How Beautiful Are Thy Feet

by Alan Marshall

  Her machine was next to Biddy Freeman’s. Biddy made no overtures. Girls came and went. But this one’s earnest endeavour impressed her. She remembered her own first days.

  At a muffled exclamation from Leila, Biddy, without a break in the whir of her machine, said kindly, ‘You’ll soon get used to it.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever will.’

  ‘We all thought that. Take your time over it. They won’t say anything for a couple of days. Then when they do, you’ll be able to put your head down.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll never be able to go as fast as you. You’re wonderful.’

  ‘I wasn’t always so fast.’

  ‘No, but it seems so easy to you.’

  Later she asked, ‘Will I always have to go down to the storeroom for things?’

  Biddy glanced at her quickly. ‘No. Only the new girls go to the store. Why? Don’t you like going down there?’

  ‘I don’t like that big, fat man.’

  ‘Oh! Bert. Did he smack you on the behind or press himself against you, or something?’

  ‘He smacked my behind when I was standing near his bench waiting for thread.’

  ‘He would,’ said Biddy, a hard note in her voice.

  ‘Does he ever get fresh with anyone else?’

  ‘He does it with all the girls. He’s a bottom-smacking specialist. He gets a thrill out of it.’

  ‘I’d like to tell him off if he tries it on me again. I think I will.’

  ‘It’s no use going crook. You’d only get the bullet. He’s one of the heads. He’s foreman of the finishing room.’

  They worked in silence. Biddy was thinking, I wonder what Mr McCormack will be like tonight. She wondered whether her mother had washed her sheer stockings.

  ‘Who is that dark chap just before you go down the stairs?’ asked Leila, too casually.

  ‘Ron Hughes,’ said Biddy, with a swift, momentary glance at her. ‘He’s trying to do a line with you, is he?’

  ‘No-er. Well, he has smiled at me.’

  ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘Ye-s — He is handsome, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s handsome, all right,’ said Biddy, without enthusiasm.

  The forewoman came up. ‘Run down and get some needles, Leila. Here, take this empty packet. Like that. Hurry, now.’

  Leila jumped up and walked down the factory.

  Ron Hughes was moving a rack as she passed.

  ‘Hullo, Beautiful.’

  She hung her head, colouring a little. She did not stop.

  ‘I want to see you at lunch-time. Don’t forget,’ he whispered after her.

  Down below she had to pass through the finishing room.

  The foreman stopped work suddenly on the shoe pressed against his rounded paunch. His belly, pressing heavily against the grip of his trousers, had almost wrenched the top button from his fly. It clung to an attenuated strip ripped from the material.

  He held the brush with which he had been painting the sole, stationary in the air. His thick lips parted. His eyes did not move. He suddenly stepped from behind his bench and watched her approach, his head lowered like a bull’s. He had the confidence of one who knows a victim is powerless.

  Leila Hale strode more firmly. Her body beneath her silk dress moved independent of its covering.

  The foreman’s eyes raked her form from feet to throat. He gloated over her. He ravished her with his glance.

  She looked straight before her. Her face was expressionless. She passed him with her head held high.

  ‘What a peb of a behind she’s got, eh?’ said the foreman to his toady, a pale-eyed man with lips like soft cushions.

  The frown on the face of the workman remained. He stopped work and turned his head.

  Leila Hale was just disappearing behind a rack.

  ‘It’s a sneezer,’ he said, without interest.

  He turned his attention again to the shoe. That morning his wife had told him she was expecting. Damn and blast it.

  Whenever he thought of his wife the thought twisted in his mind and became a disquieting reproach that made him squirm and move his head. She had been beautiful when he married her; now she walked with a slight droop to one side. She had borne him eight children. She had often implored with him. She had not wanted eight children. Thoughts of her twisted in his mind and became a reproach.

  He rested his weight on one foot. His shoulders twitched beneath his clothes. His mouth moved as if he were tasting.

  Why didn’t she watch herself. The expense–Nurse Ellery again. He’d have to get her. That damn woman. All the sneaking about on your toes and that. He hated living in a house where there was anyone sick. It made him feel sick, too. She always made a hell of a mouthful of it. Anyone would think she was going to die — Die! The word kindled within him a sudden strange clarity of vision. There were revealed to him tremendous possibilities.

  His raised hand was still. He looked steadily at the floor. She might, too. She was pretty bad last time. The doctor had said she’d have to be careful. It seemed as if a great weight has been lifted from his mind. He already experienced the complete irresponsibility of single life with the children in the care of his sister.

  His thoughts wandered eagerly. He took a deep breath. The paint brush moved swiftly over the sole again.

  Single, eh!

  He looked quickly towards Leila Hale. She was standing at a bench with her back to him. A new interest was in his glance.

  ‘She’s a beaut,’ he said to the foreman, enthusiastically.

  ‘Who?’ asked the foreman, who was thinking of the dinner he expected to have that night.

  ‘That new girl.’

  ‘Oh, her! Yes, she is, I wouldn’t mind taking her out. I’ve got a good mind to put the hard word on her.’

  The married man felt a sudden, jealous dislike for the foreman.

  ‘I doubt whether she would come at it,’ he said sourly.

  The accountant swung down the factory. The muscles of his arms worked easily and smoothly. Past the cleaning room benches, past the goods lift … He had a vision of himself running. His elbows were pressed close to his sides, his head was thrust forward.

  At the packing bench the junior packer half moved to speak to the accountant then turned reluctantly to his bench again.

  The accountant stopped and said, ‘How are you, Jim?’

  His question seemed to release the youth from an obligation to remain silent. Thoughts that had been lying like stones within his mind came forth in a quick succession of words as if he wished to free himself of their burden.

  ‘You know that girl I was writing to?’

  ‘Yes, you told me about her.’

  ‘I got word she doesn’t want to hear from me again. It’s rotten, isn’t it?’ He laughed shortly and moved two cardboard boxes on the bench. He looked up at the accountant hoping that it was not as bad as he thought, and that the accountant would tell him this.

  The accountant said kindly: ‘I’m sorry to hear that. It will probably turn out all right though. Write to her and ask her to meet you. Then find out what’s wrong.’

  ‘I can’t make it out.’

  ‘Oh! they all gel that way sometimes. Fetch her a box of chocolates when you meet her.’

  Yes, I think I will do that,1 said the youth looking thoughtfully at the floor.

  ‘Of course you will. If the girl’s worth it, never take a dismissal lying down. Make a fight for her.’

  ‘By jove, I will,’ said the youth.

  The accountant left him packing shoes swiftly into white boxes.

  Near the lavatory door the blower fan, in its steel casing, roared like a train in the night. The floor vibrated (I reckon one of the bearings is loose. She’ll fly to bits some day. It makes more noise some days than others.) The accountant raised his hand from his crutch as he swung forward. With a vigorous thrust he drew the door open. A heavy weight suspended by a cord shot up the jamb. His crutch tip followed the opening-door, and at t
he completion of its swing came to rest on the floor against it. As he sprang through he withdrew his crutch. The door slammed behind him.

  He was in a small enclosed section that served as an anteroom for the locked W.C. used by the staff, and the larger convenience for the use of the factory hands.

  A gas copper for boiling the water used for making the luncheon teas stood in one corner. Old wash basins covered with dust and filled with empty cardboard boot boxes were built into a bench against the wall.

  The accountant went through the same movements as before in passing through the swing door leading to the main lavatory. The door closed behind him.

  The place smelt of phenyle. The air was stale and heavy. A tarred iron sheet against the wall formed the background of the urinal which consisted of a sloped drain on the floor. It led to a small round grating. The grating was covered with wet filth, paper, sodden cigarette butts, match ends.

  Sometimes it became stuffed and a pool collected. Then the mechanic came with a long steel rod and thrust it through the pool, seeking the vent, with his grimacing face averted.

  The pool would suddenly start to sink and would disappear with a sucking sound.

  Three closets were against the wall. A man occupied the centre one. He had wrapped newspaper around the seat to protect himself from contact with the wood. He was afraid of disease. One had to be careful.

  He sat hunched forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped. The cuffs of his trousers rested on the sticky phenyle-congealed floor. They all but concealed his heavy boots, the dull toes of which projected in a sort of dumbness.

  The accountant looked at the mass of pencilled writing on the wall. It sloped at all angles, crossed and recrossed, disappearing beneath new phenyle and appeared on smooth spaces. There were obscene verses, smutty jokes. On the wall level with his eyes was written ‘Back Count Ioto for the Newmarket.’

  The man behind him said, ‘Great rain last night.’

  ‘It was that. We’ll soon be into the winter. I like it myself.’

  ‘The summer suits me better. My kid’s crook, you know.’ He made the last statement on a sighing breath.

  ‘Go on!’ exclaimed the accountant with a note of concern in his voice, ‘What is wrong with her?’

  He had faced the man. He reached out his arm and rested it against the wall. He had first placed the tips of his crutches against projections on the floor so that they would not slip. (As sure as hell I’ll fall over in this place some day.)

  ‘I can’t make her out. You can’t blow on her but what she gets a cold. She comes out in a lather of sweat. I have put my hand on her in her cot. We’ve got a little bed for her. She gets sopping with it. It must be fluid from the lungs, would it be?’

  He looked at the accountant, his face twisted, waiting an answer.

  ‘I’m sure it wouldn’t be that,’ said the accountant, slowly. ‘Have you had a doctor? How old is she?’

  ‘Eight. I take her to Doctor Anderson; they don’t tell you much. He said I’d have to take her away. The wife has taken her down to her mother’s place at Brighton for a few months. The sea might do her good, do you think?’

  Again the twisted expression.

  ‘It should,’ said the accountant. ‘Pity you couldn’t get her up country, where it is dry.’

  ‘I don’t know anybody up there. You can’t blow on her but what she gets a cold. She coughs all night. It shakes her up. She’s gone off her tucker a bit. It gets the wife worried, but I say she’ll be all right.’

  ‘She’s young,’ said the accountant. ‘She’ll grow out of it. You want to look after her well and keep her as free from colds as you can. She’ll be back in that little cot of hers in no time.’

  The man’s face lost its worried expression.

  ‘The wife’s people reckon the holiday down there will fix her up. A lot of people go down there. The sea’s good, you know.’ ‘Yes, I hope she’s soon all right, anyway.’

  He swung open the door. As he passed through the second door into the factory, the lunch bell rang.

  There was a sudden release of a new sound and a slow dying away of the whirr and clatter of machines and shafts.

  Boots scraped hurriedly. Voices with laughter in them rose above the articulate bustle. Newspapers rustled. A staccato of feet rattled down the stairs. Girls appeared with one arm thrust through the sleeve of a coat, the other searching blindly for the opening of its confrere.

  They bunched at the door leading on to the street. They looked over shoulders ahead of them, impatient at the delay.

  These employees lunched at home. They only had three-quarters of an hour. They placed their hands on the backs of those in front. They talked rapidly. They flowed on to the street and scattered.

  The factory was silent.

  The girls who brought their lunches ate them before machines. There was no lunch room. They propped dog-eared magazines and novels in front of them and read while their jaws worked rapidly.

  There were ‘True Story Magazines’, ‘Love Stories from Life’, ‘Pansy Novelettes’. The girls sometimes tore pictures of their favorite film stars from magazines and pasted them on the wall beside them. Clark Gable smiled from beside many a wall machine.

  The men talked as they ate. Some read newspapers.

  The foreman of the stuff room sat on an upturned box in a corner behind the big press.

  He wore glasses that magnified his eyes. When spoken to he usually nodded his head and said, pacifically, ‘Yes — yes. Yes, that’s right.’ He always agreed gently with what was said.

  He carried a black notebook in his pocket. Sometimes during his work he would pat the pocket with his hand. The feel of the book beneath the material gave him a sense of comfort.

  He unwrapped the lunch cut by his wife. The sandwiches were large and wrapped in grease-proof paper. Thick pieces of dark meat projected from between the slices of white bread. Fatty selvedge dropped from the sides.

  He lifted a sandwich from its package. He closed his teeth on a large portion, moving his head from side to side and pulling at the bread to sever the meat.

  He chewed vigorously. As he chewed he held the sandwich in his hand looking at it approvingly. He smacked his lips and nodded his head as if answering in the affirmative an unspoken query from his absent wife.

  He drew from his pocket the little black notebook. He opened it on the bench before him. He had forgotten his sandwich. He ate mechanically, lifting the pieces of bread from among the tossed-up frills of paper without being conscious of it. The hand that moved to raise the sandwich sometimes clutched at the air a space away. When this happened it paused, then moved sideways, its fingers opening and shutting slowly till they closed on the bread.

  His eyes were intent on the notebook.

  The notebook was divided into four sections. Strips cut from the leaves revealed on the first page of each section a number — No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4. Each section was neatly ruled in red ink and bore many entries.

  They were ‘Systems’.

  Some day he was going to give up work and live by backing horses.

  He was testing four systems.

  On the first page of that section devoted to system No. 1 he had written, ‘90% of the races are won by one of the first five horses listed in the entries.’

  He read this sentence each time he opened the book. It was very satisfying. It was the result of a year’s patient recording and calculating. He viewed it with the pride of a philosopher re-reading a personal expression of a great truth. It established him as an authority. It justified his existence.

  When he first wrote the sentence he showed it to his wife and said, ‘Very few know that.’

  His wife sucked her finger. She had burnt it on the stove. ‘No,’ she said.

  He was busy studying his notebook when one of the girls came to him. She was on her way down to join her companions on the street where they lounged against the factory wall enjoying the sun. She was in a h
urry.

  ‘Mother will be along tonight, Mr Clarkson. You will give her a reading, won’t you?’

  ‘Certainly, Joyce.’

  His slow fingers turned the pages of his notebook. He took a pencil stub from his pocket. On one of the last three pages he wrote: ‘Mrs Floyd.’

  He sat looking at the words, thinking. The girl had gone.

  Beneath the name he wrote, Joyce goes with Sam Harper’, then in brackets ‘(dark)’. ‘Her father is dead’ and again in brackets ‘(Bob Floyd, a plumber)’.

  He returned to a study of his systems.

  The girl caught up to another walking down the stairs. She said, ‘Did you know Mr Clarkson is a spiritualist? He tells you things when you give him something. Mum’s going tonight. He’s good.’

  Out on the street girls leaned against the wall or sat on the curb. The curved backs of the seated girls were warm from the summer sun. White blouses, yellow linen blouses, silk blouses, a blue jumper stretched tightly across shoulders revealing between the pulled strands of wool the pinkness of an artificial silk slip.

  Around them the ground was littered with apple cores and orange peel.

  They talked and called out to the employees of an opposite factory. They made facetious remarks to those who passed.

  A dark sedan, polished, with large soft wheels pressing the ground, slowed up to cross the gutter. It dipped and rocked. The driver bumped on his seat. The car hesitated, then moved swiftly forward.

  A half-starved dog approached the girls, sniffing.

  ‘For Gord’s sake, look at that dorg. The poor thing’s starvin’. Look at his bones stickin’ out places. Some one’s lost ’im.’ The girl in the blue jumper pointed as she spoke.

  ‘Our dog never gets out. He’s as frightened as anything,’ said Mabel, a girl with a heavily powdered face.

  ‘He’d get out if he got a chance.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t. He’s frightened. I’ve never seen a dog so frightened. He hates trams. He’s frightened people will tread on him.’

  ‘He must be a funny sort of a dorg.’

  ‘He’ll be like that till he’s had a bitch,’ said a girl with red hair.

  ‘Oh, Gladys. You are awful.’

  ‘Well, it’s true. Phil told me.’