The Unfinished Tale Of Sophie Anderson (7 page)

I pulled up outside the car park to open the gate. It'd started raining and so after rooting in my bag for the keys to the building I ran to the lock and opened them as fast as I could. It wasn't far off Christmas and it was still bloody raining. Where was the snow? I drove the car into my usual space, gathered my stuff and went inside. The routine of unlocking the door, turning on the lights, tapping in the alarm code, clocking on, it was all medicine for the queasiness in my stomach and the pounding in my head. Before long I was sat in my chair with my feet up, nursing a cup of tea and feeling my eyes getting heavier under the bar heater.

I was shocked wide awake by the bell. I was getting sick of being woken up now. Just as I was stood I realised that there was something on my bench, something that hadn't been there before. It was a small paper parcel and it smelled delicious. It was a double sausage and egg sandwich.

"You beautiful thing," I said to it as I began unwrapping the grease paper. Then it dawned on me that Tom had sneaked in while I was asleep - what had he seen? Me sat there with my mouth open, drooling? Snoring? As much as I'd have liked to think I looked like Sleeping Beauty when I slept, I had a feeling I took on a less graceful demeanour while nodding and I didn't like the idea of him having to see it. The shame didn't take away from the taste of the sandwich and I ate it as quickly as I could. He was right - it was an awesome cure to a hangover.

"Good morning, sleepy," he said, walking into my bay.

"Morning. Thanks by the way," I replied, popping the last bite into my mouth.

"Don't mention it. I needed one myself."

"Rough night?" I noticed now that he looked pale and there were some seriously dark rings around his bloodshot eyes.

"Yeah. Only got in a few hours ago - I reek of booze. I even got the bus to work."

"That must have been special."

"Have you ever had to take the bus to work?" he asked. I shook my head. "Well don't - there's some weird people on them. One guy just sat in the seat across from me, staring at me. It freaked me out."

The rest of the staff began working - grinders started growling across the shop floor and someone turned on the press brake with its distinctive click-click-hum. "I'd better get on," he said.

"Yeah." Tom made to leave but I stopped him with a soft touch on his arm. "Thanks, by the way."

He smiled, nodded and left. I let out the breath I'd been holding and looked at the pile of Medicare trays that had appeared on my bench. Frank was on his way with a trolley-load more.

"Good morning, Sophie," he said, wheeling them in.

"Morning, Frank. You've been busy!"

"Yeah. The boss wants them out this week so he can invoice them. Must need the money to pay the wage bill."

"Great, isn't it?" I said. "Makes you feel really special when he hasn't got enough money to do something basic like pay his staff."

"When you've been doing the job as long as me you learn to accept these things."

"How long now?" I asked. He rattled it off to the nearest hour. "I'm impressed. Do you work it out every day?"

"Sophie," he said, fixing me with those tired eyes. "I think of nothing else. Me and the wife were looking at property over there last night. The prices are just so much better than over here. I feel sorry for people your age who are having to try and live here. It's a joke."

I understood Frank - he'd been a wage slave for longer than me and he'd been ground down by it, almost to nothing and his only chance of a decent life lay in his dream home in some foreign country. It certainly wasn't my dream but I couldn't blame him for having it. Hell, what did I have? I'd been told from day one that life was about a husband, a house and a home full of kids. Renting was dead money. I must have three children, not just one. I must also have a full time job, preferably one in high management. I must also keep my beautiful trim figure and use a tanning bed. I must have a gym membership. I must go on holiday to exotic places every year. And on. And on. At least Frank had a dream that wasn't being broadcast to him 24/7 by the masses. He was allowed to get old and fat.

Feeling slightly morose, I started welding and managed to get a few more done before stopping to make another cup of tea. That's another thing about being a slave - you find joy in the most bizarre things. Such as a 'brew' - tea, coffee or any hot beverage. I never used to drink the stuff until I started working at Riley's but I soon realised that it was a way of taking a little break, of stopping work for a moment to get your head around things. On a bad day I would be in double figures, just breaking up the monotony of welding and welding and more welding. Of course, you got a lunch break, but these little slices of freedom could make all the difference in a working day.

I also learned that the art of 'brew making' was a ritual that had to be mastered in any job that required manual labour. Everyone had their preferences and even though my department had never subscribed to the 'brew up for the lads' policy of one person making a dozen cups, I knew that Frank liked to leave the teabag in his cup while he drank it and that Dave didn't take sugar in his weak coffee. I could drink either tea or coffee but because I liked coffee more I tended to drink it outside of work rather than get sick of the stuff by drinking loads of it there.

At lunch time I sat down and managed to get through some more of my book but my mind kept wandering to Tom. I found myself staring at the curtains, willing him to walk past because I hadn't seen him since the morning. Maybe he was hiding in his office, nursing his hangover. I hadn't got a legitimate excuse to go up to the next floor and walk past his office so that was out of the question. Plus it would feel kind of stalkerish. Instead I contented myself to eat my sandwich and focus on what the oversized Jack Reacher was doing.

Just before lunch ended, my phone began ringing. It was Mel.

"I think I'm dying," she groaned. "What the hell happened to me?"

"Do you really want to know?" I asked.

"I remember snogging some lad. I remember Tom. Oh god I think I'm..." I heard her rushing to the toilet, then the tell-tale splash of her throwing up, the rattle of the toilet roll holder being violently yanked. "Sorry."

"It's okay - I've already had my lunch."

"I think you need to come home. I need you here. This might be it for me and I want you to be here when I die."

"You're not going to die," I said, laughing. "There's some stuff in the medicine box."

"We have a medicine box?"

"Yeah, under the sink."

"Okay. Did you cop off with Tom?"

"NO!" I yelled a little to loudly. "I did not."

"I thought you were being a bit quiet in bed last night."

The bell for work to carry on rang and deafened me. "Is there something I can help you with because I need to get back to work, Mel?"

"Nah. Just come home as soon as you can. I need medical attention."

"See you later, Mel."

"You might. You might not."

I was still laughing when I put the phone back on my tool box. I didn't hear Tom come into may bay until he spoke.

"Is she still alive then?" he asked. I spun round and gasped.

"You're really getting good at this stalking thing, aren't you?" I said.

"Oh yeah. I just hide outside your bay all day and listen in. I even have a peep hole over in the corner." My eyes darted to where he was pointing and he burst out laughing. "I don't you know - it was a joke!"

"Just checking."

He walked past me and looked at the stack of trays already welded and arranged in a neat pile. I could see he was counting how many were done.

"Finished today?" he asked.

"Maybe first thing in the morning," I said.

"That'll do. He wants to send them this week."

"Yeah, Frank said the same."

"Franks taking too long to fold them. I'll have to go over and chivvy him up a bit. Next week they want double."

"Cracking the whip, eh?" I said.
Did I really just say that?
Tom grinned like he knew my thoughts.

"Perks of being in charge," he replied. Then he left my bay and suddenly it seemed easier to get on with my work. Maybe I just needed a few doses a day. A shot in the morning and one in the afternoon. A boost to take away the symptoms of the working woman's disease.

6.

Before I knew it the day had come to an end and we were all stood waiting for the bell - hands washed, bags packed, machines off. There was a rule at Riley's that you weren't supposed to wait for the bell beside the clocking machine but it was rarely enforced. Most of the time it was the machine shop who were the first to wash their hands and make the mad dash to clock out first but today it was Frank and Dave who were first in line.

"What's this about?" I asked. "Where are you two rushing off to?"

"I'm pissed off," said Frank, his card already in his hands and ready to swipe.

"How come?"

"Tom bollocked him for taking too long," said Dave.

"Really?"

"Yeah," said Frank. "Proper chewed me out over it. The guy's a dick."

I felt my face flush hot as if I were the one being talked about. Had Tom really had a go at him? I remembered him saying he was going to 'chivvy' him, but I hadn't thought he meant a good telling off. For some irrational reason I felt betrayed, like he'd had a go at me too. That was the thing about our department though - if one of us took some flak, we all felt it. Tom might as well have had a go at me.

"That seems bang out of order," I said. Another side of me - a much quieter one, pointed out that Frank was taking too long and maybe the bollocking was called for. I didn't really want to listen to that voice.

The bell rang and drowned out whatever was said after that. Then the stampede began. Swipe, run, swipe, run. Cars revving. The mad dash up the road. Home.

I sat in my car and let them leave and I realised I was feeling angry. It wasn't justified but I felt it none the less. I felt like going back inside and having a go at him, to try and defend Frank and point out how many years the guy had put into the company and how he deserved better. But I didn't. I started the engine and drove home, thinking about it all the way.

When I got in, Mel was sat on the settee under a duvet with a bottle of Evian next to her on the battered coffee table. She was scrolling through her phone and didn't even turn her head to look my way when I came in.
Friends
.

"How was your day?" she called as I threw my bag into my bedroom. It landed in a heap on top of a pile of dirty washing.

"Okay I guess," I said, heading to the kitchen. "Well no, it wasn't actually."

"Tell your Auntie Melanie. And don't bother with tea - it's on its way."

"What did you order? I'm on a diet, remember?"

"Geez, I thought you might have actually been grateful for me cooking for a change," she said.

"Cooking? Take out isn't cooking. What did you get?"

"A teeny-tiny pizza for you - the one you ordered last time, the one with barely anything on it but garlic. The details were still on my phone."

"Thanks," I said.

"The wine is here, just get a glass and come and sit down."

I did as my flat mate commanded and flopped into the chair while she leaned over to pour me a glass. It was full to the brim.

"You know that's a social faux pas, don't you?" she said, pointing at the glass.

"What is?"

"Filling the glass. You're only supposed to go to the first mark."

"I'll try to remember that one," I said, sipping the top so I didn't spill it down my uniform.

"Well, when Tom takes you out..."

"Hold on right there. After today I don't think I will be." Mel gave a look of mock horror and clamped her hand over her mouth.

"Say it ain't so!" she cried.

"It was going so well," I began. "He brought me a sandwich this morning for my hangover. Left it on my bench for me when I woke up."

"You were asleep?" she asked.

"Napping. Kind of. Well anyway, he did that and I was really chuffed, you know. Then he came and saw me in the afternoon and I started thinking in that kind of direction."

"Vague, but go on."

"Well then, just before going home, I saw Frank and he was upset. Apparently Tom had shouted at him for taking too long with the Medicare job. I mean, can you believe it? Frank isn't far from retirement as it is, he doesn't need some young lad telling him to pick up the pace like that. I was proper annoyed at him for doing that. So now he's off my list."

"What list?"

"Any list."

Mel was smiling and she sat upright to give me the benefit of her '
intense
' stare. "Sophie - Tom is your boss. He was doing his job and you've told me before that this Frank is slow on his good days. Isn't this the guy who's retiring to Poland or something? The same one who has a countdown to his leaving do?" I nodded. "Then Tom has every right to have a go at him - that's his job."

"Yeah well, it just seemed so unfair," I protested but by now I knew I'd lost the argument.

"Now look, I agree, it does seem a bit unfair..." There was a knock at the door and she got up. "Just hold on."

She found her purse and went out of the flat, coming back a moment or two later with four pizza boxes and a bottle of coke. She placed them on the coffee table and sat back down.

"As you were saying," I said, taking mine off the top.

"Yes, like I said it does seem unfair - now I'm not saying anything right now, I'm just saying 'hypothetically', if you were to somehow end up in a relationship with Tom."

"Which I'm not."

"Which you're not. Let's just say, hypothetically, if you were, then you'd have to understand that this is what Tom would have to do, this is his job and it might conflict with your feelings. You'd be under him, which isn't too bad a prospect in my mind."

"Dirty cow," I said.

"Well there are worse bosses to be abused by," she said with an evil glint in her eye. I made a start on my pizza and she'd been right - it was exactly as I'd ordered when I started the diet and it still tasted foul. It was a thin base with a low fat sauce and plenty of veg. It was like cardboard left out in a grassy field somewhere. I was too hungry to let it go to waste though and I chewed my way through it while Mel tackled her meat feast, her cheesy garlic bread and the obligatory ham and pineapple.

"It'll catch up with you one day," I said, pointing to her banquet. She had cheese dribbling down her chin and was dabbing it with a dish cloth from the kitchen. "How was your day, anyway?"

"It was fine once I'd slept off last night. Was I really kissing that Brian guy?" I nodded. "Oh Lord, I'm never drinking again."

"Not even next week when you meet Tom's mate?"

"I might make an exception for that one. It depends how fit he is."

Her phone buzzed and she glanced sideways at it as she stuffed her mouth with another slice.

"I have to ask," I said. "But have you-"

"No," she replied. "Thank God. It's been hard work spreading my new number around though. I didn't realise how many people I knew. I'm glad I have free texts with this SIM card or I'd be in the shit with the bill."

"Do you think it could be one of them who gave him your number?" I asked.

"I'd thought of that," she said. "That's why I've purposely not sent my number to people I think might be still in touch with him. If he does contact me on this phone then I'll have narrowed down the suspects somewhat."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, eh?" I said.

"Yeah. Let's."

The rest of the week turned out to be quite dull. I spent most of the time welding those trays which seemed to come to me in drips and drabs, sometimes giving me large chunks of time which I had to fill by grinding the welds off so that they were ready for painting. When I first started welding and people told me to 'take off my weld' I got really annoyed. I'd just put the bloody thing on, why did I have to take it off? Then I realised I wasn't actually removing anything - it was a term used to mean to 'dress it up' or clean the surface so that it didn't look like weld. That was the case with these trays. Each one had to be ground smooth until the corners blended into the rest of the product. Then it could be degreased and sent to the paint facility to be given its final treatments. Still, it felt rubbish knowing my nice neat weld was about to be destroyed. At least I was the one doing it though.

The down side was that this was Frank's job and because he was still folding up the trays it meant he couldn't do it. At about dinner time on Friday I realised just what Tom had been getting at; as much as I loved him, Frank was just too slow. The job was really behind now and wouldn't go out for another week, making the job fourteen days overdue.

When the bell went and we were called to the meeting room I expected it to be on the agenda. Our meetings involved the whole company and took place in the largest room on the middle floor where fold-up seating was piled up in one corner. There was a huge oak table in the centre of the room with ornately carved seats circling it and a large black leather armchair at the head - the boss's chair. The walls were pale white with a line of dirty smudges at waist level where they used to make us stand instead of sit. In those days a lot of us used to lean against that wall with our hands behind our backs - hence the marks. So they got us seats instead but still hadn't repainted the walls.

Kevin Miller took his place in the coveted leather chair and shuffled the handful of notes he had in front of him. He'd been reading some management handbook (so the Inspector had told me) and so when he began with a long speech about how, as a company, we should be looking ahead to the future with an optimistic eye, it came out sounding hollow and emotionless and entirely scripted, no doubt cut and pasted from the book. The faces around the room, my colleagues, had completely glazed over and most people were either looking past the boss to the wall behind him or up at the ceiling where a broken light fitting caused the brilliance of the bulb to flicker and dance around us.

"So, moving forward, I'd like you all to..." I looked at the table and found myself staring at Tom and his still-unruly hair. He was writing something on a piece of paper but I didn't know what it could be. Surely he wasn't taking notes on the boss's speech? The receptionist usually recorded the entire meeting on her phone and stored the file on the computer so what was he doing? I wondered.

"Pay rise?" whispered Dave who was sat beside me. Frank was a few seats down next to some of the lathe operators.

"Chance would be a fine thing," I replied. Tom suddenly looked up from his paper and I realised he must have heard me whispering. There was the faintest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth and I looked away before I turned red again. I didn't trust my face any more, it kept letting me down at the worst possible time. Better to look at the accountant sat in the corner, eager to produce his graphs and charts mid-way through the meeting. He was a little man (as you'd expect all accountants to be for some reason) with huge spectacles that turned his eyes into oversized pools of watery green. He wore a grey shirt instead of the usual Riley uniform and he wore a black tie with the smallest knot you've ever seen and it looked like it was cutting off the circulation to his head. Despite my unfair description of him he was a lovely man and he was always eager to help anyone he could.

"I bet they mention work speed," whispered Dave again. I nodded. "You watch."

Once the usual 'state of the company' bit was out of the way the meetings always turned a little more personal. This was the time for getting down to business and dishing out a few choice words. In times gone past there'd been some shockers - a sudden explanation for a dismissal two days earlier, the announcement of a baby NO ONE knew about despite our effective gossip system, a dead colleague (in fairness, we already knew but it had to be told 'officially') and the shock pay rise of three years earlier (never to be seen again). This meeting lived up to Dave's expectations though.

"I'd like to take a minute to encourage us all to dig a bit deeper and really work hard at getting the jobs out on time..." The days of the hard-bitten manager were long gone. Ten, maybe twenty years ago, that statement would have sounded more like 'lads - you're getting fucking slow and jobs aren't going out. Pick up the pace or you're fucking sacked'. Now that's gone and it's all
'dig deeper'
and
'excel'
and
'aim for the stars - you might land on the moon'
and other such motivational, patronising statements that avoided direct confrontation. What were you left with? None sense dressed up as 'inspirational'. Some of us would just like the plain old way, to be told to get a grip and sort ourselves out, or my favourite -
'give your head a wobble!'
. Now, in light of Frank's slowness, we were getting some serious verbal diarrhoea and no one could flush the toilet.

"So can we all pull together and keep pushing ourselves to achieve our aims and objectives as a family, not just as a business..."

Family? The only similarity work has to a family is that you don't pick who you have to spend most of your time with! I decided long ago that work was NEVER family, that it was a business that was meant to be PROFESSIONAL and that meant being treated like a contracted worker, which was what we were: people hired to do a job in return for a wage. A two-way partnership - we work, he pays. It's a binding agreement handed down by countless generations so society could be built. It isn't a family! If it were family then when I fell out with someone I could just get in my car and storm off. I could come back a week later, have a cry and a hug and expect to still have a job. Or the boss could ring me during the night and ask me to come in, telling me it would be a really big favour to him, like Mel does when she's drunk and she's missed the bus home. Life would be hell! Why am I the only person who sees this?