The Bottle Factory Outing

by Beryl Bainbridge

  ‘I haven’t any,’ lied Brenda. ‘You made me pay for one chicken and I bought the shampoo.’

  It wasn’t that she was mean, but she wanted to be prepared for disaster – the 40p in her purse was to get home if she was left stranded at the Stately Home.

  Freda was livid. She kicked the basket roughly with her foot and threw herself on to the bed.

  ‘How can I get through a bloody day like this on five ciggies?’ she shouted.

  ‘But it was your idea. You got us into it. I’d much rather sleep all day.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Freda.

  She looked at her wrist watch and noted the time. She had ordered the van for seven-thirty but had no intention of arriving at the factory before eight o’clock. It restored her good humour, prolonging the agony for Brenda, keeping her in suspense: she was probably dying inside with embarrassment.

  ‘You shouldn’t have spent your money on that,’ said Brenda desperately, glancing at the table laid for two with the bunch of dried leaves removed from the mantelpiece and set in the middle of the cloth.

  There were wine glasses too and a bowl of real butter, and stuffed olives on a saucer. God knows where they had come from, but two napkins, starched and folded, lay beside the blue-rimmed plates. She went to the window and stared out at the flats and the deserted balconies. At the foot of a tree a cat stretched and sharpened its claws on the bark. It shouldn’t do that, she thought, and she heard Freda telling her not to hang about. ‘We don’t want your Patrick dying of a broken heart.’

  It was five minutes to eight when they let themselves out into the street. The basket tipped on the steps and a loaf pitched to the ground. As Brenda carefully closed the front door, a huge gust of wind tore at the purple cloak and engulfed her in its folds.

  ‘Christ,’ said Freda, reaching for her hair, which was blowing in all directions, and retrieving the long thin bread from beside the dustbins.

  At the corner of the empty street Brenda said: ‘Honestly, Freda, I don’t want to go. It’s going to be awful. Couldn’t I be ill or something?’

  ‘Be quiet,’ snapped Freda, pushing the basket ahead of her, head bent against the gale.

  A hundred yards from the factory the wind dropped and the sun came out quite strongly. Maria, a brown paper bag blown by the wind wrapped round her swollen ankles, ran to meet them with outstretched hands.

  ‘There is a delay. We have no van. Amelio is not come.’

  From beneath the hem of her working coat Mr Paganotti’s frock, edged with daisies, hung a full two inches.

  ‘My God,’ said Freda. ‘I might have known.’

  She brushed past Maria and looked about for Vittorio. He was nowhere to be seen. The men stood in a row against the wall holding briefcases and carrier bags. They nodded and smiled, raising their wide-brimmed hats in greeting. It looked like a gathering of the Mafia – the street deserted save for the line of men dressed all in black, shoulders hunched, standing in front of the great doors of the factory, and the blonde girl taller than all of them, marching up and down with a face of thunder and a roll of French bread held like a sten gun under her arm.

  Brenda tried to pretend she wasn’t there, that she was alone at the top of a mountain. Just then Rossi, who had been poised in the middle of the road staring in the direction of the High Street, turned and saw her. Exuberantly he ran to her, his hostility to Freda forgotten in the joy of the occasion. How he had longed for this moment, this day to begin, driving into the countryside unaccompanied by his wife, as if he was an Englishman.

  ‘Bongiorno, ladies,’ he cried, ‘Bongiorno.’ Rubbing his hands together he positively jumped up and down on the pavement.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ asked Freda officiously, folding her arms and looking at him with deep suspicion. ‘I ordered the van for seven-thirty. Amelio should have been here a quarter an hour ago.’ She had to bother about the details – the arrival of the van she had organised – even though she was sick to her stomach at the street empty of Vittorio.

  Rossi shrugged his shoulders. ‘The traffic, maybe. It is only a little waiting.’

  ‘Traffic, you fool? At this hour?’ She leant viciously on the wing of his Ford Cortina, and the car lurched slightly. ‘I knew it,’ she said to Brenda, as if the others didn’t exist. ‘I knew it would be a shambles.’

  ‘It is only a little hitch,’ reasoned Brenda, smiling at the row of workers ashen-faced with the cold.

  Round the corner of the street came first Vittorio, then Patrick.

  ‘There’s no sign of it at all,’ called Patrick, striding ahead in a belted raincoat and a cloth cap over his outstanding ears.

  Brenda was surprised how like Stanley he appeared, in his mackintosh and his dark blue tie in a strangle knot at his throat.

  Vittorio said something in Italian to Rossi, who shrugged again and consulted his watch. The men murmured and dug their hands deeper into their pockets. At the kerb stood the four small barrels of wine donated by Mr Paganotti. How old and worn, thought Brenda, are the faces of the men in the daylight. Indoors the lighted bulbs, the constant nips of wine, had tinged their cheeks with pink.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Vittorio to Freda. ‘And how are you this wonderful English morning?’

  He was mocking her. He was laying the blame for the weather at her feet. He was telling her how ridiculous she had been to conceive of this Outing.

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Brenda quickly, smiling so hard that her jaw ached. Much more of this and her toothache would come on with the strain.

  Vittorio was so beautiful in her eyes, his immaculate duffel coat fastened with white toggles, his chunky boots threaded with laces of bright red, that Freda was compelled to be off-hand with him.

  ‘Oh hallo,’ she said, as if she hardly knew him; and she turned her back. It annoyed her how confident he seemed. She was conscious that for some reason she had lost ground since the visit of Madame Rossi to the office.

  ‘Are you not in a joyful mood?’ he asked, and she pretended she hadn’t heard.

  ‘You are looking very nice,’ Rossi told Brenda, looking at the purple cloak and catching a glimpse of black ankles above the shiny green of her shoes.

  ‘Hmmmph,’ cried Freda, and she flounced several yards away.

  ‘Is the great manager getting out of the wrong side of the bed?’ asked Rossi unwisely. He was so happy himself he could not believe Freda was angry.

  ‘Please, Freda,’ begged Brenda, following her. ‘Please behave.’

  Brushing her aside, Freda returned to Vittorio. ‘Look here,’ she shouted. ‘I hope you don’t think it’s my fault that the bloody van hasn’t arrived.’

  He raised his eyes at her outburst, and the men at the wall shuffled their feet and looked politely at the sky. How vibrant she was, always arguing and gesticulating, waving her loaf of bread like a battle flag in the air.

  ‘She should get herself seen to,’ said Patrick, gazing at her in disgust and admiration.

  The sound of Freda’s voice was suddenly drowned by a great bellow of rage from the street corner, at which appeared the missing Amelio on foot, shaking his fists and in the grip of some huge irritation. The men broke ranks and surged to meet him. A babble of voices rose in enquiry. What was amiss? Where was the van?

  Amelio had risen from his warm bed at six to drive from his house in the suburbs to Hope Street. He had parked his small black car outside the factory and gone on foot to the garage off the Edgware Road to collect the van. They had told him that no such vehicle had been promised for today. He had remonstrated. He had pleaded. He had mentioned the name of Mr Paganotti. But there was no van.

  ‘There is no van,’ cried Rossi, turning to Freda.

  ‘No van,’ she echoed.

  ‘No, no, no,’ moaned Amelio, and he broke through the circle of workers and wrenched at the side door of his little black car. Rossi tried to reason with him. He placed an arm about Amelio’s shoulders. He clutched him like a brother. He shook hi
m until his own plump cheeks wobbled with passion and entreaty.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Brenda, clinging to Maria, who was scarlet in the face with emotion.

  ‘Amelio have a car. Salvatore and Rossi have a car. Nobody else. He want Amelio to drive us in the car to the picnic.’

  ‘Oh God,’ groaned Freda, crumbling the French bread into the gutter.

  After a time Amelio freed himself from Rossi and got into the driving seat. He waved his hands at the window in a gesture of dismissal. Rossi stepped back to the kerb, and they all watched the black car slew in a half circle into the middle of the road and move towards the corner. It came to a halt, and then crawled cautiously into the High Street and vanished from sight.

  ‘Poor bugger,’ said Patrick.

  The men stood for some moments not knowing what to do. A torn poster, advertising some long-finished event, whirled upwards and bowled along the road after the departed Amelio.

  ‘Why can’t we use one of the firm’s vans?’ demanded Freda.

  ‘We cannot go in Mr Paganotti’s business motors for a picnic,’ reproved Rossi.

  Freda felt discredited. She stood shaken, her scarf ends and her ash-blonde hair mingling in the wind.

  ‘Give over,’ she whispered to Brenda, who, dreadfully perturbed, was already picking her teeth with a matchstick.

  After an interval of indecision, Rossi, seeing his excursion in danger, began to issue commands. He ordered Salvatore to the wheel of the red mini. He held up his right hand and indicated with his fingers that there was space for three. The men looked at each other and gripped their briefcases more securely. He propelled Brenda to the front seat of his Ford Cortina. ‘In, in, in,’ he urged; and she was bundled inside to find Vittorio in the back seat, where he had gone earlier to be out of the cold. They didn’t speak. Brenda peered out of the window at Freda holding the mangled loaf to her heart. Rossi, skipping about frenziedly and acting as if the street was on fire and must be evacuated immediately, motioned Freda towards the car. He held open the rear door, and she bent her head. As she made to enter, Vittorio vacated his seat and leapt out into the road.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Freda, white-faced and utterly demoralised, endeavouring to accommodate herself and the basket on wheels inside the cramped interior. The car sank on its axle.

  ‘I wish I could die,’ thought Brenda; and then again, ‘I wish I was dead.’

  There was a great deal of shouting going on in the street. A small boy on the far side of the road, intent on his paper round, stopped to stare. A face loomed up at the window of the Ford Cortina. Brenda unwound the glass, and Anselmo, in a slouch hat, brought his sad face on a level with hers and proceeded to kiss her, first on one cheek, then on the other. He went away, and his place was taken by Stefano, who contented himself with shaking her hand.

  ‘You take my place,’ urged Brenda, looking down at his hand lying like a little cold piece of cloth in her own. ‘Honestly I don’t mind in the least.’

  ‘Ah no,’ he said, ‘you are young.’ And he backed away clutching his carrier bag filled with bread and salami, the tears standing in his eyes.

  Vittorio was arguing with Rossi and Aldo Gamberini, the overseer of the loading bay. They gripped him by the arm, one on either side, and attempted to drag him from the pavement. He resisted strongly. Rossi winked and grimaced in the direction of the parked car. He patted him playfully on the cheek as if to say ‘Don’t be a silly boy’, and Vittorio, finally submitting and followed by Aldo Gamberini, clambered sullenly inside the Ford Cortina. The vehicle rocked as he and Freda fought for leg space between the wheels of the shopping basket.

  Outside there was an orgy of handshaking and leavetaking. Around the bonnet of the red mini the men clustered like tired black flies. Brenda could see Maria waddling up the road in retreat, the hem of the silk frock bobbing against her calves. She ground her teeth in misery and stared hard at the picture of the Virgin pasted to the dashboard of the car.

  At last Rossi flung himself into the driving seat.

  ‘We are all right,’ he assured them over and over, clutching the steering wheel bound in black fur.

  As he looked into the mirror to make certain he had clear access to the road, he observed the barrels of wine being trundled towards the red mini. Out he jumped, waving his arms censoriously, and the barrels, all four of them, were transported to the boot of the Ford Cortina.

  ‘Now we go,’ he told the silent passengers, and he pressed the starting motor.

  The small diminished face of Patrick appeared at the back window. He flattened his pugilistic nose against the glass and made frantic gestures to be admitted. Outside, the farewells of the dispersing workers rose in a continuous murmur like the sea.

  ‘Go away,’ bade Freda in a low voice.

  He tugged at the handle of the door, the hen-speckled face beneath the peak of his cloth cap distorted with urgency. The door swung open and he tried to squeeze inside. Freda struck him repeatedly in the face with the French loaf and he fell backwards on to the pavement in a sprinkle of breadcrumbs. Brenda slumped as low in her seat as she could. She hadn’t the heart to wave. She fixed her eyes on the silver ignition key, dangling from the lock, and the humble smile of the Virgin as she gazed at her bright pink child.

  The engine roared into life. The car jumped away from the kerb and gathered speed, passing the homewardbound men going in twos and threes to the tube station, shoulders bowed in the best black suits worn for a special occasion.

  Rossi drove as if any moment he was about to be overtaken and sent home. He hunched his shoulders in his casual jumper and pressed his foot down hard upon the accelerator. He drove as if heading towards the Park and suddenly swung left into Monmouth Street, moving at speed past the barred windows of the army barracks and the rows of still-sleeping houses.

  ‘Ah well,’ he said, as if speaking to himself, ‘it is only a little upset.’

  There were few people up at this hour – an old man leaning on a stick, a girl in a caftan, an oriental gentleman wearing silver boots with high heels. Rossi took his attention briefly from the road to watch the girl and was forced to brake hard as the lights changed from green to red. Freda was flung forwards in her seat and brought up sharp against the handle of the shopping basket. She said nothing, but her intake of breath was audible.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Brenda, turning in her seat; but Freda, massive in her sheepskin coat, had closed her eyes.

  Beyond the rear window the red mini, bursting with passengers, came into view.

  Brenda said: ‘They must have been so disappointed – the others – going all the way home again.’

  It haunted her: Maria in her silken frock, the prepared food lying unwanted in the black briefcases, the high hopes of the early dawn and the disillusion of the morning.

  ‘They are used to disappointment,’ Rossi told her philosophically. ‘They have had their lives.’

  He looked in the mirror and studied Vittorio and Freda huddled together. He spoke in Italian to Vittorio, but there was no answer. After a pause Aldo Gamberini said something to Rossi, who replied at length with much beating of his hands on the steering wheel. Brenda was glad she was wearing the enveloping cloak: at every gear change he brushed her thigh with his little finger curled like a snail.

  She was surprised when she recognised Marble Arch ahead of them. Existing as she did between the bedsitting room on the first floor and the bottle factory down the road, she mostly imagined herself as still living somewhere in the vicinity of Ramsbottom – ‘What am I doing,’ she thought, ‘in a car loaded with foreigners and barrels of wine?’ In spite of herself she began to quiver with threatened laughter: sounds escaped from her in small strangulated squeals. Freda stabbed at her neck with her middle finger.

  ‘What’s up with you then?’

  ‘I was just thinking about things.’

  ‘It’s nothing to laugh about.’ But she laughed all the same, a great bellow that engulfed th
e car and made Rossi feel everything was fine.

  ‘We are having a good time, yes? All is all right now?’

  ‘Oh yes, we’re having a good time all right.’ And again Freda gave vent to a hoot of mocking laughter that caused Brenda uneasiness.

  ‘I wonder how many fitted into the mini,’ she said quickly to distract her, and Freda squirmed in her seat and peered out of the rear window.

  ‘It’s not there,’ she said.

  ‘Rossi,’ cried Brenda, ‘the car’s not following.’

  ‘It is all right. Just a little delay. They will catch up with us.’

  ‘Those poor buggers,’ burst out Freda, ‘trotting off home.’

  ‘Every Sunday,’ said Vittorio, breaking his silence and lazily contemplating the great white houses of Park Lane and the glass frontage of the Hilton Hotel, ‘my family go on an excursion to the sea-side.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ sneered Freda, ‘we all know about your Outings. I suppose the maids run on ahead carrying the garlic sausages.’

  He smiled tolerantly and stretched his arm along the back of the seat to touch a strand of her hair.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned, though she was moved, and tossed her head in pretended annoyance. Brushing her coat with her fingers, preening herself, she showered breadcrumbs on to the floor.

  ‘You and Patrick,’ said Brenda, ‘with that bread …’

  ‘He deserved it. Bloody fool.’

  The glittering shops, closed for the day, flashed past the window. The blue dome of a Catholic church, emblazoned with a golden cross, leant against the white cloudfilled sky. A row of well-dressed women, in fur coats and mantillas, linked arms and pranced in a line down the flight of steps.

  ‘Where the hell are we?’ demanded Freda, outraged by their red lips and their slim high-kicking legs. ‘Where are we going?’

  Rossi shrugged. ‘It is a little surprise.’

  He himself had no idea where he was heading, the original plan to go to the Stately Home had evaporated with the ordered van. He simply drove away from the city and followed his instincts. He only knew that Mr Paganotti lived somewhere near Windsor on the river and it was the countryside.