The Bottle Factory Outing (17 page)

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you
are
clever’ – not quite sincerely. She didn’t know what to think and was having difficulty in concentrating. Even if she wanted
to stay on in the bed-sitting room, could she afford it? Could her father be persuaded to send her a little more money? When
people found out about Freda it was bound to get into the papers and her mother would tell her father not to send her any
money at all, just to force her to come home.

They’d go out shopping, and her mother would tell her to stay in the car so the neighbours wouldn’t see. She’d tell her what
clothes to wear, throw out her black stockings and buy her a pink hat from the Bon Marché. They’d put her in a deck chair
in the garden and treat her like an invalid, only sternly. She’d never be allowed to stay in bed in the morning, not after
the first week. Now that my moment has come, she thought, my chosen solitude, can I stand the expense?

‘I’m going in,’ she said. ‘I’m dropping.’

He twisted his cap in his hands round and round between his drawn-up knees.

‘Suit yourself.’ He plopped the handkerchief with its glass fragments into her unwilling hands. ‘I’ll leave this with you.’

She held the handkerchief at some distance from her as if it was in danger of exploding. She didn’t protest, because she was
so glad he didn’t insist on following her into the house.

‘Good-night,’ she murmured.

When he said goodbye she couldn’t hear for the slam of the door. She took a pillow and blankets from the bed and went upstairs
to the bathroom. If anybody tried to use the toilet in the night it was just too bad. Freda said the man upstairs was a dirty
bugger anyway – he probably peed in the sink. The busybodies on the ground floor were hopefully on night duty. Before she
bolted the door she remembered the open window.

When she crossed the room she put an olive in her mouth, but it tasted bitter and she laid it down again on the cloth. Freda’s
brassiere trembled in the draught.

Maria was told by her brother-in-law Anselmo. Appalling contortions distorted her face. He clapped his hand over her mouth,
for fear she screeched like a railway train, and lowered her into Rossi’s chair behind the desk. Though normally she would
have leapt upright out of respect for the manager’s office, she now remained slumped in her seat, eyes rolling above his bunched
fingers. It was a blessing Vittorio had a small glass of brandy ready for when she was more composed – under the circumstances
she drained it at one gulp. She flapped her pinny to cool her cheeks and waited while Vittorio fetched Brenda from the washroom,
where she had been more or less all morning retching over the basin. The two women embraced and drew apart sniffing.

‘It’s God’s work,’ wailed Maria.

‘Yes,’ said Brenda, although she couldn’t be sure. She felt really poorly: her stomach was upset. She was tired out from her
night in the bathroom, vivid with dreams.

‘We must prepare her. We must see to her.’ Maria had laid out an aunt and an infant son of Anselmo’s but never in such conditions.

‘I can’t do anything,’ cried Brenda in alarm. ‘I’m not going up there.’

Outside the window the men were grouped thinly about the bottling plant. Throughout the morning they
had gone in pairs into the ancient lift and visited Freda, returning with calm faces and eyes glittering with excitement.
They whispered frantically. The machine rattled and circled. They looked up at the Virgin on the wall and crossed themselves.
Rossi had been called into the main office by Mr Paganotti an hour previously and had not returned.

‘I have to have water and clean cloths,’ said the dedicated Maria, ‘… clean garments to lie in.’ It was inconceivable
that they should use the sponges on the bench.

‘I could go home and get her flannel,’ offered Brenda, ‘and her black nightie.’

Maria wouldn’t hear of the black nightie – there must be nothing dark – but she accepted the flannel and asked her to bring
a bowl and powder and a hairbrush. It seemed silly to Brenda, such a fuss twenty-four hours too late: Freda wasn’t going anywhere.

The telephone rang, and Anselmo said Mr Paganotti wanted to speak to Vittorio. They all went very quite, thinking of Rossi
and the state he was in. Perhaps he had broken down in the main office and told Mr Paganotti that there was a body upstairs
among his relatives’ tables and chairs. Vittorio nodded his head several times. He stood very straight, inclining his head
deferentially as if Mr Paganotti were actually in the room.

‘Go, go,’ said Maria, shooing Brenda with her pinny towards the door. ‘Fetch the cloth.’ To fortify her for the task ahead
she allowed herself a little more brandy.

As Brenda opened the front door the nurse from the downstairs room came out into the hall in a dressing
gown and slippers. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you working?’

‘I’ve just popped back,’ Brenda said.

The nurse let her climb a few stairs before she called: ‘Is your friend in?’

Brenda clung to the bannister rail and stopped. ‘She’s out just now.’

‘Well, will you tell her I’d like my serviettes back. I lent them to her yesterday. She said she only wanted them for one
evening.’

‘Serviettes?’ said Brenda, her heart pounding.

‘I want to take them in when I go on duty. I can have them laundered for nothing.’

Brenda looked down at her. She had an almost transparent skin and dark eyes that were used to detecting signs of rising temperature
and internal disorder.

‘Actually,’ said Brenda, ‘she went away last night – abroad.’ Freda had been saving for years to go on the continent. She
had never gone because she had never saved, she had a post-office book that she put part of her wages in every month and drew
them out the next.

‘Lucky her,’ said the nurse dangling her hospital towel. ‘I expect she could do with a break after her mother dying like that.’

It was simple to explain really, once she got started. There was a bit of money due from Freda’s mother’s estate, not much
but enough for a holiday: and her Uncle Arthur who was in a good way of doing had advanced her funds so that she could get
away. She’d always wanted to go to Spain – she was very interested in flamenco dancing – so she just went off all of
a sudden. Made up her mind, packed her bag, and went.

‘How long for?’ asked the nurse, scraping an envious cheek with the handle of her toothbrush. Brenda said it depended on the
weather. It was winter after all – it wasn’t as if she was going to lie on some beach. She might come back next week or she
might never.

‘Never?’ cried the nurse.

Brenda was laughing. ‘You know what I mean. She might, she might not.’ She continued up the stairs shaking with laughter.
‘Who knows,’ she called from the bend of the stairs and she stumbled upwards squealing and gasping for breath.

When Brenda returned with the pastel-coloured toilet bag and the washing-up bowl, the workers were crowded into the concrete
bunker under the fire escape. She could hear them shouting as she went up the alleyway towards the pass door. The bottling
plant stood idle. Alone, old Luigi, undeterred by the drama, was labelling with ferocious speed. Stefano was on guard beside
the lift.

‘You go,’ he said pointing his finger straight up in the air. She said, No, she wouldn’t thank you, she’d just brought a few
things for Maria.

He told her to fetch Salvatore from the bunker to keep watch while he took the bowl upstairs.

The men, wrapped in pieces of old carpeting, were sitting on upturned boxes, rolling cigarettes and gesticulating.

She felt terribly out of it. The way they carried on, so engrossed, faces drawn with grief, eyes mournfully
gazing at their unwrapped luncheons – you’d have thought Freda was a relative. She wondered what Rossi had told them. Surely
he hadn’t said Patrick had broken her neck – nobody could be certain. Rossi seemed terribly agitated. He was trembling and
arguing with Vittorio.

‘What’s wrong now?’ she asked.

Vittorio said: ‘Mr Paganotti wants the first floor to be cleared of the furniture. He is going up in the lift this very afternoon
to take the look around.’

‘Well, she can’t stay there anyway,’ began Brenda, ‘she’ll start—’ But she couldn’t continue. She wasn’t sure how quickly
bodies began to smell – perhaps here in the factory, with the temperature close to freezing, Freda could be preserved for
ever. ‘What’s he want to shift the furniture for now?’ she asked. ‘What’s the sudden hurry?’

‘Mr Paganotti call me in,’ cried Rossi. ‘His secretary is sitting there, she is smiling and asking me how the Outing go. Did
we have the nice time in the country?’

‘How awkward,’ said Brenda. Mr Paganotti’s secretary came from a well-to-do family in Rome. Nobody had liked to ask her on
the Outing. She could hardly be classed a worker.

‘I look at the floor,’ continued Rossi. ‘Mr Paganotti ask me if I like the Stately Home. If it had been an interesting Stately
Home.’

That was kind of him, thought Brenda. Fancy Mr Paganotti remembering a thing like that.

‘Mr Paganotti say he is re-organising his business premises. He is going to get the new machinery, expand – he
need more office space. For the ordering, the accountancy. He want the furniture gone from the first floor.’

‘I would have died,’ breathed Brenda, feeling terribly sorry for Rossi.

Mr Paganotti, it appeared, had noticed how disturbed Rossi had been. He had frowned. He had dug his thumb into the pocket
of his beautiful striped waistcoat. He had asked what was wrong.

‘I tell him,’ said Rossi, ‘that the men are very busy at the moment. I say there is the sherry consignment from Santander
– the barrels have to be emptied and ready for return shipment tomorrow. I tell him that if the barrels are not ready for
return there is a storage charge.’ Rossi spread out his hands, palm upwards, to show he had concealed nothing. ‘Mr Paganotti
understand at once. He say it is a pity but it cannot be helped. He tell me to get on with my work and he himself will go
upstairs later in the afternoon and look around.’

‘You could tell him the lift was broken,’ said Brenda. ‘Or not safe.’

‘It has never been safe,’ Vittorio said. ‘But then he go up the stairway.’

‘Not if you pile the stairs with furniture, blocking the way.’

‘Ah,’ cried Rossi. ‘That is it.’ And the men, when it had been explained to them, thumped the table enthusiastically and
scrambled out of the concrete bunker to begin the barricade at once.

‘What did you say to the men?’ asked Brenda, left alone with Vittorio.

‘I say nothing.’

‘Did you say Patrick did it?’

‘I say nothing. I merely say there has been an accident. I say it will look bad for Rossi and for me. We are not English.
The Irishman has a grudge against us. They understand. They do not want our families to be shamed, our children – they do
not want to bring shame to the good name of my uncle Mr Paganotti.’

‘Didn’t they think it was a bit funny?’

‘Funny?’

Brenda thought he was incredible; they were all unbelievable. In their loyalty to each other, united in a foreign country,
Freda seemed to have been forgotten. She said sharply: ‘The girl in my house just asked me for her serviettes back.’ He looked
at her without understanding. ‘For your supper.’

‘What supper?’

‘Freda was hoping you’d come home with her. She’d bought butter and stuff. And she borrowed things to wipe your mouth on.’

‘I do not know about any supper,’ he said.

‘Well, she thought you might come back. I told the nurse she’d gone abroad.’

‘Abroad,’ he repeated.

‘To Spain. I said she liked dancing.’ And again she burst into little trills of laughter, her face quite transformed by smiles.

‘You are overwrought,’ he said, and he poured her some wine from the jug on the table. While she was still laughing, stuffing
her fingers into her cheeks and showing all her teeth, a thought struck him. He began to tremble with excitement. He ran
from the bunker and went
to find Rossi. Brenda fell asleep with her face on the table amidst a pile of sandwiches.

When Brenda woke from a dream, she didn’t feel ill any more or cross. She had been in a cinema with Freda: Freda was wearing
a trouser suit and one of those floppy hats with some cloth flowers on the brim. She complained bitterly that she couldn’t
see the bloody screen. The men in the row behind said ‘Sssh!’ loudly and kicked the back of the seat. Brenda whispered she
should take her hat off. ‘Why should I?’ said Freda; and Brenda remembered a little doggerel her mother had taught her, something
about a little woman with a great big hat … went to the pictures and there she sat. Freda shrieked and recited rapidly
… man behind couldn’t see a bit … finally got tired of it. Somehow it made Brenda very happy that Freda too knew the
little rhyme. She beamed in the dark-ness. She turned and kissed Freda on the cheek and woke instantly.

Gone was the worry and the fear, the underlying resentment. Freda would have been the first to agree, it didn’t matter how
she had died – it wasn’t any use getting all worked up about it now. Life was full of red tape, rules and formalities, papers
to be signed. Hadn’t Freda always been the first to decry the regimentation of the masses? If Rossi and Vittorio, still alive
in a puny world, fought to protect the honour of their families, did it really matter very much? No amount of questions or
criminal procedure or punishment would bring her back. Brenda was almost prepared to go up in the lift and see Freda all
nice and clean from the ministrations of Maria.

She wandered into the alleyway and through the pass door to the factory. Aldo Gamberini and Stefano, doing the work that eight
men had done before, were running giddily after the rotating bottles on the machine. The labelling bench, save for old Luigi,
was deserted. She went into the office to find Rossi fiddling about with litmus paper and glass tubes.

‘I’m all right now,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind whose fault it was. I’ll give you your handkerchief back if you like.’

‘My handkerchief—’ and he clapped his hand to the pocket of his overall, forgetting that he had worn his best trousers and
a jumper on the Outing.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Brenda, and was only slightly shocked to see the purple cloak and the sheepskin coat hanging on
the back of the door. ‘Have you blocked the stairs?’ she asked. ‘Have you stopped Mr Paganotti?’

‘He has gone out,’ said Rossi. ‘I think he has not remembered.’

‘What are you going to do tomorrow, then? He won’t be out every day.’

‘It was you,’ he said, rising from his desk in admiration. ‘You have given us the way.’

‘Me? What did I do?’

‘You tell us about Spain. You give us the idea.’ And he paced about the office, face illuminated with appreciation. ‘We will
put her in a barrel – in a hogshead. It is simple. Gino is even now sawing the lid off for her entrance.’

‘You’re not going to put Freda in a barrel?’

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘We now bottle the sherry. We take the sherry from the hogshead. When the barrels are empty
the man come and we load the empty barrels on to the lorry. They go to the docks, back to Santander.’

‘With Freda?’

‘Why yes,’ he said. ‘It is finished.’

She looked at him. Smudges of fatigue showed under her sceptical eyes. ‘And what happens when they open the barrels at the
other end? Or take out the bung or whatever it’s called – at Santander?’ It was a lovely name; there were bound to be flamenco
dancers.

‘We mark the barrel as no good – bad for the wine – tainted – it is leaking. They throw it in the sea.’

‘In the sea? Are you sure?’

‘But yes. I have seen it when I am training. I know about these things – the unworthy barrels go in the sea.’

She didn’t like to mention it, but she felt she must. ‘Rossi,’ she said, ‘what if there’s a strike at the docks? There’s always
some kind of a strike going on some-where.’

He stared at her. ‘What for you worry about a strike?’