The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [24]
‘I hope,’ said Freda, bewildered by his headstrong declaration, ‘it won’t come to that.’ And she turned on her heel and went to collect Brenda who was in the washroom rinsing out the sponges for the morning.
‘I can’t understand it,’ she said. ‘Whatever did you do to that Patrick?’
‘I only let him mend the lavatory,’ exclaimed Brenda.
She looked so plain and dowdy in her shabby coat and worn shoes that Freda smiled. It was ridiculous to think of her as a femme fatale. Neither Rossi nor Patrick would be described as the catch of the year – unlike Vittorio with his noble birth, his beautiful moustaches and his expressive brown eyes. In only two days time, on Sunday – for Mr Paganotti was too stingy to allow them a day off work – they would go on the Outing and picnic together under the trees, discussing where he might take her for dinner. She would tell him how depressed she had been, how lonely. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, her face appeared fragile and tinged with silver. She felt the beginnings of restoration.
That night Freda slept more peacefully. At dawn she was awakened by the sound of rain pattering thickly upon the roof. The noise increased in volume and she sat up to look out of the window, the hem of the white sheet sliding to the folds of her belly, and saw a troop of horsemen flowing along the river of the street. Drowsily she admired, as if in a dream, the elegant khaki riders, the swelling calves of their legs bound in puttees, the rows of mustard-coloured hats bobbing up and down as they cantered toward the crossroads. She didn’t move, she didn’t blink an eyelid – afterwards she thought she might have cried ‘Hurrah’ or tossed a rose from the balcony – and they were gone, the stylish riders and the taffetabrown horses beating a tattoo on the crest of the road.
It was all going to come true – she knew that now: the journey by land and sea, the uniformed men, the white dress with flowers at the waist. Perhaps they would live in a flat in Hampstead and have drink on the sideboard, meat in the fridge and Mr Paganotti to dinner once a month. After they were married she and Vittorio would visit the house-proud aunt in Newcastle and litter the hall-way with their pig-skin luggage. She would drop her engagement ring into the glass bowl on the dresser for fear she tore the skin of his back when she held him in her arms. She would smoke in bed and spill talcum powder upon the rug. What disorder she could create with her paper hankies, the cellophane wrappings of her cigarette packets, the pointilistic pieces of confetti still trapped within her garments! Auntie would have to lump it. In the summer, staying at his parents’ castle outside Bologna, she would open the shutters in the morning to let in the sun and shield her eyes from the blue surge of the sea sparkling beyond the dusty line of the olive trees that his father owned. Brenda could come too, if his mother had no objection – and why should she, surrounded by her grandchildren, her lovely bouncing bambinos gurgling beneath the lemon trees?
‘You do look well,’ said Brenda, propped up on the pillows, a plate of porridge balanced on her stomach.
‘I am well,’ cried Freda, already dressed, sweeping about the room with the transistor radio held to her ear.
She couldn’t wait to tell Maria about the soldiers on horseback.
‘You were right,’ she said, clasping Maria’s hands in her own and dancing her round the cardboard boxes.
The sky was so overcast it was almost dark. The little naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling glowed like small red stars. Outside the row of windows the rain fell heavily and began to stain the concrete wall of the chip-shop.
Brenda thought Freda must have been dreaming. She hadn’t heard anything, and what was a troop of horsemen doing at that hour of the morning in the middle of the city?
‘Exercising the animals,’ explained Freda jubilantly, ‘before the traffic got going.’
‘But we’ve never seen them before.’
‘We’ve never been awake at that time.’
‘I