The Bottle Factory Outing - Beryl Bainbridge [66]
‘You could tell him the lift was broken,’ said Brenda. ‘Or not safe.’
‘It has never been safe,’ Vittorio said. ‘But then he go up the stairway.’
‘Not if you pile the stairs with furniture, blocking the way.’
‘Ah,’ cried Rossi. ‘That is it.’ And the men, when it had been explained to them, thumped the table enthusiastically and scrambled out of the concrete bunker to begin the barricade at once.
‘What did you say to the men?’ asked Brenda, left alone with Vittorio.
‘I say nothing.’
‘Did you say Patrick did it?’
‘I say nothing. I merely say there has been an accident. I say it will look bad for Rossi and for me. We are not English. The Irishman has a grudge against us. They understand. They do not want our families to be shamed, our children – they do not want to bring shame to the good name of my uncle Mr Paganotti.’
‘Didn’t they think it was a bit funny?’
‘Funny?’
Brenda thought he was incredible; they were all unbelievable. In their loyalty to each other, united in a foreign country, Freda seemed to have been forgotten. She said sharply: ‘The girl in my house just asked me for her serviettes back.’ He looked at her without understanding. ‘For your supper.’
‘What supper?’
‘Freda was hoping you’d come home with her. She’d bought butter and stuff. And she borrowed things to wipe your mouth on.’
‘I do not know about any supper,’ he said.
‘Well, she thought you might come back. I told the nurse she’d gone abroad.’
‘Abroad,’ he repeated.
‘To Spain. I said she liked dancing.’ And again she burst into little trills of laughter, her face quite transformed by smiles.
‘You are overwrought,’ he said, and he poured her some wine from the jug on the table. While she was still laughing, stuffing her fingers into her cheeks and showing all her teeth, a thought struck him. He began to tremble with excitement. He ran from the bunker and went to find Rossi. Brenda fell asleep with her face on the table amidst a pile of sandwiches.
When Brenda woke from a dream, she didn’t feel ill any more or cross. She had been in a cinema with Freda: Freda was wearing a trouser suit and one of those floppy hats with some cloth flowers on the brim. She complained bitterly that she couldn’t see the bloody screen. The men in the row behind said ‘Sssh!’ loudly and kicked the back of the seat. Brenda whispered she should take her hat off. ‘Why should I?’ said Freda; and Brenda remembered a little doggerel her mother had taught her, something about a little woman with a great big hat … went to the pictures and there she sat. Freda shrieked and recited rapidly … man behind couldn’t see a bit … finally got tired of it. Somehow it made Brenda very happy that Freda too knew the little rhyme. She beamed in the dark-ness. She turned and kissed Freda on the cheek and woke instantly.
Gone was the worry and the fear, the underlying resentment. Freda would have been the first to agree, it didn’t matter how she had died – it wasn’t any use getting all worked up about it now. Life was full of red tape, rules and formalities, papers to be signed. Hadn’t Freda always been the first to decry the regimentation of the masses? If Rossi and Vittorio, still alive in a puny world, fought to protect the honour of their families, did it really matter very much? No amount of questions or criminal procedure or punishment would bring her back. Brenda was almost prepared to go up in the lift and see Freda all nice and clean from the ministrations of Maria.
She wandered into the alleyway and through the pass door to the factory. Aldo Gamberini and Stefano, doing the work that eight men had done before, were running giddily after the rotating bottles on the machine. The labelling bench, save for old Luigi, was deserted. She went into the office to find Rossi fiddling about with litmus paper and glass tubes.
‘I’m all right now,’ she said. ‘I