The Factory Girl

by Nancy Carson

  But desire was gaining the upper hand.

  Her blouse was all undone, the shoulder strap of her underslip was halfway down her arm and her brassiere was loose. She wriggled and thought she was going to burst with ecstasy when Billy’s tongue settled on one of her nipples, teasing it unmercifully as it hardened. He undid the waistband of her skirt and opened it up with his delving, free hand. Her underslip was up, baring her midriff, and he nuzzled his face into her soft belly, venturing lower and lower with his mouth. Before she knew it, her skirt was off, slid under her bottom and down her legs. His hand stopped to explore the smooth, bare flesh above her stockings before he kissed her there, too. Her heart was pounding hard, and her breathing was in faltering gasps. She wanted him. God, how she wanted him, feeling his warm, gentle kisses all over her body, tingling, tantalising, so scandalously tempting. What on earth would her mother have to say if she could see her now, down to her underwear, her underslip around her waist, her brassiere there, too, and Billy sprawled over her, kissing her thighs?

  It was then, with thankfulness and relief, that she remembered there need be no guilt any more. She had been freed of it. There could be no more threats. Her mother had condoned this sort of thing by her own example. Her mother had behaved like this, also lured by love and by desire; by her own admission; before she was married.

  So could she.

  She sighed vocally at both the realisation and the astounding sensations Billy was inducing.

  ‘My angel,’ he breathed, pushing himself up the bed to face her and to lie alongside her again. ‘Have I shocked you?’

  ‘Shock me a bit more,’ she breathed. ‘Shock me a bit more.’

  ‘Henzey, I want you.’ His voice was as soft and warm as his kisses. ‘God, how I want you.’

  She sighed at the clean, manly smell of his skin. She sighed even more as he slid her knickers down her legs. ‘Oh, Billy, I love you so much.’

  As she lay there afterwards she did not know how she felt. Maybe she had expected too much. Maybe she was expecting some magnificent, automatic fireworks display or something, but none came. Billy lay beside her, quiet, still. She could feel the sweat on his forehead as she stroked it while he fought against sleep. She began to feel cold so she pulled up the bedclothes. Her emotions were half delight that she had given herself, that she had committed herself fully to the man she loved so much, but they were also half disappointment. Billy seemed content but where was the satisfaction for her? Still she felt unfulfilled, hungry after what should have been a feast. She was still aching to be loved, still tingling inside. She turned to Billy and he opened his eyes. They kissed briefly and he smiled, his arm going around her, his hand gently squeezing a cheek of her naked bottom. She loved him beyond her wildest imaginings. The feel of his skin against hers was a delight she had never known before, never properly imagined.

  ‘What time is it?’ she asked.

  ‘About nine, judging by the light. We don’t have to get up yet, do we?’

  ‘Alice and Maxi won’t be back before half past ten.’

  He kissed her again, more fervently this time. ‘Jesus Christ, I love you, Henzey Kite. I didn’t know how much till just.’

  She pushed herself against him. Within a few minutes he wanted her again.

  There was a fireworks display after all. Her eyes were closed but she saw bright lights, dancing, shooting everywhere, cascading in plumes, soaring, bursting, lighting her up, making her smile and gasp and sigh profoundly at the beauty of it all.

  At last she understood. At last she knew what total pleasure was, what real love was. At last she understood why she had always felt so empty and unfulfilled when they had merely kissed passionately before. At last she was a woman, utter and complete. At last she understood why her mother, and so many others like her, had so easily fallen into the oldest of nature’s traps. Who could blame them? Never had she experienced anything like this. Never had she dreamed that there could be anything so sublime. It was a revelation. And she knew already that she was addicted.

  Outside, the light of that first day of June had dimmed. All was quiet except for the sound of a distant motor car and the plaintive barking of a dog on Cawney Hill. She got out of bed, picked up her clothes from the floor, and got dressed. She woke Billy. He, too, slid out of bed and stood, holding her tight before she rearranged the sheets and blankets. While he dressed she tiptoed into Ezme’s room. The curtains were still open and the grey dusk afforded just enough light to see that the old lady still lay undisturbed, exactly as they had left her before they went to bed. Henzey took a match and lit the oil lamp on the bedside table, for Jesse had not seen fit to disturb her with having gas lights fitted in her room while she was so unwell.

  In its glow Ezme’s complexion was like wax. Henzey touched her face with the backs of her fingers, half expecting her to react. But there was no reaction. Ezme’s face felt cold as clay. She was dead.

  Chapter 6

  Ezme Clancey was buried on the 7th June 1929, the same day that Ramsay MacDonald announced the Cabinet that was to form the country’s second only Labour Government. The very same day, Jesse tactfully explained to Herbert that Lizzie was going to have his baby, though Herbert had guessed as much, since his mother’s belly was swelling appreciably. At first he was piqued and told Jesse that it was indecent at their age, but he accepted it well enough when Henzey asked him why on earth he should resent it at all. Lizzie told Alice and Maxine, but they were predictably excited.

  Billy celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday the day afterwards, a Saturday, by taking Henzey out to dinner at The Grand Hotel in Colmore Row, Birmingham. They were joined by some business friends, Harvey and Gladys Tennant, a couple in their late forties, and Neville Worthington with his very attractive wife, Eunice, who was in her late twenties. Henzey estimated that Neville was in his mid-thirties. The event was a double celebration. Billy had just invested five thousand pounds in the firm that belonged to Harvey, Tennant Electrics, which manufactured small electric motors. The investment meant that the firm could expand by broadening their range, to meet the new demand for small electric motors to drive windscreen wipers. Billy was to become a sleeping partner, and he would have a greater incentive to sell their products to the big motor manufacturers. He could not fail to make even more money.

  Neville Worthington was the eccentric owner of a family firm producing commercial vehicles, and Billy had recently won a contract to supply Tennant Electric’s wiper motors to him. He thus felt inclined to nurture the relationship with this new client, and saw this occasion as an ideal opportunity. It turned out to be a very successful and interesting evening for Billy. Henzey, however, was overawed by the extravagance of their guests, by the way they spoke so beautifully, and by the obvious trappings of wealth. She was all of a sudden immersed in another world, far removed from the whitewashed scullery walls, the blackleaded grates and the dilapidated brewhouses of Cromwell Street. But her outward appearance would have fooled anybody; she was wearing an expensive, red, silk pyjama suit that Billy had chosen and paid for; and she looked the very epitome of young feminine beauty and sophistication.

  She was, however, a little subdued. Seated at Billy’s right, with Neville Worthington to her own right, she gazed with eager interest at the haddock with shrimp sauce that had been set before her. She watched Eunice Worthington, waiting for her to take the lead, to ascertain what cutlery she should use for this course.

  Talk at first was about Ramsay MacDonald’s new Labour cabinet.

  ‘The only glimmer of hope,’ said Neville, ‘is that there are no radical extremists there. At least he seems to be attempting to maintain some credulity.’

  ‘Except for that woman he’s appointed Minister of Labour,’ Harvey Tennant scoffed. ‘I mean, a woman in the Cabinet, for God’s sake…’

  ‘You mean Margaret Bondfield,’ Eunice said evenly.

  ‘That’s her. I mean, really! She’s a damned trade unionist.’

  ‘Yes, sh
e’s the chairman of the TUC,’ Eunice added.

  ‘Precisely. What does she know about government? What does she know about the problems facing employers and factory owners like ourselves, eh, Neville? She’s a trouble maker, mark my words. Neither your business nor mine will prosper while the likes of her are in such elevated positions. Baldwin should have held on to the reins, I maintain, and parleyed with Lloyd George for the Liberals’ support. Frankly, I rue the day women were given the vote.’

  Billy astutely perceived tension arising from this political discussion. Eunice Worthington had said little, but he could tell she was a suffragette in spirit and would be at odds with Harvey if the debate allowed to progress. He wished to avert trouble. ‘How did you do at Epsom, Neville?’ he asked astutely. ‘Did you back the winner?’

  ‘Trigo?’ Neville replied. ‘No. Didn’t even see the race, Billy. Still dining. Met Peter Bennett of Lucas down there.’

  ‘What? The Peter Bennett? The Managing Director?’

  ‘Joint Managing Director, isn’t he?…Thought so…Talked for ages. Missed the race completely.’

  ‘I see that Douglas Fairbanks’s son has married,’ Gladys said irrelevantly, directing her comment at Henzey, who so far had said little, guessing that it would bring her into the conversation.

  This was more in Henzey’s line. She took advantage of the prompt, and swallowed her piece of fish. ‘Yes, and he’s only nineteen,’ she replied as if she were an authority. ‘That girl he’s married, though, Joan Crawford, is much older. Twenty-three, according to the paper.’

  ‘Do you not condone a man marrying a girl some years older than himself, Henzey?’ Neville asked, evidently preferring this conversation.

  She looked at him, with his unfashionable long hair and thick, full beard, and their eyes met momentarily. In that brief instant she saw such an appealing look of soulfulness in his eyes. ‘Well, I just can’t see what contentment she would find marrying a boy so much younger than herself, that’s all,’ she remarked. ‘I prefer men a bit older than me. Younger men always seem so boyish.’

  ‘I see. You seem to have a very mature outlook for someone so young. So…how long have you known Billy?’

  Neville was regarding her keenly; it seemed he could not take his eyes off her and she found it disconcerting.

  ‘Oh, quite a long time now, but we’ve only been courting about three months.’ She smiled politely, then finished her last piece of fish, placing her knife and fork together neatly on her plate, ready for it to be collected. She still felt the urge to gather everybody else’s empty plates and stack them in a heap, as she had done on a previous visit to a restaurant. But Billy had told her firmly not to demean herself again by doing the waitress’s job.

  Henzey was not sorry when dinner was finished and they retired to the hotel’s lounge to take coffee. She made for one of the settees which, with another similar one and a couple of armchairs, were grouped convivially around a low, round table. She hoped that Billy would settle beside her, but Neville was too quick and eased himself into the same settee before Billy had even thought about it. Fortunately, Neville was affable and Henzey found him easy to talk to. They spoke politely about this and that and she asked him about his family. He had been married to Eunice for four years and had a young son, he told her as a wine waiter approached seeking orders for brandies.

  ‘You’re a lucky man, Neville,’ Henzey commented, ‘having a lovely child and a beautiful wife who, I imagine, thinks the world of you.’

  ‘Yes, I am a lucky man to have a lovely child…’ He paused deliberately. This lack of acknowledgement of Eunice made Henzey curious, although she ventured no further comment. He continued: ‘Have you and Billy talked of marriage?’

  She shook her head and smiled. ‘After three months? Anyway, I’m too young yet.’

  ‘Sensible, Henzey. Very sensible. Lately, I take a dim view of marriage.’ He spoke quietly, intimately, only to her. ‘I see so many people unhappily bound by its restrictions. I see so many people hurt by the consequences of marital foolishness.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. I’ve never looked at it like that. I’ve only ever known people happy in their marriages. Where they love each other I mean.’

  ‘Oh, love’s a different thing altogether, Henzey. You mustn’t think I take a dim view of love – I certainly do not. To love passionately and be loved in return is a gift of God. But marriage isn’t always like that. Romance can quickly disappear from marriage. It can end up a sham – as nothing more than trying to be nice to each other for the sake of peace and quiet. If you’ll pardon me for being blunt, love-making can degenerate to merely satisfying one’s basic physical needs, usurping the romance and passion you enjoyed before, that you never dreamed would slip away so insidiously.’

  Henzey blushed. ‘I think that’s a cynical view, Neville.’

  ‘Maybe it is…But real passionate love is something quite different, wouldn’t you say? Real passionate love is what makes life worth living. Without it we might as well be dead.’

  ‘I suppose.’ She felt his eyes burning into her again, and she felt uneasy. It was evident he found her appealing, and now it seemed he was sounding her out, assessing his chances. Perhaps love was lacking from his life, inducing him to say these things.

  The wine waiter returned with a tray of brandy glasses, each with an inch or so of the deep amber liquid swishing around.

  ‘What I miss more than anything in my marriage, Henzey,’ he said after he had taken a glass and sipped it, ‘is love. I mean real physical, ardent, energetic love…The sort of love that leaves you breathless and utterly exhausted. But totally satisfied.’

  She avoided his eyes. What was he trying to say? She glanced guiltily at Billy but he was too deeply engrossed in conversation with Eunice to notice. Henzey felt naked under Neville’s scrutiny and felt inclined to cross her legs. It seemed an appropriate thing to do. But, to her surprise, Neville’s words did not offend her. Rather, she found them stimulating. It was a change to hear a man be so direct about love and passion without sounding either sloppy or apologetic.

  ‘You know, you’re a fine-looking girl, Henzey. I hope you don’t mind me saying so…’

  She looked at him and smiled. ‘No, I don’t mind you saying so at all, Neville. I’m very flattered.’

  ‘I look at you and imagine you to be a very passionate young woman, you know. You have that look about you…I don’t mean to offend…It’s just that I do find you extremely attractive. Extremely attractive. Billy’s a jolly, lucky chap. I hope he appreciates you.’

  She shrugged, and smiled. ‘I hope so, too.’

  Neville Worthington picked up his bottle of Exshaw’s No. 1, his favourite brandy, poured himself a last one and took it upstairs to his bedroom. He sat on the bed and loosened his bow-tie with his free hand before taking a sip and placing the glass on his bedside table. As he bent over to untie his shoelaces he sighed heavily. Henzey Kite was occupying his mind. He wanted her, and such ardent desire for a woman had not taken him like this since his first encounters with Eunice. He sighed, kicked off his shoes and stood up again to put away his bow tie and unfasten his cuff-links.

  ‘Don’t forget to put your shoes in your wardrobe, Neville,’ his wife said as she drove a brush through her stylishly cut hair.

  ‘In a minute, when I’m undressed.’

  ‘…Otherwise you’ll fall over them and wake me up if you have to get up in the night.’ Eunice was at her dressing table in her white silk pyjamas. A shop-full of beauty aids stood randomly on top of it. She took one small dainty pot, dipped her fingers into it and proceeded to rub a creamy substance over her face. ‘No doubt you’ll forget them altogether.’

  ‘Well if I do happen to fall over them and wake you in the night, rest assured I shall not tumble into your bed.’

  She made no reply. Neville removed the coins from his trouser pockets and let them tumble onto his tallboy. Then he undressed himself, and took the clean pyjamas the mai
d had placed on his pillow while he was out.

  ‘I enjoyed this evening, Eunice. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Towards the end. Not during the meal.’

  ‘Actually, I found it all rather stimulating.’

  ‘I suspect you found talking to that young girl rather stimulating. More so than talking to that other woman. What was her name?’

  ‘Henzey.’

  ‘Not Henzey, the older woman.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten.’ He pulled his pyjama trousers on.

  ‘Strange how you can remember Henzey’s name but not that other woman’s.’ Eunice began removing the cleansing cream with a damp face towel.

  Neville tied the cord of his pyjamas. ‘It’s hardly strange, my dear. You also remembered it, evidently. Anyway, Henzey was by far the more interesting of the two.’ He sat on his bed again and reached for his drink.

  ‘And by far the more attractive.’

  ‘That as well.’

  Eunice turned to address him. There was an earnest look on her face. ‘But Neville, you’d never attract a girl like that until you altered your style.’

  ‘Oh, and I thought she seemed quite taken with me.’

  She laughed scornfully. ‘You fool yourself, Neville. Look at your awful beard and your disastrous hair. Do you realise I have never, in all the years I’ve known you, seen you without that damn beard? You had it when we were first introduced, and you’ve had it ever since – all through your Oxford days.’

  ‘So what? That’s me. That’s how I am.’

  ‘But you’re only twenty-nine, dammit, and you look forty-nine. Young ladies nowadays go for the smooth, clean-shaven look in men – short, neat haircuts. I mean, look at that Billy fellow she was with…he’s fashionable…typical of the type of young men women go for. I can understand why she finds him appealing.’