The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [0]
Also by Beryl Bainbridge
Fiction
An Awfully Big Adventure
Another Part of The Wood
The Birthday Boys
Collected Stories
The Dressmaker
Every Man for Himself
Filthy Lucre
Harriet Said
Injury Time
Master Georgie
Mum and Mr Armitage
Northern Stories (ed., with David Pownall)
A Quiet Life
Sweet William
Watson’s Apology
A Weekend with Claude
Winter Garden
Young Adolf
According to Queeney
Non-Fiction
English journey, or the Road to Milton Keynes
Forever England: North and South
Something Happened Yesterday
Front Row: My Life in the Theatre
Copyright
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-748-12574-6
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Beryl Bainbridge 1974
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DY
www.hachette.co.uk
Contents
Copyright
Also by Beryl Bainbridge
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF
For Pauline
1
The hearse stood outside the block of flats, waiting for the old lady. Freda was crying. There were some children and a dog running in and out of the line of bare black trees planted in the pavement.
‘I don’t know why you’re crying,’ said Brenda. ‘You didn’t know her.’
Four paid men in black, carrying the coffin on their shoulders, began to walk the length of the top landing. Below, on the first floor, a row of senior citizens in nighties and overcoats stood on their balconies ready to wave the old woman goodbye.
‘I like it,’ said Freda. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
Opulent at the window, she leant her beige cheek against the glass and stared out mournfully at the block of flats, moored in concrete like an ocean liner. Behind the rigging of the television aerials, the white clouds blew across the sky. All hands on deck, the aged crew with lowered heads shuffled to the rails to watch the last passenger disembark.
Freda was enjoying herself. She stopped a tear with the tip of her finger and brought it to her mouth.
‘I’m very moved,’ she observed, as the coffin went at an acute angle down the stairs.
Brenda, who was easily embarrassed, didn’t care to be seen gawping at the window. She declined to look at the roof of the hearse, crowned with flowers like a Sunday hat, as the coffin was shoved into place.
‘She’s going,’ cried Freda, and the engine started and the black car slid away from the kerb, the gladioli and the arum lilies trembling in the breeze.
‘You cry easily,’ said Brenda, when they were dressing to go to the factory.
‘I like funerals. All those flowers – a full life coming to a close …’
‘She didn’t look as if she’d had a full life,’ said Brenda. ‘She only had the cat. There weren’t any mourners – no sons or anything.’
‘Take a lesson from it then. It could happen to you. When I go I shall have my family about me – daughters – sons – my husband, grey and distinguished, dabbing a handkerchief to his lips …’
‘Men always go first,’ said Brenda. ‘Women live longer.’
‘My dear, you ought to participate more.