The Dyehouse

by Mena Calthorpe

  Behind the scenes, Barney and Oliver were negotiating. The idea of a shop committee had been born. They were pushing the idea with Tommy and the men.

  ‘They don’t seem very interested,’ Oliver said to Joe one morning as they ate breakfast. ‘Though not too many blokes take such a lacing as these fellows.’

  ‘They were all worked up the day Renshaw hit you.’

  ‘Yes. The trouble is they forget things. And when things are going along well no one wants to stick his head out and get off-side with Renshaw.’

  ‘It’d stop a lot of trouble if you had a committee there. Something should be said about the ventilation. And the overloading of women. It won’t solve all the problems in a factory. But it can be a help.’

  ‘Renshaw’s no fool either,’ Oliver said. ‘Not by a long shot. Patty’s still working along with Miss Merton. I’m on the vats. And Renshaw has let us alone. He’s built up a bit of prestige for that, really.’

  ‘Well,’ Joe said, ‘that’s all right, too. You blokes were united for once. And things turned out all right. That’s as it should be.’

  In the evening Oliver and Patty walked down The Crescent. The day’s work was finished. The stocktake was almost completed. In a few weeks’ time the Dyehouse would close down. For two long, glorious weeks there would be nothing to do but laze about.

  ‘And we could get married,’ Oliver said suddenly. ‘There’s no reason for us to wait. We’ve no one to consult.’

  ‘There’s my mother,’ Patty said.

  ‘But she wouldn’t mind. I thought she seemed all for it.’

  ‘She is, in a way. But where would we live? I couldn’t just walk out and leave her. You do see that, don’t you, Oliver?’

  They walked slowly down the street. Past the tall, dark terraces until they came to the house with the broken window and the door that sagged on its hinges.

  ‘We could have this house,’ Oliver said. ‘It’s big enough inside. We don’t pay very much for it. Not that you’d want to, the condition it’s in. But we could fix it up. I’ve got a little bit of money, Patty. We could do it. Joe would want to stay on, and Brother Martin too. We could give your mother the room on the ground floor near the kitchen. We could have the little attic room right upstairs.’

  ‘Do you think they’d like the idea? You’ve been happy here together. Maybe they’d think I was pushing in.’

  Oliver put his arm around her and squeezed her.

  ‘Not likely. Why, Joe suggested it himself.’

  ‘What does Brother Martin think of it?’

  ‘He’s all for it.’

  They stood silent for a moment.

  ‘It’s not much of a place,’ Oliver said suddenly.

  They looked at the dirty brown, peeling paint, the torn guttering.

  ‘Doesn’t look like the place to be offering the bride. Perhaps we should wait.’

  ‘If we fix it up could they make us pay more rent or take it from us?’

  ‘We’d have to go into that. I don’t really know.’

  ‘A house,’ Patty said slowly. ‘A whole lovely house all of our own. Do you know—I’ve never lived in a house before? It’s always been furnished rooms. Always some old busybody nosing into my affairs.’

  She put her arm around Oliver.

  ‘It really looks like part of heaven to me.’

  ‘It’s not much, Patty.’

  It hurt him to see her standing looking at the derelict with such shining eyes. It was wrong that this dilapidated place hiding behind its tracery of old-fashioned cast-iron railings should come to mean heaven to any human being, let alone to Patty. He felt suddenly abashed. He bent over and kissed her.

  ‘I’d like to have a lot to give you, Patty. A new house in one of the outer suburbs. Lovely clothes. We haven’t got much. All our lives we’ll be working and just trying to hang on to what we have. Blokes with money will make more and more. People like us will make it for them. And all the time we’ll be lucky if we can just hang on.’

  ‘We’ll have each other,’ Patty said.

  Oliver bent over and kissed her on the hair. The sun was setting. The last rays were striking the top of the terraces. In the light, just for a moment, there was glamour in the stiff iron lacework and in the outline of the two trees at the end of the street. Two girls were walking down the road. They wore bright-coloured skirts which flared out at the hemline over heavily roped petticoats.

  ‘We’ll have each other,’ Oliver said gravely. ‘It’s a big decision we’re making, Patty. I wonder if you realize just how big it is.’

  ‘I don’t think it means happy ever after,’ Patty said. ‘I know you’ll have to work all your life, and maybe me, too. I know that even then there’ll be lots of things that we won’t be able to have. I know you might have another fight with Renshaw and get sacked any time.’

  Oliver looked for a long time down the narrow alley that was The Crescent. He had said that these streets would never get him. That he’d be out of this jungle. That by the summertime he’d be striding out, leaving the city behind. He’d be an unshackled man. Not tied down by women and kids. A free man.

  ‘Not afraid of the future, Patty?’

  ‘We’ve got to take our chances,’ Patty said. ‘Remember what you told me that day in the park? About us? About us learning? And fighting?’

  Oliver bent down and kissed her.

  ‘We’ve got to keep a bit of guts for ourselves,’ he said. ‘All the time. But the future’s ahead of us now, Patty. We might even have a hand in its shaping.’

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  Mr Mayers was going out.

  He had changed from his navy-blue boiler-suit into his tweed sports clothes. He stood beside Miss Merton’s desk, leaving instructions for possible callers. He did not expect to be long away. He was on his way to a vacant lot out from the city at the edge of the sea. Here, adjacent to a rubbish dump, were a number of dismantled boilers. His commission was to inspect them, and if possible to purchase a suitable one for the Company.

  There had been a lot of overhauling and changing about going on at Macdonaldtown lately. Every week some unsmiling VIP from England or America would appear.

  When really big VIP’s were on the way, Renshaw cleared the vats. The experimental vat was turned off, the wet floor washed and hastily dried. No more than four vats were left in operation. The holes near the vats were swept out, the steam was cleared.

  ‘You’d better put a jacky on,’ Renshaw said to the men standing stripped to the waist near the vats. ‘We want to make a bit of a showing.’

  ‘These bastards aren’t interested in how we look,’ Oliver said. ‘What interests them is how the money looks. They ought to see it as it really is. Vats going full blast. Air so thick you could eat it with a spoon. Men stripped down with the water running out of them. We shouldn’t be putting on a show like this for them.’

  Mr Mayers’ team had been working hard.

  The layout on the ground floor was changed and for weeks engineers and maintenance staff had been uncoupling and moving machinery about.

  ‘I don’t know what they’re cooking up now,’ Mayers said. He was a bit aggrieved that he had not been in on the first conference over the boiler. He was justly suspicious about accountants making decisions that were rightly in the province of the engineer. He had hinted darkly to Miss Merton that things would have to change. There were plenty of good jobs going for engineers with a steam ticket. Only that very day there’d been at least four jobs advertised in the Herald.

  ‘And I bet they don’t fill the jobs in a hurry either,’ Mayers said. ‘Harvison got this bee in his bonnet about the boiler. I’m not saying the idea’s bad. I should have been asked about it. As it is, Larcombe just came over and gave the order. I don’t like the taste of it.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ Miss Merton said. ‘I suppose it’s just not letting the right hand know what the left is doing.’

  ‘Well, they won’t want to tempt me too far.’


  He looked at Miss Merton and smiled suddenly. She was looking old lately, a bit pinched and weary.

  Miss Merton raised the dingy window and trapped a little of the summer sunshine in the corner near the bookcase. Across the way boilers were blowing off steam. Shrill-voiced apprentices called to each other.

  ‘It’s far too nice to work,’ Miss Merton said.

  Mayers walked to the door. He stood jingling his keys in his pocket. He would not be very long away. He began to grin. He came back and stood behind her desk.

  ‘How’d you like to come?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I don’t think Renshaw would mind. How long since you’ve had a blow in the sunlight?’

  ‘Well—it’s a long time.’

  ‘You’d better put on your hat and come.’

  It was strictly against the rules, but Miss Merton took down her neat black hat and pinned it carefully onto her head. Then she set the little keyboard. The direct line to ring in Renshaw’s office, the outside lines in her own.

  ‘Will you keep an eye on the phone, Patty?’ she called through the door to Patty Nicholls, who was working in the office behind her. ‘I shouldn’t be late.’

  It was a fresh summer’s day. Outside, the sparrows were lined up on the fence tops, chirping and calling. Little dogs, all a uniform sooty colour, were bounding about the streets. Pigeons were circling, coming around in great sweeps, cutting through the smoke as it eddied up into the sky.

  ‘The city’s pushing out,’ Mayers said. ‘I think the day will come when most of those factories will come down. Especially over towards the bay.’

  ‘Not much sign of it yet.’

  As far as the eye could see the chimney-stacks rose, one after the other against the sky.

  Mayers turned the car. He headed out of the Parade, leaving Macdonaldtown behind. But instead of going straight to the allotment near the sea he turned in at the gates of the park on the outskirts of the city.

  Macdonaldtown lay well behind them. Here were trees, tall and green and dense with leaves. And ahead were flower beds ablaze with colour. They spoke little. Mayers drove slowly. He, too, was taking in the beauty of the scene.

  ‘Bit different from Macdonaldtown.’

  He turned the car. Reluctantly, it gathered speed. The pond, the ducklings, the waterlilies, the little purple hedges slid behind. They turned south to that dreary place where the sand sweeps in from the sea onto a medley of discarded machinery and household refuse. The tip. People were walking about, pulling the rubbish over, salvaging a piece here and there.

  In a fenced-off allotment, Miss Merton noticed several boilers. There was a large painted sign on a paling fence. It stated plainly, MACHINERY FOR SALE.

  Mayers turned off the road. He backed in under the shade of a large-leafed flame-tree. He took out his cigarettes and offered one to Miss Merton. She shook her head, smiling. He opened the glove box and fumbled for matches. Then he sat back sucking the smoke into his lungs.

  ‘Fascinating place, this. Always someone about. Always someone combing through the rubbish. I got a few flower baskets here myself.’

  He stubbed out his cigarette and opened the door of the car.

  ‘Well, I suppose I’d better take a look at it. Want to come?’

  Miss Merton slid from the seat. She walked, matching her steps as far as possible to Mayers’ swinging stride.

  ‘You’d better wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll cut across and see Mullins.’

  Miss Merton watched him absently.

  He crossed the paddock and knocked at the door of the weatherboard cottage. The door opened. The man pointed across the paddock to the caretaker’s hut in the corner. Miss Merton saw the door close and Mayers turn his back.

  ‘I think I’ll just take a peek,’ Mayers said.

  There was a ladder leaning against a boiler. Mayers climbed to the top and looked in. He was waving his torch about, cutting arcs in the darkness.

  ‘Seems all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it a really good going over as soon as I get onto this caretaker johnny.’

  He walked towards the hut. ‘It might be better if you wait,’ he called.

  Miss Merton stood leaning against the car, watching Mayers as he strode across to the hut. It seemed very still. Far off she could hear the sea as it thundered onto the rocks. But it was quiet in the paddock. She leaned into the car and picked up the paper, absently scanning the headlines, turning the pages.

  Mayers was knocking at the door of the caretaker’s hut. There was no other sound. She picked up the paper and began to run. And when she had reached the point of the little bluff she undid the paper slowly and began to read again.

  ‘A man collapsed on a road outside Goulburn last night and was taken to Goulburn Base Hospital, where he was found to be dead. He was identified as Stephen Forrester, aged 60, of unknown address. Police are seeking…’

  The paper slipped from Miss Merton’s hand. The pages caught in the breeze, fluttering slowly open. Stephen Forrester. The leaves turned. The paper came to rest. It hung, poised for a moment, caught on the edge of the grey rocks. Then it fell gently onto the sand. Gulls resting under the bluff rose in a great cloud. Miss Merton watched them as they hung drifting against the sky.

  Then she opened up her handbag.

  From a little inner compartment she drew forth a small embroidered silk container. She had stitched it years ago in the late summer sunshine in the days when Stephen was washing on the river. She pulled at the stitches, lifting them with a hairpin. And when she had opened it, she shook it gently.

  A small enamelled shield fell out into her palm. It was Stephen’s. He had given it to her.

  She turned mechanically towards the hut.

  From here she had a full view of the garbage dump and the sea. She stood looking towards the horizon, trying to glimpse for a moment the vision that Stephen had seen.

  Then she turned and walked slowly towards the car.

  To the south of the sandy waste a row of dilapidated houses with broken windows looked out to the sea. In these shambles human beings lived. They went to work. They were known in factory and mill. They helped create the beauty and colour that found no echo in their own lives.

  She climbed into the car and Mayers got in beside her. Miss Merton’s face was bloodless, grey and drawn in the bright light of the day.

  Mayers looked at her sharply as she lay back, her hands clasped over her neat handbag with its useful strap.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  After the Staff report had gone across to Head Office, Renshaw began to wish he had noted on it Miss Merton’s absence on the morning that the boiler had been inspected.

  The efficiency experts were overhauling office procedure in town. There had been some trouble over the declarations and it had come out about Miss Merton taking the morning off. Cuthbert got onto the phone about it to Renshaw. He was annoyed and he let Renshaw know that he was.

  ‘It’s hard to believe,’ Cuthbert said. ‘Miss Merton is a trusted servant of the Company. Not only is she out of the office during a time when she should be working, but she was actually engaged in carrying out a boiler inspection.’

  Renshaw, hanging onto the phone, said nothing. It was often a pretty sound principle to let the other fellow do the talking.

  ‘The thing that upsets me,’ Cuthbert said, ‘is your report. There’s nothing here to indicate that Miss Merton was absent that morning. I had a query on the declarations. The efficiency people are working out an analysis; they took the matter up with Mr Harvison. When I turned up this report I was confident they’d made a mistake. But you admit now that she was absent. Away two hours, forty minutes. That’s almost half a day.’

  ‘She’s never absent,’ Renshaw said quickly. ‘I didn’t think it would matter just for once.’

  ‘These records show that she’s never absent. But on your own admission they’re not very reliable,’ Cuthbert said coldly. ‘I’m not raising any specific objection to Miss Merton having a few hours off. W
hat I do object to is the way these records are cooked up. The whole thing reflects badly on the office administration. Particularly on the Dyehouse. These fellows don’t miss too much, I can tell you. And anyway we’re going to look pretty fools if we can’t trust our own records. Does Larcombe know anything about it?’

  ‘No,’ Renshaw admitted reluctantly.

  He had not been particularly worried about Miss Merton taking the time off. But after the ring from Head Office his attitude changed. They were not going to let it drop. The efficiency people would make a mouthful out of it. Cuthbert would get on to Larcombe. And Larcombe would come over, spluttering and expostulating and demanding further explanations. He had enough to do running the place without getting involved in these bouts over paper work.

  In Cuthbert’s office Time and Motion people were discussing the re-dyes and charges. They had finished with the cards. Mr Jamieson, who was in charge, had the reports neatly filed. The analysis from the declarations was on his desk. The job now was routine. The final balancing and the recommendations. With the work assembled, he was in the process of assessing it all in terms of time.

  Precisely at three o’clock the phone rang on Cuthbert’s desk. It was Miss Uliffe. Mr Harvison was ready. Would he let Mr Larcombe know—and Mr Jamieson?

  ‘Oh, well,’ Larcombe said when Cuthbert looked into his office. He was never really at ease with paperwork men. He distrusted them instinctively. But he had cultivated several useful expressions. These didn’t mean very much. In fact he didn’t really know what they meant at all. But they sounded impressive and if he was cornered he could use them. But in general he would be glad to stay a little in the background and answer questions if they were flung at him. After all, these were the bright boys, the fellows that knew all the answers. And Harvison was handing them a packet to straighten out the offices.

  Larcombe scarcely followed the conversation as it ebbed and flowed, tracking through the office procedure. What happened at Head Office didn’t interest him. How the statements got out, and when, were not his pigeon. Whether the work hit the machines for posting at two or four o’clock scarcely aroused his interest. It would be of interest to Miss Graham, of course, who might find herself out of a job. Miss Graham had been a fast girl on the files and the sorting. But by cutting one simple operation they could start the dissection almost two hours earlier and Miss Graham could start reading the Positions Vacant.