A Step Too Far

by Meg Hutchinson

  Isaac Eldon ran a hand through hair not totally protected from dust by the flat cap he pushed back.

  The Ministry officials having taken their leave, he stood with Arthur Whitman and Jacob Hawley, the three of them poring over machinery blueprints spread across the desk.

  Whitman’s answer was almost apologetic.

  ‘They knew that, Isaac, but they had to ask it all the same. Of course, if it can’t be done they will understand, there will be no blame.’

  ‘D’aint say it couldn’t be done.’ Isaac bent to the blueprints. ‘I reckons if we made modifications ’ere,’ he prodded the paper with a finger, ‘and another ’ere then it’s possible to give the Ministry what it be callin’ for, what say you, Jacob?’

  Today was not the first time Isaac Eldon had pondered this particular question. Stepping aside, Arthur Whitman watched the two figures bent over his desk. Isaac had pinpointed where improvement could be achieved too quickly not to have already thought long and hard on the problem; and Hawley had agreed, adding his own ideas on how existing machinery could be adapted while entirely new ones were being made. Had they discussed between themselves this very question of a possible increase in production? Whitman smiled at the naivety of the thought – of course they had.

  ‘There be a problem.’ Isaac turned from perusing the blueprints. ‘Least there be one from my point o’ view an’ I thinks Jacob sees it an’ all.’

  The two of them saw a problem. Why then had they not broached it while those Ministry representatives were here? Holding the question inside, Arthur Whitman glanced toward the papers spread across his desk.

  ‘Aint nothin’ to do wi’ that.’ Isaac’s glance followed to the blueprint. ‘That be easy enough to alter . . . it be the other stuff they be wantin’.’

  ‘What Isaac is saying,’ glancing at the other man, Jacob Hawley took the brief nod as agreement to continue, ‘what we both are saying is every request the government makes for a new type of weapon needs its own particular range of projectile. This requires the adapting and re-tooling not only of existing machinery but the designing and installing of new ones, itself no mild headache, but it is the accommodating of that new machinery will be the major problem, here at Prodor there is not space enough.’

  ‘I see.’ Whitman nodded. ‘That is a problem, but . . .’

  ‘Can’t be no buts!’ Isaac put in flatly. ‘Them rockets we’ve been asked for can’t be made in no corner an’ neither can the launchers needed to fire ’em! What be needed is another factory, one given over entirely to the production of heavier armaments.’

  Lower lip caught between his teeth, Arthur Whitman thought for a moment. ‘There might be a place – you know it, Isaac, the New Crown Works.’

  ‘Ar!’ Isaac nodded. ‘That could do nicely, there be several buildins to the place, all of which can be made suitable to ’ouse plant and equipment.’

  ‘I’ll get a surveyor over there in the morning, have him draw a map of the area.’

  ‘No maps, they leads to trouble!’ Checking his slip of the tongue, Isaac went on quickly. ‘What I means is that which don’t be set to paper can’t be said to be what it ain’t.’

  ‘I don’t follow, surely a surveyor’s map . . .’

  ‘Will show not only where New Crown Works be situated, but the proximity of others, this one among ’em!’ Isaac interrupted sharply. ‘What we be makin’ at Prodor be vital, we’ve all been told that, so vital the Gerries be tryin’ their best to see it destroyed; the number and severity of their raids proves as much. It would only take one wrong sort to get ’old of a copy of a map such as the one we talks of to send its information to the enemy . . . I don’t need tell you the rest.’

  ‘I doubt we have one of the wrong sort in Wednesbury,’ Arthur Whitman chuckled, ‘but then secrecy is paramount. I will contact the Ministry, ask their views before going ahead.’

  Would they tell him? Returning to the workshop Isaac’s thoughts ran on. Would the authorities allow Philip Conroy to reveal to Arthur Whitman the fact of a young lad’s homework being utilised by a headmaster who turned out to be a retired officer of the German Wehrmacht, an officer turned spy? Would they let Conroy tell of enemy communications citing the Black Country as the base for the target they searched for, the factory responsible for producing finished cavity shell forgings? A factory not, as that spy had been led to believe, hidden beneath the golf links, but here at the ‘Shadow Factory’ . . . here at Prodor.

  23

  He had been there again today. More angry than afraid, Katrin stared blankly, her mind seeing only the figure across from the town library, a figure which turned to watch her as she walked along Spring Head, then followed her across the Market Place and along Lower High Street until she reached the White Horse Hotel. There the figure had remained while she continued along Holloway Bank to Prodor.

  It had proved the same every morning and evening. Jim Slater waited for her to pass just as he had waited that first time, except as yet he had made no attempt to speak to her, merely followed. No doubt it was his way of scaring her, of frightening her so much she would concede to his demand she be ‘pleasant’ to him.

  Never! She breathed the disgust rising inside. Jim Slater had more chance of seeing pigs fly! But on the other hand she had to do something, find some way of putting an end to what had fast become a nuisance. But what way? None as yet had presented itself.

  She could stay on here at the office, wait until her father was ready to leave; but that could be well on into the early hours – he and Isaac Eldon regularly stayed late working on their latest project.

  Eldon! Thoughts veering off at a tangent, Katrin remembered a boy smiling at her, at herself handing him a sheaf of papers, then at a woman in a public telephone kiosk, her head and shoulders hunched, shielding her face from any curious passer-by, one hand held half over the mouthpiece adding to the indistinctness of the disguised voice. It should have worked! Katrin pushed the pictures from her mind. It should have succeeded but somehow it had not. And failure was not something Katrin Hawley would accept.

  She shrugged into her coat. As with the nauseating Jim Slater so with Isaac Eldon. She would find a way of dealing with both.

  ‘Hey, not thinkin’ of doin’ a bye turn are you, Kate?’

  ‘If ’er is then ’ers got more go in ’er than me, I be that dummocked I couldn’t do another hour not if ’n the Devil hisself fetched me!’

  ‘Me neither,’ Alice answered. Then to the woman just inside the factory compound who had put the question, ‘We all be worn out, Kate be doin’ what we all do, tekin’ a breath before runnin’ for the bus.’

  ‘Then you’ll needs be quick for it’s almost ’ere, but it’ll like be already full an’ so will the next ’alf dozen.’

  ‘Like as if I didn’t know!’ Alice’s dour reply followed the stream of workers passing through large gates daubed in the drab colours of camouflage.

  ‘Might as well start walkin’.’ Taking from her pocket the scarf which had served as a turban all day, Becky Turner drew it protectively about hair tossed by a lively breeze.

  ‘Nosy Nora weren’t right was ’er, Kate? You’re not thinkin’ of stayin’ late?’ Having walked a few yards, Alice turned to look back at the girl who had not moved.

  He was there. Waiting across the street from the factory! How long would he make do with merely watching, how many more mornings and evenings would this fiasco go on before he tired of the tactics and changed to a more physical approach? She did not need two guesses to figure out what that would be. Slater wanted sex, and whether it followed a night ‘on the town’ or was the result of dragging her into a hedge, it would make no difference to him.

  ‘Hey, Kate!’ Alice had returned to stand beside her, ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, you feelin’ all right?’

  It was no ghost, she only wished it was!

  ‘You do look pale.’ Becky had come to where they stood. ‘Would you like Alice an’ me to take you to the
Ambulance Room?’

  Still silent, Katrin shook her head. Medical assistance was not the sort of help she needed.

  ‘What about ’er dad? Should we fetch him? He was in the machine shop when we left.’

  ‘N . . . no!’

  Anger made the reply tremble but with Becky’s quick, ‘Hey, you look absolutely terrified’, Katrin realised it had been taken for the trembling of fear, and with that cognisance came another, one which could put an end to Mr Jim Slater’s unwanted attentions. Swallowing hard, releasing breath in tiny gasps, forcing just enough tears to make her eyes glint wetly, Katrin whispered, ‘It . . . it’s nothing, I . . . I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Like bloody hell it’s nothin’! Becky’s right, you do look terrified, an’ if it’s down to nothin’ then I’d hate to be frightened by summat . . . hey!’ Alice came up short, ‘Has somebody in the works said somethin’ they oughtn’t, ’cos if they ’ave then they’ll ’ave Alice Butler to reckon with!’

  Katrin shook her head and pressed a clenched hand to her mouth, holding back a shudder of feigned sobs.

  ‘Just when you think tomorrow will never come it’s yesterday.’

  The words her father had said so many times to a young girl anxious for a special day to arrive spoke in Katrin’s mind. So it was now. What she had thought might be a while in presenting itself was already taking her hand.

  ‘Not . . . not in the works.’ She kept up the charade.

  ‘Can’t be your dad, I mean . . . well, he looked—’ Becky stumbled over her possible blunder. ‘Eh Kate, I hope there be nothin’ wrong there.’

  Katrin measured a pause long enough to feed concern then said, ‘Thank you, Becky, it is nothing to do with my dad.’

  ‘Then what ’as it to do with?’ Alice demanded. ‘An’ don’t say it’s nothin’ ’cos we can all see it is, so let’s get it said or else I fetches your dad an’ he can sort it.’

  ‘There is nothing you can do, Alice, really.’

  ‘’Ow d’ you know when you ’aven’t said what it is?’

  The shift changeover completed, those whose stint was finished gone their various ways, others who had come to begin work having disappeared into the building, Katrin judged the moment perfect to reveal her ‘fears’.

  ‘I . . .’ she hesitated, must not appear too ready to divulge her worry, ‘I’m being stalked.’

  ‘You’re bein’ what?’

  ‘It means bein’ followed.’

  Piqued by her understanding being at issue, Becky’s reply was tart. ‘I knows what it means Alice Butler, I ain’t daft. What I don’t know is what leads Kate to think such a thing.’

  ‘That does.’ Permitting herself a brief nod in the direction of the street, Katrin turned her head away. ‘He follows me here every morning and at night he follows me home.’

  ‘Who, why?’ Becky queried again.

  ‘I know who, an’ why can wait ’til later.’ Hackles at full tilt, Alice was through the gate and crossing the road despite the blare of horns from traffic moving in both directions.

  ‘You!’ She marched up to the figure who as yet had made no attempt to move. ‘What the hell d’ you think you’re doin’ followin’ after Kate Hawley!’

  The snarled reply carried a lethal warning but Alice paid it no mind, retorting instead, ‘Naught but a pile of muck when I be talkin’ to Jim Slater!’

  Slater’s lips curved in a snide imitation of a smile.

  ‘Very ladylike!’ he said, contempt in every syllable, ‘but then what can be expected of a Butler, not one of the family would know what a lady was.’

  ‘Mebbe they don’t,’ Alice flashed back, ‘but every one of ’em knows a toerag an’ that’s what you be, a nasty dirty little toerag.’

  A threat burned in Slater’s eyes.

  ‘You need be careful!’

  ‘Of what!’ Alice tossed her head. ‘Of being followed by a rat?’

  ‘No, of being bitten by one.’

  ‘Oh, you mean the way Freda Evans were bit; you’ll slip a couple of illegal ration books in my bag an’ get one of your cronies to tip the wink to the police? You wouldn’t do that yourself, not Jim Slater, he wouldn’t do the dirty on nobody – except to wipe it off himself. That’s what you did to Freda, you used her to keep your own stinkin’ self clean, well let me tell you the smell ain’t gone an’ ain’t never likely to. Folk hereabout hold their grudges for a very long time.’

  ‘Some of us don’t need to carry a grudge, some of us can settle ’em right away.’

  ‘Alice, Alice, leave it please!’

  The two girls had crossed the road to join them. Slater nodded. ‘Better do as Kate asks, take your nose outta what don’t concern you.’

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you Slater? It’d suit you fine for me to walk away an’ leave Kate to your pesterin’, but I don’t be no Judas, I don’t turn my back on a friend.’

  A bus trundling its way past the quartet shed little illumination: its headlights were shielded by caps that trained their light downward to prevent detection by aircraft. But it was enough to highlight the animalistic glare Slater turned on Alice.

  ‘Then don’t never turn it on an enemy, ’specially . . .’

  ‘Especially you.’ Alice’s retort snapped sharply across the advice.

  ‘C’mon Alice, do like Kate says an’ leave it, he won’t go botherin’ her no more, not now we all knows about it.’

  Shrugging away Becky’s restraining hand, Alice stormed on. ‘I wouldn’t turn my back on a snake an’ though I ain’t never seen one I reckons Jim Slater comes close!’

  Katrin smiled to herself. This was going perfectly, but she must make it seem she deplored the whole thing. Inserting a deliberate tremble in her voice, Katrin said imploringly, ‘Alice, please, I think I have been mistaken, I apologise Mr Slater.’

  ‘Apologise!’ Alice’s scornful laugh echoed on the gathering night. ‘You don’t apologise to vermin, you gets rid of ’em!’

  Slater turned his glance to Katrin. ‘Folk try,’ he said, ‘but tryin’ don’t always succeed.’ He returned his stare to Alice and added, ‘You should bear that in mind, an’ remember this while you be about it, Jim Slater don’t take kindly to bein’ threatened, anybody daft enough to try it soon finds that out.’

  In a move too quick to be avoided, he grabbed the cotton of Alice’s coat and spun her around slamming her painfully against the wall of a small nut and bolts works.

  Dripping with venom, he snarled between barely parted lips, ‘Seems as ’ow the Butlers don’t ’ave brains enough to know when they’m bein’ warned so p’raps this will knock sense where there be none.’

  The hand not pressed against Alice’s throat slapped her brutally across her face.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry he slapped you. I never should have told you.’

  ‘Keepin’ silent wouldn’t get Slater off your back.’ Alice and Becky had insisted on accompanying Katrin to her door.

  ‘But now he will be on yours! Maybe next time it will be more than a slap! Oh Lord, Alice, I’m so frightened for you.’ It wasn’t true but it sounded good. That slap had been precisely what she had hoped would happen.

  ‘Ain’t no call for you to be frightened.’ Alice smiled despite her cut lip. ‘Slater be the one needs to be scared when mother sees this lip an’ the bruises on my back! Heaven an’ all its angels won’t be enough to save Jim Slater from a lampin’.’

  ‘No!’ Katrin kept up the pretence she had practised all the way to Hollies Drive. ‘Alice, your mother must not attempt . . .’

  ‘Ain’t mother will be givin’ Slater a good hidin’, nor will it be no attempt, it’ll be done good an’ proper an’ not just wi’ a cut lip an’ a bruise or two to show for it.’

  Katrin caught the other girl’s hands in her own. ‘Nor your father, Alice he must not . . .’

  Alice shook her head. ‘Won’t be ’im neither.’

  ‘Then who?’ Katrin forced back a laugh. She knew very well
who, but ignorance was the dress best chosen to wear.

  ‘It’s our Jack be who! Dad taught his kids one creed, that should anybody lay a hand on one Butler they laid it on ’em all, an’ our Jack don’t be one to ’ave any man touch a hand to ’im; Jim Slater will be findin’ that to his cost, an’ knowin’ our Jack the price won’t come cheap.’

  Katrin stepped into the house calling one more goodnight, her laugh jubilant at the words ‘The price won’t come cheap.’

  Good. She slipped from her coat, hanging it in the hall. The more the odious Mr Slater was made to pay, the better she would like it.

  She had seen her opportunity and Alice Butler had allowed her to grasp it; brother Jack would deal with the problem of Jim Slater while Alice and Becky would continue to believe, mistakenly of course, that Katrin Hawley was a true friend.

  Letting her skirt fall to the floor, Katrin caught her reflection in the mirror. Smiling back at it for a moment, she crossed to the dressing table and took out the box, stroking a finger across the exquisitely soft lavender cloth.

  ‘Playing both ends against the middle is a rewarding game,’ she mused. ‘But then you would know that, wouldn’t you, mother? After all, you played it for years; but not with the skills your protégée has acquired.’

  24

  ‘I meant to thank you for not telling mother about Saturdays, I’d intended to say it the other evenin’ but it went clean out of my mind, what with all that to-do with Jim Slater.’ Becky Turner smiled at Katrin as the three girls sat at the lunch table.

  Forcing a smile in return, Katrin thought that this must be like eating meals in prison, all seated in rows! But she would not have to endure it for much longer; Arthur Whitman had mentioned a new dining room saying it would be preferable for offering visitors hospitality instead of having tea and sandwiches in his office, and of course it would be available for staff use.

  ‘You’ve ’ad no more trouble from that direction, ’ave you?’ Alice asked.

  Katrin shook her head.