Marina Lewycka - Two Caravans

“Listen, mate, people been doin’ this work without gloves for nearly two years.”

“And?”

“We’ve only lost three fingers. Well, four if you count this thumb.”

“Without gloves I will not do it.”

“Where’re you from?” asked the supervisor.

“Poland.” Tomasz smiled, knowing it was not the answer the man wanted.

“Oh, I should’ve guessed. Effin troublemakers. You’ll be wantin’ bleedin maternity pay next. Here, wait. You keep shacklin’ while I find some friggin’ gloves.”

“No,” said Tomasz. “Even for shackle work is need gloves.”

The supervisor went a horrible purple colour.

“Listen, yer bloody Polish big girl’s blouse, next time I get any lip from you, it’s down the road. It’s only because we’ve lost this chuffin’ Chinaman, else yer’d be down the road now.”

But he went and found a pair of gloves.

Tomasz pulled them on slowly, pensively, one finger at a time. There was another phrase that nasty supervisor had used that got him thinking about Yola: where was she? What was she doing? Was she thinking of him?

In the rest of the plant, the sudden stillness of the conveyor belt created a welcome break. Yola sighed and looked around. She hadn’t realised how noisy that conveyor was until it stopped. The narrow windows of the packing room were too high to look out of, but shafts of sunlight were angling in up there, with their bright reminder of summer. How had she become trapped in this place? The pressure in her bladder was becoming more insistent, but the thought of asking Geta’s permission to use the lavatory was just too humiliating. She held on. All around her people were taking the opportunity to relax, chat to their neighbours. Two of the Slovaks even tried to nip outside for a cheeky fag break, and Geta rushed out after them yelling, “No smok! No fudigin!”

Yola thought this would be a good time to sneak out through the door unnoticed, but Geta spotted her and insisted on accompanying her, claiming it was her responsibility to make sure that the toilet opportunities were not abused, especially by Poles and Ukrainians, the devil only knows what they get up to in there, sometimes you could see the smoke coming out under the door. How can you be expected to relax and enjoy a nice toilet break when this underwired harridan is standing outside and trying to hurry things along by rapping on the door and telling you to get a move on? Yola stayed firmly locked in for an unnecessarily long time, and made all kinds of toilet noises, just to annoy her.

“And don’t forget to wash hand after,” snapped Geta.

“Why you say this to me?” hissed Yola, from behind the still-locked lavatory door. “I am a teacher not a piggy.”

“I am fudigin qualify you not,” squawked Geta.

“I piss on your certificate.”

“Not certificate, diploma.”

“I defecate on your diploma.”

She farted noisily.

Marta, meanwhile, went round and chatted to the young women on the other side of her belt, who turned out to be Ukrainians from the west, and one of them had been to Poland though not to Zdroj. So, like many people all around the plant, she was away from her position when suddenly the belt started up again with a judder, and she had to race round to catch the first chickens going through. She picked them up off the line; there was something repulsively solid and wooden about them-in fact it was just as if they had been cooked-boiled-complete with their feet still on and their innards inside them. While she was wondering what to do with these horrible whole-boiled birds, another bird came through that was definitely not boiled alive, in fact though it had lost most of its feathers it seemed fairly intact, as though it had bypassed foot-cutting and evisceration altogether. As she reached for it, the poor, limp, featherless thing started to struggle in her hands. It was still alive. Then the next one came through, and to her horror, it was alive, too. Or half alive. And then another. The line had picked up speed now, and was going at its usual pace. What should she do?

She grabbed the three half-alive birds off the line, and started to scream.

The Lithuanian supervisor was the first to arrive. He laid a soothing arm round her shoulder and offered her a handkerchief. Geta, having abandoned her thankless toilet vigil, was next on the scene. The live birds had by now recovered from their shock and were scuttling around the factory floor. The boiled birds had moved on down the line, and there were more half-alive birds coming through, faster and faster. Geta started shouting at Marta, and at the feather-less chickens that were scurrying here and there between everybody’s legs, and at the Lithuanian supervisor, who shouted back that Marta was a sensitive type, and should not be upset.

“Polish is not sensible, is lazy bastard!” Geta shouted, which was too much for Marta, who burst into tears. Then one of the chickens made a dash through the door which Geta had left open, and the others followed, straight through into the packing room. At the far end of the packing room another door opened, and Yola, having realised that the live audience for her toilet noises was no longer listening, was sauntering back into the plant. Seeing the chickens darting towards her, she naturally held the door open for them. And they were gone.

“Sack! Sack! You sack!” shouted Geta, her face blotched with fury, and gave Yola a little shove.

“Sack youself!” Yola shouted, and shoved her back.

Yola was not without friends in the breast area, and friends of friends in drumsticks and thighs, and Marta was not going to stand by and let her aunt be insulted, so Geta suddenly found herself surrounded by an angry crowd demanding that she apologise and reinstate Yola at once.

Meanwhile, news of the Chinese slaughterman’s thumb had spread like wildfire around the plant. In the evisceration room, it was his whole thumb that had been cut off; by the time it reached drumsticks and thighs, the poor man had lost his whole hand; and in weighing and labelling, his arm had had to be amputated above the elbow. The Chinese were marching around stamping their feet and chanting incomprehensibly, their pockets bulging with chickens’ feet, while others were unshackling the chickens, which were tumbling dead and half-dead onto the belt and the floor.

All at once several doors of the plant flew open, and out into the bright sunshine of the yard poured the workforce. The three naked chickens were still there, clucking around and wondering what would happen next.

Tomasz noticed that the blond man with impressive calf muscles who had recruited him to the union was still hanging about by the gate. He looked as though he had been about to get on his bike and call it a day, but turned back when he saw the commotion in the precinct. Then Tomasz spotted Yola. She came bursting out of one of the doors, rushed up to the union man in a dramatic manner and threw her arms around him. So Tomasz’s joy at finding her was tempered with desolation at finding her in the arms (well, almost) of another man.

“She say sack! She say you sack!” she was wailing.

“Hold on, hold on.” The union man’s voice was calm, but with a nervous edge. “Let’s establish a procedure. Is anyone from management here?”

Geta came forward at once. “Is Polish no good working. Too much toilet. Chicken run away.”

The three liberated chickens clucked wildly, as though to prove her point.

“Hold on,” said the union man, his voice now sounding more nervous than calm. “Let’s just get the facts. What chickens are we referring to here?”

Now the slaughterhouse supervisor, the one who had argued with Tomasz about the gloves, pushed his way through the crowd.