by Amanda Craig
‘Mum. Mum. Haven’t you noticed, I haven’t had an attack for years.’
It’s dark when he leaves in the evening, pedalling away on Lottie’s old bike, a squashy package of sandwiches in his pocket. She’s insisted on him wearing a reflective jacket and a helmet, as well as lights. It annoys him, even if he is a bit startled by the profound darkness of the countryside. Yet all of these things seem to fall away as he pedals along, the chill air slapping him to wakefulness.
Trelorn is the smallest market town on the River Tamar, and in daylight its houses and shops tumble down the banks like dirty sugar cubes. It has always been a liminal place, with its Cornish name and postal code, but counts as part of Devon. Its railway line had vanished in the 1960s, but it has its old Norman church, a secondary school, a library, a doctor’s surgery, various supermarkets, banks, charities and pubs, a main square punctuated by a granite monument dedicated to those who died in two world wars, and a run-down hotel, the White Hart, largely patronised by travelling salesmen and the occasional unwary tourist. Even in the height of summer, few visitors wish to stop there for long. Its industrial zone sprawls on one side of the town across what would otherwise have been a pretty little valley; on the other is the road leading to Dartmoor, and an abandoned quarry.
The factory resembles nothing so much as a gigantic corrugated steel shed surrounded by a scribble of razor wire and tarmac. Lit up, with steam fuming out of its chimneys, Humbles looks grim.
Xan wheels his bike over the gritty forecourt. He’s arrived half an hour before the start of the night shift. The entrance is through a door to the side of two giant gates, presumably so that lorries can be loaded with produce.
Inside, the noise from the production line is much more than expected. The foreman who shows him what to do is a huge fellow with cheeks and nose stained bright red from broken veins. He shouts,
‘Do you speak English?’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘YES!’ Xan shouts back, nettled. ‘I am English!’
The man looks doubtfully at him and says, at the same volume, ‘Any ID?’
Xan never thought he would be mistaken for an illegal immigrant, but Lottie has had the foresight to get him to photograph his passport.
‘Can you read English?’
‘Yes,’ Xan says. ‘The sign over there says NO TRESPASSERS.’
The man grunts, and tells him to get changed. Xan scrambles to find a white nylon uniform and boots and to put his clothes in a wire locker. Other men are also changing, and there’s a general stir when Xan comes in. Having to bundle his mass of squiggly locks into the hairnet is embarrassing: he hasn’t noticed, but he’s grown an Afro. When Xan emerges, the man bellows,
‘Anyone who tries to steal your boots, which they will, I’m not interested. You clock in here with your card, and you clock out the end of your shift or you don’t get paid at the end of the week. We text you on the days that we need you, and you don’t ever go into areas where people wear red. Understand?’
‘Yes. Why not?’
‘Cross-CONTAMINATION!’ the man roars. ‘Anyone who goes from raw to cooked is a biohazard, and gets sacked ON THE SPOT. Understand?’
‘Yes,’ Xan shouts. The noise will be a constant irritation.
‘You get a thirty-minute dinner break after midnight. Toilet breaks every three hours. The managers watch you all the time from the gods.’
‘The gods?’ Xan asks, bewildered.
‘Up there, see?’
The foreman points a chunky pink finger up, where the small figures of people look down on them; it reminds Xan of the Royal Opera House. Unlike its dilapidated exterior, the inside of the factory is dazzlingly white, with fluorescent strip lights making it as bright as daylight. It is clean in the way that a hospital is clean, without germs or joy. The floors are smooth, sealed concrete. A machine sucks the dust out of the ceiling, where gigantic fans spin unceasingly. Three long stainless-steel conveyor belts circle on an endless loop of noise. A dozen moving parts are squealing or shrieking or jiggling as the pies move along the various stages of composition.
‘EARPLUGS!’
He can barely hear the words, but fumbles for the foam plugs. They’re wholly inadequate, and he soon takes them out because if he doesn’t, he can’t hear what anyone says. All over the factory, men and women in white overalls, hats and white rubber boots are assembling to take over from the day shift. The overalls are so plastic that they show only the vaguest outline of the person wearing them, and no sweat stains them, though after an hour, everyone is dripping with exertion. He must have seen pictures like this in geography books, or maybe on the TV, but the noise is so much worse than imagined.
‘Now, let’s see if you can work like a Pole,’ roars the foreman. ‘I’ll put you in with Maddy.’
Maddy is a short, scrawny woman. She gives Xan a brief nod.
‘Copy what Maddy does. If you need the toilet, make sure you take all your clothes off before you go, and wash your bloody hands. No smoking, ever. When the alarm goes, you step forward to take this man’s place in front of you. At the end of your shift, twelve hours from now, he will take yours. There must be no stopping the flow. Understand?’
Xan’s sense of his own personality coalesces into a solid knot of anxiety. This is real, he tells himself. The alarm blares, and he steps forward to tap the shoulder of the man in front of him. The changeover happens so smoothly that he’s filled with a sense of triumph. His body, so often a source of anxiety and shame, has not let him down.
Maddy mouths,
‘All right?’
‘Yes!’
They aren’t supposed to talk to each other, but under the tremendous noise of the machinery they do, even if much of it is lip-reading. After ten minutes, Xan feels as if he’s been doing it for ever.
Xan has probably eaten a Humble pie many times in his life. Their logo, an image of green hills under blue skies, is such a familiar part of life that nobody notices it, for their produce can be found in supermarkets, cafeterias, service stations, snack bars and canteens across Britain. A uniform golden-brown, Humbles’ pies look and smell fine, and are always filling, in that each conveys the sensation of having swallowed a lump of lead which sinks straight to the bottom of the stomach.
At present, they are making meat pies rather than desserts. At one end of the factory, the raw ingredients are peeled, diced, sliced, cubed, seasoned and cooked in vats. It has to be done by hand, for though rumble machines can strip the skin off a potato in seconds, only people can cope with the odd shapes of other vegetables.
‘What’s the meat?’ Xan asks.
Maddy mouths, ‘You tell me.’
He wonders whether she’s trying to indicate something. It’s now past midnight, well after his longer break is due, and he’s ravenously hungry. Lottie’s sandwiches now seem like a very good idea.
‘Are all the pies always the same?’ he asks Maddy when the relief workers give them their breaks.
‘Yes, apart from when they change filling. Then you get apple with raspberry mixed in. They don’t stop the belt you see, it’s not worth it, so those pies get thrown away, or sold cheap, from the shop if you like.’
‘Do they ever change the recipes?’
‘Well, they’re supposed to be inventing new fillings, like they’re supposed to have trainee food technician apprenticeships, but I’ve been here for years and never tasted any different. They were invented by the first Mrs Humble, a Victorian farmer’s wife with seven hungry sons.’
‘And were they?’
‘This factory only got going in the nineteen fifties.’
‘So it’s all made up?’
‘When the crust is put on, some bluebirds fly down and crimp them,’ she says.
The pies are, in a way, a feat of technology. Each requires exactly the same amount of time to have exactly the same-tasting filling squirted into it from a huge vat. What Xan has to do is numbingly simple: he just has to push
them into a line as they travel down the conveyor belt to be baked.
What seems easy at first becomes tiring, then worse. Just because it’s boring does not mean he can switch off concentration, or the nausea induced by watching continual motion. An hour after his first break, Xan wants to pee, but he has to hold on for another two hours. Once in the toilet, nobody bothers to undress, as they are supposed to, and despite notices on the mirrors, few wash their hands before putting them into plastic gloves.
‘How long have you been here?’ he asks Maddy.
‘Two years. One bloke’s been here for twenty, but most only last a few months.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
She grins at him. ‘You’re British, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that makes a change. Don’t think I’ve seen you around before, though.’
‘My family moved here from London.’
‘Where are you living?’
‘Shipcott. We’re renting.’
‘My stars! You’re not the ones who’ve taken that place, are you?’
‘What?’
‘Home Farm.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Not superstitious then?’
‘Um – no.’
He isn’t listening, as he eyes the girls nearby. They’re the first people his own age he’s seen in Devon, apart from Janet’s daughter. (There’s someone who looks vaguely like Dawn shuffling around with a trolley, but he can’t be sure, because so many women here are shapeless.) These are pretty, slim and he suspects Polish, for they have those smooth, wedge-shaped faces, heavily made up. Even in overalls, they are seriously fit.
One of them glances his way. She has pale green eyes, a full mouth and skin as smooth as cream. Xan blushes and pushes his hairnet back.
‘Stop fiddling with that, or you’ll lose a week’s wages,’ Maddy says. ‘Whole place can be shut down for a hair.’
‘How do they know?’
‘Spot checks. Keep up!’
Speed isn’t Xan’s only problem. There’s a bloke who has a job walking up and down, some sort of overseer. As Xan stands, his hands occupied, he suddenly feels his buttocks being fondled.
At first Xan thinks that he must have imagined it because his muscles are pinging with pain. But the hands fondle him again, and the worst of it is, Xan can do nothing because his entire attention has to stay on the conveyor belt.
‘Hallo darling,’ the bloke breathes into his neck.
‘Piss off,’ Xan mutters, furious.
The hands, which have now moved to the front of his trousers, grip his hips. Xan feels the man’s erection grind into his back. Everyone else is carefully not looking his way.
‘Hey!’ Xan says more loudly. He is terrified. What should he do? He can feel his legs trembling.
‘Only havin’ a laugh, darling, only havin’ a laugh,’ the man says. His breath, hot and sour, sprays in Xan’s ear. Xan catches the foreman’s eye, but the man shrugs.
‘It’s just Rod,’ the foreman says.
Xan thinks he might be about to vomit, but then there’s a crash. A trolley has collided into his persecutor, spilling trays on the floor, and suddenly people are all around, clearing up the mess, and the conveyor belt stops with a great shrilling of sirens. The foreman shouts at the small, dumpy female who caused it. It is Dawn, bobbing her head in apology. The conveyor belt starts again, and his assailant is needed elsewhere. Xan catches a glimpse of him: a lean red-faced man with a turkey-cock nose and ginger eyebrows. What the hell had that been about? Miserably, he meets the gaze of the Polish girl he’d noticed before. She is looking at him, and now she shrugs slightly, as if to say, What a jerk. He nods gratefully.
Maddy says, ‘You take care with those girls.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, a little British baby is what they want, and benefits.’
Xan flushes. ‘Really?’
Maddy rolls her eyes.
‘You think they can get what we offer in Poland? Course not. I’m not saying they’re not good workers, but nobody does this job for long. Free health care, free education, child benefit, who wouldn’t jump at it? Plenty of little Polish kids in local schools.’
Xan drags his eyes away from the girl. He doesn’t like this kind of talk, which sounds pretty much like racism, but he knows nothing.
‘Do you have kids, Maddy?’
‘Three. One year, six and seven. Girl, boy, girl.’
‘Do you ever get to see them if you work nights?’
‘I get home in time to take them to school, sleep for six hours, make their tea, do the housework and come here. My husband does the rest.’
‘What does he do?’ Xan asks, politely. ‘He was a soldier in Afghanistan. Lost his legs.’
‘Oh. Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘So is he.’
His own arms and legs and head feel hot and heavy. He’s not used to any of this. The last two hours are pure torment. He wants to cry, only there isn’t enough moisture in his body for tears. Perhaps he’ll go on until he himself falls onto the conveyor belt and is carried off to be put in a pie. Suddenly, a hand taps his shoulder. The far end of the factory is open, and crates of pies are being loaded onto lorries for distribution. The shift has ended.
Like weary ghosts, the night workers step back and the day shift steps forward. The machinery continues to squeal and rumble as the workforce shuffles to the changing rooms. He’s never been able to understand why adults complain about being tired all the time, but now he understands, it’s what work does to you. Your vitality, in exchange for money. All at once, he understands how privileged everyone he has ever known is, in having the education and opportunity to not do what he has just done, and must do again.
Men around him strip off, throw their hairnets, gloves and overalls into a laundry bag. The relief of being out of them is almost pleasurable. Xan still has to cycle back to Home Farm, an uphill journey which now fills him with dread. The Polish girls emerge from their shapeless clothes like butterflies, in tiny brightly coloured vests, jackets and skin-tight jeans. Released, their hair tumbles in luscious waves of chestnut or blonde. The green-eyed girl turns out to be a brunette. He had known she would be, somehow.
She talks, in a low husky voice, and her friends suddenly burst out laughing. If only she spoke English! He wanders nearer, following them out of the factory door. The group stops, and the girl turns, and looks at him enquiringly.
‘Hi,’ Xan says. She looks at him with a faint smile. Greatly daring, he points to himself and says, ‘Xan. Alexander.’
The girl smiles, and says,
‘Hello, Alex. I am Katya.’
Perhaps Devon won’t be so boring after all.
8
Quentin Unleashed
Quentin’s new girlfriend lives on a houseboat, conveniently close to Paddington Station. Their affair has been going on since summer, and at present it feels like a life-saver.
He was walking along the canal one sunny afternoon soon after his return from America when a pretty woman on one of the barges moored in the canal asked him for a light. Her grin was so cheeky that Quentin could not help laughing.
‘I don’t smoke, I’m afraid.’
‘Neither do I.’
Tina took him into her long narrowboat and her wide soft bed that very afternoon, and since then he has stayed with her whenever he comes up.
‘O the deep, deep peace of the double bed, after the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue,’ he quotes, and Tina, like every woman before her, laughs. She laughs a lot, which is a pleasant change, and he enjoys her languid bohemianism.
‘I have a gypsy heart,’ she says, though her home is connected to electricity, water, sewerage and broadband, and not really going anywhere. ‘I can’t afford to rent, let alone buy anywhere, sweetie.’
Sunk below the usual noise of the city, the barge’s air of watery impermanence and its central location both suit Quentin very well. So does Tina. With her Roberts radio tune
d permanently to Heart FM, her rows of silver rings and her lickerish enthusiasm, she is infinitely preferable to a nagging, angry wife. Unleashed, he wakes with a reliable erection, and a sense that his greying hair has become invisible. How glorious it is to be back in the city!
Yet London is also a torment to him. People who once sent him fawning letters asking for work no longer bother to reply when he now pitches ideas to them. He has discovered the truth of the advice to be kind to those you pass on the way up because you will meet them again on the way down. One email to him began,
Quentin,
When I came to work for you as an intern, I made your coffee, fetched your dry-cleaning, covered your back and even cleaned shit off your shoes. You didn’t pay me lunch money let alone a living wage, and never once said thank you. You are the rudest person I have ever worked with. So you will understand why I say now, We have no vacancies of any kind that you might fill.
Others are more diplomatic, but convey the same message. It’s like that moment in a game of Snakes and Ladders where, after shooting triumphantly up one ladder after another, you find the board has become hideously alive with long, green and yellow snakes which swallow up your counter no matter how often you roll the dice.
So the upshot of all this bad feeling is that apart from Ivo Sponge, nobody will give him a regular weekly slot. At the Rambler, which he edited so successfully, he is billed as a ‘contributing editor’, something that sounds grand but is a public admission of impotence. Even this is entirely due to his former assistant, Katie, who is now deputy editor of the magazine and living with his grown-up son Ian.
Quentin wishes he and Ian liked each other more, because it would be convenient to have a second crash-pad for his London visits, even if it would mean staying near the dreary East End Academy where his son is now head. They have nothing in common. Ian is a fine young man, as honest, hard-working, conscientious and professional as the best kind of South African, only he has absolutely no sense of humour. Apparently, he is a big success at his school and is spoken of as one of a new breed of teachers transforming inner-city state schools. It is now too late for any kind of relationship, although Naomi and Hugh get on tremendously well.
