The Quality Street Girls, page 8
Chapter Five
Reenie worked a little more absentmindedly that afternoon, thinking about how she might get closer to Mary and Bess, the Quality Street factory’s very own Tudor Queens. She watched them carefully from her side of the conveyor, and every time Mary caught Reenie’s eye Mary would give her an icy, threatening look.
Reenie noticed several things, that Mary had to look at her work all of the time in order to follow what she was doing, and could only look over at Reenie occasionally. This was Mary’s first mistake, the trick to speed was not to look, but to work by a instinct.
Reenie also noticed that Bess was markedly slower than everyone else on the line, as though she just didn’t have the strength. She took work from her older sister almost constantly. If the overlooker could see them then Bess would keep going, but she’d struggle to keep up even with surreptitious help from her sister. The wrapping girls were clearly unhappy about the situation, but tolerating it grudgingly. There was an understanding with them, Reenie thought, but they were not allowing it to happen out of friendship. Here was Reenie’s opportunity: she would target the wrapping girls.
‘Do you want to earn the highest piece rates of anyone on our floor?’ Reenie had not bothered with introductions; she just presented herself at dinner time beside the wrapping girls’ table and stated her proposition.
The dinner hour was just as segregated as the workroom; the older girls who wrapped the sweets chose to sit on tables apart from the younger girls. While the younger ones gossiped animatedly and leant over one another’s dinners, snatching at leftovers and sharing comics. The older wrapping girls looked as still and bored as the portraits of Hollywood starlets in Vogue magazine.
The dining hall was not so different from Reenie’s kitchen at home; there were scrubbed wooden benches below scrubbed wooden tables, but the difference here was that there were six hundred benches, and a sea of women all dressed the same. It was like finding a needle in a haystack, but she found them, sitting in the warmth of the corner near the kitchen hatches that were serving everything with a rich, mouth-wateringly fragrant beef gravy.
‘And who are you when you’re at home?’ Heather Rogers, a wrapping girl with long, platinum blonde hair looked up from her dinner, and down her nose at Reenie. This was exactly the reception that Reenie had anticipated; which was why she had chosen to skip introductions and start with what was in it for them.
‘She’s Reenie, my server. She’s the fast one.’ Reenie’s wrapper (known to the overlooker as Number Twenty-Eight, because that was the conveyor position she occupied, but to the vicar who’d christened her, she was Victoria Scowen) didn’t sound enthusiastic about it, but Reenie felt that this still wasn’t going too badly.
‘I want to move to your end of the conveyor. I want to be up top behind that pillar. If you help me move you’ll get higher piece rates because I’ll be your server instead of Bad Queen Mary who’s always slow because she’s naffin’ about wi’ her sister.’
‘Hang on,’ Victoria Scowen didn’t like the sound of this. ‘What about my piece rates? You’re my server; what’s in it for me if I let you go up to the far end and leave me with God-knows who?’
‘You’ll get the same as you’ve been getting wi’ me.’
‘And how do you figure that one ou—?’ Victoria was about to ask about the logistics of the problem when Diana – who was Reenie’s intended target since she was the girl who had already warned her that if she had any bright ideas she had to take them to her first, and who appeared to have sway over all the girls on their line – cut in with a more important question.
‘What do you want to move up to my manor for? Are you planning a piece time racket? ‘Cause it sounds to me like that’s the only way you can be offering all three of us better rates. No one can be in three places at once so you’ve got to be talking a racket.’
Heather Rogers tried to move Reenie on by saying in a haughty Harrogate drawl, ‘We’ve got enough trouble up at our end with the Tudor Queens; we don’t need the aggro of some new kid who thinks they know all running a piece time racket right under Rabid Roth’s nose, thank you very mu—’
‘No, Heather, I’ve a mind to hear what the young ’un has to say.’ Diana ostentatiously moved herself into a more comfortable position and then indicated that she was ready to listen. Reenie could see that what she’d heard about Diana Moore was right; if Quality Street had three queens, then this was their true empress; she really did command all the other girls, and Reenie realised she was in luck.
‘Come in Number Four!’ Mrs Roth didn’t have an office of her own, but she marked her territory so firmly in the overlookers’ break room that it felt as though they were being beckoned into her domain.
The room was not salubrious, but it was large enough for ten women to sit and glare at each other over a chipped mid-morning teapot. A row of three desks along the far wall with typewriters for processing sick notes, shift patterns and the like, seemed to be the only thing that marked the space out as a factory work room and not the windowless, dingy, cave-like lair of an old witch.
Diana slid through the doorway with the lithe confidence of a cat, followed behind by wrapping girls Victoria and Heather, who were reduced to cowering in the presence of Mrs Roth.
‘Do you have something you wish to tell me?’ Mrs Roth’s words were sharp and threatening, and many a girl had turned and ran with their words left unspoken at that welcome, but Diana didn’t so much as turn a hair:
‘We’ve grown tired of covering up for Mary and Bess. We’ve come to tell you what’s what so that we don’t have to put up with them anymore.’
‘Covering up?’ Mrs Roth’s snakelike eyes had met Diana’s and were holding them unblinkingly.
‘They do nothing but talk all day long, and it makes them slow. They’re both perfectly capable of working faster, and I’ve seen Bess work like lightning when her sister’s not with her, but they will talk.’ Diana’s casual, regal, drawl seemed to imply that she considered Mrs Roth to be an intimate equal, rather than her supervisor. ‘It’s all sneaky whispers when you’re not looking, Mrs Roth. I can’t imagine what they find to talk about, but you always have trouble when sister’s sit together, don’t you?’ She held her gaze while she paused for effect. Reenie had been lucky indeed; Diana knew exactly how to play the woman she reported to. ‘We’d like to help if we can.’ She gestured casually to the two wrapping girls behind her, ‘If you move Reenie Calder up to my place, and Mary down to the far end to Reenie’s old place they’ll be as far apart as they can be. We’ll see how fast they work when they’re not gassing. I didn’t like to bother you with such a triviality, Mrs Roth, but when you’ve worked in production as long as you and I have, one knows that it’s the small things that make a difference.’
Mrs Roth seemed to be looking for some trap or trick, and she snapped at Victoria, ‘You! Why do you want to move Reenie Calder?’
This was what they had been afraid of; they didn’t want her to notice the Reenie side of the plan, because the answers to those questions were awkward. Victoria panicked and looked at their ringleader for a hint but didn’t get one, so just blurted out, ‘She’s doin’ my head in Mrs Roth.’
And that was enough for the overlooker, the idea that Reenie would do anyone’s head in was plausible. ‘Alright, but I don’t have time for this kind of thing. You’ll have to work it out amongst yourselves. And if I think there’s been any monkey business …’
‘I assure you, Mrs Roth, that this is not monkey business. I would ask you as a special favour to me to keep an eye on Bess and Mary’s piece rates once they’ve been separated and see what you see.’
‘You can’t move me.’ A crowd of girls was gathering around the top of the conveyor as Mary refused to move to her new place at the start of their shift. The overlookers had not yet appeared and Mary was clinging desperately to the hope that the girls were just throwing their weight around because she’d threatened Reenie Calder. Perhaps if she stood her ground until the overlookers came out, they’d all be told to go back to their usual places.
‘Yer movin’ and it’s final, love.’
Bess looked like a frightened animal, wide-eyed and timid. ‘Do I move down to her left or her right?’
‘They’re not moving both of us.’ Mary was speaking through clenched teeth. Rage, and fear, and injustice bubbling up inside her and threatening to spill over. ‘They’re separating us.’
‘But they can’t! You can’t! We’re sisters! We have to be together; Mary, tell them that we have to be together.’
‘You two have been talking too much.’ Diana announced it loudly enough for all the workroom to hear, ‘and Mrs Roth has decided that Reenie and Mary will exchange places so that you are as far away from your sister as possible and then we can see how fast you work.’
‘I’m waiting to hear it from Mrs Roth.’ Mary’s voice was breaking with emotion, and her knuckles had turned white as she clenched her hands up into firsts.
‘You can hear it from whoever you like. But the message is the same. We aren’t going to put up with this nonsense any longer. And you better work fast, because Mrs Roth will be watching your numbers, and anyone who can’t make their minimum will be out.’
Mary caught an implied threat and stood her ground ‘We always make our minimum. I thought you were—’
Diana stopped her short. ‘I don’t care what you thought, it’s time to do as I say. I’ve decided that it’s better for everyone if you two are separated.’
‘This is because of Reenie, isn’t it? She put you up to it.’
‘No one puts me up to anything, Mary Norcliffe; I make my own mind up, and don’t you forget it.’
There was a clatter as the door swung to and the overlookers came in to take their high chairs, just out of view of that one spot at the top of the conveyor where Bess and Reenie would now work side-by-side. The shift was about to begin and Mrs Roth looked down from her crow’s nest position at the crowd of girls, and at Mary who was shaking with emotion and fighting to hold back sobs and tears. Mrs Roth jerked her head once, slightly, almost imperceptibly, in the direction of Mary’s new place, and Mary knew that it was all over. She reached for her sister’s hand and squeezed it, but couldn’t bear to look up at her face, then she walked purposefully down the conveyor as all eyes, including the beady eyes of her overlooker, followed her in her humiliation.
Within seconds the other girls had scurried back to their places and the machines were whirring into life. Reenie and Bess were left standing side-by-side, and Bess could just make out her sister at the far end of the conveyor wiping her eyes on a handkerchief and then pushing it firmly out of sight.
Reenie offered her new neighbour a tentative smile. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I can move back if it doesn’t work.’
‘If what doesn’t work? What’s happening?’ Bess was pale with fear.
‘I could see you were struggling. You’re not very strong, are you?’
Bess shook her head.
‘It’s alright, love, we understand. I have a sister like you, she isn’t strong either; it’s not your fault. But it’s alright because I’ve had this idea. I reckon I can work twice as fast as your sister, and cover your place without Mrs Roth seein’ so you can take it a bit easier, and your sister can have a bit of a break an’ all.’
Bess whispered, ‘Are you going to let yourself get in trouble for us?’
‘I won’t get in trouble.’ Reenie laughed softly at the idea and pretty crinkles formed around her bright green eyes. ‘They’ll never catch me. I know how to keep out of the way of the overlookers.’
‘But what if one of the other girls notices and tells on us?’
‘Did you just miss all of what just went on? A very public proclamation has been made by the only person in this room that no one would ever dare cross; it has been announced that the official reason for our change in places is to stop you gassin’. That’s our story, and every girl here will stick to it if they know what’s good for ’em after they’ve seen who said it. No one crosses Diana from what I’ve heard. We had to let your sister get upset so Mrs Roth would believe it too. She won’t be watchin’ you now; she’ll be watchin’ Mary; we’ll be alright all the way up here on this end of the line.’ Reenie shrugged, ‘I just thought you looked like you could do with some help, and if your sister isn’t spending all her time helping you she can work faster on her own and get her piece rates for once. This way your sister earns more, you earn more, these two earn more because I can go as fast as they like.’ She pointed her thumb at her fellow conspirators, Diana and Heather, who gave Bess a nonchalant nod as though it was a mere trifle for them to help. ‘And my old wrapping girl, Victoria Scowen, she earns just as much because your sister is the second-fastest server here, if she can do her job and yours she’s bloody fast indeed and she’ll make her maximum. Everyone earns more this way; everyone is happy.’
‘But what about you, what do you get from it? You’re not earning any more if you were already at your maximum and you’re having to work so much harder, and you’re risking your position if you’re caught.’
Reenie thought about it. It was a fair point. ‘Aye, but it’s a laugh, isn’t it?’ And she grinned.
Diana wanted nothing more than to leave the factory for the day and get home. She had just overheard a conversation in the cloakrooms about a sweepstake that some of the girls were organising, despite the fact that it was strictly against factory rules; Diana wished she didn’t know anything about. She’d stuck her neck out enough for her young server girls, and she didn’t want to know about their illegal betting because that was the limit. They were all sailing precariously close to a piece time racket as it was, and she could not, under any circumstances, risk losing her job.
Diana shook her soft ashes of caramel curls out of her elegantly pleated mob cap, and slipped it into the pocket of her white cotton overall before hanging it up on her hook. The cloakroom was a chaos of muddy shoes, hats and coats; girls from all over the floor were happily gossiping as they reclaimed their outdoor clothes and made ready to leave for the day.
One of the many benefits of being the most idolised girl on the floor was that Diana didn’t have to stop and chatter away to her friends to keep them happy; she could leave with a nod to one or two, like an empress at court.
Not that she cultivated her position. It was generally known that she was the oldest of all the girls, but none of them seemed to know, or care, by quite how much. Little did the others realise that she was the same age as Frances Roth. The packing girls talked about Diana as though she was only nineteen, and they talked about Frances Roth as though she was nearing retirement, but they were both just twenty-six, and they’d hated each other since the day they met as five-year-olds at the Ackroyd Place Infant School.
‘Miss Moore!’ One of the younger girls had plucked up the courage to approach her with a copy of The Picture Post. Diana occasionally tolerated being called by her second name because it helped to reinforce her seniority, but she didn’t like it as a general rule. The overlookers were allowed to be known by their surnames, but the floor girls had to go by first names; occasionally calling her ‘Miss Moore’ was another way that the other girls showed deference to their Empress Diana. The girl who stood before her was one she didn’t know, a new girl all wide-eyed with enthusiasm. ‘Please, Miss, we found this picture of Loretta Young and we think it looks just exactly like you.’ She proffered her copy of the magazine like an offering to royalty.
Diana looked at the photograph but gave no visible indication of how she felt about it and handed it back. ‘You don’t call me Miss; I’m not an overlooker.’
The younger girl nodded and held her breath; trying not to be overwhelmed by direct communication from the Diana.
‘Is that you done for the day? You walking out now?’ Heather Rogers, one of Diana’s few particular friends (if her association with anyone could be compared to friendship) always made a point of walking part way to the tram stop with the Empress of the floor to show all the other girls just how close she was to greatness.
‘I suppose so, but I’m not going your way today. I’ll walk down with you in the morning.’ Diana could see that the other girl felt slighted, so she made the small concession of giving her a knowing look as though some secret had passed between them that the others were excluded from. She didn’t have the energy for lengthy explanations, but she thought that would help her friend to save face in front of the girls.
Diana made her way down the cast-iron west stairs that made a ringing noise as you landed your feet on them, and out towards the gate by Water Lane. It was always busy at this time, and Diana had perfected the art of weaving her way in and out of the throng of people without having to touch anyone; she hated the squash of bodies that built up by the Bailey Hall Road gate when the shift ended and so she always avoided it.
Today she had a mission: she had made a little extra money now that her piece time rates were up, and she was going to buy oranges for little Gracie, and a quarter pound of strawberry creams. It seemed a trifle unfair that the makers of these morsels had to go out and buy them like anyone else, but Diana supposed that if they all got to take a bag home for free there’d be none to send out to the shops.
For the first time in a long time, Diana loved her work. Diana was not like Reenie; she didn’t have a passion for solving problems, or setting herself challenges. She didn’t revel in her first taste of being good at something; instead Diana loved her job for the freedom it gave her to pay her way at her stepmother’s house and to be near Gracie. She had let the other girls think that she was ‘walking out’ with Stewart, and they assumed there’d be a wedding soon enough, but didn’t press Diana too much on the subject because she did not invite intimacy; Stewart was useful for avoiding questions if he was useful for nothing else. She’d been lucky so far that all Stewart’s recent girlfriends had been over in Leeds but eventually she supposed he’d settle down with some girl and she’d have to find a new excuse for why she wasn’t painting the town red.
