, it seemed, had already eaten.

Rose kindly offered Anna-Marie a share of her coarse Yorkshire cheese and brown bread; but Anna-Marie felt shy about taking someone else's food, and in any case did not feel very hungry. She preferred to lean back against the wall, sucking the splinters out of her fingers.

"Ey, hey," said Rose in a low tone, looking along the shed. "I knew Mester Moneygrubber'd not be long smelling thee oot."

A man in a wicker wheelchair was approaching them down the narrow gangway. "New helper, then?" he said to Rose.

"Ah," she replied without enthusiasm, and, to Anna-Marie,
"This 'ere's Mester Bludward, as roons the Friendly Society, an' that's Newky Shirreff, as collects th'dues. 'Appen tha'll not have any brass on thee as yet?"

"Brass?" Anna-Marie was puzzled.

"Dibs, mint sauce, cash."

"No I have not."

"Then I'll lend it thee."

"Twopence a week if tha's oonder twelve," put in the little man, Newky Shirreff, sidling forward with his collecting bag.

"But I do not at all wish to join your
soctiété,
" said Anna-Marie crossly. "Why should I be obliged to pay you twopence a week when I am only paid a shilling a day?"

"Sharp little tyke, bain't she?" said Newky Shirreff, looking at Anna-Marie with disfavor.

"Ah, she knaws nowt as yet." Rose dropped two pennies into his bag and contrived to give Anna-Marie a fierce pinch as she did so. "She'll soon learn oor ways."

"What's thy name, lass?" Bludward studied Anna-Marie coldly.

"She's called Anna," said Rose. "An' she's farin' oop to be a reet handy little claw-cleaner."

The two men moved off along the gangway, and Rose, waiting till they were out of sight, hissed, "Niver get on t'wrong side o' that pair, luv! Tha wants to watch thy tongue wi' them worse nor wi' the bosses!"

"But why?"

"I telled thee! Cross Bob Bludward, an', like as not, tha'll finish oop oonder t'carpet press, or sliced in two by t'shoottle. Bludward's got more say-so in t'mill than t'manager hisself, ony day."

"Well I think he is not at all a nice man and I do not think this place is well arranged," said Anna-Marie with a frown. But at that moment the whistle blew for the end of the dinner break, and she had to go back to her claw-cleaning.

Anna-Marie arrived home at the icehouse that evening considerably before Lucas, for he had stopped to spend twopence of his earnings at the public bathhouse, a large draughty stone building in one corner of the Market Square which offered a halfpenny wash, penny shower, twopenny cold bath, or threepenny hot. Lucas had also arranged to leave his sewer clothes in a chest behind Mr. Hobday's stall, and keep a spare set there for home wear; he did not wish to fill Lady Murgatroyd's refuge with a smell of drains.

He had stopped in the market, as well, to buy eggs, cheese, and other groceries. By the time he arrived home, the baby had been fed and put to bed. Lady Murgatroyd and her granddaughter were busy experimenting with some pieces of wood and leather, out of which they seemed to be constructing a giant pair of sugar tongs.

"What's that for?" inquired Lucas, and then he exclaimed, "Why, Anna-Marie—what's happened to your hair? And what did you do to your fingers? Did you burn them in the fire?"

"Oh, it is nothing," said Anna-Marie. "Only the claw hammers at the Mill. When I shall be more
habile,
it will not happen. Especially if I can use these
pincettes
that
Grand'mère
is making."

"At the
MILL?
"

Lucas was most upset to hear that Anna-Marie had taken employment as a claw-cleaner at the Mill. No argument would change his opinion that this was an extremely undesirable arrangement, and that Anna-Marie would be better doing almost anything else.

"Its a bad place," he kept saying. "It's dangerous. You don't know the half of it yet!"

Secretly Anna-Marie was much inclined to agree with him but she was certainly not going to let him have the final say. "Ah, bah, it is not so bad! Besides, what else can I do? Nobody else employs persons of my age,
Grand'mère
says so."

"You could take in sewing. You could work as a servant in someone's house."

"
Merci de rien!
If I worked as a servant I should have to live with the people—who might be very disagreeable—and I should never see you or
Grand'mère.
And I do not like to sew."

"You sewed your pink dress."

"Only because it had to be done."

"Eat, and stop arguing, the two of you," said Lady Murgatroyd. "As soon as the weather improves, Anna-Marie may prefer to work on the dust heap. And in the evenings I will teach her to sing and play the flute; I am sure that in time she will be able to help me give my music lessons. And you, Lucas, should perhaps think of trying presently for a job on the
Blastburn Post,
if writing is what you like to do best. Nobody would wish to work either in Murgatroyd's Mill or in the sewers for longer than they had to. Only, while you are there, learn all you can!"

"But some people will always have to work there," objected Anna-Marie, taking a bite of onion tart. "There will always be mills and sewers."

"Well! Then you must think of how to make them more enjoyable for the people who work there."

Anna-Marie burst out laughing. "There will have to be a law that
tout le monde
must pour a bottle of perfume down the drain holes every day! As for the Mill, I think it would be better if there is not one. I do not see the need for it, me. People could make their own carpets, like
Grand'mère.
"

"But it gives work to many," said Lucas.

"Well, they must earn their money somewhere else,
figure-toi.
"

"Isn't it time you went to the infirmary?" said Lady Murgatroyd. "I have made a custard and a cheesecake for you to take to Mr. Oakapple."

Anna-Marie was dying to see Mr. Oakapple. After the story about her father and the ambush, she felt that she would look at the tutor with new eyes. On the short drive down the hill she related to Lucas all that her grandmother had told her. He seemed to listen intently enough, but he was very silent; in fact he had been rather silent ever since he came home. Anna-Marie had the feeling that there was something weighing on his mind which, for reasons of his own, he had decided not to tell her. On the way back I will ask him what is the matter, she decided. It is not right that he should not share his worry.

When they reached the hospital, they were somewhat disconcerted to be told by one of the white-capped Sisters that Mr. Oakapple's bed was required for another patient.

"We should be obliged if you could take him home today," the Sister said.

The request was politely phrased, but it was plain that they really had no choice in the matter. When they reached the ward they found that in fact Mr. Oakapple was already up and dressed in a suit of somewhat ill-fitting secondhand clothes that had been provided for him. He was sitting in a chair and looked deathly tired and shaky, as if he ought to be back in bed.