How Beautiful Are Thy Feet

by Alan Marshall

  ‘Oh! Yes-Mr Surrey-I know him well. Sit down Mr-er.’

  ‘Beveridge —.’

  ‘Mr Beveridge.’ He looked at the girl and smiled, ‘Will you sit down?’ He leant across the corner of the table and pushed a chair towards her.

  ‘My sister, Mr McCormack.’

  ‘How do you do.’ He nodded.

  She smiled and acknowledged his greeting rather self-consciously.

  She had a striking appearance. Her fair, curly hair clutched the light and meshed it with gold. Her appearance conveyed the quality of sunlight. She was a composition in gold — her skin — her manner, even … Her eyes were pregnant with soundless laughter. They included one in some unspoken jest. Her smile was like a sailing ship …

  The accountant’s heart beat a little faster. Well, that’s the end of her … She’s out. She’s just the type I fall for.

  ‘Freda is just over from Sydney, Mr McCormack. She was employed in an office over there — Jorgensen’s, a firm of Nickel Platers — but her mother needed her over here, so now it’s a matter of finding employment for her.’

  He looked at his sister. ‘She will be able to supply you with particulars as to her qualifications.’

  The accountant, feeling attracted to her, was cold and business-like in his manner.

  ‘How old are you?’ he asked, looking steadily at her.

  She fluttered beneath the look. ‘Eighteen,’ she said quickly, anxious to please.

  ‘You look older,’ murmured the accountant, wondering if he would ask for a birth certificate.

  ‘Yes, everyone says that,’ said the brother.

  ‘Can you type?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr McCormack.’

  He was faintly stirred at her use of his name.

  She smiled continually. She had dimples.

  The accountant drew a line on the scribbling pad — will I, or will I not?

  ‘What exactly was your work in Sydney?’ he asked.

  ‘It was general office work, really. I kept the Sales Book and did the posting to the Sales Ledger. I answered the phone and interviewed callers.’

  ‘Yes, I see. What are you like on figures? Are you accurate?

  ‘Well …’ she gave an embarrassed little laugh. ‘I think so. I don’t often make mistakes.’

  ‘The work you would be asked to do here demands accuracy and speed. It is not hard. It is really quite simple. But it would be necessary for you to apply yourself; concentrate on it.’

  ‘I can pick things up quickly. I’m sure I could manage.’

  ‘Yes. Well, now … let me see … you say you are eighteen.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I could only pay you twenty-five shillings to start. Later, of course, if you prove suitable, we would go into the matter again.’

  ‘Oh! I would be quite satisfied with that.’

  How she smiles! The accountant was critical. She really smiles too much. She answers too quickly. A sort of placating quality.

  ‘Could you give her a trial, Mr McCormack?’ asked the brother. ‘Say a week …’

  ‘Well, yes. I could do that,’ said the accountant.

  Over and over in his mind, he kept repeating, No, No, No.

  ‘When could she start?’ he asked.

  The brother and sister looked at each other.

  ‘Straight away, couldn’t you, Freda?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Whenever you like, Mr McCormack.’

  ‘At nine o’clock tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Yes, that will suit me fine,’ said the girl.

  ‘I will expect you then,’ he said briefly. (Curse myself for a bloody fool.)

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr McCormack,’ said the brother, rising, and holding out his hand. ‘I’m sure Freda will prove most capable.’

  The accountant also rose.

  ‘I feel sure she will.’ He smiled at the girl. A rush of colour suffused her entire face.

  How easily she blushes.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr McCormack,’ she said.

  Her brother held open the door for her. Her movements were confused. The colour was still in her cheeks.

  ‘Good-bye, Mr McCormack,’ said the brother.

  The girl inclined her head. ‘Good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye,’ said the accountant.

  He leaned over and looked round the door leading to the office.

  ‘Any more, Miss Trueman?’

  ‘No, that’s all, Mr McCormack.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  He came into the office.

  ‘Well, which one was it?’ asked Miss Trueman.

  ‘The one with the eyes. The last one.’ He sighed and sat in his chair. ‘What do you think of her?’

  ‘She’s very nice. I liked the look of the man with her.’

  ‘Huh!’ grunted the accountant.

  He became thoughtful, looking fixedly at his finger nails. No, I don’t think I’ll fall for her, after all. She’s too effusive. She tries to please you too much.

  ‘Take the interest bearing qualities out of money and you’ve only got a ticket of exchange,’ said Correll to the one-eyed carrier.

  He cut the string binding the parcel of eyelets.

  ‘The more tickets you have, the more you can buy.’ He dropped the string. He rested his hand on the parcel and tapped the carrier on the chest. ‘You could have a motor car for every day of the week.’

  ‘One would do me,’ said the carrier.

  ‘I tell you, son, the workers won’t stand much more of this. The Douglas Credit is coming.’

  ‘I’m a Communist,’ said the carrier. ‘Under Communism, we’d all have work.’

  ‘What’s the good of putting the unemployed to work when there’s more goods here than we want?’

  ‘Oh! there’s a way out.’

  ‘Of course there is, brother. Give them more money to absorb the goods that are here. Why pile up more goods than you can sell? Today we are destroying food to retain wealth, brother. It’s against all laws of human nature. You can’t take three from two, brother. Wages won’t purchase wages plus materials. Bah!’ he ended disgustedly. ‘We want to scrap the existing financial system.’

  ‘Hurry and sign that slip,’ said the carrier. I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘You’re in a hurry because you’re a victim of a system. You are a slave to bosses. Bloody thieves and blackguards, that’s what they are, brother. You work to get money, not for the sake of work. We should be able to get the money without the work. Prices are too high for the purchasing power of the public.’

  ‘I don’t give a bugger what they are,’ said the carrier, ‘Give me that slip.’

  ‘Here you are,’ said Correll, signing with a flourish.

  The carrier left through the office.

  ‘That bird in there would talk you blind,’ he said to the accountant. ‘Do you believe in that there Douglas Credit?’ He pointed to the factory door. ‘He’s fanatical on it.’

  The accountant laughed.

  ‘He believes in a fair go all around,’ said Miss Trueman, turning her head to look at the carrier and nodding towards the accountant.

  ‘That ain’t enough. I’ll have to convert him — well, hurroo comrade,’ said the carrier, with a wave of his hand to the accountant.

  ‘I like that man,’ said Miss Trueman. ‘I wonder how he lost his eye.’

  ‘You can always tell when an eye is blind, can’t you?’ said the accountant. ‘No matter how perfect it is in appearance. There is always something lacking. Have you finished with the adder?’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  The accountant concentrated on a sheet of figures.

  Miss Trueman stretched herself. She raised her arms towards the sun shining through the window.

  ‘What a glorious day. I’m getting sentimental.’

  ‘It’s no use getting sentimental here,’ said the accountant.

  ‘That makes twenty-three pounds two and six,’ he said to himself. ‘Holy Smoke! that’s too much.
It’s costing us too much for findings.’

  ‘You can’t get sentimental when it’s too hot or it’s too cold,’ said Miss Trueman. ‘It’s just got to be right, like it is now.’

  ‘Nor when you are hungry,’ said the accountant, thinking of his lunch. He thought: If I eat the two pears, I won’t enjoy my cup of tea. I’ll only have one. I’ll keep the other till tomorrow. But the rats! Yes, the rats … I’ll put it in the old docket tin.

  ‘Any vacancies in the machine room?’

  He looked up. A young negress stood at the counter.

  She watched him with an expression which must have once been defiant, but which now had a quality of aloofness and dignity.

  Her eyes were brown and slightly bloodshot. She was built extravagantly with a surfeit of solid flesh.

  My God, she’s healthy!

  ‘I’m afraid there isn’t,’ he smiled, ‘you might try next week, though.’

  She flashed white teeth at him and nodded as she left.

  ‘How would you like hair like that?’ asked the accountant.

  ‘Fancy combing it,’ said Miss Trueman. ‘It’s funny, but if you have hair like that, it always gives you a negressy look, no matter how fair it is, or how fine your features are.’

  Jack Correll entered. He carried some dockets in his hand. He looked at them with satisfaction.

  ‘Is Mr Fulsham in yet?’

  ‘Yes, he is in his office,’ said the accountant, glancing at Fulsham’s door.

  Correll walked over and rapped on the glass panel.

  He stood with his head on one side listening. He stood upright, and took a deep breath like one receiving a decoration. His chest expanded. He smiled and moved from one foot to the other.

  ‘Come in.’ He opened the door eagerly and stepped in.

  Mr Fulsham leaned back in his chair. His mind was still tangled with thoughts of the work he had been engaged upon. His mind was heavy and could only be moved from one train of thought to another by an effort. But when once moved and started again, it was a serviceable instrument.

  He suddenly sat forward, gathering up his papers.

  ‘Yes, Jack?’ he said. He again leant back in his chair.

  ‘I just found a mistake here,’ said Correll, ‘I came straight to you, of course. It’s rather serious. I think you should know about these things.’

  Fulsham was silent. He watched him.

  Correll licked his thumb and ran through the orders in his hand.

  ‘I’ve been keeping a close watch on outgoing stock. You spoke to me about it one day. You said, “See that none of the shops overstock. We don’t want to be left with any dead lines.” I knew that. Here is a line, RA9, that’s been hanging fire. The managers all say that we’ll be landed with it if we’re not careful. Yet here is another order for them and the same lot was only ordered two days before. Miss Claws has signed them.’

  His voice was suppressed as if he were only prevented from shouting his discovery by an effort of will.

  The manager took the two orders in his hand. He looked at them without comment. He placed them on one side and said, ‘Leave them with me, Jack. I’ll see you about them later.’

  Correll stood undecided. He said, ‘You will fix it up about them later, Mr Fulsham?’

  ‘That will be all right, Jack.’ He leant over his papers again.

  ‘I won’t put them on order then?’

  ‘Not for the present. I’ll see you about them later.’

  ‘All right, Mr Fulsham.’

  Correll went out.

  In the packing room he felt his enthusiasm suddenly leave him. He was sorry he had gone so quickly to Fulsham. Fulsham would tell Miss Claws that he had shown him the mistakes. He looked round for someone to talk to. He wanted his action confirmed. Clynes was passing.

  ‘Rickety Kate has slipped again,’ said Correll.

  ‘What has she done?’ Clynes stopped and inclined his head.

  ‘I found her out duplicating orders. I went to the Boss.

  That’s no good, you know. She’ll send us bung. Our living depends on this place. I said to him, I said, “It’s no use, Mr Fulsham. She’s always making mistakes. The shops can’t go on much longer with her in charge of the buying.” ’

  ‘What did he say? He wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘He said he’d see her about it.’

  ‘She’ll have you in the gun, now,’ said Clynes, suddenly feeling a little happier.

  ‘My worries,’ said Correll, contemptuously gesturing, ‘She’s got nothing on me. I’d tell her off quick and lively. I’m not frightened of her.’

  When Clynes had gone, Correll said to the Junior Packer, ‘Miss Claws has the wind up Clynes.’

  He picked up a pair of shoes and looked towards Fulsham’s office. I’ll show her.

  4

  The long straight lines of the floorboards stretching down the factory … boards grey and dusty … bright patches, scratches, dots, gleaming in a multitude of places … the marks of slipping nails from the boots of workmen … the waving track of recalcitrant racks and the bright smudge of a skidded wheel …

  They are flat out in the pump room … the first lasters are flat out in the pump room … hop into it boy … we showed a debit last week … and the floating white french chalk forms a haze … and you kark and spit it out and keep going … there is no time to thrust the last with care into the tin … you ram it in, you jerk it back … for the upper mustn’t stick to the last, and chalk is cheap … it falls on the bench, on the floor, on your clothes — on ledges, racks, shoes … it floats a faint cloud in the air … you breathe it, you taste it, you tramp on it … fill your lungs … white, unadulterated french chalk … fill your lungs …

  There are four of you in the team … side by side you stand … the pace maker is on your left … what he puts on, you pass on with something added … for there is the toe piece to be put in and a few more tacks … and you can only work while the sole leather is mellow and damp … and they have to be second lasted right side out before the knock-off bell … so keep up with the pace maker on your left or out you go … and he’s fast … he’s a picked man … and you’re got to be fast too …

  They come from the man tacking on the soles first … a few partly driven tacks and the sole is secured to the bottom of the last, flesh side out … he is fed with lasts and leather by a boy earning eleven bob a week … four hundred pair a day pass along the bench … put the upper inside out on the last, pace-maker … place the last on the jack pin … watch the lay of your pattern … grab the edge of the upper with curved pincers … hold it firmly against the sole with your thumb … pull the edges round … push in the tacks … tack them partly home … lift the last from the jack pin to see if the upper lies straight … then on to you Ron Hughes … Ron Hughes! … you are handsome … you have black wavy hair … you are tall … your body is beautiful … but no time to think of that here, Ron … no time to think of women here, Ron … you are a first laster, and you Jill your mouth with eleven thirty two tacks tossed from the little black packet with the corner sliced off … and if you swallow a tack or two, what matter … they are small … they’ll go through … and there is dust in the corners of your mouth … for there is dust in the tacks … and germs, maybe … but you are a first laster … so fill your mouth, Ron Hughes … and bring with the aid of your tongue each separate tack, head out, to position between your lips … grasp it with your pincers at the completion of their upward sweep to your dry dust-encrusted lip … and tack it home … and keep going … keep going …

  Four hundred pair a day pass along this bench … you sweat a bit in the hot weather … the lavatory is downstairs on the left of the cleaning room … but hold it till lunch time if you can … four hundred pair a day … the pump sewer is waiting and the curved needle of its mouth savages the soles and uppers you have passed on and they are joined and are one … four hundred pair a day … over a pair a minute … good work, operator … you keep a team
-and-a-half flat out … still a boy feeds you with shoes so that you are not forced to leave your machine.

  The tack remover boy next, and the floor and bench are littered with bent tacks … you tramp on them till the soles of the shoes you wear gleam with particles of steel …

  Then to the apprentices pulling furiously at the uppers … off with them lads … on to another last right side out … tap them with your beaters … your smoothed steel files … tap them … smooth out the creases … amid the clattering of worn machines … the tapping of the beaters … the beating … the hammering … the rumble of racks … the scream of the pounder … the thumps thump of the big press … the hunched-shouldered forms of labouring men amid a haze of french chalk …

  ‘Where’s the boy? Here, shift these racks, Ron.’ The foreman was a big man with a fat, soft face.

  Ron Hughes left the bench, glad of the respite.

  Shorty Dunstan was near the racks. He held a shoe against his chest and was straining it against the vibrating steel of the edge setter. His arms and shoulders shook in a frenzy of movement.

  ‘See that new piece that started yesterday?’ asked Hughes, lugging at a rack.

  ‘Where? In the machine room?’ asked Shorty, turning to a bench. ‘The one they call Leila?’

  ‘Yes. See the legs on her? I’ll be out with her, boy.’

  ‘Like hell you will.’

  ‘Won’t I. I bet she’ll play.’

  ‘What about Sadie Bryce? I thought you were spinning for her.’

  ‘She’ll keep. I’m after this new piece. See the hips on her. I’ll try and date her for tonight.’

  ‘You’ll get a knock back, laddie; I’ve had my eye on her.’

  ‘What! Just you watch my technique. She’s passed here twice already. I’ve got her going.’

  ‘She’s too young.’

  ‘Get out! You’d take her on.’

  He suddenly lowered his head and spoke rapidly through the side of his mouth.

  ‘There’s old Pain in the Guts watching us. Get going.’

  Leila Hale was put to machining linings. She was slow. She worked with all her mind concentrated on the pieces of leather beneath the needle. It took months before one became an automaton.