Plates of steak and kidney pudding were thrust under their noses. Though the pudding looked as flaccid as chicken waiting to be cooked, the aroma was delicious, and both men were hungry. They were silent as they ate their way through the steaming mass.
Afterwards, Benjamin stretched himself over the back of his chair, and sighed. Reverting to the subject of their business, he said dejectedly, ‘It’s not much use our discussing what we should do about Lever. It’s out of our hands. Whoever buys us out will have to decide. And we’ll be lucky if we have jobs.’
Over his beer mug, Mr Bobsworth made a glum face, and Benjamin went on, ‘I don’t know why she bothered to come over. It’d have been a lot quicker if Benson had sent her all the papers and arranged the sale for her. Wish I could afford to buy it – I’d make something of it.’
Mr Bobsworth put down his mug. ‘She’s a rum type,’ he said. ‘She’s queer enough to think she could run the place herself. She’s bin lookin’ over everything.’
‘A woman? What a hope!’
‘Well, she’s not like any other woman I ever met. She’s smart at figures, I can tell you. Tasker says she’s got a huge farm in Canada and runs it. I’d say the question is, does she want to live here?’
‘Maybe somebody’ll marry her – and take over the works as well,’ Benjamin offered. He drained his mug and stood up, while he felt in his pocket for a tip for the waitress. He tucked two copper coins under his empty plate.
Mr Bobsworth rose, too. He wondered suddenly if Benjamin had the idea of marrying Miss Harding, and so gain control of the soapery. Perhaps he should remind the boy that, only a few years back, a law had been passed to protect the property of married women; it wasn’t so easy nowadays to take over their assets. In any case, he hoped that Benji would fancy one of his own daughters.
He said soberly, ‘Frankly, Benji, she’ll be lucky if she finds anybody who wants to marry her. She’s as thin as a flagpole – no comfortable pillow for a man’s head! And she can come over the acid like some spinster headmistress of a girls’ seminary.’
‘Well, I’ve got to see her this afternoon, so we’d better hurry.’ His usually lively expression drooped; he was suddenly aware that he had not shaved well that morning, and he supposed that his usual blue-black bristle was already visible. If he wanted to make a good impression, he should have gone home first, to shave and change his suit, creased with a week’s travelling. Then he decided that it did not really matter; the person to worry about and smarten up for was the man who would buy the soapery.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Before he had set out on his trip to Manchester, Benji’s mother, Eleanor Al-Khoury, had told him that, during the night, she had remembered his father saying that Charles Al-Khoury had a daughter. She looked exhausted from much weeping, and she added, as she wiped her eyes with a sodden handkerchief, ‘When your uncle died in Chicago, your dad wanted to bring his wife and child over here, to live with us. I was that upset about – about your dad’s passing, that I forgot. Funny to think you could’ve bin brought up together, in this house.’ Her nose was running and she sniffed:
He had looked down at her rather helplessly. ‘It doesn’t make any difference, Mum. It was my recollection, too. But I was put off by the name Wallace; I thought I’d been mistaken. Now, don’t you cry any more. I’ll look after you, you know that.’ He hugged her, and in hope of comforting her a little, he went on, ‘When I get back, we’ll go and find a real nice memorial for Dad’s grave.’
She rubbed the tears off her fair lashes, and said as bravely as she could, ‘Oh, aye. We’ll do that, luv.’
‘I’ll ask Mrs Tasker to step in, as I go down the street,’ he promised, as he kissed her goodbye. ‘I don’t want you to be too lonely.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ she told him, her face so sad he could have wept himself. She shut the door quietly after him and began to weep some more.
A few minutes later, a concerned Mrs Tasker arrived. She had a seed cake, freshly baked, balanced on her ungloved hand, and she trotted straight into the big kitchen and proceeded to provide tea and kindly sympathy, while the bereaved woman sat by the fire and sang the praises of her Jamie. Mrs Tasker had heard it all several times in the previous few weeks, but she felt that the more Eleanor wept the quicker she would recover. She made the tea very strong.
Mr Tasker had said that the Will held, no matter whether Eleanor was married to James Al-Khoury or not. But Eleanor knew that a wedding cancelled out earlier Wills; if she’d been married and there had been no other Will, Benji would have inherited; and she mentally belaboured herself for accepting the status quo for so long. She wept not only for James Al-Khoury but also for her sadly humiliated son.
While she sipped the tea made by her friend, she recounted to her the story of how the handsome, cheery young James Al-Khoury, who spoke English in a proper funny fashion, had come to her front door in search of a room to rent. ‘He hadn’t even the money to pay for a week in advance,’ she said with a dim smile. ‘But he looked that handsome, I took a chance on ’im. Put ’im in me best room – front ground floor. And, aye, he were lovely.’
Ten months later, little Benji had been born, as Mrs Tasker knew, though it was before she had come to live in the same street. Eleanor must’ve endured a fair amount of backhanded whispering over that, Mrs Tasker meditated, as Eleanor droned on. Why hadn’t the stupid woman insisted on marriage if she loved the man so much? And he was lovable, there was no doubt. She wondered suddenly if James had left a wife in Lebanon, to whom he had intended to return in due course.
‘He charmed the hearts of the women round about,’ Eleanor reminisced tenderly, ‘and they bought his soap, what he made in me cellar, without hesitation.’ She stopped and then smiled at her friend, who had joined her by the kitchen fire. ‘Then he met your George – and we never looked back, did we? And just when it seemed nothing could stop him, he goes and gets a heart attack.’ Her face became ugly with grief and again the tears trickled down her lined face. ‘You take care of your Georgie, Sarah. He int gettin’ any younger.’
‘Oh, aye. He’s all right,’ she replied with more certainty than she felt. George worked very hard and was on his feet all day.
‘Our Benji’s got his dad’s charm. Not so fine looking, but a nice lad,’ Eleanor said after drinking her tea down to the dregs. She put her cup down in the saucer, as a memory struck her of Benji coming home from school with a bruised cheek and an oozing nose. He must’ve been about nine, she thought, and a couple of bullies had called him an Arab and a bastard. Lucky for Benji, he was a heavily built boy and he had fought back. After that, Jamie had shown him a few ways to defend himself which must have been shudderingly painful to the recipient of the blows. Gradually, the boys left him alone – too alone. His best friend had been George Tasker’s eldest, Albert, who’d gone away to be a soldier. In India, now, he was.
Mrs Tasker was fond of Benji and agreed with his mother that he was a nice lad. She laughed unexpectedly, and added, ‘Maybe he could charm Miss Harding into marrying him; then he’d get the soap works right into his hand.’
Eleanor forgot her grief for a moment. ‘You’re right. But you never can tell with young people, and I’m told she’s quite old.’ She put down her cup into the hearth and stood up. ‘I must start tea for me gentlemen. They all like a hot tea.’
‘How many have you got?’
‘Three of ’em. All very respectable.’
Mrs Tasker sighed. Lodgers would be a lot of work for Eleanor and she nearly fifty years old. ‘Lucky for you, you own the house,’ she said. ‘Though I’m sure Benji’ll take care of you.’
‘For sure he will,’ Eleanor agreed. ‘But me dad thought I’d be alone all me life, so he made sure I had the house. He left it in good order, too, just like his auntie left it to him. We always had lodgers; it kept him in his old age.’ She began to take out her mixing bowl, rolling pin and wooden spoons. ‘And he had a water closet put in the back yard,’
she added proudly. ‘I started looking for good lodgers the minute our Jamie was buried, in case Benji loses his job. Gives us a bit of independence, it does.’ She took out her scales and began to weigh flour for pastry. Through the dust rising from the shaken-out flour, Sarah Tasker watched her friend’s face. It was pitifully woebegone.
To cheer her up, Sarah said, ‘Well, let’s hope Miss Wallace Helena falls for Benji. Then you could live like a lady, like Jamie managed for you these last few years.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wallace Helena leaned back in her office chair and stretched herself. In front of her was the correspondence which had accumulated for Benjamin Al-Khoury’s attention during his absence. She had already read it. Her mouth twisted in a grim little smile, as she congratulated herself on having hit on such a simple method of keeping track of much that was going on in the soapery.
There was a quiet tap on the door. Mr Helliwell entered to announce Benjamin’s arrival with Mr Bobsworth. She told him to show them in, and pushed the correspondence to one side.
As they entered, she stared at the handsome, untidy man who followed Mr Bobsworth in. He’s quite young, she thought in surprise, younger than Helliwell, and, despite his western dress, he looks like an Arab. He seemed more relaxed than an Englishman, though he had the same self-confident air as Mr Benson. Although he was stocky, she gained an impression of physical fitness – and mental alertness. Very much his father’s son.
Her stare was merciless and it embarrassed Benjamin, who was already very irate at the news that she had taken the week’s correspondence to read. Beneath his black moustache, his mouth was clamped as tightly as hers.
The woman had eyes like stones, he thought as he greeted her with the courtesy of an experienced sales representative. She leaned over the desk to shake his proffered hand, smiling slightly, her eyes expressionless.
‘A bloody Mona Lisa,’ Benjamin added to his first impression, as she indicated the visitor’s chair and he sat down.
Wallace Helena turned her attention to Mr Bobsworth standing primly behind Benjamin.
‘Thank you for bringing Mr Al-Khoury in, Mr Bobsworth. I mustn’t keep you from your work any longer.’
Mr Bobsworth reluctantly retreated with Mr Helliwell. It was improper for a lady to receive a man alone in an office. He himself was nearly old enough to be her father, so he felt it did not matter if he were alone with her. But it was different when young Benji or even Mr Helliwell were closeted with her; things could happen. A woman who smoked was not quite what she should be – Benji should watch out.
As Benji loosed Wallace Helena’s long cool hand, his heart sank. He had had, in the back of his mind, the same vague hope that his mother had, that things might, indeed, happen. What he had not inherited because of his illegitimacy, he could perhaps gain control of by marriage, despite the new law.
But the long, almond-shaped light brown eyes, so like his own, were as cold as rain-washed pebbles on a November morning. The firm, wide mouth seemed infinitely unkissable, and the thin, pliant body, which had stirred Mr Tasker to unseemly thoughts, appeared sticklike to a younger man used to the plumper women of his own generation. Had Joe Black been present and able to read Benjamin’s thoughts, he would have cuffed him like an angry bear for being so uncomplimentary about such a fine woman.
Wallace Helena understood men well enough to be subtly aware that she had not aroused any admiration in him; she did not feel the instant rapport that she had felt when meeting George Tasker.
She could see the family likeness between herself and him; he was indeed his father’s son. She had at one point, when thinking about him, wondered if he was a child conceived in an earlier liaison of his mother’s and foisted upon her uncle. The man before her had, however, the broad, muscular build of a Maronite from the mountains, the deep chest of peoples used to high altitudes, and muscles adapted to hard physical work, though in Benji’s case town life had made them tend towards fleshiness. His nose was not as prominent as her own and had a slight upward tilt at the end. His glossy black hair waved back from his face and his skin was a weather-beaten olive. There was nothing about him to indicate that he had an English mother.
She broke the silence between them by saying, ‘I’m very glad to meet you – at last. I understand you were in Manchester when I arrived?’
He took this as an implied reproof for his absence, and, pulling himself together, replied quickly, ‘Yes. I must apologize for not meeting you off the ship, but we suddenly lost a good contract to a new company setting up in Warrington. The Manchester market is so valuable that I thought I must go to see the customer myself.’ He did not say that he had spun out his absence, by going to pay courtesy calls on other customers, because he did not feel that he could face her until he had gained command of the anger and frustration he felt. He had wanted to beat his breast and tear his clothes, get away from his rightly distraught mother.
‘What had happened in Manchester?’ Her voice was cool and she sounded very alert.
‘Lever offered them a better price – and supporting advertising.’ He went on to explain that Lever had begun to wrap his common washing soap in gaily coloured paper, and to scent it with citronella to drown its normally unpleasant odour.
‘Humph.’ She shifted in her chair. ‘We’ll have a meeting with MrTasker and Mr Bobsworth – and perhaps MrTurner – that’s the name of the chemist, isn’t it? Well go into the matter thoroughly, so that the minute I have Probate we can take some action. How did you leave the matter?’
‘I asked them to let us tender next time the contract came up – they’re middlemen and buy in bulk.’
She nodded agreement, and then banged the bell on her desk. As soon as Mr Helliwell materialized in response to it she ordered tea. While it was being made, she began to ask Benji a little about himself and the position of Assistant Manager, which he held.
Tight-lipped Mr Helliwell brewed tea in a pot, paid for out of Petty Cash with much grumbling from Mr Bobsworth. He was glad he had a gas ring in his office and did not have to go down to put the kettle on the watchman’s coke brazier, which was not always alight on summer days. It would be humiliating to let the yard know that he made tea like a parlour maid. Mr James had always asked young Le Fleur to make it.
Benji had learned from his father the gentle art of making a customer feel comfortable – and tea or coffee had always been one of his father’s ploys, whether the visitor drank it or not. He had also passed to his son, brought up in an alien culture, something of his own quick-wittedness and business acumen passed down to him through generations of traders in Lebanon and Syria. This began to surface in the son as he explained his duties in the company to Wallace Helena. In the back of his mind he wondered why she bothered, if the business was to be sold.
He mentioned that the idea of selling a scented soap for the skin had been his. ‘There’s plenty of competition,’ he told Wallace Helena. ‘But we make our tablets small and hard, wrap them and sell them as cheaply as possible. It’s been my opinion, for a long time, that there’s more cash in working families nowadays and they can afford small luxuries. My mother says that, in the old days, the women hardly spent anything on themselves; it was a matter of survival only. Now, I sell them not only a bit of scented soap but a little bottle of scent as well, despite the old diehards who say it’s vanity – of course, old people often think having a bath is vanity!’
Wallace Helena laughed. ‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed.
Emboldened by her spontaneous laugh, he went on, ‘Another thing I think I could sell is a cream for hands. All the cleaning they do – with soap – takes the oil out of their skins, and immediately the cold weather comes they chap and the skin splits very painfully. In the country, on the farms, there’s always a bit of lard or goose grease they can rub into the sore spots, but it’s very sticky – and women in cotton mills and suchlike can’t afford to have sticky hands. We’ve glycerine left over after the soap-making; Turner’s
working on the refining of it, to use as a base for a cream. We know how to do it, but we want something very, very cheap that will have a small mark-up and a big turnover – I’ve been pricing small ointment tins and glass jars to pack it in.’
‘That’s another thing to talk about after Probate,’ Wallace Helena replied. ‘We’ve got to decide what we’ll make in future, particularly since competition seems to be getting more intense. I can see that Mr Turner may be invaluable.’
He was heartened that she said we, as if taking for granted that, whatever was to happen to the company, he was, as far as she was concerned, to be included in the decision-making. He wondered if Bobsworth’s idea that she wanted to run the firm herself was correct.
He nodded agreement with her remark about the chemist. Then he said, with an amused expression on his face, ‘Mr Al-Khoury used to watch and listen for news of towns putting in waterworks; he’d go personally to any such place and sell our soap to every grocer or hardware store he could find. “Once a woman has a water tap in the house, she wants soap,” he would say. “So we get ours in first.”’
Benji’s description of her uncle’s impetuosity was so apt that it made her smile. She mentally saw him bursting into the office of the silk warehouse in Beirut, eager to suggest something new to his elder brother; or, in the house, snatching her up from her play to whiz round with her and tell her she was his little lemon flower.
Benji watched the passing expressions on her face and wondered what she was thinking of. He was surprised by her next question.
‘Aren’t there any rich ladies in England?’ she inquired. ‘You speak all the time of women who do their own work. I thought everybody in England had servants?’
‘Well, not everybody has servants. We’re going after working-class women, because they’re a comparatively new market. Rich women have bought quite expensive soap from their hairdressers, for years. The competition in that kind of soap is very keen.’ He chuckled a little ruefully. ‘For a long time in the new cities, like the cotton towns, working people didn’t have access to much water – they had to endure the filth around them. Now, many of them have a decent water supply, so Fath … Mr Al-Khoury set out to sell them cheap soap. A small mark-up, but, on the other hand, a huge market.’
The Lemon Tree Page 18