The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [22]
‘She needs putting away,’ said Freda, beginning to fall into sleep. ‘You all need putting away.’
4
For several days Freda was not herself. She suffered outbursts of rage followed by long periods of silence. The rages, which were habitual, did not disturb Brenda as much as the moments of moody reflection; she could not bear to witness her friend slumped on her beer crate or in the armchair by the gas fire, deaf to all overtures. It was unnerving to live with. Freda was so fond of verbalising her emotions. She never brooded. Pain felt, or insults endured, made her the more articulate. In adversity she saw the funny side. She would spit out words describing in precise detail just how badly she was wounded, until her shoulders began to shake with the burble of huge choking laughter that finally burst from her.
She took to lying awake at night, counting the prison bars of the balcony palings reflected on the curve of the ceiling. She watched intently the plummeting bird of the hanging lamp, the bunch of dried leaves in the mantelshelf vase stencilled upon the gleaming paintwork of the door. When she looked out into the street it was bright as day. The lattices of windows, the lids of dustbins, the metal flanks of parked cars flashed in the moonlight and dazzled her. Brenda lay in darkness, the lower half of her face shot away – only the rim of her eyelids touched by light.
‘What’s wrong, love?’ asked Brenda over and over.
But Freda, eyes glittering with fatigue, refused to tell.
She did go to see Rossi. She told him that if there was any more nonsense with Brenda in the cellar she would go to Mr Paganotti and have him dismissed.
‘Just because you’re the manager,’ she told him spitefully, ‘it doesn’t mean you can wreak your vile will on Brenda.’
‘I do not understand,’ said Rossi, shrinking behind his desk littered with test tubes and sheets of litmus paper. ‘What is this wreaking? We only do a little fun.’
‘Fun,’ she thundered. ‘Man, I don’t think Mr Paganotti would call it that.’
He hated her. He clenched his chubby fists and scraped his wedding ring across the desk, stuttering his denials. He made the mistake of trying to humour her.
‘You are a woman of the world,’ he said. But she quelled him with a glance. ‘Watch it,’ she warned, her arms folded, her nostrils flaring, her silken face poised and tinted like an angel above the powerful wedge of her body.
He lowered his eyes, and back she strode to her bench and the quota of Nuits St Georges.
Maria was curious to know what was wrong, but Freda shook her head with an air of martyrdom, as if her burdens were beyond comprehension. She had thought Vittorio would never wish to speak to her again after that deplorable evening when she had drunk too much; but surprisingly he asked her several times if she was feeling better, if she was recovering, as if it had been she who had been shot at, for she had forgotten she was in mourning for her mother. He even wanted to take her out to dinner, but she refused. ‘Later,’ she told him, not caring to shut the door entirely. The thought of a visit to a restaurant, the clatter of knives and forks, the blaze of lights in gilt mirrors as they drank at the bar, filled her with panic. The effort of keeping her elbows off the table, her knees together, her voice down and delicately modulated, was beyond her. The scene on the stairs was imprinted upon her imagination; the inspector’s request to know the particular relationship between the old lady and Brenda rang in her ears. Brenda was surrounded by people who claimed her as their own. Her father sent postal orders, her mother wielded power by the head-ings of her letters – ‘Darling’ meant Brenda was in favour; ‘My Dear Brenda’ spelled disapproval, as did the absence of those inked kisses penned at the bottom of the page. Stanley’s balaclava hung on a hook behind the door. Under the bed, face down in the dust, lay a wedding photograph of Stanley arm in