The Bottle Factory Outing Read Online Free PDF Page B

to scream.

3
    Brenda picked up two bottles of brandy and made small sounds of disapproval. ‘Dear me,’ she said, ‘these are awful mucky.’
    Save for old Luigi working away like a conveyor belt, she was alone. Rossi had gone into the city with Mr Paganotti, the men
     were herded into the concrete bunker at the rear of the building and Maria was eating her salami sandwiches on a heap of sacks
     near the loading bay. Tut-tutting as she went, Brenda grasped the bottles in her arms and walked to the wash room. Freda’s
     shopping basket on wheels, loaded with dirty washing, stood against the wall. She put the bottles on the stone floor and
     began to drag Mr Paganotti’s wardrobe away from the door of the first toilet. Having made a space big enough for her to squeeze
     through, she snatched one bottle of brandy by the neck, placed her back to the door and shoved. It was jammed. Turning round
     in the confined space, she leant against the wardrobe and kicked out violently with her shoe. The door sprang open and thudded
     against the wall; the noise reverberated throughout the wash-room. She put the brandy behind the lavatory bowl, closed the
     door and dragged the wardrobe back into place. Trembling, she carried the remaining bottle to the sink and dabbed at it with
     her sponge. ‘Never again, God,’ she murmured. ‘Never again.’
    Freda had planned it. She said she’d better stay at home for a few days seeing she was in mourning. They would think it callous
     otherwise, now that they knew of her loss. She bet anything old Piggynotty wouldn’t pay her for time off. It was sensible
     to take a sample of the firm’s products in lieu of wages.
    ‘I can’t do it,’ Brenda said desperately. ‘I’ll have a heart attack.’
    ‘You’ll have one if you don’t,’ warned Freda menacingly. What with the cost of living and the oil crisis they deserved something
     to make life more bearable. ‘Look at us,’ she said brutally, ‘the way we scrape along. Never a penny over at the end of the
     week. We can’t afford to breathe.’
    ‘We never could,’ said Brenda. ‘It’s never been any different.’
    She bent down and adjusted a vest that had draped itself over the side of the shopping basket. It was perfectly clean. Freda
     had just thrown anything in, mainly clothing from Brenda’s drawer. The door opened behind her and the bog-roll man entered
     the washroom, his arms full of newspapers. He wasn’t supposed to go near the toilets until after four o’clock, when all the
     women had gone home. He was short and bulky with a little moustache thin as a pencil line along his lip.
    ‘I have come to place the toilet rolls,’ he said, looking at her in a bold way and lingering on the bolstered front of her
     tweed coat. ‘There are no rolls,’ he continued. ‘I have a shortage.’
    ‘This was awfully dirty,’ said Brenda, giving a last wipe with her sponge at the glistening bottle of brandy, and moving to
     the door. He put both arms out to captureher, hugging her to his green overalls. He smelt of wine
     and garlic and Jeyes fluid.
    ‘You want to give me a little kiss?’
    ‘No, not really,’ she said, smiling politely and shaking her head so that the bristles on his chin scraped her cheek.
    Tearing herself free she stumbled from the washroom and ran back to her beer crate and her labels. She supposed it was the
     fumes from the wine that kept them all in a constant state of lust. It wasn’t as if she set out to be desirable.
    Maria appeared from the direction of the loading bay, a beaker in her hand, walking very fast and taking tiny steps as if
     she was still in her mail bag.
    ‘You’re early,’ said Brenda. ‘You’ve another ten minutes till the hooter goes.’
    ‘I am to look in the box,’ Maria told her, waving her arm in the air and spilling Beaujolais on to the floor. ‘I am wanting
     shoes.’
    In the corner, beneath the burglar alarm, were two large crates filled with old clothing of all