They ran in their best clothes, slapping the concrete floor with their damp shoes. They bent over the sprawled figure, shoulder to shoulder.
‘Don’t look,’ began Vittorio.
‘Madre di Dio,’ cried out Aldo Gamberini, rocking and wailing, already in his black.
Brenda had scurried home along the familiar street. The scene in the factory, the weeping of the men, the wild exclamations of Rossi and Vittorio – all restraint gone now they were not alone in their predicament – had embarrassed her. She found it difficult not to smile. She turned her face to the wall and bared her teeth. When Rossi and Vittorio took Freda up to the first floor, the men ceased their lamentations. They turned their faces to the ceiling and listened to the rumble of the trolley across the boards. After an interval the lift descended. The men lined up inside, jostling for space, each with a hat held to his breast – they were like a family posing for a photograph. The dim bulb raked their oiled hair with auburn light. Creaking, the lift ascended – a line of shoes, caked with mud, merged into the darkness.
She waited a few minutes but nobody came down. Freda’s sheepskin coat, mingled with the purple cloak, lay abandoned on the dusty floor.
She decided they had forgotten her.
When she entered the bed-sitting room she saw the table set for two, the saucer of olives, the silver slab of the butter. The sight of the folded napkins beneath the blue-rimmed plates affected her far more than the lilac scarf trailing the edge of the funeral trolley. She could not bear to lie down on the bed. She dared not approach the chair at the side of the grate – the worn cushion bore the imprint of Freda’s weight. There was nothing of herself in the room: everywhere she saw Freda – the magazine beside the window, the lacy brassiére dangling above the gas-fire, pinned to the marble top of the mantelshelf by the ticking clock. She wilted under the continued presence of Freda. She would rather have stayed in the car, the factory. She had not realised how like a garden of remembrance the room would be. If she listened, all she could hear was the ticking of the clock and the minute crackling of the dried leaves on the dreadful table spread for a romantic supper. After a moment, trapped in the centre of the carpet, she heard a tap on the window. Someone was throwing gravel at the glass. She laid her cheek to the pane and peered down into the street. It was Patrick.
Rigidly he stared up at her, his legs tapering to a point on the paving stones. She ran to the landing wild with relief at not being on her own, and stopped. Freda had called her a victim, had said she was bent on destroying herself – it was possible Patrick had returned because she knew too much. When they had carried Freda into the factory the Irishman had supervised, held open the door, fumbled for the light switch. By the time they had laid her on the trolley he had gone.
She stroked the bannister rail. She remembered Patrick in the bathroom winding the length of string tightly about the hook in the ceiling. She clapped her hands to her cheeks and her mouth flew open. She must at all costs preserve herself. She went back into the room and struggled to lift up the window. Propping the tennis racket into place, she crawled out on to the balcony.
‘What do you want?’ she called. She saw he was holding a bottle of wine.
‘Let me in.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Let me in.’
‘The landlady won’t let us have people in after midnight.’
‘For God’s sake, it’s only after ten.’
She couldn’t believe it. She thought it was the middle of the night – they had got up so early, the day had gone on and on.
‘I’m tired.’
He made to climb the steps. He lifted his hand to pound the brass knocker.
‘Wait,’ she called in desperation, fearful the two nurses would let him in. ‘I’ll come down.’ If he attacked her on the step she would scream or run towards a passing car.
‘What did they do with her?’ he asked, when she had opened the door.
‘They’ve put her upstairs among the furniture.’
‘Let me in. I’m parched for a cup of tea.’
‘I can’t.’ She sat down on the step and shivered.
‘I pinched a bottle of wine. Do you not want a drop of wine?’
‘I’d be sick,’ she said.
He put the bottle on the step beside a withered wall-flower. He removed his cap and sat down. He looked like a grocer’s boy – he ought to be riding a bicycle, she thought, delivering butter and eggs, and whistling.
‘What will they say?’ she moaned. ‘Whatever will happen?’
He tried to smile at her but his mouth quivered.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he admitted. ‘I’m wore out.’
‘It’s awful up there,’ she told him. ‘Her things – her clothes – everywhere.’
‘I’m wore out,’ he repeated sullenly, as if she had no right to burden him. A door opened in the flats opposite. An old lady leaned over her balcony and called quaveringly: ‘Tommy! Tommy! I’ve got your dinner, Tommy.’
‘Upstairs,’ said Brenda, ‘the table’s laid.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘No. I mean for her and Vittorio.’
‘Not for you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Just for them.’
The leaves of the privet hedge fragmented in the light of the street lamp. Shadows shifted across his face. He drew a handkerchief from the pocket of his mackintosh and laid it between them on the step. He unfolded it. There were a few pieces of glass.
She said: ‘That’s Rossi’s hankie.’
‘I know. The glass is from his broken watch. They were in the bushes.’
‘What did you bring them back for?’
‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘Rossi did. When we stopped on the way home didn’t he go off into the night? I pinched it from his jacket when we went into the factory.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you are clever’ – not quite sincerely. She didn’t know what to think and was having difficulty in concentrating. Even if she wanted to stay on in the bed-sitting room, could she afford it? Could her father be persuaded to send her a little more money? When people found out about Freda it was bound to get into the papers and her mother would tell her father not to send her any money at all, just to force her to come home.
They’d go out shopping, and her mother would tell her to stay in the car so the neighbours wouldn’t see. She’d tell her what clothes to wear, throw out her black stockings and buy her a pink hat from the Bon Marché. They’d put her in a deck chair in the garden and treat her like an invalid, only sternly. She’d never be allowed to stay in bed in the morning, not after the first week. Now that my moment has come, she thought, my chosen solitude, can I stand the expense?
‘I’m going in,’ she said. ‘I’m dropping.’
He twisted his cap in his hands round and round between his drawn-up knees.
‘Suit yourself.’ He plopped the handkerchief with its glass fragments into her unwilling hands. ‘I’ll leave this with you.’
She held the handkerchief at some distance from her as if it was in danger of exploding. She didn’t protest, because she was so glad he didn’t insist on following her into the house.
‘Good-night,’ she murmured.
When he said goodbye she couldn’t hear for the slam of the door. She took a pillow and blankets from the bed and went upstairs to the bathroom. If anybody tried to use the toilet in the night it was just too bad. Freda said the man upstairs was a dirty bugger anyway – he probably peed in the sink. The busybodies on the ground floor were hopefully on night duty. Before she bolted the door she remembered the open window.
When she crossed the room she put an olive in her mouth, but it tasted bitter and she laid it down again on the cloth. Freda’s brassiere trembled in the draught.
8
Maria was told by her brother-in-law Anselmo. Appalling contortions distorted her face. He clapped his hand over her mouth, for fear she screeched like a railway train, and lowered her into Rossi’s chair
behind the desk. Though normally she would have leapt upright out of respect for the manager’s office, she now remained slumped in her seat, eyes rolling above his bunched fingers. It was a blessing Vittorio had a small glass of brandy ready for when she was more composed – under the circumstances she drained it at one gulp. She flapped her pinny to cool her cheeks and waited while Vittorio fetched Brenda from the washroom, where she had been more or less all morning retching over the basin. The two women embraced and drew apart sniffing.
‘It’s God’s work,’ wailed Maria.
‘Yes,’ said Brenda, although she couldn’t be sure. She felt really poorly: her stomach was upset. She was tired out from her night in the bathroom, vivid with dreams.
‘We must prepare her. We must see to her.’ Maria had laid out an aunt and an infant son of Anselmo’s but never in such conditions.
‘I can’t do anything,’ cried Brenda in alarm. ‘I’m not going up there.’
Outside the window the men were grouped thinly about the bottling plant. Throughout the morning they had gone in pairs into the ancient lift and visited Freda, returning with calm faces and eyes glittering with excitement. They whispered frantically. The machine rattled and circled. They looked up at the Virgin on the wall and crossed themselves. Rossi had been called into the main office by Mr Paganotti an hour previously and had not returned.
‘I have to have water and clean cloths,’ said the dedicated Maria, ‘… clean garments to lie in.’ It was inconceivable that they should use the sponges on the bench.
‘I could go home and get her flannel,’ offered Brenda, ‘and her black nightie.’
Maria wouldn’t hear of the black nightie – there must be nothing dark – but she accepted the flannel and asked her to bring a bowl and powder and a hairbrush. It seemed silly to Brenda, such a fuss twenty-four hours too late: Freda wasn’t going anywhere.
The telephone rang, and Anselmo said Mr Paganotti wanted to speak to Vittorio. They all went very quite, thinking of Rossi and the state he was in. Perhaps he had broken down in the main office and told Mr Paganotti that there was a body upstairs among his relatives’ tables and chairs. Vittorio nodded his head several times. He stood very straight, inclining his head deferentially as if Mr Paganotti were actually in the room.
‘Go, go,’ said Maria, shooing Brenda with her pinny towards the door. ‘Fetch the cloth.’ To fortify her for the task ahead she allowed herself a little more brandy.
As Brenda opened the front door the nurse from the downstairs room came out into the hall in a dressing gown and slippers. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you working?’
‘I’ve just popped back,’ Brenda said.
The nurse let her climb a few stairs before she called: ‘Is your friend in?’
Brenda clung to the bannister rail and stopped. ‘She’s out just now.’
‘Well, will you tell her I’d like my serviettes back. I lent them to her yesterday. She said she only wanted them for one evening.’
‘Serviettes?’ said Brenda, her heart pounding.
‘I want to take them in when I go on duty. I can have them laundered for nothing.’
Brenda looked down at her. She had an almost transparent skin and dark eyes that were used to detecting signs of rising temperature and internal disorder.
‘Actually,’ said Brenda, ‘she went away last night – abroad.’ Freda had been saving for years to go on the continent. She had never gone because she had never saved, she had a post-office book that she put part of her wages in every month and drew them out the next.
‘Lucky her,’ said the nurse dangling her hospital towel. ‘I expect she could do with a break after her mother dying like that.’
It was simple to explain really, once she got started. There was a bit of money due from Freda’s mother’s estate, not much but enough for a holiday: and her Uncle Arthur who was in a good way of doing had advanced her funds so that she could get away. She’d always wanted to go to Spain – she was very interested in flamenco dancing – so she just went off all of a sudden. Made up her mind, packed her bag, and went.
‘How long for?’ asked the nurse, scraping an envious cheek with the handle of her toothbrush. Brenda said it depended on the weather. It was winter after all – it wasn’t as if she was going to lie on some beach. She might come back next week or she might never.
‘Never?’ cried the nurse.
Brenda was laughing. ‘You know what I mean. She might, she might not.’ She continued up the stairs shaking with laughter. ‘Who knows,’ she called from the bend of the stairs and she stumbled upwards squealing and gasping for breath.
When Brenda returned with the pastel-coloured toilet bag and the washing-up bowl, the workers were crowded into the concrete bunker under the fire escape. She could hear them shouting as she went up the alleyway towards the pass door. The bottling plant stood idle. Alone, old Luigi, undeterred by the drama, was labelling with ferocious speed. Stefano was on guard beside the lift.
‘You go,’ he said pointing his finger straight up in the air. She said, No, she wouldn’t thank you, she’d just brought a few things for Maria.
He told her to fetch Salvatore from the bunker to keep watch while he took the bowl upstairs.
The men, wrapped in pieces of old carpeting, were sitting on upturned boxes, rolling cigarettes and gesticulating.
She felt terribly out of it. The way they carried on, so engrossed, faces drawn with grief, eyes mournfully gazing at their unwrapped luncheons – you’d have thought Freda was a relative. She wondered what Rossi had told them. Surely he hadn’t said Patrick had broken her neck – nobody could be certain. Rossi seemed terribly agitated. He was trembling and arguing with Vittorio.
‘What’s wrong now?’ she asked.
Vittorio said: ‘Mr Paganotti wants the first floor to be cleared of the furniture. He is going up in the lift this very afternoon to take the look around.’
‘Well, she can’t stay there anyway,’ began Brenda, ‘she’ll start—’ But she couldn’t continue. She wasn’t sure how quickly bodies began to smell – perhaps here in the factory, with the temperature close to freezing, Freda could be preserved for ever. ‘What’s he want to shift the furniture for now?’ she asked. ‘What’s the sudden hurry?’
‘Mr Paganotti call me in,’ cried Rossi. ‘His secretary is sitting there, she is smiling and asking me how the Outing go. Did we have the nice time in the country?’
‘How awkward,’ said Brenda. Mr Paganotti’s secretary came from a well-to-do family in Rome. Nobody had liked to ask her on the Outing. She could hardly be classed a worker.
‘I look at the floor,’ continued Rossi. ‘Mr Paganotti ask me if I like the Stately Home. If it had been an interesting Stately Home.’
That was kind of him, thought Brenda. Fancy Mr Paganotti remembering a thing like that.
‘Mr Paganotti say he is re-organising his business premises. He is going to get the new machinery, expand – he need more office space. For the ordering, the accountancy. He want the furniture gone from the first floor.’
‘I would have died,’ breathed Brenda, feeling terribly sorry for Rossi.
Mr Paganotti, it appeared, had noticed how disturbed Rossi had been. He had frowned. He had dug his thumb into the pocket of his beautiful striped waistcoat. He had asked what was wrong.
‘I tell him,’ said Rossi, ‘that the men are very busy at the moment. I say there is the sherry consignment from Santander – the barrels have to be emptied and ready for return shipment tomorrow. I tell him that if the barrels are not ready for return there is a storage charge.’ Rossi spread out his hands, palm upwards, to show he had concealed nothing. ‘Mr Paganotti understand at once. He say it is a pity but it cannot be helped. He tell me to get on with my work and he himself will go upstairs later in the afternoon and look around.’
‘You could tell him the lift was broken,’ said Brenda. ‘Or not safe.’
‘It has never been safe,’ Vittorio said
. ‘But then he go up the stairway.’
‘Not if you pile the stairs with furniture, blocking the way.’
‘Ah,’ cried Rossi. ‘That is it.’ And the men, when it had been explained to them, thumped the table enthusiastically and scrambled out of the concrete bunker to begin the barricade at once.
‘What did you say to the men?’ asked Brenda, left alone with Vittorio.
‘I say nothing.’
‘Did you say Patrick did it?’
‘I say nothing. I merely say there has been an accident. I say it will look bad for Rossi and for me. We are not English. The Irishman has a grudge against us. They understand. They do not want our families to be shamed, our children – they do not want to bring shame to the good name of my uncle Mr Paganotti.’
‘Didn’t they think it was a bit funny?’
‘Funny?’
Brenda thought he was incredible; they were all unbelievable. In their loyalty to each other, united in a foreign country, Freda seemed to have been forgotten. She said sharply: ‘The girl in my house just asked me for her serviettes back.’ He looked at her without understanding. ‘For your supper.’
‘What supper?’
‘Freda was hoping you’d come home with her. She’d bought butter and stuff. And she borrowed things to wipe your mouth on.’
‘I do not know about any supper,’ he said.
‘Well, she thought you might come back. I told the nurse she’d gone abroad.’
‘Abroad,’ he repeated.
‘To Spain. I said she liked dancing.’ And again she burst into little trills of laughter, her face quite transformed by smiles.
‘You are overwrought,’ he said, and he poured her some wine from the jug on the table. While she was still laughing, stuffing her fingers into her cheeks and showing all her teeth, a thought struck him. He began to tremble with excitement. He ran from the bunker and went to find Rossi. Brenda fell asleep with her face on the table amidst a pile of sandwiches.
The Bottle Factory Outing Page 15
