The Fancy (14 page)

Mr. Wrigley was standing on his heels, jingling the keys in his pocket, which he indicated salient points to his guest. They had to be very salient for him to know them. Bob Condor hovered assiduously, ready to turn a nut or hand a bearing.

“What’s this do then?” asked the boy with the limp, picking up the dual drive casing. His voice was like his hair—absolutely right.

“Well go on.” The Manager stepped back. “Ask the girls anything you want to know. Talk to them. That’s what you’re here for. isn’t it—not to talk to me?” He had had his hour of holding forth.

So Sheila had to come forward and tell him, conscious of his eyes
on her dirty, broken nails, and that she was making a fool of herself. Her explanation got more and more involved until it trailed off limply with : “Well, it’s called the dual drive because it sort of drives two things, you see.” She had never imagined talking to him for the first time like this, with Mr. Wrigley benevolently critical, Bob Condor hovering like an anxious exhibitor, the girls on the bench staring and giggling and herself red to the hair and with a vocabulary of about three words. He was very polite, but his questions were awkward enough to be deliberate.

“What two things does it drive?” he asked earnestly, as if the key to life were in her answer.

“Well, the constant speed and the V.P.” She knew that.

“V.P.?”

“The—er, the—er——” The word would not come.

“Oh all the same. Ian along Sheila, Sheila, what’s the matter with you?” broke in Bob Condor. “She really knows the unit very well. She——” he turned to Mr. Wrigley, explaining her away.

“Oh yes, of course,” she said, “the variable pitch——”

“Oh … “went Bob Condor, and even Mr. Wrigley began : “But surely——”

“I mean the—yes, the variable pitch—no I mean the vacuum pump, I mean——” They had got her so muddled she didn’t know what she meant.

At last the ordeal was over and she could sit down on her stool with her palms against her burning cheeks. It was over, yes, but so were her illusions. If he had ever had any interest in her it must be stone dead by now.

He was at the far end of the bench now, talking to Dinah, who was making him laugh. They didn’t seem to be talking about the engine at all. Dinah cared nothing for Mr. Wrigley, nor for Mr. Canning or Mr. Kyles themselves, presuming they existed. She was perfectly at home and so was the boy with the limp. He never once looked back to Sheila’s end of the bench.

Edward, who always lurked unobtrusively when authority was about, now came up rubbing his hands and said pleasantly : “Well, you had quite a little session, didn’t you? I hope you aired your knowledge. Who was it?”

“I don’t know.” Sheila shrugged her shoulders indifferently.

Edward laughed. “Look at old Dinah making her number!” He had an embarrassing habit of using service expressions and had been known to speak of an incorrect entry in a log book as “Duff Gen.”

Sheila went on filling in her report card. Well, that little episode was over. She would take care not to go in the third carriage from the end again on a Friday or a Tuesday.

Mr. Wrigley was getting restless. He usually reckoned to make the tour of the factory in half-an-hour, without lingering. In the preliminary
talk in his office, he always said : “Happy at their work? My dear sir, come and see for yourself. Talk to the girls ; ask ’em questions. I’m not afraid of what they’ll tell you,” confident that most people would be too unnerved by the din and the brawny feminine forearms and trousered bottoms in the Machine Shop and the bevy of grey overalls and sophisticated coiffures in the Inspection Shop, to take him at his word. Unabashed people like this young man upset the timetable. You couldn’t hustle them too much in case they thought you were trying to hurry them past something you didn’t want them to see.

“We’ll go into the Fitting Shop now,” he said.

Mr. Gurley snapped up the little window of his office. “Oh God, the Old Man,” he said to someone inside. “I suppose he thinks he’s keeping up morale,” and snapped the window down again.

“We’ll go into the Fitting Shop now,” repeated Mr. Wrigley, taking the young man by the arm and easing him down the gangway, jingling his keys on their chain like a jailer doing the rounds.

“Excuse me a sec.,” said his guest, “there’s just one question I’d like to——” He broke away and limped round the end of the bench, surprisingly quickly. Sheila wondered if he could see the breast pocket of her overall jumping to the thudding of her heart.

“I say,” he said, loudly enough for everyone to hear “you’ll,” he saidan along think me an awful idiot, but would you mind showing me that dual what’s—it again? I haven’t got it quite straight.”

“Of course not,” she mumbled, pulling the dual drive tray towards her. He picked up the casing and bent down to scrutinise it. “Look,” he said in a low voice, “you’ll probably think this awful cheek, but I feel I know you quite well, because I’ve seen you in the train. I’ve always wanted to speak to you and never dared. I didn’t like to say anything before with those parties hanging about, but I’ve been looking at you twice a week for months, though I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed.” He was fingering the dual drive all the time, pretending to be discussing it.

“Well, I don’t know.” Sheila picked up a gear, keeping up the pretence. She suddenly felt very cool and mistress of the situation. “Well, I don’t know,” she said casually. “I thought you looked rather familiar. I suppose I must have seen you without noticing it.”

Mr. Wrigley was waiting in the aisle, swinging his keys in a circle and tapping the toe of one shiny fat shoe. “Look, I must go,” said the boy with a limp, “but next Tuesday, do notice me. Come and sit by me ; I get so sick of that dreary journey. And I say—wear that red jacket.”

You were not supposed to go and wash your hands until five minutes before lunchtime. “The Toilet” was three hundred yards away from the Inspection Shop and contained six basins for about sixty girls.
There were three alternatives : You could wipe your hands on a piece of rag and try to pretend that your lunch didn’t taste of oil ; you could run the three hundred yards among the sheds, fight your way in among the backs lined up at the basins like a litter of feeding pigs, and have a quick scrub with a hairless nailbrush and a swill in someone else’s dirty water before it was time to run back again ; or you could sneak out before the lawful time and risk finding Bob Condor stationed outside the door, behaving as if the War was lost or won according to whether you entered the Toilet.

You could always tell when it was approaching twelve o’clock without looking at the time. The Inspection Shop was still apparently working, but restlessness stirred in the air. Girls had risen from their stools, powder puffs appeared, surreptitiously or defiantly, the crank-case section were throwing spanners into the tool chest. George, who tested cylinder blocks for leaks, shut off his high pressure steam and the sudden silence made you realise for the first time that the noise had been in your ears all morning. People who had washed touched things daintily so as not to get dirty again, overalls were untied, shoes changed, bags and gloves came out of drawers. Charlie and his women, who had been advancing relentlessly down the centre aisle behind a trolley had suddenly disappeared, leaving the trolley stranded, a curly oil pipe sticking up from a tray on top like a surprised eyebrow. The whole shop was fidgeting, every ear tensed for the first impact of the clapper on the bell.

Bob Condor occasionally had a pogrom and pounced on one or two people for stopping work before the bell, but it was like trying to step on locusts in a swarm. He could not hope to have any effect on the universal restlessness. Nothing short of a machine gun could stop the swaying towards the corner where the coats hung, the furtive steps that burst into a mad rush as the bell jangled and everybody flew, struggling into coats and tearing the lining, jamming on hats and hareing off down the track with swinging belts and flapping shoe-laces.

There was no time to stop and wonder why you“You know blyh were running. Once outside in the road, you might slow down and saunter, or even stop and chat, but you always came out of the place as if you were running for your life instead of your dinner.

Sheila, Paddy and Dinah galloped out of the clockhouse with wild hair, then pulled up and stood for a moment irresolute.

“Canteen?” Paddy made a face. “Not after that fish yesterday.”

“King’s Head?”

“No,” said Dinah, “I couldn’t hold any more malt after last night. How about Mike’s?”

“I’m sick of sausages,” said Sheila. “Milkers then,” said Dinah starting off, “I’ve got to go to the shops anyway.”

They walked along the main road to the Milk Bar, which stood in a line of shops under a block of modern flats. The shops had a here-today-and-gone-tomorrow
look about them. They were always changing hands. A Delicatessen Store would go bankrupt and become almost overnight a teashop, which having quietly run through a lady’s life’s savings would emerge as a tailor and dressmaker with half the window blacked and Ladies’ Own Materials Made Up.

Only the Chain Store Grocery was constant, and the Milk Bar, which was well patronised by the neighbouring factories. Canning Kyles came out earlier than most, so the three girls were able to get stools at the counter.

“What’s on, Lou?” Dinah asked the sharp little ginger-haired girl who darted up and down behind the counter like a shuttle. She paused to snatch an aluminium cylinder out of the mixing machine. “Cornish Pasties—hot,” she said, putting a head on the Horlicks as she poured in into the glass, “or you can have processed egg and mashed.”

“No chips?”

“No chips.” She darted away. When she had paused in her flight long enough to give them coffee and sandwiches, they sat with feet tucked under them, elbows on the counter, savouring the moment of relaxation that made it more difficult to go back and click into the rhythm of work. Three youths in overalls came in from the electric bulb factory and went straight to the automatic gramophone. Guffawing and shoving each other, they put a penny into the middle of a rising sun, the glass box lit up revealing a pastoral backcloth, and the turntable revolved among a bed of little green marbles.

“My Momma done told me,” said the box.

“When I was in knee pants,” sobbed one of the youths, making a few tentative jitterbug passes.

“Oh that tune again!” Dinah looked over her shoulder and caused a certain amount of scuffling and tittering.

“The Bloo-ooes—in the night,” throbbed the box.

Sheila stared happily at her reflection in the mirror beyond Lou’s flying head. It was Tuesday. She had been bursting to talk about it all morning. “I say,” she said suddenly, putting down her cup and turning sideways to face the other two, “remember that chap who came round with old Wrigley—last week or the week before or sometime.” She toned down her voice to casualness.

“Which one?” said Dinah. “The old Daddy who called Freda Girlie?” She laughed at the memory of it.

“No, that young one—you know. He talked quite a lot to you —with a limp.”

“Oh that one. Yes, I remember. Am cleared his throat and said : p alongusing bloke.”

“Yes, well, wasn’t it funny, I met him in the train this morning. We had quite a long talk.”

“What a time of day to pick anyone up,” said Paddy. “How could you be bothered?”

“Oh no, it wasn’t that. He——” She decided to suppress the
first part of their acquaintance. “He recognised me from coming round the factory. And what d’you think? He works on a news-paper. He came down to get a story on ‘The Girls Behind the Planes.’ It’s going to be in on Friday. I’m longing to see it.”

“Well, if he puts in what I told him, it ought to make hot reading,” said Dinah. “Thank God for that,” she added, as the automatic gramophone whirred and stopped. The three youths scuffled before it, reading the labels of its repertoire.

“Are you boys having anything?” asked Lou severely, appearing opposite them. “You can’t come in here and play that thing without ordering something.”

*

If
Kitty
had realised how thick the fog was, she would have left her bicycle in the car park and walked home. It had not seemed so bad when she left the factory ; it was darker than usual and the air was full of raw, swirling vapours, but she had been able to see her way among the crowd coughing up the Estate Road and telling each other what a rotten night.

sauerkraut barrelms the factory?”">
But half-way between Canning Kyles and her home in Barnardo Road, the semi-circle that left Collis High Street at Boots’s corner and came back to it at the Public Library, Kitty coasted down a hill into a patch of fog so dense that she began to ring her bell wildly in alarm, jammed on her brakes as an enormous figure loomed right ahead, and fell into the road with the bicycle on top of her. The enormous figure turned out to be a foreigner in a tent-like overcoat, who helped her to her feet and asked her the way to Blen-hime Cressent, of which she had never heard, even on a clear night. She found the edge of the pavement and began to wheel her bicycle cautiously along, making wide detours at lamp-posts, the foreigner keeping step in the road on the other side of the bicycle.

“Which way are you going?” he asked. “If I may walk with you? I have no light.” She could not see his face ; there was only the vast blurred bulk of him, the plop of his feet and his voice, which she was sure was German.

“I don’t think I’m going your way,” she said. Her mother was convinced that rape stalked the mild streets of Collis Park. “I’m going to the High Street.”

“Blen-hime Cressent?” he insisted. “Number thirty-four. Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell-Steed. You know them?” He couldn’t believe she did not. Mrs. Maxwell-Steed was a so cultured lady with two sons, one in India and one in Ireland in the Unti-Tanks, and a daughter who was married to an M.P., whom, of course, Kitty must know. All this he imparted in his suspicious accent, while they were fumbling their way through the deepening fog. It was like walking into a wall that retreated always a foot from your nose, and instead of penetrating it, Kitty’s bicycle lamp was thrown back on itself. Her hands and feet were frozen, and her nose was beginning to run, but it was better to sniff than take off a glove to get out your handkerchief. Mrs. Maxwell-Steed’s friend was making unpleasant snorting noises to keep the fog out of his passages.