The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [13]
Maria, still rummaging for shoes, cackled with laughter and threw ties, and undergarments of incredible dimensions, on to the floor.
The machine Mr Paganotti had provided for hot drinks was out of order. When Brenda inserted her metal token and pressed the button marked ‘Cocoa’, a thin stream of soup trickled into her cup. Patrick, come in from the street to be out of the wind, smiled at her sympathetically. He never knew what to do with himself in the lunch hour – the men he worked with couldn’t understand a word he uttered, and Rossi treated him with suspicion, seeing he was Irish, following him about the factory in case he slipped a bomb beneath the cardboard boxes and blew them all to pieces.
‘Look at that,’ said Brenda. ‘It’s never cocoa.’
‘The machine’s busted,’ he told her, giving it an enormous clout with his fist. He had large hands, discoloured with brown freckles, and badly bitten nails. One ear was slightly swollen where he had banged it falling down the steps of the Princess Beatrice the previous night, and there was a cut on his lip.
‘Everything breaks,’ said Brenda, ‘All sorts of things break down these days. Electric kettles and washing machines and telephones.’
‘You’re right at that,’ he agreed, jingling the coins in the pocket of his overalls and nodding his cropped head. He would have suited long hair, Brenda thought. It would have toned down his ears and covered his neck, which was broad and mottled with old adolescent scars.
‘Our toilet’s been broken for three weeks,’ she told him.
‘We can’t get a plumber. The landlady’s tried.’
‘Is that a fact? Broken is it?’
‘Plumbers don’t live here any more,’ explained Brenda, echoing what Freda had told her. ‘It’s on account of the high rents. Plumbers can’t afford to live. It’s the same with window cleaners,’ she added.
‘I’ll fix it for you,’ he said. And too late she realised what she had done.
‘Oh no really, there’s no need,’ she protested.
But he wouldn’t be put off. ‘I’ll be glad to. I’m good at the plumbing. Will I bring the tools round after work?
‘It’s not my toilet,’ said Brenda. ‘I’m not sure that the landlady—’
‘I’ll fetch the wherewithal from me lodgings and be round when I’m finished.’
‘You’re very kind,’ said Brenda feebly, and returned with her beaker of soup to the bench. She stared at a bottle of Chateau Neuf du Pape and dreaded what Freda would say. She could almost hear her – ‘You did what? You asked that lout from the bogs of Tipperary to mend our loo?’ She wondered if she could sneak him upstairs without Freda knowing, or the landlady for that matter. Perhaps she could persuade him to wrap a duster round the end of his hammer.
Freda was not enjoying being off work. She hadn’t the money to go down town and enjoy her leisure. She polished the surrounds of the floor and wedged the window open with Brenda’s tennis racket. The room lacked character, she thought, looking critically at the yellow utility furniture and the ladies in crinolines walking in pairs across the wallpaper. There was no colour scheme – nothing matched; there was no unity of design. Every time she made some little improvement, like arranging a curtain round the washbasin near the door, it only drew attention to the cracked tiles and the yards of antiquated piping climbing in convoluted loops up the wall. On the shelf she had improvised above the fireplace were some paperbacks, two library books and a bottle of H.P. sauce that Brenda had carelessly placed. Dissatisfied by all she saw, she went discontentedly on to the landing and carried the milk bottles downstairs. Lying on the doormat was an envelope addressed to her. When she opened it she thought she might faint. It was as if life until this moment had been spent underground or beneath the sluggish waters of a river. Now, as she read the words he had written, she shot to the surface, up into the blinding sunlight and the sweet-tasting air:
My dear Freda,
If it is permissible may I call after work to offer my respects.
Your friend,
Vittorio.
She clutched the