Nancy Carson - The Factory Girl

On Saturday evening after tea, the Kites sat around the table talking desultorily, before Alice went upstairs to get herself ready to go ‘chapping’. Maxine, Henzey’s youngest sister, then decided she would go to bed early to read Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge . Herbert, her brother, went up the yard to the privy, but saw no point in taking the Sports Argus with him as it was too dark by now to read it, with nowhere to stand the oil lamp. So Henzey and Lizzie, her mother, were left together, ready to clear the table and start the washing up.

‘Are you going out with Jesse tonight, Mom?’ Henzey asked.

‘We might go to The Shoulder of Mutton later.’

Lizzie began clearing the crockery, stacking it together as she sat. ‘Our Alice told me earlier that The Bean might be shutting. Did you know?’ ‘The Bean’ was the firm in Dudley that made Bean Cars, and Henzey had not been present when Alice announced its impending closure. It was all too obvious what it implied. ‘They’re selling no cars,’ Lizzie went on. ‘They reckon they’re too dear. Folks can’t afford them. She’ll be out of a job.’

Henzey took the teapot and drained it into her own and her mother’s empty cup, remembering how they had struggled for years to make ends meet; how her mother had had to find work to keep them from starvation. After Henzey had found a job at George Mason’s things had improved enormously and, since Alice had been employed at Bean Cars, and Herbert had begun working in Jesse Clancey’s dairy business, things had become even better.

‘There’s a job going at George Mason’s, Mom. Rosie’s leaving to have her baby. If Alice sees Wally Bibb he’ll very likely set her on.’

Resigned to a long conversation, Lizzie settled back on her chair again and watched Henzey add milk to the two cups, ready for another cup of tea. She said, ‘It’d be better than nothing, our Henzey. You can’t pick and choose these days with so many out of work. Will you put a word in with Wally Bibb for her?’

Henzey shook her head, recalling how he was continuing to look at her so lecherously. She did not want to be beholden to Wally. She wanted to owe him no favours. ‘I’d rather not. It’s best if she goes herself and doesn’t even mention I’m her sister. He’ll take to her all right when he sees her. He enjoys a bit of glamour round him.’

‘What’s the best time to catch him?’

‘If she goes in her dinner break she’ll catch him.’

‘Then let’s hope she can get the job. It’d be nice for you, as well, having our Alice working beside you. Her wages have come in handy. I don’t know what we’d do if you lost your job as well, our Henzey.’

‘You wouldn’t have to worry about things like that if you and Jesse got married, Mom. It’s time you did.’

Lizzie sighed. ‘Yes, maybe it is. It’s his mother, though – old Ezme. I should be back where I was before, looking after your father, except I’d be nursing her instead. I didn’t mind so much with your father. It was hard work, but at least I was married to him. But I’m hanged if I’ll nurse old Ezme. The thought of having to look after her puts me right off. She never could stand me, and she never could stand my mother before me. There’s no love lost between us, Henzey. If we all had to live under the same roof as Ezme, it would be Bedlam.’

‘It wouldn’t bother me very much, Mom. Maxine would be at school, and the rest of us would be out at work all day.’

‘But I wouldn’t be. Not if I was married to Jesse. I’d have to be at home.’

‘Couldn’t you just grin and bear it? She might not live that long.’

‘Ezme’ll live forever, just to spite me.’ Lizzie sighed. ‘Anyway, we’ll see. Who knows what the future might bring?’

‘What’s the matter, Mom? You seem fed up?’ Henzey had thought for some time that her mother seemed depressed.

‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ She smiled in an effort to look brighter. ‘Just one of my moods…Now then, madam…who’s this Billy, who sent you a card for your birthday? I’ve noticed you mooning over him for ages.’

Henzey smiled coyly. ‘I can’t keep anything from you, can I?’

‘I was a young girl myself once, our Henzey. I know what it’s like being in love when you’re young.’

‘D’you remember that party Alice and me went to ages ago? I met Billy there.’

‘Oh? And what’s he like?’

‘I think you’d approve. He’s twenty-four…’

‘Twenty-four?’

‘Yes, twenty-four, handsome, steady…and well-off…’ Henzey smiled challengingly. ‘Anything else you want to know?’

‘I think twenty-four’s a bit old for you.’

‘Well I don’t think so, Mom. I like men older than myself. Younger chaps are too stupid. Look at Jack Harper, and he’s twenty-one.’

‘Jack Harper,’ Lizzie repeated reflectively. ‘I see what you mean.’ She picked up her cup and sipped her tea, holding it in front of her with both hands, her elbows on the table.

Henzey said, ‘Anyway, what about Jesse? He’s nine years older than you. You haven’t heard me mention that he’s too old for you.’

‘Yes, but that’s different…So is this Billy working?’

‘Works for himself. He’s got plenty money, like I told you. And a nice car.’

‘Well he must have plenty money to be able to buy you pearl necklaces.’

Henzey smiled again. ‘You noticed it, then?’

‘I could hardly miss that glistening round your neck like I don’t know what. Are you taken with him?’

‘I like him a lot,’ she said quietly, looking down at the table cloth. ‘I’ve liked him a long time.’

‘Then you’d best let me meet him. When are you supposed to see him?’

‘Tomorrow. We’re going for a ride in the country.’

‘Well just mind what you’re doing, our Henzey. You’re only just seventeen, remember.’

That last Sunday in March was a blustery, wet day. The month had come in like the proverbial lion and was going out like one. Once out of Stourbridge and on the road to Kinver, Henzey noticed how the winter-yellowed meadows were taking on their spring greenery, bright even under the dark, rolling clouds. Trees swayed boisterously, and the wind boomed against the canvas hood of Billy’s car. The windscreen wipers struggled to maintain visibility in the squalling rain. It was not ideal weather for a trip into the countryside with a new beau, but one that she had eagerly looked forward to, rain or shine. The weather did not matter; the fact that she was with Billy, did.

In Kinver, Henzey was still intrigued by the houses hollowed out of a sandstone rock face on the outskirts of the village, though she had seen them before on her Sunday school trips as a child. People still lived in them, and neat they looked too, with nets at the leaded windows and brightly painted front doors. The main street was deserted as they drove through it. Any Sunday afternoon in summer it would be teeming with folk ferried in by the Kinver Light Railway, which was really just a tram that looked like a charabanc on rails. The village was noted for its public houses but, by this time, they were shut for the afternoon, and those who had been supping in them earlier were doubtless all having their after dinner naps by now.

Once through the village, Billy parked the car under some trees on a patch of ground off a narrow lane overlooking Kinver Edge, a natural beauty spot. Drops of water fell from the bare branches above and drummed intermittently on the motor car’s hood. Henzey wiped the inside of the misted window with her gloved hand and peered out at the landscape, unspoilt, despite the ravages of the wind and the rain.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she suggested.