Night Over Water - Ken Follett [133]
“Certainly not. Organized, it’s contained. The gangs each have their own territory and they stay there. They don’t rub people out on Fifth Avenue and they don’t demand protection money from the Harvard Club. So why bother them?”
Margaret could not let this pass. “What about the poor people who waste their money gambling? What about the wretched girls who ruin their health?”
“It’s not that I don’t care about them,” Mrs. Lenehan said. Margaret looked carefully at her face, wondering whether she was sincere. “Listen,” she went on. “I make shoes.” Margaret must have looked surprised, for Mrs. Lenehan added: “That’s what I do for a living. I own a shoe factory. My men’s shoes are cheap, and they last for five or ten years. If you want to, you can buy even cheaper shoes, but they’re no good—they have cardboard soles that last about ten days. And believe it or not, some people buy the cardboard ones! Now I figure I’ve done my duty by making good shoes. If people are dumb enough to buy bad shoes there’s nothing I can do about it. And if people are dumb enough to spend their money gambling when they can’t afford to buy a steak for supper, that’s not my problem either.”
“Have you ever been poor yourself?” Margaret asked.
Mrs. Lenehan laughed. “Smart question. No, I haven’t, so maybe I shouldn’t shoot my mouth off. My grandfather made boots by hand and my father opened the factory that I now run. I don’t know anything about life in the slums. Do you?”
“Not much, but I think there are reasons why people gamble and steal and sell their bodies. They aren’t just stupid. They’re victims of a cruel system.”
“I suppose you’re some kind of Communist.” Mrs. Lenehan said this without hostility.
“Socialist,” Margaret said.
“That’s good,” Mrs. Lenehan said surprisingly. “You may change your mind later—everyone’s notions alter as they get older—but if you don’t have ideals to start with, what is there to improve? I’m not cynical. I think we should learn from experience but hold on to our ideals. Why am I preaching at you like this? Maybe because today is my fortieth birthday.”
“Many happy returns.” Margaret normally resented people who said she would change her mind when she was older: it was a condescending thing to say, and often said when they had lost an argument but would not admit it. However, Mrs. Lenehan was different. “What are your ideals?” Margaret asked her.
“I just want to make good shoes.” She gave a self-deprecating smile. “Not much of an ideal, I guess, but it’s important to me. I have a nice life. I live in a beautiful home. My sons have everything they need. I spend a fortune on clothes. Why do I have all this? Because I make good shoes. If I made cardboard shoes I’d feel like a thief. I’d be as bad as Frankie.”
“A rather socialist point of view,” Margaret said with a smile.
“I just adopted my father’s ideals, really,” Mrs. Lenehan said reflectively. “Where do your ideals come from? Not your father, I know.”
Margaret blushed. “You heard about the scene at dinner.”
“I was there.”
“I’ve got to get away from my parents.”
“What’s keeping you?”
“I’m only nineteen.”
Mrs. Lenehan was mildly scornful. “So what? People run away from home at ten!”
“I did try,” Margaret said. “I got into trouble and the police picked me up.”
“You give in pretty easy.”
Margaret wanted Mrs. Lenehan to understand that it was not from lack of courage that she had failed. “I’ve no money and no skills. I’ve never had a proper education. I don’t know how I’d make a living.”
“Honey, you’re on your way to America. Most people arrived there with a lot less than you, and some of them are millionaires now. You can read and write English. You’re personable, intelligent, pretty.... You could get a job easily. I’d hire you.”
Margaret’s heart seemed to turn over. She had begun to feel resentful of Mrs. Lenehan’s unsympathetic attitude. Now she realized she was being given an opportunity. “Would you?” she said. “Would you hire me?”
“Sure.”
“As what?”
Mrs. Lenehan