The Lemon Tree

by Helen Forrester

  ‘Thank you very much, Eleanor,’ Wallace Helena said with feeling. ‘You take care of yourself.’

  ‘I’m all right, for sure. Now I must go and start me coloureds and me woollens. I haven’t done nothing about them yet’

  Chapter Thirty

  Wallace Helena went back to Mrs Hughes’s house for lunch, but, after Eleanor’s pound cake, she only picked at the sausage, mashed potatoes and peas, followed by cold apple pie, which Mrs Hughes regarded as a light lunch.

  As she drank a pot of tea, she reviewed carefully many of the things that Eleanor had mentioned. Cheap soap, she had said, had filler in it – fuller’s earth or sand – and it was not much good if you wanted a clean wash. She had also told her that she kept her supply of soap on a shelf for weeks to harden it, because it then didn’t melt so quickly and she got a better lather. Was the latter true? If so, how long did the Lady Lavender keep its soap in store? Did Mr Lever store his soap for long?

  It seemed clear that the Lady Lavender would have to sell on quality and low price, to stay in business. She wondered if the patronizing Mr Turner had ever tried to deduce exactly what was in their various competitors’ soap – it could be interesting to know. Mr Turner seemed a bit of a luxury for such a small firm, despite what Benji had said about him; she would put him to work.

  That afternoon she discussed some of her ideas with Benji, and particularly asked him straightforwardly about theft.

  He confirmed his mother’s remark that the men were allowed to take soap that was, in some way, not fit for their customers. She suggested that the system be tightened up and that the handling of the finished soap should be more carefully supervised, so that it was not deliberately made unsaleable.

  He chewed the end of a pencil, while he considered this, and then he said, ‘I don’t think it’s out of hand yet But it could be happening, if you say the inventories are not too accurate. The business has grown so much in the last three years that we need to look at the organization of the staff and the chain of responsibility. I haven’t had time to do a thorough inventory for eighteen months.’ He put his pencil into his top pocket and took out a handkerchief to mop the perspiration off his face. Though the stiff office window had been prized open by Mr Helliwell, on Wallace Helena’s instructions, the room was still uncomfortably warm, and the smell of the fats and the oils and the boiling, together with that of manure, drifted unpleasantly round them.

  Wallace Helena closed her eyes. Her head felt heavy and her chest hurt every time she coughed; for once, she was not smoking.

  She said slowly, ‘As soon as we get Probate – Mr Benson says it will be a few weeks yet – and we’re free to really manage, we’ll look at the whole staff situation in the light of what we intend to produce – and we’ll look at the long term – new machinery, and so on.’

  ‘So you’ll stay here? Have you heard from Canada?’

  ‘Not yet. But I intend that if we have to put this place up for sale, we get the best possible price for it – and the best arrangement we can for the employees. And we can only do that if it looks like an excellent purchase.’

  ‘Of course.’ She was talking sense, but he wished the uncertainty was over. He was tired of being asked persistently by worried men if he knew what was to happen.

  She was feeling exactly the same. The tug-of-war between what she wanted to do and what was possible was getting her down; and now she was so full of cold that she felt downright ill.

  As the days moved into weeks, Wallace Helena got impatient at the length of time Probate was taking. Mr Benson assured her that it always did take time; she was not to worry. During August, she began, bit by bit, to take control, regardless of the fact that she did not yet own the firm. Mr Benson seemed to be glad not to be bothered with day-to-day problems, and arranged that Mr Bobsworth and Benji could jointly sigh cheques under a certain value. She was careful to consult Benji or Mr Bobsworth as she took her first steps in management; and the company began to function better.

  The bad cold which she had had left her with a hacking cough, which was not improved by her smoking. She ignored it. She was feeling the change in her lifestyle very keenly. As the summer wore on, the damp heat and the polluted air seemed stifling. If she opened the office window, her desk and papers were rapidly covered with black dust, and the collar on her dress was grey before evening came. After the dryness of the Territories, the humidity of the Lancashire climate made clothing and bedding feel damp to her. To her surprise, she began to appreciate the pristine blue skies and the strong sunshine of her faraway homestead.

  She also found the food unsatisfying. After years of eating her own beef and pork or wild ducks and moose brought in by Joe, she thought it tasteless. Even a plate of Aunt Theresa’s beaver tails would have been welcome.

  Yet both the city and the soapery fascinated her. Encouraged by a friendly Eleanor, Benji introduced her to the pleasures of the music hall and the theatre. Eleanor would not go herself; she said it was too soon after her husband’s death to consider it. Anxious to foster the relationship between her son and Wallace Helena, she did, one Sunday, accompany them on the ferry boat, to New Brighton, where they walked along the shore and ate a picnic lunch; it was a relief to Wallace Helena to find brisk, clean breezes and an open space to walk.

  Another time, Benji took her to a concert in St George’s Hall and for the first time saw her overawed. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she cried, and she sat spellbound as the mighty organ was played by the City Organist, Mr W. T. Best. Nothing would please her until he took her again, and she wrote ecstatically to Joe about it.

  ‘I’ve never heard such music,’ she told Eleanor, her face alight

  In Benji’s eyes, Wallace Helena improved on acquaintance. He reckoned she must be close to forty, but she could be so light-hearted and enthusiastic that you’d never know it, and it was street lore that an older woman was more interested in you, because she was grateful for a sex life. He began to think seriously of marrying her. He was aware that under a fairly recent law about married women’s property the soap works would not automatically become his on marriage; nevertheless, he took it for granted that, in practice, he would be in charge of Lady Lavender if he married the owner – women always deferred to men.

  His own sex life had been somewhat limited. His father kept a close hold on him, because he wanted him to marry a Lebanese. He had, however, met young women at church social events, and had been out on the town with young Tasker a sufficient number of times to be acquainted with the ladies of Lime Street.

  On her part, Wallace Helena was amused by him. Though she was ignorant of English marriage laws, she knew it was not simply cousinly solicitude which had sparked so much attention, and she awaited events with detached interest. She was also very lonely in Liverpool. Not only did she miss Joe as her lover; she missed him as a close companion with whom she could freely discuss anything. Despite her growing trust of Benji, he was a poor substitute; he was too young, though indubitably very capable. She wondered idly what he would be like in bed; she had never slept with anyone but Joe. She decided the boy would probably be charming, like his father had apparently been, and she then dismissed the matter. She was not going to mix business with pleasure.

  One close bond the couple had: after Eleanor’s remark that he spoke both Arabic and French, Wallace Helena spoke to him daily in Arabic, and was delighted to find that he understood the subtlety of it, although he was not acquainted with any of its poets – or with Middle Eastern music. Wallace Helena’s English, though adequate, was not nearly as good as her native tongue, and the bond of a common language grew between them.

  When she was alone in the evening and the day was fine, she occasionally walked in the park or in the centre of the city. At other times, she sat in her high-ceilinged, gloomy sitting-room and read books culled from her uncle’s office shelves on various aspects of soap-making, and one or two on factory planning and management. Without chemistry and without personal knowledge
of other great industries in the north of England, she sometimes had difficulty in understanding what she had read. At such times, she would either consult Benji or seek out Mr Turner or Mr Tasker and ask them to clarify the text for her.

  Mr Tasker was, by far, her favourite. ‘Without a good product to sell, you can’t do nothing,’ he once said, mopping the perspiration from his face with a large, redspotted handkerchief. ‘And good soap begins with good ingredients. And that’s me first task – to check on the incomings.’

  ‘What about Mr Turner, the chemist?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Mr Turner can analyse and tell you what he reckons is in a barrel of tallow. But he don’t allow for fiddles.’

  ‘Fiddles?’

  ‘Aye. Like when there’s a bit o’summat inferior at the bottom, and such. Pass something like that and you’ve clarified it before you know it int up to snuff. Meself, I go and stand over an open barrel and I smell it – careful, like. I can tell you right off, when they’re tryin’ to fob us off with somethin’ inferior.’

  He did not explain who they were and she presumed they were the butchers and farmers who sold their surplus fat to soap makers. She was amused when he finished his remarks by a long slow sniff, as if to demonstrate the power of his nose.

  She also felt a sense of trust growing between her and dapper Mr Helliwell, who was already betting to himself that she would be his new employer, after Probate. She knew that he had been aware, before her arrival, that Wallace H. Harding was a woman. He knew, because he had packed up and posted the books sent to her by Uncle James. Yet, since Mr Benson had not seen fit to mention her sex, even to Benji, while he was checking that he had tracked down the right legatee, Mr Helliwell had apparently maintained absolute silence on the subject. As he had once said to her, Mr James’s business was confidential; if anybody knew about it, Mr James had told them himself. ‘And you, Miss Harding, may be sure of the same confidentiality.’

  Wallace Helena intrigued him. Seeing her each day at her uncle’s desk, sometimes at bad moments coping with the many problems which inevitably arose in a small business, he felt that she would deal fairly with him and the rest of the staff, possibly better than a man would. And, like old Mr James, she was interesting.

  Like Mr James, she swore and bullied, and he was fairly certain that anybody wanting a rise in pay would have to ask for it more than once; she obviously knew the value of every penny. Again, like her uncle, she showed signs of being quite human. He had, each year, treated the whole works to a picnic on New Brighton beach, and he had made himself pleasant to their wives and children. When Mr Helliwell had ventured to inform her that, owing to Mr James’s untimely death, the picnic had been cancelled, she had sat thoughtfully, her chin cupped in her hand, and then suggested, ‘Perhaps we could clear enough space in the factory, somewhere, and have a Christmas party – with dancing – instead.’

  Mr Helliwell assured her that it was a splendid idea. She had, however, asked him not to mention it to the staff until a firm decision had been made about the future of the Lady Lavender, and he had bowed and again assured her of his complete discretion. He did, however, assure the wheelwright, when he wanted a day off to attend his father’s funeral, that she was a very human lady, and the man should go into the office and ask her.

  When the request was immediately granted with a few words of kindly sympathy, Mr Helliwell was secretly triumphant that his belief that she belonged to the human race had been confirmed.

  When she dictated a note to Mr Bobsworth, carbon copy to Mr Benjamin, saying that the man’s wages for the day of absence were to be paid, he ventured to remark that it was just what Mr James would have done. ‘Mr Al-Khoury very rarely had any trouble with labour, Miss Harding. Like you, he was compassionate towards the men’s genuine problems. Once a man had a tally from the company, he did his best to keep him in work – even when we weren’t doing very well. He knew everybody he employed by name – more than many employers do.’

  ‘What’s a tally?’ It was the first time she had heard the word.

  ‘Oh, hasn’t Mr Benjamin mentioned them? Perhaps the need for giving one out has not arisen since you arrived. It’s a tin tag that a man can produce to show that he’s worked for us before. A decent, sober man, once he’s taken on, we like to keep him. If business is so slack that we have to lay him off, he’d be the first to be taken on again – before any stranger.’

  Wallace Helena nodded. Her father’s firm in Beirut had treated casual labour in the same way, most particularly in connection with those, however humble, who could be considered related to the family. She wondered irrelevantly, as she looked up at her hovering secretary, whether any had survived the massacre. From stories she had heard from one or two other refugees who had followed them to Chicago, it would seem unlikely; the massacre had been horrifyingly thorough.

  She said, ‘I noticed that most of the men had a small metal disc pinned to their jackets or overalls. Is that the tally?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Harding. It’s a quick way for the supervisors to spot an intruder. If he’s not wearing a tally, he’s immediately stopped and asked what his business is with the company.’

  ‘Do you know if the men are worried about what is going to happen to them in the present situation?’

  ‘Well, naturally they will be. Unemployment is rife in Liverpool.’

  She stubbed out the cigarello she had been smoking and rose, preparatory to going back to her lodgings for lunch. ‘Perhaps I should talk to them,’ she said.

  They might appreciate it, Miss Harding.’

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

  Chapter Thirty-One

  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.’