The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [64]
When she crossed the room she put an olive in her mouth, but it tasted bitter and she laid it down again on the cloth. Freda’s brassiere trembled in the draught.
8
Maria was told by her brother-in-law Anselmo. Appalling contortions distorted her face. He clapped his hand over her mouth, for fear she screeched like a railway train, and lowered her into Rossi’s chair behind the desk. Though normally she would have leapt upright out of respect for the manager’s office, she now remained slumped in her seat, eyes rolling above his bunched fingers. It was a blessing Vittorio had a small glass of brandy ready for when she was more composed – under the circumstances she drained it at one gulp. She flapped her pinny to cool her cheeks and waited while Vittorio fetched Brenda from the washroom, where she had been more or less all morning retching over the basin. The two women embraced and drew apart sniffing.
‘It’s God’s work,’ wailed Maria.
‘Yes,’ said Brenda, although she couldn’t be sure. She felt really poorly: her stomach was upset. She was tired out from her night in the bathroom, vivid with dreams.
‘We must prepare her. We must see to her.’ Maria had laid out an aunt and an infant son of Anselmo’s but never in such conditions.
‘I can’t do anything,’ cried Brenda in alarm. ‘I’m not going up there.’
Outside the window the men were grouped thinly about the bottling plant. Throughout the morning they had gone in pairs into the ancient lift and visited Freda, returning with calm faces and eyes glittering with excitement. They whispered frantically. The machine rattled and circled. They looked up at the Virgin on the wall and crossed themselves. Rossi had been called into the main office by Mr Paganotti an hour previously and had not returned.
‘I have to have water and clean cloths,’ said the dedicated Maria, ‘… clean garments to lie in.’ It was inconceivable that they should use the sponges on the bench.
‘I could go home and get her flannel,’ offered Brenda, ‘and her black nightie.’
Maria wouldn’t hear of the black nightie – there must be nothing dark – but she accepted the flannel and asked her to bring a bowl and powder and a hairbrush. It seemed silly to Brenda, such a fuss twenty-four hours too late: Freda wasn’t going anywhere.
The telephone rang, and Anselmo said Mr Paganotti wanted to speak to Vittorio. They all went very quite, thinking of Rossi and the state he was in. Perhaps he had broken down in the main office and told Mr Paganotti that there was a body upstairs among his relatives’ tables and chairs. Vittorio nodded his head several times. He stood very straight, inclining his head deferentially as if Mr Paganotti were actually in the room.
‘Go, go,’ said Maria, shooing Brenda with her pinny towards the door. ‘Fetch the cloth.’ To fortify her for the task ahead she allowed herself a little more brandy.
As Brenda opened the front door the nurse from the downstairs room came out into the hall in a dressing gown and slippers. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you working?’
‘I’ve just popped back,’ Brenda said.
The nurse let her climb a few stairs before she called: ‘Is your friend in?’
Brenda clung to the bannister rail and stopped. ‘She’s out just now.’
‘Well, will you tell her I’d like my serviettes back. I lent them to her yesterday. She said she only wanted them for one evening.’
‘Serviettes?’ said Brenda, her heart pounding.
‘I want to take them in when I go on duty. I can have them laundered for nothing.’
Brenda looked down at her. She had an almost transparent skin and dark eyes that were used to detecting signs of rising temperature and internal disorder.
‘Actually,’ said Brenda, ‘she went away last night – abroad.’ Freda had been saving for years to go on the continent. She had never gone because she had never saved, she had a post-office book that she put part of her wages in every month and