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7 (#ulink_7ec59682-a861-5e0a-bf70-6e5fe19b69da)
Waiting (#ulink_7ec59682-a861-5e0a-bf70-6e5fe19b69da)
The hardest times passed like fire. I don’t remember much till Jason was two. Till he was at school. I used to think of this documentary they showed when we were in school. It was a woman talking about World War Two. Her hair was set in white curls like Nan’s, her face a map of wrinkles. You saw a photograph of her before, a young woman, round-cheeked, wearing lipstick, and wondered how she’d let herself get old.
The door again, he was back. I heard coughing panting kicking off his trainers and chucking his keys on the counter.
The old lady said something, her eyes sparkling. About the war. Ooh it was a difficult time but a wonderful time. There were love affairs. You never knew what was going to happen so you didn’t think about tomorrow. You just lived. Her face shone.
That was how it was when Jason was a baby or I first started work or looked after him when he was ill. There wasn’t that terrible sadness I used to feel when I was a girl standing on the common knee-deep in grass on a cloudy summer day looking at a line of trees waiting just waiting for something to happen.
In the other room he was breathing lighting up putting on the kettle. His phone beeped. Sometimes I think if I had long enough to sit and think I’d understand what to do, how to get out of the grass and move ahead.
We still hadn’t talked about it properly, college, and next year – what he was going to do.
All right, he said, when I went into the kitchen. He didn’t look up from putting peanut butter on his toast. The knife went down on the counter. I imagined picking it up later, wiping the counter, washing the knife. Getting the kitchen clean, which it wouldn’t stay.
Jason, have you had a chance to think about college? I said. I picked up the knife and laid it across the open jar.
He breathed out harder and put down the plate. I’m just having some food, he said.
I know you are, I said. He leaned back against the counter and stared at the wall.
I don’t want you to miss out, I said.
No chance of that, he said.
I’m not having a go, I said. Sound of him chomping, crumbs everywhere. He finished the toast and put in another slice.
I might not want to go to college, he said. I might get a job.
Oh Jason, I said. If you don’t go to college you’re just stupid.
He yanked up the toaster lever and the bread popped. He walked out. That didn’t come out right. I stood there buzzing with things I wanted to explain, waiting for him to return. Music came out of the closed door of his room, something thumping. After a bit I washed the knife, wiped up the crumbs and the peanut butter, disliked myself for doing it.
8 (#ulink_4bc354ca-4910-5756-bc1b-ef58277a6c2a)
People want everything to look perfect (#ulink_4bc354ca-4910-5756-bc1b-ef58277a6c2a)
The curtains at work are striped, ticking I think Nan would have called it: light blue with a few other colours, yellow, white, navy, pink. Pretty. The windows on our side face west. The morning light comes in the other side. I was spraying the heels on a stand of wedding shoes, covering my face because the spray catches in your throat, and when I looked up sunlight was coming through a window on to the trolley, and the spray was caught in a cloud, slowly dancing.
It’s always warm on the floor, and in summer it’s sweaty. The compressor stopped working because of a fault. While we waited for them to fix it we became slower, like bumble bees on a hot afternoon. We did what we could by hand. Tom worked on his lasts. He smiled. You know, lass, this is how we used to do it, he said, in the old days. And we’d be fast.
I know, I said. It was piecework.
It was piecework, he said.
That’s what Nan used to talk about, I said. No time to hang about.
I never took any days’ leave, do you know that? he said. Maybe three or four in thirty years of piecework. There was a week when I started. I think it was the chemicals. I got really sick but I didn’t take a day off. I was going in with a fever.
His hands were working while he talked, pulling tight the leather around the last, hammering it in place. What is it, I thought, about this work; the same thing, over and over, it takes your life but in the process it gives you this quietness, it takes away the struggle. Or maybe that’s just Tom. Or what I see of Tom from the outside.
You’re quiet today, Claire, John said. He smiled at me. I smiled back. He’s a bit older than me, John, but probably not much. He’s nice, too – smiles, and follows me with his eyes. We don’t talk a lot, except if we’re outside smoking. He always looks the same: jeans and t-shirts, his hair cut like it probably was twenty years ago, close and smooth.
Just checking what I can do till the compressor starts, I said. I like talking to Tom, and I don’t like it when people come along. It’s not even that I’m telling Tom private things. It’s just a way of being.
John smiled and went back to his work. He was using his hands too, but more slowly than Tom. It would mostly have been machines when he started.
I went to see Derek at the heel attacher. He was hammering in nails by hand to fix the heels on Eveliina, a red high heel, strappy. One I’d almost wear, if I had somewhere to wear it. Maybe I’ll try it in the factory shop. But what for?
Jane had sent down six boxes of handbags to have them checked and freshened up. We don’t make them, but we sell them as part of the line. The girls and I opened the plastic, took out the bags, checked them for marks, and stuffed them with tissue so they didn’t look crushed. In the shop, people want everything to look perfect.
Does that even look better? I asked Ellie. I held out the bag, plumped out. That looks the same, doesn’t it?
But she said that looked better.
Just before lunch the compressor started again and we all stopped doing the things we’d been doing to keep busy and we worked and worked. It was the busyness again the radio the noise of the machines the smell of leather dust and all of us working without mind, like bees in a hive. I didn’t think till just after four when I thought, I’ve had enough, that’s enough of today. The last twenty minutes crept by but when we were walking out it was still bright and hazy and everyone was chattering about what they were going to do tonight. Helen’s husband came to meet her like he always does – he’s retired. But not in the car, because the weather was so fine. He took her hand and she went off pink-cheeked and smiling like a little girl and the pair of them over sixty. How’s that done, I thought, but I liked it.
9 (#ulink_b37b847f-bcf0-511b-9bdc-35ff94587410)
When I’m tired (#ulink_b37b847f-bcf0-511b-9bdc-35ff94587410)
On the way home I stopped and sat on the wall near the shop, just to be in the sun. There were three kids messing around next to the bottle bank. The littlest reminded me of Katie. He had expressions on his face that must have come from other people: his stepdad, his older brother: a toughness, a blankness, that didn’t belong to him. Then he scowled, and looked for a minute like an older woman, maybe his mum. It’s like you come into the world a person, with something it means to be you. In no time – a few years – you’re carrying all these things you borrowed, like I started chewing my lip because Jim did. Those habits become what people meet in you.
When I’m tired things are clear. It takes the edge off. I feel like a saint in a stained-glass window, everything coming to me in a halo, revelations.
I shut my eyes and turned my face up. Orange. Red thread veins. Little things like bacteria moving. My body sleepy with a private hum like one of the machines.
Hi. Excuse me, someone said.
I opened my eyes. Everything yellow and blue, like a seventies film. A shirt, white, slim fit, tucked in. Brown trousers. Brogues, nice ones. Up again, slowly. He was standing close.
Sorry to disturb you. (A golden voice. It had a softness it knew would please.) Do you have a light?
His wrist, golden hairs, brown canvas watchstrap. The man from the pub.
Yeah, I said.
While I was looking for it he waited. He put out his hand. Thanks, he said. I watched him look down and light his cigarette. He inhaled, didn’t give me the lighter. Didn’t I see you in the Three Bells the other day? he said easily. In the garden?
Oh! Oh, yeah, probably, I said. What day was that?
He smiled. I’m not sure, he said. Few days ago. Wasn’t as nice as today.
It’s lovely, isn’t it?
It is. He smoked. I got out my tin and started rolling.
He sat next to me on the wall to light it. Held on to the lighter, looked at it. I’d smelled his hand, nicotine and skin. It’s nice to smoke when it’s hot. Some days I want to smoke because something at work’s already irritated my throat. It’s like having a tooth that’s loose, or a cut that’s closing.
What about a half in the Bells? he said. If you have time.
I tried not to smile because the first thing I thought was but this never happens to me.
Now? I said.
Why not? he said.
Could do.
At the Bells we, Damian and me, smoked a lot. He bought the first drink. That’s when I found out his name. He handed me my beer and said, I’m Damian by the way. Claire, I said, but he didn’t hear because we were walking out to the garden. It was nearly full.
Sorry, he said.
Claire, I said again.
Beer garden, it’s one of those phrases, like holiday home, it tells you you’re meant to be having a good time. I did a quick scan but didn’t see anyone I knew. Damian seemed comfortable. He rolled up his sleeves and put his arms on the table.
So, Claire, do you live round here?
I live with my son. Up the road. He’s sixteen, I said quickly. I always say it fast, because I don’t want to have to think about it later.
He nodded. What’s his name?
Jason.
Jason and the Argonauts, he said.
You didn’t say Jason Donovan, I said.
Is he named after Jason Donovan?
No.
That’s good, he said. He laughed. I used to have the piss ripped out of me at school for looking like him.
You don’t really, though, I said. He is blond, but his face isn’t the same. Blue eyes but a bit more round. He looks like a kid, especially when he laughs.
I used to hate my name, he said. Everyone made fun of it. People thought I was posh.
Are you?
He looked down, shook his head.
You don’t have an accent, I said.
Moved around a bit, he said. His eyes asked for understanding. Tell me about you, Claire, he said.
I turned my glass around. Not much to say, I said. Born and brought up here. I looked around the beer garden. Sometimes I feel like I’m not from here, I said. That I’ve moved around too. But I’ve never lived anywhere else.
He nodded. Got lots of family here?
I don’t see them much, I said. I noticed I was holding my glass tightly. I took a big sip, had to wipe my chin.
Damian nodded. He was just listening, accepting what I said.
What about your family? I asked.
He smiled, waved his right hand. All over the place, you know, he said. Here and there.
Right.
And what do you do, Claire?
I work at a shoe factory, I said. Up near Ketts Hill.
Oh, really? That’s interesting.
There were twenty or more factories at one time, I said. Loads of people worked in the shoe trade. I felt like a tourist guide.
I think I’d heard that, he said. He took his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. I felt relieved. People usually think it’s weird, or they say, I didn’t realise there were any shoe factories left.
What do you do? I asked.
He smiled. For a moment I saw my head in the glasses, distorted, waving.
I sell children’s books, Claire. I’m a rep. I travel round and talk to bookshops about our titles. And schools. Books for little kids, he said. Not Jason’s age.
I didn’t mind hearing him say Jason’s name. Normally I don’t like it when someone I don’t know uses it.
He’d finished his drink. My arms were cold. I rubbed them. On the road, I heard traffic. It was beginning to turn into evening. A few more people filtered into the garden. Shall I get another? I asked.
Can’t, he said. Got to go, meeting some people. He got up sudden and I did too. Can I give you a lift? he said. The car’s just round the corner.
Oh no, I said. It’s only a minute.
Well, see you again, Claire, he said, as though we met up every week. And he left. He still had my lighter, I realised when I got in.
10 (#ulink_a5045743-3661-5818-91ee-cbd8044b7f20)
There was weather (#ulink_a5045743-3661-5818-91ee-cbd8044b7f20)
A funny day when inside and outside weren’t as separate as normal. What’ll happen next, I thought. What’s going to happen? Partly about Damian. Nothing, said my mind. That was it. He had an hour to kill in between things probably. I thought of my face without any make-up, and my t-shirt and jeans, and felt no confidence.
Chris who works the drying machine wasn’t in and I’ve done that job before, so I worked it all day. One of the styles we’ve been making for the past few days, the red heel, it was coming through from the rougher. The flat shoe in the rubber cradles looks like a woman’s body. The part after the instep has a shape, like hips. But it just lies there, upside down, a sad fish. It’s only when the heel gets put on that it looks like anything.
I worked on the dryer, then glued on the soles with the attached heels, put them on a trolley to pass to John so he could fix the heels. I like John, how he’s calm, often looks amused. When we smoke he’s friendly, chats, remembers things I’ve said. A pouch of tobacco and a packet of papers sit next to the box of nails on the side of the heel attacher. I sometimes pinch a fag from him at break.
