The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [30]
The engine roared into life. The car jumped away from the kerb and gathered speed, passing the homewardbound men going in twos and threes to the tube station, shoulders bowed in the best black suits worn for a special occasion.
Rossi drove as if any moment he was about to be overtaken and sent home. He hunched his shoulders in his casual jumper and pressed his foot down hard upon the accelerator. He drove as if heading towards the Park and suddenly swung left into Monmouth Street, moving at speed past the barred windows of the army barracks and the rows of still-sleeping houses.
‘Ah well,’ he said, as if speaking to himself, ‘it is only a little upset.’
There were few people up at this hour – an old man leaning on a stick, a girl in a caftan, an oriental gentleman wearing silver boots with high heels. Rossi took his attention briefly from the road to watch the girl and was forced to brake hard as the lights changed from green to red. Freda was flung forwards in her seat and brought up sharp against the handle of the shopping basket. She said nothing, but her intake of breath was audible.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Brenda, turning in her seat; but Freda, massive in her sheepskin coat, had closed her eyes.
Beyond the rear window the red mini, bursting with passengers, came into view.
Brenda said: ‘They must have been so disappointed – the others – going all the way home again.’
It haunted her: Maria in her silken frock, the prepared food lying unwanted in the black briefcases, the high hopes of the early dawn and the disillusion of the morning.
‘They are used to disappointment,’ Rossi told her philosophically. ‘They have had their lives.’
He looked in the mirror and studied Vittorio and Freda huddled together. He spoke in Italian to Vittorio, but there was no answer. After a pause Aldo Gamberini said something to Rossi, who replied at length with much beating of his hands on the steering wheel. Brenda was glad she was wearing the enveloping cloak: at every gear change he brushed her thigh with his little finger curled like a snail.
She was surprised when she recognised Marble Arch ahead of them. Existing as she did between the bedsitting room on the first floor and the bottle factory down the road, she mostly imagined herself as still living somewhere in the vicinity of Ramsbottom – ‘What am I doing,’ she thought, ‘in a car loaded with foreigners and barrels of wine?’ In spite of herself she began to quiver with threatened laughter: sounds escaped from her in small strangulated squeals. Freda stabbed at her neck with her middle finger.
‘What’s up with you then?’
‘I was just thinking about things.’
‘It’s nothing to laugh about.’ But she laughed all the same, a great bellow that engulfed the car and made Rossi feel everything was fine.
‘We are having a good time, yes? All is all right now?’
‘Oh yes, we’re having a good time all right.’ And again Freda gave vent to a hoot of mocking laughter that caused Brenda uneasiness.
‘I wonder how many fitted into the mini,’ she said quickly to distract her, and Freda squirmed in her seat and peered out of the rear window.
‘It’s not there,’ she said.
‘Rossi,’ cried Brenda, ‘the car’s not following.’
‘It is all right. Just a little delay. They will catch up with us.’
‘Those poor buggers,’ burst out Freda, ‘trotting off home.’
‘Every Sunday,’ said Vittorio, breaking his silence and lazily contemplating the great white houses of Park Lane and the glass frontage of the Hilton Hotel, ‘my family go on an excursion to the sea-side.’
‘Oh yes,’ sneered Freda, ‘we all know about your Outings. I suppose the maids run on ahead carrying the garlic sausages.’
He smiled tolerantly and stretched his arm along the back of the seat to touch a strand of her hair.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned, though she was moved, and tossed her head in pretended annoyance. Brushing her coat with her fingers, preening herself, she showered breadcrumbs on to the floor.
‘You