The Quality Street Girls, page 7
‘It’s my first week.’ They shared a comradely smile. They would have to be friends now.
Peter realised it was his turn to speak, and with great effort came up with, ‘Do you think you’ll like it?’
‘I love it. I love it so much. I want to be the quickest girl on the line.’
‘Well, we’ve got something in common. I want to help you to be the quickest girl on the line.’
The dummy line was a foil wrapping machine. It wrapped squares of soft pastel green around triangles of hazelnut praline at a breathtaking speed. The machine didn’t interest Diana – very little did – but what did catch her attention was a girl who had picked up two cartons in one hand and was about to demonstrate to the Time and Motion lad how she thought she could make the line faster. She’d obviously seen Mary Norcliffe use that same trick when she thought no one was looking and was picking up the slack for her sister. These young ones were exasperating.
Diana dived in before Reenie could utter a word to the new lad and steered her over to a quiet corner away from the others. ‘Were you about to tell those gents that you’d had a bright idea?’
Reenie was startled, she hadn’t expected the older girl to notice her and was glad of a chance to share her idea with this girl too. ‘How did you know? It wasn’t really my idea, I got the idea from something I saw, and I thought—’
‘Well don’t. Don’t try any fancy footwork, don’t try to share any bright ideas or do anything differently. Just work slowly and carefully. Don’t talk about what you’ve seen or heard, just stick to a simple job.’ Diana softened her tone when she saw that she’d been too short with Reenie. ‘Look, I want you to do well and be happy, but round here you can get in trouble for thinking. Just don’t rock the boat. And if you’ve got any ideas you tell me and not the overlookers. I’ll tell you when you’re allowed to have a bright idea and you’ll do alright.’ Diana received no response from the startled girl. ‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I think so. Although I think that the lad who I was going to show my idea to is different from the others because—’
‘No.’ Diana stopped Reenie short. ‘Don’t go getting ideas about the management lads. That one is no different from the others. I’ve heard all about him; he’s from some fancy family in Norwich and he’s a friend of one of Lord Mackintosh’s sons, or nephews or summat. He’ll be here five minutes and then they’ll give him a job running one of the factories abroad. Mark my words, he’s no different. If he asks you to walk out with him say a polite no, because his type is not for the likes of you; you can do better. He’ll show you a good time and then he’ll be gone. You deserve better; look to the engineers, or one of the factory fitters, but don’t make eyes at the management lads even if they make eyes at you. In fact, especially if they make eyes at you.’
Reenie nodded and looked crestfallen; she seemed to take the advice on board.
‘Just remember,’ Diana told her as kindly as she could, ‘all these management types are friends of the Mackintosh family; they might seem down-to-earth, but on Sunday afternoons they’re eating cucumber sandwiches in Lady Mackintosh’s drawing room, so don’t go thinking you can make friends with them. It’s them and us.’
Reenie nodded again. She’d had the wind knocked out of her sails, but it was what she needed. Some of these new girls were so green.
For a split second, Diana didn’t recognise the two men walking towards her with their hands in their pockets. Perhaps it was seeing them in an unexpected environment, or the worn blue overalls that she’d never seen them in before, but for a moment she took them for normal factory craftsmen, on their way to a repair job. And when one of them looked her full in the face and gave her a nasty grin she felt a jolt of discomfort and walked past them for several paces before her mind caught up with itself. It was her stepbrother and his friend – her former beau, Stewart, though it pained her to remember it. They were clearly up to no good.
Diana froze for a second in confusion, then spun around and caught up with the trespassers. ‘What are you two doing here,’ she hissed to her stepbrother, ‘and who gave you those overalls?’
‘What’s wrong with our overalls? I think they’re very fetching.’ Tommo mimed a pantomime twirl like Fred Astaire in a song and dance picture on the polished floor of the deserted factory corridor. He was smirking; he obviously wasn’t worried in the slightest about being caught by his stepsister.
‘You know bloody well.’ Diana looked around to make sure they were alone. It wasn’t unusual to see craftsmen like electricians, or fitters, or joiners, walking through the corridors on their way to or from a job mid-shift. There were so many thousands of employees at Mackintosh’s that no one could be expected to know every employee. If anyone else had seen them, they’d have assumed they were on their way to a line needing a repair, but Diana knew better.
‘Maybe we felt like getting jobs at Mac’s.’ Stewart ran his hand through his soft, floppy hair in a habit that had been honed over the years by his innate vanity. The same vanity that had prevented him from holding down any regular job for more than a week. He provided a stark contrast with his friend Tommo. Tommo was scrawny for a grown man; he had thinning black hair that was combed back with thick Brylcreem. His wide, frog-like mouth made Diana feel sick to look at it, and his beady, rat-like eyes always made her think that he was up to something. He usually was up to something. Stewart on the other hand was tall, muscular, sandy-haired, and with a complexion that was like rich Devon cream. His long, light brown eyelashes framed azure blue eyes that looked uncomplicated and innocent to anyone who didn’t know him; and vacant to the few who did. Today Stewart’s summer suntan was all but faded, along with any feelings Diana once had for him. She’d liked him when they were kids because he’d been the best-looking boy around and she enjoyed lording it over the other girls, but she was a different person now. The trouble was that Stewart was ignorant, and stupid enough to follow Tommo around. One day Tommo would get them both into trouble, and Diana thought it would serve them right.
Stewart huffed in a petulant pretence at being hurt by what Diana had said. ‘You’re always banging on about how important it is to get a job, and now that I’ve got one you’re rude to me.’
Diana wasn’t fooled by Stewart or his overalls. ‘I know full well you haven’t got a job here. These are craftsmen’s overalls; you haven’t passed an apprenticeship overnight, so these aren’t yours. I’ll ask you one last time before I call for the Watchman: what are you doing here?’
Tommo rolled on his heels with his hands in his pockets. His smug expression had not left his frog-like mouth. ‘And what are you doing here, sis?’ He lowered his voice and moved closer to her, even though they were completely alone in the echoey factory corridor. ‘Haven’t they found out your little secret yet?’
So, that’s how it is, is it? Diana thought to herself. If I shop you, you’ll shop me. She knew that Tommo didn’t care if she lost her wage and her last taste of independence and self-determination; the only reason he hadn’t exposed her until now was because he enjoyed tormenting her with the idea that he would. They stared at one another in silence, both as determined as the other not to give an inch. Tommo stood, smirking with mischief, Diana fuming with rage. And then Stewart yawned.
‘Are we going, or what?’ Stewart sounded bored. ‘We’ve only got half an hour to put that bet on, and it’ll take us best part of a quarter hour to walk to the bookies. If I miss this one, so help me—’
‘Alright, alright.’ Tommo had evidently been trumped by Stewart, who hadn’t cared two hoots about the spat between his former girl and his best friend. Tommo rubbed his eyebrows with his bony, nicotine-stained fingers as though this demanding day had taxed his great intellect. ‘This tip better be worth it, Stewie.’
‘He’s doping the horse hisself. It’s a cert.’ Stewart looked at his wristwatch. It narked at Diana that he could afford a wristwatch but worked less than she did.
Diana could tell that Tommo wanted to save face. He thought for a second or two and then allowed a smile to stretch over his horrible lips. ‘Don’t say I never do anything for you, sis. We’re leaving you in peace.’ And then he added theatrically, ‘For now.’
Stewart and Tommo began strolling unconcernedly towards the concrete stairwell, but even though they were leaving the factory, Diana made sure that she stuck to them like glue. If she knew Tommo he had planned this so that he could steal something to order for his gangland cronies in Leeds; he wasn’t an opportunist thief.
Tommo had taken the boldest route through the basin, right under the view of the office block windows, the Albion Mills factory windows, the railway station platforms above, and the main entrance gate cabin. Diana resolved to say nothing while he was within earshot and then to tell the commissionaires what he’d been up to as soon as he rounded the corner. Diana thought she could always get the commissionaires a photograph of Tommo from home if they didn’t catch a good enough look at him, but when she got to the gatehouse cabin she saw, for the first time in all her years at Mac’s, that it was empty. Tommo must have paid someone to create a diversion so that he could stroll in and out unimpeded. There was no one for Diana to tell. She stood there, helpless, angry. She watched their retreating silhouettes in their stolen blue overalls and hated them. What a change, she thought, from when she’d first walked through those gates; how her heart would have leapt to see Stewart walk around the corridor all those years ago. She’d have boasted to all the other girls that she had a young man and that he’d come to work to see her. Now, ten years later, she felt nothing but dread. Stewart had found his way into the place where she felt safe, and she didn’t like it.
Diana looked around, hopeful that one of the commissionaires or the watchmen would come back, but the basin, as they called the deep space between the railway bank and the Albion Mills building, was deserted. As she turned to walk back to her line, out of the corner of her eye she caught movement. She looked up toward the windows of the office building, there on the third floor, lowering a dainty teacup into a dainty saucer, was Mrs Wilkes; she had been watching Diana.
Chapter Four
Reenie’s grandmother had always told her that she had a good heart, but she liked the smell of trouble too much. As far as Nanna Martin was concerned, Reenie was a lost cause, and they would all just have to do their best to keep her on the straight and narrow and keep her in work until she could be safely wed.
Reenie didn’t think her family were fair on her. It was true that she found herself in the stew quite a lot, but she didn’t deliberately go out of her way to find trouble; it just found her. It was just this kind of situation that Reenie was walking into at the Mackintosh’s factory known as Toffee Town.
‘Do you know those two girls up at the far end? The one’s that work behind the pillar?’ Most of the girls sat in the same space that they had found themselves in on their first day at break time, and talked to the same handful of friends, never venturing out into the territory of other girls. Reenie, however, went round trying to make friends with everyone during her break. Impervious to any snubs she mostly won them over, but there were two exceptions: the two girls that she had watched on her first day, and who had given her a warning look. One of them was small, with a doll-like face; the other was plain with a red birthmark on her cheek like a blood-red tear. Today Reenie was passing the time of day with the boys who worked as porters on her floor and who filled the cages with the materials that the server girls needed to do their jobs. When the workforce wasn’t segregated by order it seemed to naturally segregate itself; it was typical of Reenie that she would drift beyond the bounds of shop floor etiquette and mix with everyone.
‘They call the younger one Good Queen Bess.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because her older sister’s called Mary, and she’s a Bess, so it’s like the queens who were sisters.’
‘Oh, of course.’ Reenie had no idea who the queens were that the boy porter referred to, but she thought it was wise to act as though she did.
‘She’s the lovely one so she’s Good Queen Bess, but her sister’s miserable so they call her Bad Queen Mary.’
‘Not always.’ One of the older porters put in matter-of-factly. ‘Not to her face.’
‘Aye, that’s true. But mostly she’s known as the Bad Queen.’
‘Bess and Mary? Right-o. Thanks for that. I’ll go and see if they want to make a new friend.’
‘Good luck with that. Those two don’t talk to anyone except Sarah who works in the dining hall.’
‘That’s a shame for them. You wait here while I go and find out why.’
The boys laughed and shook their heads. They liked Reenie, but she didn’t know what was good for her.
‘Everyone at home calls me Queenie Reenie.’ She put out her hand to shake the other girl’s. ‘I hear they call you Good Queen Bess,’ Reenie turned to smile at Mary too and hesitated, the words, ‘and they call you Bad Queen Mary’ hanging in the air unspoken, but cracking like an electric storm. Her voice faltered as she said, ‘… and you’re … her sister, aren’t you?’
Mary said nothing, but Bess laughed to break the ice and said, ‘Two Queens! Oh no, Queenie Reenie, which of us will be Queen of Quality Street?’
Reenie tried to shake the other girl’s hand, but as she touched it she felt the thin skin, the delicate bones, and worried that she would break it. Up close Bess seemed like a little bird, lighter than air and just as fragile; her huge blue eyes seemed all the sharper for the dark circles round them.
‘What do they call you Queenie for? I’ve never heard of a Queen called Reenie.’ Mary wasn’t taking Reenie’s hand to shake it, although Reenie did offer it.
‘Well it just sort o’ rhymes wi’ Reenie. My real name is Reenie, but you know: Reenie, Queenie, they just sound …’ Reenie trailed off in the face of such obvious hostility.
‘I think we need to get back to work. If we’re going to work as fast as you we’ll need to start early.’ Mary said it bitterly, as though she resented Reenie’s pace.
‘Oh no, don’t think of it like that, it’s not a competition. Everyone works differently. I just like trying to be the fastest because then I call tell me’ mam that I’ve done as she asked.’
‘And does your mam know that the faster you go, the more likely the Time and Motion men are to see that it’s possible to do our jobs faster, and then force us all to work faster so that we can never keep up with all the work that we have to do? And does your mam also know that that will mean we’ll all earn less, if we manage to keep our jobs at all?’ Bad Queen Mary was squaring up to Reenie now, hostile and cold.
‘Mary, love, there’s no need.’ Her sister gently put a worryingly pale hand on her shoulder and tried to draw her back. ‘Reenie doesn’t mean any harm—’
‘I don’t care what she means and what she doesn’t. This isn’t how we do things here.’
Reenie hadn’t realised when she came to work at the factory that everything would be so complicated. Instead of being paid a set amount of money for the time she spent working on the line, like she would if she’d worked in a shop, Reenie had been told they would all be paid for how many pieces of work they completed; depending on which department she worked in it might be how many cartons she filled with sweets, or how many tins she could make on the tin making machine. If she got though twenty boxes of sweets a minute she would earn the minimum rate for the day, if she got through ten percent more boxes she would earn ten percent more; twenty percent more boxes meant twenty percent more pay or ‘piece rates’. However, there was a maximum, once you made your maximum piece rates you had to carry on working even though you knew that you weren’t earning any extra money. Reenie didn’t mind this at all, she just enjoyed working alongside so many other girls her age. ‘Oh, but I can give you all some of my extra work if you like, you can keep the piece rates if you want to. I always reach my maximum and then after that I can’t get paid for any more so I just do it for fun—’
‘It’s fun for you, but not fun for the rest of us who have to keep up with you. Did you ever think what you having fun does to everyone else?’
‘But I’ll give you my extra—’
‘That’s a piece rate racket. You cannot share your extra work with other girls or they’ll sack all of us. Do you understand? If you try to do what you’re suggesting then there will be no more work for any of us because we will all be tarred by the same brush and no one else will take us without a reference.’
‘But why? I don’t understand! I can’t see why they wouldn’t just want me to work as fast as I can so that they get more sweets at the end.’
‘Because, you total doyle, if it is possible for a human being to work that fast. They will make us work even faster, and faster, and faster if we want to earn our basic rates for doing the minimum, and they will go on and on and on until we are all in our early graves. The Time and Motion men do not care about you or I, they care about the time it takes to do the work.’
‘But I’ve seen you do your sister’s work lots of times. Why don’t they complain about that if they’re so fussed?’
Bad Queen Mary’s eyes widened with an icy rage and her words came out in a controlled hiss. ‘You have never, ever seen us do anything of the sort. And don’t even think about telling anyone else that poisonous lie.’ Mary turned on her heel and left. There was a stunned silence from the other girls, and though Bess tried to offer Reenie a look of apology, she had to go after her sister, who was marching to her place on the production line.
Reenie was hurt and angry that anyone would treat her like that when she had clearly not meant any harm. She was particularly angry at being called a liar. If her grandmother had been there she’d have told Reenie to let it go, but in her absence Reenie began hatching a plan to make certain that Bad Queen Mary would never be cold with her again.
