The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [29]
‘Give over,’ she whispered to Brenda, who, dreadfully perturbed, was already picking her teeth with a matchstick.
After an interval of indecision, Rossi, seeing his excursion in danger, began to issue commands. He ordered Salvatore to the wheel of the red mini. He held up his right hand and indicated with his fingers that there was space for three. The men looked at each other and gripped their briefcases more securely. He propelled Brenda to the front seat of his Ford Cortina. ‘In, in, in,’ he urged; and she was bundled inside to find Vittorio in the back seat, where he had gone earlier to be out of the cold. They didn’t speak. Brenda peered out of the window at Freda holding the mangled loaf to her heart. Rossi, skipping about frenziedly and acting as if the street was on fire and must be evacuated immediately, motioned Freda towards the car. He held open the rear door, and she bent her head. As she made to enter, Vittorio vacated his seat and leapt out into the road.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Freda, white-faced and utterly demoralised, endeavouring to accommodate herself and the basket on wheels inside the cramped interior. The car sank on its axle.
‘I wish I could die,’ thought Brenda; and then again, ‘I wish I was dead.’
There was a great deal of shouting going on in the street. A small boy on the far side of the road, intent on his paper round, stopped to stare. A face loomed up at the window of the Ford Cortina. Brenda unwound the glass, and Anselmo, in a slouch hat, brought his sad face on a level with hers and proceeded to kiss her, first on one cheek, then on the other. He went away, and his place was taken by Stefano, who contented himself with shaking her hand.
‘You take my place,’ urged Brenda, looking down at his hand lying like a little cold piece of cloth in her own. ‘Honestly I don’t mind in the least.’
‘Ah no,’ he said, ‘you are young.’ And he backed away clutching his carrier bag filled with bread and salami, the tears standing in his eyes.
Vittorio was arguing with Rossi and Aldo Gamberini, the overseer of the loading bay. They gripped him by the arm, one on either side, and attempted to drag him from the pavement. He resisted strongly. Rossi winked and grimaced in the direction of the parked car. He patted him playfully on the cheek as if to say ‘Don’t be a silly boy’, and Vittorio, finally submitting and followed by Aldo Gamberini, clambered sullenly inside the Ford Cortina. The vehicle rocked as he and Freda fought for leg space between the wheels of the shopping basket.
Outside there was an orgy of handshaking and leavetaking. Around the bonnet of the red mini the men clustered like tired black flies. Brenda could see Maria waddling up the road in retreat, the hem of the silk frock bobbing against her calves. She ground her teeth in misery and stared hard at the picture of the Virgin pasted to the dashboard of the car.
At last Rossi flung himself into the driving seat.
‘We are all right,’ he assured them over and over, clutching the steering wheel bound in black fur.
As he looked into the mirror to make certain he had clear access to the road, he observed the barrels of wine being trundled towards the red mini. Out he jumped, waving his arms censoriously, and the barrels, all four of them, were transported to the boot of the Ford Cortina.
‘Now we go,’ he told the silent passengers, and he pressed the starting motor.
The small diminished face of Patrick appeared at the back window. He flattened his pugilistic nose against the glass and made frantic gestures to be admitted. Outside, the farewells of the dispersing workers rose in a continuous murmur like the sea.
‘Go away,’ bade Freda in a low voice.
He tugged at the handle of the door, the hen-speckled face beneath the peak of his cloth cap distorted with urgency. The door swung open and he tried to squeeze inside. Freda struck him repeatedly in the face with the French loaf and he fell backwards on to the pavement in a sprinkle of breadcrumbs. Brenda slumped as low in her seat as she could. She hadn’t the heart to wave. She fixed her eyes