Spilled Water

by Sally Grindley

  It was stifling under the foul-smelling blanket. I lifted it away from my face, only to be teased by the smell of food. The men were obviously eating next door. I could hear music too. I was desperate for them to leave. Why couldn’t they have chosen one of the other apartment blocks? Why mine? They were probably regular visitors. I wondered whether to steal out of the building while they had their door closed, but it was dark outside now, as well as freezing cold, and I was too scared to move in case they heard me. I could only hope that they would leave me alone in my room while they remained locked in theirs.

  After perhaps an hour, maybe two hours, the voices and the music stopped. I was struggling to keep my eyes open, but I stayed awake for another half an hour or so, before deciding that the two men must be asleep and that I was safe at least for a while. I lay down, pulled the collar of my coat round my ears, wrapped the blanket round the lower part of my body and hid my bag under it as well, then fell asleep myself.

  I woke again at dawn, stiff with cold and ravenous. All was quiet in the building. The ferry would leave, I judged, in about an hour. I had to be on it. I couldn’t stay here another day and night, but how would I know whether it was safe to leave? I decided that the only thing I could do would be to make a dash for it. I waited for another nerve-wracking stretch of time. There was still no sound from the room across the hall. I stood up quietly and stretched my legs, picked up my bag, then moved silently towards the door. I peered round it and my heart skipped a beat. The door opposite was open. I listened hard. Not a sound. The men must have gone already. I took a deep breath, leapt out into the hallway, then belted down the stairs, two at a time, and out through the front door.

  It had snowed during the night. A sprinkling covered the ground, smoothing its jagged edges and bleaching the greyness from the landscape. The murky sky suggested there was more to come. I hurried down the path, joining a steady stream of people who were also heading for the river. Their early-morning chatter cheered me, a sense of excitement eclipsed my fears.

  As I drew closer to the waiting ferry, I scoured the quayside for the Chens, but saw no one of their grandeur. I mingled with a large group of women who, it appeared from their conversation, were on their way to work at a factory further down the river, and boarded the ferry with them. It seemed an eternity before the engines started up, but at last they roared into action. The horn sounded, and we moved slowly, slowly away from the landing stage, away from a period of my life I was only too happy to leave behind.

  The ferry picked up speed. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was safe at last. I would stay on the ferry for as long as possible, then make my way home somehow or other, by bus or by train. It couldn’t be that difficult, I thought, to work out a route back. I stood by the edge and gazed over to the far side of the river, where buildings lower down had been obliterated and smallholdings abandoned. Higher up, another new town stood proud.

  ‘Lucky people, aren’t they?’

  A rather overweight man had come to stand next to me. I looked at him, bewildered. He pointed across the water.

  ‘Nice new homes they’ve got now. New jobs too, most of them. Nice warm factories instead of having to break their backs digging for a pittance.’

  I didn’t think my family would have agreed. Father had always refused to work in a factory, however much Uncle had tried to persuade him. I didn’t want to talk to this man, though. I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts.

  ‘Are you going far?’ he asked.

  I nodded but made no effort to continue the conversation, hoping he’d go away.

  ‘Bit young to be on your own, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m older than I look,’ I said, trying to sound tough.

  ‘Old enough to work?’ he continued. ‘My wife and I, we’re always on the lookout for girls to work in our factories. You won’t find better.’

  ‘I don’t want to work in a factory,’ I said. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘That’s our loss, then,’ said the man. ‘I hope you have a good journey.’ He flashed me a smile before turning away.

  I was relieved that at that moment the ticket man approached me.

  ‘Where to, Miss?’ he asked.

  ‘All the way, please.’

  He told me how much I had to pay and I reached into my bag to take out the money. I delved down to the bottom, my fingers itching to touch the fat wad of crisp notes Mrs Hong had given me. I couldn’t find it. I could feel my face turning red, my heart thumping. I searched around with my hand, then opened the bag wider and pulled out my clothes to look underneath. The money wasn’t there.

  ‘Got a problem, Miss?’ asked the ticket man.

  ‘My money – it’s gone. Someone’s taken my money,’ I wailed. It hit me like a sledgehammer, the awful realisation that it must have been the men I had heard in the night. I knew something had been wrong that morning. It was the pile of electrical wire. It had gone. The men had come into my room for the wire. They had discovered me sound asleep. They had found my bag and stolen my money.

  I must have fainted at the thought of it, for the next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor of the ferry being comforted by a tiny woman.

  ‘Don’t you worry, my darling,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve paid your fare. You just sit there until you feel better.’

  ‘But the money,’ I sobbed, as I realised again what had happened. ‘I need it to get home. My mother’s expecting me.’

  ‘What a terrible stroke of luck you’ve suffered, but I’m afraid there’s no use crying,’ said the woman, not unkindly. ‘What’s gone is gone.’

  I hauled myself to my feet, aware of the pitying stares of the other passengers.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ I sobbed again. ‘I need it for my mother. I can’t go home without it.’

  ‘That bad, eh?’ sympathised the woman. ‘I wonder if there’s anything my husband and I can do to help you.’

  She called across the boat, and the fat man who had spoken to me earlier came over to us.

  ‘This young lady’s had her money stolen, poor thing,’ she said to him. ‘And there she was saving it to help her poor mother.’

  ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to,’ said the man. ‘It’s always the good folk who get taken advantage of.’

  ‘We can help her though, can’t we?’ urged the woman. ‘Help her earn some money for her family.’

  ‘Like I told her, we employ a lot of young girls in our factories,’ said the man, ‘but she doesn’t want to work in a factory, so I’m afraid we can’t really help.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s good pay, my dear,’ the woman encouraged. ‘Good pay. Good conditions. You come with us and you’ll earn enough in no time.’

  ‘You work hard enough,’ said the man, ‘and we’ll have you home for Spring Festival. Plenty of young ladies would jump at the chance, but you must make up your own mind.’

  Spring Festival. A month away. I could cope with that, couldn’t I, after all I had been through? My heart skipped at the thought of how my mother’s face would look if I walked through the door in time for Spring Festival, in time to give her a fistful of money to spend on our celebrations.

  ‘What sort of factory?’ I asked.

  ‘The best,’ said the man. ‘A toy factory.’

  ‘Dolls, teddy bears, furry animals, rubber ducks, plastic lorries. Everything,’ enthused the woman. ‘Lots of other young girls work there.’

  Perhaps they would let me take something back for Li-hu, I smiled to myself.

  ‘We’re Mr and Mrs Wang.’ The woman held out her hand. ‘Trust us, my dear. We’ll see you’re all right.’

  ‘I’m Lu Si-yan,’ I said, shyly, shaking first her hand and then his. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  Mr and Mrs Wang shared some food with me and asked me about myself. I told them a little about my family, but when they began to pry into my recent past, I said that I had worked as a domestic, and left it at that. They seemed friendly enough, but I was worried a
t the thought that I was putting my well-being into the hands of complete strangers, and I instinctively felt that the less they knew about me the better. I had no choice but to trust them, though. They were offering me a lifeline.

  Chapter Twenty

  Only the Best

  We left the ferry more than a dozen stops further on, by which time it was nearly midday. As soon as we were ashore, Mr Wang hailed a taxi. We were taken up a steep hill, through another partially demolished, deserted old town, beyond the new town above it, and out into the country, leaving the river far behind us. We travelled for several miles before we reached a small, shabby industrial town, where factory after factory belched foul-smelling smoke into the atmosphere, and where row upon row of concrete dormitories lined the roads. We pulled up outside the gates of one of the factories.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Mr Wang proudly. ‘All this belongs to us. This factory and the two alongside. Three factories, three hundred workers.’

  ‘And you will be one of them, Lu Si-yan,’ added Mrs Wang brightly.

  I looked at the grimy, featureless facade of the building, its windows tiny and too dirty to see through. Yellow smoke poured from its eight chimneys, otherwise there was no sign of life from the outside. Mr Wang unlocked the gates. We walked round to a side door, along a short, neon-lit corridor and into his office. A huge black desk dominated the room, which was decorated with an assortment of garish paintings, a red and gold silk carpet and an enormous red sofa.

  Mr Wang plumped himself down at the desk. Very quickly he told me how much I would be paid and when, what hours I would work, and what I would earn if I worked extra hours.

  ‘We’re very generous with our overtime payments,’ he said.

  ‘Very generous,’ echoed Mrs Wang.

  It sounded like a fortune, for I had never earned money before. If I worked lots of extra hours I was sure I could leave after a month and be home, as Mr Wang had said, in time for the Spring Festival. That was all I could think of then, just getting through whatever the work entailed, and handing my wages to my mother.

  ‘You’ll sleep in one of our dormitories with some of the other girls,’ continued Mr Wang.

  ‘It’s very cosy and I’m sure you’ll make lots of friends,’ said Mrs Wang.

  ‘And you’ll be fed on the premises. We pay for that ourselves.’ Mr Wang patted his paunch.

  ‘It’s good food, too,’ smiled Mrs Wang. ‘Only the best for our workers.’

  ‘Off you go, then. Remember, work hard and you’ll reap the rewards.’ Mr Wang dismissed me with a wave of the hand.

  ‘Come with me, dear,’ said Mrs Wang. ‘We’ll look after your nice coat for you and get you kitted out like the other girls. We provide you with two sets of overalls which you must wear all the time and wash yourself.’

  She took me along another corridor, into a changing room. From a cupboard, she pulled out some overalls and made me put them on instead of the clothes I was wearing. They were far too big, but Mrs Wang looked at me and nodded approvingly.

  ‘Perfect,’ she said. ‘Now, keep your own clothes with you and you can put them in a locker in your dormitory later on. One of the girls will find you a space.’

  She led me from the room and down another corridor. ‘Can you sew?’ she asked.

  I nodded, grimacing inwardly as I remembered the last time I had been asked that question.

  ‘Then how would you like to make teddy bears? We’ve got lots of orders for those at the moment, so we could do with an extra pair of hands on the production line.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Good.’ Mrs Wang clapped her hands. ‘Come on, then. I’ll show you where to go and find out what you’ll be doing.’

  She led me down another corridor to a door at the end. She opened the door, pulled me through and shut it quickly behind her. The wave of heat made me gasp. The smell of stale air was nauseating. In front of me, rows of young women and girls were hunched over sewing machines. Not one of them looked up when we came in. Mrs Wang walked me between two of the rows to the far side of the room, where a supervisor sat watching the girls.

  ‘Mrs Li, this is our new recruit, Lu Si-yan,’ said Mrs Wang. ‘Where would you like her?’

  ‘Eyes,’ Mrs Li replied, looking at me sourly. ‘A little young, isn’t she?’

  ‘Fifteen, and eager to do as much work as possible, aren’t you, dear?’ Mrs Wang answered quickly, staring at me for confirmation, though we hadn’t discussed my age. I lowered my head in a half-nod.

  ‘Will her hands do?’ asked the supervisor.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll harden up in no time,’ smiled Mrs Wang. ‘I’ll leave her to you.’

  Mrs Wang disappeared back through the room and out through the door. The supervisor rose reluctantly from her table.

  ‘This way, then,’ she said, without looking at me.

  I followed her to the end of a row, where she made a young woman stop what she was doing and move to another position. She sat me down at the vacated table and picked up a faceless bear from a box on the floor.

  ‘This is all you have to do,’ she said, pulling a carton of glass eyes towards her and taking two. ‘Poke two small holes where the eyes are to go. Tie each eye into the middle of a strand of upholstery thread. Squeeze the eye wires together to form a pin. Ease the threads on to a needle. Push the needle into the eyehole and pull the threads gently to work the wires into the eyehole to seat the eye.’

  She continued apace, without checking to see that I understood her instructions, until both eyes were in place. It was amusing to see the bear’s face begin to come to life, but I was anxious that I should find the procedure too difficult. I wished I could start with the nose, which I was sure would be much easier. The supervisor stood up and told me to sit down.

  ‘You will have the rest of today to practise,’ she said expressionlessly. ‘You are lucky this is the quiet season. You will be expected to keep up with the rest of the girls. We do not tolerate slackness.’

  She indicated that I should practise on the bears in the box, then returned to the far side of the room without another word. I peered round to see if anyone was looking at me, but the girls were all too busy concentrating on their own bit of bear-making. I pulled a bear out of the box, two eyes from the carton, and tried to remember what I had to do. Poking the holes, which had seemed the simplest part of the operation, proved to be the first difficulty. I ended up with one much higher than the other, giving the bear a rather mischievous look once the eyes were in place. Threading the needle and pushing it through the dense stuffing and coarse-lined fur was the next major hurdle. I rammed it as hard as I could, joggling it around, but achieved no more than a shallow indentation. I tried again and again, my fingers growing redder and redder, perspiration pouring down my face.

  I looked to either side of me for help. The girl to my left stole a glance in my direction and whispered, ‘Use the needle-grabber.’

  I had no idea what a needle-grabber was, but she pointed to a piece of leather on my table, then returned to her work.

  ‘Thanks,’ I whispered, but she made no acknowledgement.

  I wrapped the needle in the leather and tried again to push it through the bear’s head. It still refused to budge at first. With perseverance, though, I finally managed to work the needle out through the bear’s neck. I breathed a sigh of relief and stretched my arms out, only to catch the disapproving look of the supervisor. I pulled hard on the threads to manoeuvre the eye into position, and was pleased that it actually stayed put, even if it was a little too low.

  I set to work on the second eye. I managed to push the needle through more quickly this time, but when it came to tying the threads together, they cut painfully into my fingers. I couldn’t believe that making a bear could be so difficult.

  At last, the two eyes were in place. I stood the bear up in front of me and couldn’t help smiling at his cock-eyed look. I wished I could keep him. I traced with my finger where I would have sewn
his nose and a big smiley mouth. I would have called him One Eye Up, One Eye Down Bear, I decided, were I allowed to keep him.

  ‘You’ll have to speed up if you want to keep your job here.’ The supervisor’s acid voice cut through my reverie. ‘Two eyes are not much to show for over an hour’s work. Two eyes that are far from straight.’

  ‘It’s making my hands sore,’ I said, hoping that she might move me to noses or paws.

  ‘It’s the same for everyone when they start. You just have to get used to it.’

  The supervisor returned to her seat. I picked up another bear and began the same process again, making sure this time that the eyeholes were in alignment. For the rest of the afternoon, I threaded and shoved and jiggled and pulled until my shoulders ached and my hands were stiff and bloody. Yet I managed to complete only four bears. Each time, the stuffing resisted my most strenuous efforts to push the needle through it. I couldn’t see how I was ever going to speed up, and the threat that I might lose my job petrified me.

  A bell sounded. The other girls stopped what they were doing immediately and dashed for the door. I wasn’t sure whether I should follow or wait for the supervisor to tell me what to do, but then I saw that she was disappearing just as quickly. The girl who had spoken to me previously told me to hurry up.

  ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ she asked. ‘It’s suppertime.’

  I dropped my work and jumped to my feet. I followed her along another corridor, through a door to the outside, and across a concrete courtyard towards one of two enormous corrugated iron buildings, where dozens of other workers were converging. We piled through the doors into a cavernous canteen furnished with endless lines of large round plastic tables and chairs. The tables were covered with metal tureens of steaming food.