The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [47]
Brenda said: ‘If you don’t stop shouting at me I’ll say something you won’t like.’
‘What?’ Freda was curious. She stared at Brenda and asked almost tenderly. ‘What do you want to say? Go on – get it out.’
Brenda had wanted to say that she looked like a long-distance lorry driver in the sheepskin coat, that she was a big fat cow, that she had wobbled like a jelly on the back of the funeral horse. She wanted to hurt her, watch her smooth round face crumple. But when it came to it, all she could murmur was, ‘Sometimes you’re very difficult to live with.’
‘That’s rich,’ retaliated Freda. ‘When I think what I have to put up with from you – you and your bloody bolster.’
‘Well, there’s things you do at night when you’re asleep.’
‘What things?’ Freda was stunned.
‘Well, you roll about and hold yourself –’
‘I what?’
‘You do. You cup your – your bosoms in your hands and jiggle them about.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘You do – you do—’
‘Well, what’s wrong with that? I’m only dreaming. What’s wrong with me holding – me – me –’ but Freda couldn’t go on. It was too intimate to talk about. Why do I do that she thought. Is it cancer, or lust, or what? Absently she began to walk in the direction of the rhododendron bushes.
‘Where are you going?’ called Brenda helplessly. It wasn’t fair that Freda was walking away. It left her feeling wicked and burdened with remorse.
‘As far from you as possible. And don’t you dare try to follow.’
Freda’s voice was subdued. She lowered her head thoughtfully and trailed her coat in the grass.
‘They’ve been weeing all over those bushes,’ warned Brenda.
But Freda never looked back. She pushed her way through the thick stems, fragments of mauve jumper and yellow hair showing between the dusty leaves, and disappeared from sight.
Rossi, biting his cherry-coloured lip in agitation, hovered at the fence, hands dug in his pockets, suede shoes scuffing the turf. He ignored Brenda who, curled up in her purple cloak, with cheek laid against the grass, was festooned with ties and waistcoats thrown down by the perspiring workers and touched here and there by points of silver, as cigarette cases and sleeve garters of expanding metal flashed in the sunlight. Though drowsy, she kept her eyes fixed alternatively on the spiralling ball and the dense mass of the rhododendron bushes. Several times the ball thudded against the dark leaves and bounced backwards on to the pitch. Finally, after a spectacular kick by Salvatore, it hurtled over the bushes and dropped from view. Rossi, seizing his chance to re-enter the game, trotted forwards and thrust his way into the foliage. There was a beating of undergrowth and snapping of branches. A small bird fluttered upwards. Propelled by invisible hands, the ball was flung back to the waiting players. She won’t like that, thought Brenda. In the mood she’s in she may very well punch him on the nose. Her eyelids drooped, and she drifted into the beginnings of sleep. Now that Freda was no longer alone she felt she could rest. The cries of the footballers receded. She was having a long serious talk with Freda – it was so real that she felt the drag of the grass as her lips moved – the earth rustled and crawled in the cave of her ear. She half woke. Vittorio was again holding Rossi’s hand. He was attaching something to Rossi’s wrist … The clouds whirled above her head …
When she fully woke and became aware of her surroundings, it was to see Rossi stumbling past her towards the car. He looked sick, as if he had a stomach upset from all the wine and scraps of food. She watched him climb into the back seat of the Cortina and close the door. She thought maybe Freda had said dreadful things to him, had told him he was ugly and squat and that his trousers didn’t fit. She felt very tender. He was really a very nice little man. He loved Mr Paganotti. He worked from eight till six every day, and he’d never stolen anything.
She got up slowly and went to the car, ready to pretend she didn’t know he was there. When she came level with