by Lewis Orde
‘The cleaning woman was here this morning.’
‘Is she attractive?’
‘Tremendously so,’ Roland answered, playing up to Catarina. ‘In her sixties, as fat as a barrage balloon, has a cigarette dangling permanently from the corner of her mouth, and she needs a shave. And I wouldn’t change her for the world.’
‘What is this charming woman’s name?’
‘Mrs Smith.’
‘Very likely. That’s probably the name you insist she uses when you go away with her for the weekend.’ Catarina entered the room, folded back the comforter and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘This flat won’t be big enough after all,’ she said sadly. ‘We’ll need room for a housekeeper as well.’ Suddenly she reached under one of the pillows and pulled out a pair of red-and-white-striped pajamas. ‘Do you really wear these?’
‘Yes, I do.’ He grabbed them, embarrassed at having his pajamas not only put on public display but criticized as well.
‘You must look like a stick of candy when you’re asleep.’
He sat down beside her on the bed, arms around her. ‘What do you wear to bed?’
‘A very proper nightdress. Until’ – she buried her face in his neck, nibbled gently on his skin – ‘I think of you. Then I take it off and cuddle my pillow, smother it and pretend it’s you.’
‘Lucky pillow.’ His fingers played with the buttons on her dress, then he slid it back from her shoulders and dropped it onto the bed. His lips traced the outline of her delicate shoulders, and, as she fell back onto the bed, arms outstretched to receive him, he noticed the thick clumps of curly black hair underneath her arms. A picture of Sally flashed in front of his eyes, clean-shaven, the modern woman. But at this moment Catarina was infinitely more desirable.
Her hands worked feverishly at Roland’s shirt, his trousers, tugging clumsily at the buttons in her haste. She ran her fingers through the thick mat of hair on his chest, scraping his skin with her nails. Their mouths met; tongues teased, tantalized. The final restraining garments were ripped off, tossed aside.
Finally their bodies joined. Roland felt a sensation he had never experienced before – fulfillment as both a man and a person. After years without love, years of living a fragmented existence, he felt complete. Other women had simply afforded a physical release. Catarina had added an emotional, spiritual plane, draining him completely, yet at the same time filling him with a surging elation.
But his joy would have been dimmed had he known the torment that plagued Catarina as she lay in his arms. Even the warmth of Roland’s closeness, the protective security he offered, failed to shield her from the distressing knowledge that in making love to him she had defied not only her father but her beliefs, the church that had been such an important part of her family life. Her mind dwelled on it with such unrelenting ferocity that the mental pain became physical. A headache began to hammer her skull above her right eye, causing her to cry.
‘What is it?’ Roland asked when she moved listlessly on the bed, holding her hand to her forehead, tears spilling down her cheeks.
‘Just a headache.’
‘What brought that on?’ He was already halfway to the door, heading for the medicine cabinet and aspirin.
‘Excitement. I get them sometimes.’ She forced a smile, tried to stop the tears. Roland shouldn’t be made to worry about her, she thought; she wanted to bring him love, not anxiety. She would have to work this out for herself.
He returned with two aspirin and a glass of water, standing over her as she took the medicine. ‘This isn’t going to happen every time, is it?’ he asked, attempting a feeble joke.
‘I hope not.’ She stood up and started to collect her clothes. ‘I think I’d better go home before I fall asleep here.’
Roland returned Catarina home before ten. She explained to her parents that the headache had forced her to leave the theater early, then she went to bed. Ambassador Menendez smiled to himself; perhaps this was an omen, the beginning of the end of her relationship with the Englishman.
*
On Monday morning, Simon Aronson visited the factory, disturbed by the memo he had received from Roland. Normally Simon’s visits were confined to the weekly sales meeting, but the possibility of a strike that would wreck the delivery timetable for the increasing orders they were getting was cause for grave concern.
‘We dare not be late with any of these orders,’ Lawrence Chivers said in a meeting between the men. ‘We’re too new to take any liberties. Customers can quite easily go somewhere else because there hasn’t been enough time for us to gather loyalty. And there are plenty of firms out there who’d love to pick up our business. They’d like to knock us right out of the game because we’re scaring the hell out of them.’
The factory manager, Alan Winters, was also at the meeting. A short stocky man with thinning brown hair and watery blue eyes, Winters was responsible for the thirty men on the factory floor. He was another of those whom Roland had lured from a competing company. Now Roland turned to him and asked about outstanding orders. Although he already knew the answer, he wanted Simon firmly in the picture.
‘The biggest problem you’ve got is Adler’s,’ Winters said, running his eyes over the clipboard he held. ‘They’re your major order sitting out there. Perhaps we can afford to risk a couple of the smaller ones, even plead with them for extra time and offer them something in return, but we daren’t play around with an order the size of Adler’s.’
‘How far along is it?’ Roland consulted his desk calendar. ‘It’s due in a month.’
‘Heating elements, casings, wiring, switches . . . that’s all in hand. We’re waiting for the plastic components from Carters.’
‘When will you have them?’
‘Shipment’s due in ten days. Then we can get right on it.’
Ten days, Roland thought, and Carters was already on the verge of a strike. He’d been on the telephone to them before the meeting; management and union were still far from agreement. Even if the components were ready, even if they were shipped, once Carters was struck Roland’s own people wouldn’t touch the stuff.
‘Who is agitating for action?’ Simon wanted to know.
‘Bert Phillips,’ Winters replied. ‘The shop steward.’
‘Have you spoken to him?’ Simon asked Roland.
‘Just the once, before I sent you the memo. I told him I wouldn’t stand for any sympathy action.’
‘Have him come here now. Perhaps we can sort out this problem immediately.’
Winters went to the factory to find the shop steward. While he was away, Simon asked Roland if he were serious about the step he had mentioned in the memo – firing any man who blacked Carters.
‘What would be the difference?’ Roland asked in return. ‘Either way, whether they’re blacking Carters or whether I fire them, we’ll have no production. So we might as well get rid of them and try to start afresh when everything’s sorted out.’
‘What about going to another supplier?’
‘All the others are tied into our competition. There isn’t any way I could fill those orders in time.’
‘If we get the shipment I could probably find people to do the assembly work,’ Chivers offered. ‘They’d work nights, on the quiet. And you’d have to pay them well.’
‘Strikebreakers.’ Roland mused. ‘Then everyone would black us.”
‘Do you want to honor the orders?’
‘Damned right I do. But I don’t want to be shoved clean out of business by union bloody-mindedness.’ He swung around as Winters returned with Bert Phillips, the shop steward, a beanpole of a man with greasy iron gray hair and grimy blue overalls. ‘Sit down, please, Mr Phillips.’ Roland indicated one of the folding chairs that crowded the office.
Bert Phillips looked around, somewhat taken aback by the number of people; he had only expected to see Roland. He knew Lawrence Chivers, but he had seen Simon only rarely. Nonetheless, he knew that Simon was the man who controlled the company�
�s finances. They must be really worried, he thought, and such knowledge gave him confidence.
‘Mr Phillips, what is the position on the factory floor regarding Carters?’
‘If Carters is struck, the men I represent as shop steward will refuse to handle any of their goods.’
‘Even goods that have been completed before strike action begins?’
‘It’s immaterial when the goods are completed, Mr Eagles. If they come from Carters, and Carters is struck, then those goods are black.’ Phillips was enjoying himself, putting his points to the men who paid him. He reveled in this kind of situation, where the roles were reversed and he had the power.
‘Mr Phillips, your union members have no valid reason to act against me,’ Roland pointed out. ‘I have been more than fair with your people, their reasonable demands have always been met. If Carters should go on strike and your men disrupt any part of this business because of a misaligned loyalty, I will have no hesitation in ending the employment of any or all of them.’
‘I don’t think that would be very wise, Mr Eagles.’
‘Why not?’ Simon asked the question.
‘Because you’d be closing your own doors. It’s very hard to run a factory without anyone working for you, and if you sacked men with a justifiable grievance the union would take a very dim view of it.’
Roland ignored the threat in favor of continuing negotiations. ‘There’s no way of filling our orders without these components from Carters. We’re too late to go anywhere else. Besides – and in my view this is damned important – Carters has never done anything to us to warrant our going elsewhere.’
‘That’s not the employees’ problem.’
‘What do you mean it isn’t the employees’ problem?’ Roland yelled with sudden anger. Christ, what was he dealing with here, a shop steward or a blockhead who was unable to see beyond the end of his nose? ‘Isn’t it the employees’ problem if the company they’re working for goes under? Where the hell are your brains, man? We’re in this thing together.’
‘Our priority is to stand by our fellow workers in their hour of strife.’ Phillips sat back, pleased with himself. See what management had to say to that. The shop steward had always thought he would make a fine politician – Labor, of course. To his everlasting chagrin, however, he’d never been asked to run for election, even for local councillor. Those who did the asking suspected that Bert Phillips had a streak of larceny a mile wide – and they were right. Now Phillips waited expectantly, feeling that the time had arrived when an offer might be forthcoming – if not for the benefit of his fellow workers, at least for himself. He wasn’t disappointed.
‘Is there anything we could do to alter your position on this matter?’ Simon asked.
Roland held up a hand quickly before Simon could continue. He wasn’t about to bribe men to work for him when they were already paid to do so. ‘You can return to the floor,’ he told Phillips.
The shop steward got up slowly, unwilling to leave. The offer had been forthcoming, but it had been cut off before he could respond.
‘Go back to work,’ Roland said.
There was complete silence in the office until the door had closed behind the shop steward. Simon was the first to speak. ‘We could pay him off. I swear I saw a gleam in his eyes when I broached the possibility.’
‘You did. But we’re not going to do business that way. We’re going to ride this thing out come hell or high water.’ He looked to the others for affirmation. ‘Nice to know we’ve got a crook for a shop steward, though.’
‘No one else wanted the bloody job,’ Chivers said. Even Roland laughed at that.
*
By the next Friday afternoon sales meeting, the threatened strike had not yet materialized. Mar-Cross had been promised its complete shipment for Wednesday afternoon of the following week and Roland estimated that assembly of the Adler’s order could begin the Monday after that, giving the factory an ample two weeks to meet the promised delivery date. Everything was going according to schedule.
That evening, Roland picked up Catarina from the Marble Arch home of a school friend where she was supposed to be staying. The girl’s parents had gone away for the weekend to their country home in Sussex, leaving the apartment to their daughter, who had invited Catarina to keep her company. It was a fortuitous arrangement for both girls. Catarina’s father thought she was in Sussex with the girlfriend and her family; and the girl’s parents were relieved that their daughter wouldn’t be home alone. Instead, Catarina planned to spend the entire weekend with Roland, while her girlfriend had planned a wild two-day party.
On Friday Catarina stayed the entire night with Roland for the first time. On the stroke of midnight, exhausted after making love three times, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Early the following morning, while Roland bathed and shaved, Catarina set the table and made a simple breakfast of coffee, toast and marmalade. She had woken with a slight headache, but nothing like the pounding that had followed her first lovemaking with Roland. It disappeared completely as she moved around the kitchen. As she listened to Roland singing in the bathroom she wondered how she could have become so upset that first time. It must have been over losing her virginity, she decided. That was it – the emotional reaction of having passed from being a girl to being a woman. In that moment she had come face-to-face with the taboos drilled into her since childhood. She had struggled against them and had finally overcome them.
Finished with preparing breakfast, she looked around for something else to do. If Roland’s cleaning woman hadn’t left the apartment so tidy, Catarina would have been tempted to do the job herself. It was fun playing housewife, she suddenly thought. And there was a way to have even more fun . . . She raced into the bedroom, grabbed Roland’s striped pajamas and threw them into the garbage. By the time Roland came out of the bathroom wearing a robe, breakfast was on the table, the bed had been made and the garbage emptied.
‘Wonderful service, you should come here more often,’ Roland said as he surveyed the table and accepted the newspaper Catarina had collected from the mailbox when emptying the garbage. ‘A vast improvement on my normal routine.’
‘What is your normal routine?’ She sat down opposite him, chin resting on her hands as she gazed across the table.
‘During the week it’s a restaurant around the corner from the factory. Workman’s café, actually.’ Ignoring the front-page news he turned to the racing section, casting his eyes over the card for Leicester, where he and Catarina were going that day. ‘Your friend’s running again today.’
‘Fat Fanny?’ She stood and walked behind him, looking over his shoulder.
‘In the one-thirty. Up a class this time, though. No hope.’
‘What are the odds?’
Roland checked the betting forecast. ‘Hundred-to-eight. That’s twelve and a half to one, for the benefit of nonracing folks like you.’
‘I know what a hundred-to-eight is.’ Since the previous Saturday she had studied the racing pages of newspapers every day, determined to prove that she knew as much as Roland.
He handed her the newspaper and started to eat. ‘Going to twist my arm to put some money on it?’
‘You shouldn’t need your arm twisted. You should be clever enough to learn from experience.’
After breakfast, Roland washed the dishes while Catarina got dressed. By nine o’clock they were ready to leave for St Pancras Station where they would take the train to Leicester. On the train, while Roland contented himself holding Catarina’s hand and dreamily watching the countryside slip past, Catarina went through the Leicester race card, picking the names of horses she liked, discarding them as others took her fancy. By the time they reached Leicester, she had two more horses to go with Fat Fanny – two longshots with no winning record named Boring Dora and Jealous Nat. Roland had heard of neither of them.
‘You must be joking!’ he burst out when she showed him the circled names.
Catarin
a looked around the compartment at the other passengers, and Roland clamped a hand over her mouth. ‘All right, all right! I’ll put a bet on them for you. Just don’t drag the entire world into it.’
Smiling triumphantly, Catarina stood up and prepared to leave the train.
At the track, they took their seats in the grandstand, huddling close to each other for protection against the damp chilling wind. ‘What are you betting on?’ Catarina asked. Roland pointed out the selections he had made for the seven races. ‘What about Fat Fanny, Boring Dora and Jealous Nat?’ she asked when she saw that the names of her selections were missing from Roland’s list.
Grimacing, Roland checked the card again. Then he noticed something he hadn’t seen before. ‘Your three crippled nags are running in the one-thirty, two-forty and three-fifty, the three races specified for the tote treble.’
‘The what?’ Catarina felt annoyed with herself for not understanding the term.
‘Tote treble. It’s a three-horse accumulator. Nearly all the money wagered goes into the pool which is shared by however many people hold the winning tickets.’
‘How much are the tickets?’
‘Couple of shillings each. Tell you what,’ he said grandly, ‘I’ll treat you to ten tickets on that three-horse selection.’
‘Last of the generous men. I’ll tell you what – whatever my horses win will be my present to you.’
‘Thanks, presents of nothing I can do without.’
‘We shall see, Mr Know-it-all,’ she said as he stood up. Catarina watched as he went to the tote window to place her bet, then thread his way down to the bookmakers’ pitches in front of the grandstand to make his own bet on the first race. As he turned back towards her, still thirty yards away, she cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled above the crowd, ‘Roland, I threw away your rotten candy-striped pajamas!’
Roland’s face flushed crimson and he quickly looked the other way. When he turned toward Catarina again he saw, to his horror, that her hands were still at her mouth. ‘They’re in the garbage where they belong!’
