Nancy Carson - The Factory Girl

On Tuesday dinnertime Alice found time to present herself in front of Wally Bibb at George Mason’s. He offered her a job at a shilling a week less than she was getting at Bean Cars, but she accepted it gladly, since it was almost certain that she would not have a job in the office there much longer. Shop work was not exactly what Alice wanted. Her heart was set on the glamour of being a private secretary to some suave company director, but it would do till such an opening came along. When Henzey asked Alice later what she thought of Wally, she replied that she’d probably have to watch out, because he kept looking at her bust.

‘Oh, I daresay he was trying to see where it had got to,’ Henzey quipped, and dodged as Alice went to swipe her playfully.

Henzey had kept out of the way while Alice was interviewed. Afterwards Wally asked her if she was any relation, since he reckoned Kite was not that common a name. She admitted Alice was her sister, and Wally made some sarcastic comment about there being safety in numbers, which seemed to amuse him.

But her mind was not on Alice, nor Wally, nor George Mason’s. As the week wore on, Henzey was becoming disconsolate, certain that Billy was out enjoying himself with Nellie Dewsbury. Each night as she lay in bed thinking, she would imagine them together. She pictured them laughing, holding hands, kissing. As sleep escaped her, and the night induced more disturbing images, she saw them making love with all the passion and commitment of a latter day Romeo and Juliet. The more she thought about these things the more she convinced herself that it was so, and the less chance she believed she had. She yearned to be with him again, to hear him laugh, to feel his lips on hers, to hold his hand, to feel his manly arms around her. If only she had agreed to see him on Tuesday night she might not be tossing and turning now, unable to sleep. If only he would call at the shop tomorrow. He would only have to smile at her and she would know. She would know immediately that all was well. But she did not know, and it was torture. This uncertainty was torture, and she still had this night to get through, and then two more to follow.

She was certain she had driven Billy away with her feigned indifference. How could she have been so sure of herself? How could she have been so arrogant? She could no more dictate to Billy Witts what he should do than he could dictate to her. Now she was angry with herself for ruining the best opportunity ever to find happiness, with a man who really suited her, a man she admired in every way. She liked him so much. No. It was more than that; it was much more than that. She loved him. Even more than that ; she loved him desperately.

As they left the shop on Saturday evening after work, Clara Maitland and Henzey stepped out into the bustle of market traders packing away their wares, and across the street to Clara’s tram stop. The days were getting longer, and it was still light, but the overhead wires, from which the trams drew their power, were swinging in the wind that was yet vigorous.

‘I haven’t seen that Billy all week, Henzey,’ Clara said, avoiding a handcart. ‘Hasn’t he been to see you? It’s unusual. Have you upset him?’

‘If I have I never intended to,’ Henzey answered, her eyes misting.

‘Oh?’

‘I haven’t told you, but I went out with him last Sunday afternoon. He stopped for tea and for supper and my mother invited him to our house tonight for my birthday…But I don’t expect he’ll come.’

They paused while a man loading sacks of potatoes onto a lorry blocked their way. He apologised for holding them up, and they walked on.

Clara said, ‘I suspect he hasn’t been to see you just to make you think about him all the more. Absence making the heart grow fonder, and all that. I wouldn’t think much of him if he accepted your mother’s invitation, then didn’t have the grace to show up.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it’s just that, Clara…’

‘What then? There’s something else?’

‘Well, I thought he’d given that Nellie Dewsbury up. At least that’s what he led me to think.’

‘And he hadn’t?’

‘No. So I told him I wouldn’t see him again until he had. I told him only to come tonight if he’d finished with her.’

‘Well, good for you, Henzey. He sounds a bit of a cad after all.’

‘I suppose I’ve put him off. I suppose he thought I was a bossy little madam. Did I do the right thing, d’you think, Clara?’

‘You did exactly right. You’ve let him know you weren’t going to be manipulated, or swept off your feet.’

‘Oh, but I’m swept off my feet, all right, Clara. I’m swept off my feet good and proper.’

‘And that’s what makes it hard for you, eh? Did your mother like him?’

‘She must’ve. She invited him tonight…’

‘Well, if he doesn’t come you’ll have lost nothing, Henzey,’ Clara said resignedly. ‘You’ll have escaped a lot of heartbreak. That’s the best way to look at it.’

But that was not the way Henzey wished to look at it. In the intensity of her infatuation she had her heart set on Billy Witts. Come the evening, Henzey contemplated him as she undressed herself, ready to put on her new frock, just in case he did turn up after all. If he did come, it would be to claim her, and she knew he would be far more demanding than Jack Harper had been. Jack was never any trouble to keep at bay. Only occasionally would she allow him to kiss her. But she was much more of a woman now. Her natural awareness of things sensual and erotic was infinitely more acute, and her emotions were intensifying, accelerated by her enduring hopes and dreams of being Billy’s girl. As she recalled how he had taken her in his arms and kissed her, her heart beat faster and her body seemed to glow.

It occurred to her that she might not want to keep Billy at bay at all. Her new adult emotions were less ambiguous, more profound. She was contemplating more and more what it would be like to go all the way with a man. Of course such things were for marriage and not before, and she understood that, but still she couldn’t help wondering. She closed the door to the bedroom and sat naked on her bed. With her eyes closed she gently squeezed her breasts, imagining Billy to be doing it, and an unfamiliar warmth of desire lit her up. She stood up, and for the first time seriously scrutinised her own slender body in the tall mirror standing in the corner. He breasts were firm and supple, and she saw how her nipples had awoken in response to her own sensuality, each standing proud like a small, pink raspberry on a smooth, cream blancmange. She stroked the skin of her stomach. It was silky smooth. Her face was fine-featured and strikingly beautiful, though she considered her nose too long and her eyebrows too thick. She twisted sideways and turned her head to inspect her body in profile. Her waist was tight, her neck elegant, her stomach gently rounded. Her legs were long, well-shaped and unblemished, and her buttocks protruded neatly. Without even trying she possessed the sort of figure every modern, young woman was striving for.

By this time Henzey was earning eleven shillings a week and could afford to buy a nice dress and decent shoes occasionally. That day she had been shopping and bought a pair of silk French knickers, and a blue, waistless dress the same colour as her eyes, in crepe de Chine, loosely fitted at the hips. It was barely knee length, and her flesh-coloured silk stockings enhanced the shape of her legs. Her lustrous, dark hair framed her face, and she rounded off the whole effect with a long string of glass beads and a dab of her mother’s Chanel No. 5 behind each ear. When she emerged into the scullery even Herbert commented on how lovely she looked.

On tenterhooks, she helped her mother with final preparations while Alice and Maxine changed into their Sunday best. The closer the hands on the clock moved towards half past seven, the more she trembled inside, praying silently that he would arrive, but resigned to the certainty that he would not. When her mother spoke she failed to hear, her thoughts only with Billy. Lizzie smiled to herself at her daughter’s preoccupation, and understood; she had been there herself.