The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [2]
Since that first outburst in the butcher’s shop, Brenda had become withdrawn and unemotional, except for her delusion that men were after her. Freda had hoped working in a factory would enrich Brenda’s life. When she had seen the advertisement in the newsagent’s shop she had told her it was just the sort of job they needed, even if it paid badly, seeing they could save on tube fares and lunches and wouldn’t have to wear their good clothes. Brenda said she’d got no good clothes, which was the truth. Freda had given up her job as a cashier in a nightclub: the hours were too erratic and it meant she could never get up early enough to go for auditions. Every Thursday she bought a copy of The Stage and every Friday night she went to a theatrical pub and met people in the business. Nothing ever came of it. Brenda didn’t do anything, apart from a little shopping. She got a postal order from her father every week, but it wasn’t enough to live on.
‘It’s not right,’ Freda told her. ‘At your age you’ve got to think of the future.’
Brenda, who was thirty-two, was frightened at the implication: she felt she had one foot in the grave. They had gone once to a bureau on the High Street and said they were looking for temporary work in an office. They lied about their speed and things, but the woman behind the desk wasn’t encouraging. Secretly Freda thought it was because Brenda looked such a fright – she had toothache that morning and her jaw was swollen. Brenda thought it was because Freda wore her purple cloak and kept flipping ash on the carpet. Freda said they needed to do something more basic, something that brought them into contact with the ordinary people, the workers.
‘But a bottle factory,’ protested Brenda, who did not have the same needs as her friend.
Patiently Freda explained that it wasn’t a bottle factory, it was a wine factory – that they would be working alongside simple peasants who had culture and tradition behind them. Brenda hinted she didn’t like foreigners – she found them difficult to get on with. Freda said it proved how puny a person she was, in mind and in body.
‘You’re bigoted,’ she cried. ‘And you don’t eat enough.’
To which Brenda did not reply. She looked and kept silent, watching Freda’s smooth white face and the shining feather of yellow hair that swung to the curve of her jaw. She had large blue eyes with curved lashes, a gentle rosy mouth, a nose perfectly formed. She was five foot ten in height, twenty-six years old, and she weighed sixteen stone. All her life she had cherished the hope that one day she would become part of a community, a family. She wanted to be adored and protected, she wanted to be called ‘little one’.
‘Maybe today,’ Freda said, ‘Vittorio will ask me out for a drink.’ She looked at Brenda who was lying down exhausted on the big double bed. ‘You look terrible. I’ve told you, you should take Vitamin B.’
‘I don’t hold with vitamins. I’m just tired.’
‘It’s your own fault. You should make the bloody bed properly and get a good night’s kip.’
Brenda had fashioned a bolster to put down the middle of the bed and a row of books to ensure that they lay less intimately at night. Freda complained that the books were uncomfortable – but then she had never been married. At night when they prepared for bed Freda removed all her clothes and lay like a great fretful baby, majestically dimpled and curved. Brenda wore her pyjamas and her underwear and a tweed coat – that was the difference between them. Brenda said it was on account of nearly being frozen to death in Ramsbottom, but it wasn’t really that. Above the bed Freda had hung a photograph of an old man sitting on a stool with a stern expression on his face. She said it was her grandfather, but it wasn’t. Brenda had secretly scratched her initials on the leg of the chair nearest the window, just to prove this one was hers when the other fell apart due to Freda’s impressive weight. The cooker was on the first floor, and there was a bathroom up a flight