The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [76]
It was Wednesday now, four whole days since Glen had walked away from her, leaving her standing in the middle of the Close. Not that she could blame him for what he had done. Seeing her mother like that must have shocked him. Ruthie could feel her eyes filming with tears but she dared not lift her hand to her face to wipe them away because of the risk of getting the TNT in them. Normally she quite enjoyed her work, despite the danger and the dreadful smell of the TNT, which filled the air and clung to everyone’s skin and clothes, but today the time just seemed to drag.
Maureen who had borrowed her locker key again and had promised to return it had forgotten it, and as a consequence of that Ruthie had had to leave her going-home clothes tied up in a cloth bag hanging from a coat peg in the cloakroom. With theft rife in the factory, she was already worrying about whether or not her things would be there at the end of her shift. Only yesterday one of the other women had complained that she had had to walk home barefoot twice in one week on account of having had her shoes stolen.
Some of the women had even been talking about setting up their own vigilante group to track down the thieves.
‘That’s daft talk, that is,’ Jess had pronounced earlier during their dinner break. ‘They’ll never find them.’
‘That friend of yours wants to be careful what she says about it being daft to look for them wot’s bin thieving,’ Maureen warned as she returned to the bench with a freshly filled can of TNT. ‘Otherwise folk might start thinking that she’s one of them.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Ruthie protested.
‘That’s typical of you – allus sticking up for them new friends you’ve made. Wot’s up wi’ that Jess anyway? Got a face as long as a fiddle today, she has.’
‘I don’t know,’ Ruthie admitted, looking over to where Jess was working, her head bent as she filled the shell in front of her and then deftly inserted the tube that would contain the detonator, before shaking the shell to make sure the TNT was at the correct level, then going on to the next shell. Her movements were so practised and quick and Ruthie acknowledged to herself how much slower she was in comparison. She wondered what it was that was causing Jess to be so quiet and unlike her normally fun-loving self.
As she turned back to her work, out of the corner of her eye, Ruthie noticed one of the women further up the line stick her foot out into the aisle right in the path of another woman, who was returning to her own bench with a freshly filled can of TNT. Ruthie started to call out a warning but it was too late. The woman carrying the TNT tripped and was starting to fall.
The one who had caused her fall called out sharply, ‘’Ere, watch where you’re going, will yer?’ But there was no time for Ruthie to worry about what she had seen. Instead, along with all the other women working nearby, she rushed over to the woman who had fallen.
‘Get out the way,’ the foreman was yelling as he came rushing over, cursing and shouting instructions to the two men following him, whilst Ruthie stared in shocked horror at the woman who had slipped. Her face was covered in the TNT, turning it into a horrific mask, the strong metallic smell of the spilled liquid so strong that it was making them all cough and gag.
‘Get her on that trolley,’ the foreman was instructing the other men, ‘and look sharp about it. Shift out of the way, you lot,’ he told the other girls, as the two with the trolley took the woman down to the medical centre.
‘What will happen to her?’ Ruthie asked worriedly.
‘She’ll have to wait for the TNT to set and then they’ll take it off for her,’ Mel, who had left her own work and was peering over Ruthie’s shoulder, answered.
‘She’ll be dreadfully burned,’ Ruthie whispered, still in shock and unable to blot out her mental image of the woman sticking out her foot and deliberately trying to trip her up.
‘It won’t be too bad.