The Lemon Tree (23 page)

‘Hmm. I’ll speak to Mr Benjamin about it.’

Bidden to an informal meeting with their new mistress, the foremen and department heads crowded towards the door of Wallace Helena’s office. One or two of them made sly jokes about now owning a mistress, until Mr Tasker overheard them. Incensed, he reminded them that she owned them, because their jobs depended upon what she decided to do. Immediately sobered, they slid through the door of the office, to find the lady sitting at their old master’s desk, enveloped in a cloud of tobacco smoke. At their entry, she quickly stubbed out her cigarello and rose to face them, looking tall, angular and forbidding in her high-necked black dress.

As the men came in, they took off their caps, and when they were all assembled, she surveyed them carefully. Most of them looked middle-aged or over, some of them almost purple from years of exposure to rough weather; others were pasty-faced from too long hours indoors. Many of them shuffled uneasily, and only Mr Tasker and the Steam Engineer looked self-assured, probably because of their highly marketable skills. At the last moment, Mr Bobsworth entered and shut the door behind him. He felt a little resentful that he had not been asked to stand by Wallace Helena at the meeting. Young Benji was there, just behind her. Why not himself?

She began to speak, reminding them that she had already met most of them when she first arrived, and that she had realized that the sad passing of Mr James Al-Khoury
had caused a crisis in all their lives – and in her own. They must be worrying about their future.

The word
crisis
caught their attention and her understanding of their own uneasiness about their jobs impressed them favourably. She went on to explain the matter of Probate which was holding up a final decision on the future of the works. The Executor of the Will could have sold the soapery immediately, but he had consulted her and she had decided not to sell at the moment She would use the time before the Court granted Probate to learn all she could about it and then make a decision when the Lady Lavender became her absolute property. Not all of them understood what Probate was, but they had seen Mr Benson about the place and knew he was a lawyer, so they assumed it had something to do with him. At least they now knew why there was such a lack of information about their future. The woman had not yet made up her mind; women never did know what they wanted.

Until then, not even Mr Bobsworth or Mr Tasker had been given an explanation as to why the Lady Lavender had not been sold; their questions to Benji and to Mr Benson had not been answered. Her lack of decision did not give them peace of mind, but at least they now knew that, once Probate was granted, a decision would be made.

Wallace Helena was continuing. She said, ‘In the meantime, I want the soapery to proceed with its usual efficiency. There are a few matters which we can currently address, the main one being the neatness and cleanliness of the plant and the yards.’

The face of the Transport Manager darkened. The stables came under his jurisdiction and he had been reprimanded for the laziness of his staff. Alerted by Wallace Helena, Benji had delivered a very stiff lecture. The stables were now mucked out daily.

Wallace Helena went on to say that each of them was to look at his own area and see where the labourers had failed to clean up. ‘Get rid of rubbish,’ she ordered. ‘I myself slipped and nearly fell in the tallow yard, for example. It is to be scraped and sanded and spills mopped up as they occur. You know very well that some of the materials we use are hazardous, lye, for instance; and grease can cause a disastrous fire if we get slack, which will put you all out of work.’ She paused, and looked again at the faces before her; some appeared sullen.

She resumed her speech, her tone a little lighter. ‘I cannot alter the circumstances under which you work until the legal process is complete and we can look at the final balance sheet. But I understand that you have no proper place to brew tea or eat your noon meal. If I decide to undertake the management, this is one of the first things I wish to provide: a clean, decent room where you can eat and make tea. I suspect, also, that there is need for better immediate care for any of you who have an accident here.

‘I see from correspondence that Mr Al-Khoury had in mind to begin some form of contributory pension for his people. I hope that we shall, in future, have regular meetings together to discuss such matters. Meanwhile, it is important not only that the Lady Lavender continue to do business successfully, but it should
look
successful, and a works that is as neat as a pin gives a good impression. After all, we’re selling cleanliness! I want it clean! If I have to sell it, a smart-looking outfit is less likely to be closed down by a competitor buying it out.’

Some of the men grinned at her little joke about selling cleanliness, but the yard foreman lifted his hand and said sulkily that he was short of a labourer and did not know who to ask about it. ‘Mr Benjamin not always being here, like.’

Wallace Helena looked up at a silent Benji. He certainly
was away from time to time, since he was supervising sales. She turned back to the foreman, and ordered him to call in a man holding a company’s tally as a temporary labourer and to give his name to Mr Bobsworth for the wage sheet. ‘I’ll discuss with Mr Benjamin whether the position will be made permanent Meantime, pay him the casual labourer’s rate.’

Mr Ferguson, the Steam Engineer, ventured to ask if she expected to actually run the works herself, if she did not sell it.

‘For the moment, Mr Benjamin will deal with the day-to-day problems, as usual. If he is away, come to me. In the longer term, you will be the first people to be told my final decision. Our lawyer tells me that Probate should be granted within a matter of weeks now.’

With a dawning feeling of confidence in her, as she stood in front of them with as much presence as any man, most of her employees smiled slightly. Nobody else ventured a remark, however, so she dismissed them politely, after reminding them to take their problems to Mr Benjamin as they arose.

As she sank into her chair again and reached for her cigarello, Mr Tasker lingered behind.

She looked up at him. ‘Yes, Mr Tasker?’

‘I wanted to say, Ma’am, that it’s not surprising that the men get a bit confused. Mr Al-Khoury was his own Plant Manager, Mr Benjamin having his own areas of command, like. Since Mr James passed away, Mr Bobsworth, Mr Ferguson and even Mr Turner’ve got into the way of giving orders outside their departments, and the foremen don’t know for sure that that is what you want or who they should obey – especially if the orders is conflicting.’

‘Blast!’ She drummed her fingers on the desk, and turned to Benji. ‘I’ll make it clear that you make the decisions and report to me later. On the days when you have to
go somewhere, the men are to come to me and I will tell them who to go to or what to do. I presume that all the men who were here today know what decisions they can make themselves within their normal departmental duties?’

George Tasker answered immediately. ‘I think so, Ma’am.’

‘Then I’ll talk to Mr Bobsworth, Mr Turner and Mr Ferguson. I’m sure they’ve simply been worried and tried to fill in for the late Mr Al-Khoury during the present hiatus. We’ll soon get straightened out.’

Mr Tasker smiled down at her, touched his forelock and went back to work. Real chip off the old block, she was. And he was glad she was bringing forward young Benji. Could be worse things happen. He began to whistle.

When Mr Tasker had gone, Wallace Helena turned and grinned at Benji. ‘Come and sit down,’ she invited. ‘We must do something about keeping Bobsworth, Ferguson and Turner in line – stop them interfering in other departments. Any ideas?’

Benji shrugged and sat down. ‘It depends on how much Benson is agreeable to our doing. He’s still the Executor.’

‘Well, he’s been in once or twice to see how I’m getting on. He seems content to leave me to it, now he knows me better. He’s warned me not to be extravagant in anything I do personally or in connection with the Lady Lavender – there are taxes and legal fees yet to be paid which could be quite a burden, if I want to keep the soapery.’

Benji laughed. ‘Old Bobsworth was moaning that you are almost too careful. I think you’ve been a revelation to him. You didn’t even pass all my Manchester expenses without query!’

‘Sorry.’ She bit her lower lip and smiled roguishly at him. Then she said, ‘The problem is that you’re away some of the time, looking after sales, and I’m still feeling my way – besides which I don’t want to be bothered by day-to-day decisions, as I am beginning to be.’ She picked up a coffee cup from her desk, saw that it was empty and rang for Mr Helliwell to bring two fresh cups. While he went to get them, she continued, ‘My feeling is that you should be here all the time and that we should try to find a top, full-time salesman to take your place, somebody we
could also consult about wrappers and advertising, someone who knows the soap trade.’

‘Even on commission, such a man could be expensive. I think you’re right, though.’

‘Would it suit you? Or do you want to be a representative full time?’

‘I hate selling. Father gave it to me to gain experience, so that I would have some knowledge of every department. Now we’ve got to face much more intense competition, we need a first-class man like you suggest. I’d be much better in the office; I can keep a tight hand on the organization of the staff and the buying, and so forth.’

With fresh coffee in front of them, they went on to hammer out exactly how to proceed. They concluded that Benji should cost out roughly what a full-time sales manager could expect, with the idea of recruiting such a man as soon as Probate had been received and taxes paid.

‘He could cost a fortune,’ Wallace Helena said nervously. Then, more bravely, she admitted that the challenge of Mr Lever had to be met.

To bring the old employees into line and stop them giving orders where they had no business to give them, Wallace Helena said she would send out a memo to all supervisory staff confirming Benji in his position as Assistant Manager responsible for day-to-day management and that, in his absence, she herself was to be consulted. ‘If Bobsworth and the others don’t take note of the memo, I’m not past firing them,’ she said fiercely. ‘Only Mr Tasker is absolutely irreplaceable at present, as far as I can see.’

‘It won’t come to that,’ he assured her. ‘The foremen will tend to come to me.’ He got up and strode to the end of the room and back, then he added frankly. They expected me to take over immediately Father died – and I didn’t.
Backed by your memo, it’ll seem natural to them to come to me.’

Wallace Helena suddenly had what Benji called her Mona Lisa look. Watchful eyes and a tight small smile made him regret his frankness. Looking at her seated in his father’s chair, resentment flared in him once again. Because of a narrow, old-fashioned quirk of law, she was queening it in an office which should have been his.

As he stood up and collected his papers, preparatory to going back to his own small niche of a room, he raged inwardly. He was not suffering because he had quarrelled with his father or because his father thought him incapable. On the contrary, everything pointed to the fact that he was being trained to take his father’s place when the older man had had enough. He cursed his father’s blithe belief in his own immortality.

She had not responded to his last remark. She simply sat waiting for him to go, her long, weather-beaten hands, with their heavy, ugly rings, spread out before her on the battered desk.

Before turning towards the door, he nodded farewell, and she looked up. ‘Cheer up,’ she told him, her mouth softening a little. ‘We’ll both do well out of the Lady Lavender before we’ve finished. It’s a tight little ship, as Mr Bobsworth says.’

Startled, he stopped in mid-stride to the door. Was the damned woman a thought reader, as well?

She chuckled, but did not say anything more.

His face like a thundercloud, he did not answer. It took all his self-control not to slam the door after himself. She could laugh, if she wanted; he could not.

As a result of the meeting which Wallace Helena had called in her office, it now became public knowledge that their new, female employer smoked in the works, as Alfie, the labourer, had said she did. The graffiti on the enclosure round the rough earthen lavatories in the corner of the yard consisted largely of pictures, since most of the men could not write; the drawings now featured a bosomy female with a cigar in her mouth.

Because of the acute danger of fire amid fatty substances, an employee found smoking had traditionally been immediately dismissed. Now, the men began to resent the rule; if the Mistress could smoke, so could they.

While waiting for a delivery van to be loaded or unloaded, the carters began to light up their clay pipes. The yard foreman demanded that they knock them out, and, when they became impudent about it, he threatened them with dismissal. This had the desired result; they grouchily put them away.

The threat had no effect on a grizzled old labourer, Georgie Grant, who had been steadily employed by the company since its inception.

‘Herself is smokin’, int she?’ he inquired loftily of the foreman. ‘Why can’t I?’

‘You should know – because of fire, you stupid old bugger.’

Georgie lifted his chin, thick with snowy stubble. ‘Don’t you go callin’ me names. If the Mistress can smoke here, I
can,’ he responded stubbornly, and heaved a wooden box into a waiting van, his pipe firmly between his few remaining teeth.

The foreman controlled his seething temper. ‘Now look here, Georgie. I don’t want to fire yez. You put that pipe out for now, and I’ll ask Master Benji if the rule is the same as always.’

Georgie took his pipe from his mouth and turned to look at his superior. He grinned. ‘Not the Mistress?’

The foreman wanted to hit him. ‘Mr Benji’ll do the talkin’ to her,’ he replied through clenched teeth.

Georgie looked down his bulbous red nose at the foreman. Then very slowly he took a tin lid from the pocket of his fustian trousers and held it over the bowl of his pipe to dowse it. A mere woman was not going to tell him when he could or could not smoke, unless she obeyed the rule, too. ‘Aye, you ask him,’ he said with patent satisfaction.

Feeling that the threat of dismissal would probably quench Georgie’s thirst for equality, the foreman did nothing. Whiffs of tobacco continued to be easily detectable in the yard and the stables.

Caught between an old, respected employee and a new, untried employer, the foreman gave up and went to see Benji. Ould James’s bastard
ought
to have been the new master; he’d give sound advice.

Benji was seated at a crowded, high desk in his office, a tiny room next to the laboratory. The office was walled with clear panes of glass through which he could supervise much that went on in the works. He was in the midst of dictating letters to Mr Helliwell, when the foreman knocked and came in, doffing his cap as Benji lifted his head from his work. Seeing the worry on the man’s long, hatchet face, he asked, ‘What’s up, Will?’

The foreman explained the recalcitrance of Georgie Grant. He ignored the silent Mr Helliwell.

‘You don’t want to dismiss him, do you?’

‘Georgie? ‘Course not, Sir. He’s makin’ a point. First, he don’t like workin’ for a woman and, second, if there’s a rule it’s for everybody, includin’ Miss Harding. He don’t approve of a woman smokin’, anyways.’

Benji badly wanted to grin. He could visualize the monkey face of the old labourer, who had been born and brought up on the Earl of Sefton’s Estate and would not have been afraid to tell a belted earl what was acceptable in an earl’s behaviour. A soap mistress would be small fry in comparison.

‘I doubt if Miss Harding has realized the danger of fire. I’ll talk to her about it. Tell Georgie from me that there’ll be no more smoking in the yard. If he disobeys send him up here.’

‘Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.’

Benji slowly took off the paper cuffs he used to protect his shirt wrist bands and put on his jacket, to go to see Wallace Helena. Fire was too serious a matter to delay action.

‘She’s down in the Crutching Department,’ Mr Helliwell told him, as he resignedly closed his notebook.

‘Blast!’ exclaimed Benji, and Mr Helliwell looked at him with closely pursed lips.

He finally ran her to earth as she watched the stamping of Lady Lavender soap tablets with the company’s name on one side and what was meant to depict a bunch of lavender on the other side. Behind her, two boys of about sixteen were busy wrapping the tablets in a rough, greyish paper which they closed with a bright, painted sticker showing a reasonable facsimile on it of a sprig of lavender surrounded by the name of the company.

She did not think much of the imprint on the soap, and, when Benji approached, looking rumpled and a trifle harassed, she addressed him before he could open his mouth.

‘The soap looks messy,’ she said, petulantly tossing a tablet up and down in one hand. ‘I think we put too much colouring in it – and couldn’t we make it look shinier? And the paper it’s wrapped in is so dull. No wonder Mr Lever used bright yellow.’

Normally Benji would have agreed with her; new packaging and finish had been under discussion just before his father’s death. Today, however, he resented her criticism, particularly when he had a much more basic problem, that of fire, to discuss with her.

‘Leave this,’ he ordered. ‘I need to speak to you in the office.’

The young man in a white apron who was doing the stamping looked up and raised one eyebrow suggestively towards the other lads placidly wrapping tablets not far away. Ears pricked, they waited for the Mistress’s response.

She looked coolly at her cousin. He had no right to speak to her like that in front of junior employees; it could destroy her authority. She replied with asperity, ‘I’m busy. I want to see the next few bars go through the stamping machine – Dick, here, has just adjusted the machine slightly, to see if we get a clearer stamp. I’ll see you in the office in about half an hour.’

Benji’s face darkened. He was equally sensitive to a slight to his authority, and it was his job to see that the finished product was marketable. He said angrily, in Arabic, ‘Let it wait. I’ll check it later. This is a matter of safety, and we must act quickly on it – before the place goes up in smoke!’

‘Smoke?’ she queried in the same language.

‘Yes. Fire!’ he snapped back.

‘Very well.’ She turned and said, with a smile, to the three young men concerned, ‘We’ll look at it again, later. For the moment, continue as before.’

Head held high, she swept out of the department and towards her office, a fuming Benji having difficulty in keeping up with her. Mr Helliwell in his tiny office scampered from his wooden filing cabinet to open the door of her office. She went through without so much as a nod of acknowledgment and Benji, like a rolling thundercloud, straight after her. Very thoughtfully, Mr Helliwell went back to his filing, and listened to the rising voices in the inner sanctum. He wished they would speak English.

The fear of fire temporarily forgotten, Benji was raging. ‘If I’m the Assistant Manager in charge of day-to-day matters, why can’t you leave me to manage? I know we need new stamping machines – we’re going to need new everything before long!’ He hammered on her desk with his fist, while she stood waiting for him to finish. He straightened up and shouted, ‘And it’s your job to plan what we’re going to do in future. Where we’re going to raise money. How we’re going to meet competition – rabid competition in a slumping market, in case you don’t remember it!’

The moment he stopped for breath, her reply came out in a menacing hiss. ‘I have not forgotten anything,’ she said. ‘But you seem to have forgotten that I own this soapery – or will in a week or two. And, therefore, I will decide what I need to know before I begin to plan. And who will manage!’ The last words came out in a threatening snarl.

He was immediately sobered, feeling that his livelihood was in jeopardy, though suppressed mortification made him tremble. He stepped back from the desk and stared across it at her. He’d get another job as soon as he could, he promised himself.

She glared back at him. Then cold common sense
flooded back into her, as she realized his humiliation. She had gone too far. She needed this man; it would not be easy to replace him, because it seemed likely that her large competitors would be able to offer more to such an employee.

Unhesitatingly, she apologized. ‘I’m sorry, Benji.’ Then she smiled. ‘We must learn never to be angry with each other in front of the men. My partner and I always fight it out privately.’

He was still hurt to the quick. She walked round the desk and laced her hand into his. He did not grasp her fingers, but he did not withdraw his hand either. She bent towards him and gently kissed his cheek. ‘Come on, Benji. I’m cousin-sister, remember. We can say things honestly to each other – privately. Sit down and tell me what it was you wanted to see me about. You said something about fire? Have we had one?’ She was still holding his hand and sensed that he had relaxed slightly. ‘We need each other.’

He remained a picture of wounded dignity, though he sat down.

She was suddenly smitten with a spasm of coughing, convulsed with it, unable to get her breath. She leaned against the desk to steady herself, clutching her chest as if to ease a pain. Benji leaned forward and poured a glass of water from the carafe on the corner of the desk, but she could not steady herself sufficiently to take it from him.

Concerned, he got up and put his arm round her back and held the glass to her lips. She took a tiny sip, wallowed it and then another, which made her splutter. She got her breath and made a big effort to swallow more. Gradually the spasm reduced and he led her to her chair. She sat there silently, breathing deeply, until she was a little recovered. Meanwhile, Benji pressed the bell for Mr
Helliwell and told him to bring a hot cup of tea with plenty of sugar in it.

Mr Helliwell had heard the frantic coughing and needed no explanation. He hurried out to his gas ring.

Benji remained standing by her. ‘You must stop smoking until that cough’s gone,’ he told her. ‘Mother said you coughed a lot last time you visited her – she thought you ought to see a doctor.’

‘Mrs Hughes was lecturing me about seeing a doctor, but I’m moving from her house tomorrow to a more airy place. I hope it may settle the cough. The wind blows straight off the river and there should be less smuts to irritate my throat.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘It’s called The Cockle Hole – it’s like a village by the water, next to the Coburg Dock.’

‘Oh, I know it. Do you need any help?’

‘I’ll give Alfie a tip to carry my bags down; I don’t have much.’

He nodded. Her need for help while she coughed had deflected his thoughts from his own distress; it had put him momentarily in command and he felt better.

Mr Helliwell brought in a steaming mug of tea and smilingly put it in front of her. She thanked him and dismissed him.

While she slowly sipped the sickeningly sweet brew, Benji sat down opposite her and explained about Georgie Grant.

‘I think you must, for safety’s sake, stop smoking in the plant. And let it be known that you have. I don’t want to fire people like Georgie. He’s as honest as anyone I’ll ever find. Besides, he’s been here all my life, very nearly.’

She did not miss the point that he considered that he had the right to hire and fire men in her soapery, but she felt it unwise to say anything so soon after their bitter row.

She said wearily, ‘I’ve smoked for years. Joe brought me the kind of tobacco the Indian women smoke – and it’s different from this stuff.’ She pointed to the wooden box in which her cigarellos lay.

‘Whatever you smoke is going to cause trouble,’ Benji said. ‘I enjoy a pipe – but I never smoke here.’

Her hands clasped round the mug of tea, she considered his remarks and saw the wisdom of them. She smiled ruefully, and said, ‘I’m not sure how I’m going to survive. I was aware of the fire hazard – you heard me demanding that the works be cleaned up, largely because grease and straw can catch so easily. And I’ve fought prairie fires in my time. I imagined the office was far enough away from everything – that it would be safe to smoke.’

Benji made a face. ‘It probably is, but the men would resent you having the privilege.’

‘Hmm. I’m their Mistress!’

There she was again, emphasizing that she had the last say. He was no longer angry with her; he felt instead a terrible sadness, a sense that his father had discarded him, leaving him at the mercy of an eccentric woman.

He made an effort to appear conciliatory. ‘If you continued to smoke and the men could not, they might try to get back at you. Liverpool men can be very pig-headed when they’re angry; they’ve got their own ideas of what’s fair. Though times are hard and they wouldn’t want to lose their jobs, they could be obstructive. You’ve no idea how stuff could be inexplicably lost; they can forget to deliver verbal messages; horses would cast a shoe in the middle of a busy morning; a spoke fall out of a wheel. Once or twice when Father fell foul of them, all this happened. They can send management nearly out of its mind!’

‘Really?’ She began to laugh, until her cough recommenced and she hastily stifled her amusement.