Confessions from the Shop Floor

by Timothy Lea

  ‘Morning,’ I say brightly, treating them to a quick flash of my Teds. ‘Everything all right then?’

  Those are the last words that I can remember speaking till I find myself in the corridor. Like a pack of ravenous beasts the birds hurl themselves at me and proceed to lay rude hands on the front of my trousers. At first I think it is some kind of jest but then I find that they mean business — one of the few things at U.I.B. that does. Sheer weight of numbers bears me to the ground and I can feel my trousers being tugged down to my ankles. It is all very childish and — OUCH!! Somebody has grabbed hold of Percy like he is an escaping gerbil. This is too much! What do they think they’re — OUCH!! I twist myself into a position to see what is happening at fun palace level and find that a large washer is being slipped over my tonk.

  Five minutes and a lot of struggling, later, I have forty-eight washers and a nut turning my hampton into a piece of modern jewellery. Unfortunately, in the course of all the messing about, Percy has begun to respond with his usual coarse and undiscriminating vigour and there seems no chance of the washers ever coming off. It looks as if I will have to go down to the fire station, though I don’t fancy some geezer starting to mess about with a hack saw — on second thoughts, forget it. I will have to go through life like one of those African women who wear all those rings round their necks. Provided rust doesn’t set in too early I should be all right. I suppose you could say that it will add a bit of lustre to my cluster.

  My attitude to this brutal assault may seem strangely philosophical but it does not take me long to adjust to the personality of a place and I can sense that the Universal International Bedding Centre — or Slumbernog as it probably is by now — is something apart from your run-of-the-mill, small South London business venture. After the treatment I received at the hands — and other things — of Carole Gotcher and Prudence Packer, having a few washers bunged on your cock is kids’ stuff. At least they didn’t put my old man in a vice to do it.

  I stagger along the corridor and follow the sign that says ‘Wharf! Wharf!’ Once the girls had finished putting the nut on my dick they let me go without further ado. I didn’t have to make a bolt for it — bolt for it? Get it? Oh well, please yourselves.

  Lenny and Harry are looking down into the water as I approach. Although a barge full of timber is waiting to be unloaded there is no indication that they have soiled their nicotine-stained fingers with gruelling labour before my arrival.

  ‘Are you all right?’ says Lennie. ‘We could hear you chinking down the corridor a hundred yards away. Sorry we didn’t hang about but my back isn’t what it used to be.’

  ‘My insides have been playing up something rotten lately,’ says Harry. They both make self-excusing groaning noises and feel different parts of their bodies. A washer drops out of one of my trouserlegs and rolls across the floor.

  ‘How many?’ Says Harry.

  ‘Forty-eight, I think,’ I say.

  ‘That’s a new record, isn’t it?’ says Lennie. ‘Mind you, we have changed over to metric, haven’t we?’

  ‘Started to change,’ says Harry. ‘They’re phasing it in. Blooming silly if you ask me. It’s like when they changed over to left hand driving in Ireland. They gave everybody a week to practice.’

  Four more washers roll across the floor and I sense that things are loosening up at lollipop level.

  ‘Right,’ says Lennie. ‘Better get down to it, hadn’t we?’ He flexes his arms and immediately lets out a sharp yelp of pain. Twenty minutes later, the spasm has passed and he feels well enough to continue — or start, depending on which way you look at it.

  ‘What do we have to do?’ I say.

  ‘When the bloke on the barge puts the wood on the wharf we put it on the pallett and the bloke on the fork lift truck takes it away.’

  ‘Got it,’ I say. I put a foot on the barge and Harry reacts as if I have trodden on his face.

  ‘Are you mad? That’s not your job. If all that timber falls on you, you’re not covered.’

  ‘Really?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. Bleeding really. You leave the unloading to the bloke on the barge. That’s what he gets paid for. Right, mate?’

  ‘Right.’ The bloke on the barge tips his cap on to the back of his head and slowly climbs to his feet.

  ‘Right,’ says Lenny.

  ‘Right,’ says Harry.

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  ‘Who asked you?’ says Harry.

  Half an hour later, three loads of timber have been deposited on the quay and we have built a crude shelter with them.

  ‘It can get very parky out here when the sun goes in,’ explains Lenny. ‘And about six o’clock the wind comes up.’

  ‘Six o’clock?’ I say. ‘What are you doing here then?’

  ‘Over-time,’ says Harry. ‘The job’s not worth a light without over-time. A man couldn’t survive on what they pay for a day’s work at this place.’

  ‘So that’s why we’re spinning it out, is it?’ I ask.

  ‘Spinning it out? What are you on about? We’re just trying to get the job done in our own time. “Have a go and have a blow.” That’s the S.C.A.B.s motto.’

  It is eleven o’clock before we begin to load the first pallett and the geezer on the fork lift truck has finished doing The Times crossword and fallen asleep at his machine. The three of us never work at the same time. Two men toil while the third ‘has a blow’.

  At five past eleven I have an idea. ‘If the wood was loaded on to palletts in the first place, then it could be taken straight off by the fork lift truck,’ I say brightly.

  ‘Oh yes?’ Lenny looks at Harry and nods his head slowly.

  ‘Do you want to put that in the suggestion box?’ says Harry.

  ‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’ I say.

  ‘It’s a bleeding good idea if you want to be out of a job!’ accuses Lenny. ‘You want to shut your mouth before you say things like that. What are you? Some kind of trouble maker? Umby told us to watch out for you.’

  ‘I was just trying to make things easier,’ I say.

  ‘Easier for the bosses!’ snaps Harry. ‘They’d have the whole place run by a couple of machines if they could. You don’t want to give them a chance to make any more cuts in the labour force.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I won’t say anything about it.’

  ‘You’d better not do, otherwise we’ll have to tell Mr Umbrage we can’t work with you. That reminds me. What’s the time?’

  ‘Eleven fifteen.’

  ‘Right, we’d better get going. There’s a union meeting at half past.’

  ‘Do all the meetings take place during working hours?’ I ask.

  ‘All except the elections.’

  ‘Is that when Mr Umbrage gets elected?’

  That’s right.’

  ‘How many votes did he get in by?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never been to one of those meetings. Have you, Harry?’

  ‘I should cocoa! After work? You must be joking.’

  Since we had a fifteen minute tea break at ten o’clock that lasted twenty-five minutes it can be seen that the sweat is not exactly pouring off me as I walk towards the staff canteen. It is a funny thing, but the less I do, the more tired I get. I was quite chipper after the nut squidging, now, I feel knackered.

  ‘Are you all right? I tried to warn you.’ The quiet little voice is at my side again. I look down and see the bird who tipped me off about the ‘nut squidging’. She is very skinny with big eyes like one of those things that hangs upside down from trees — marmitesets, or whatever they are.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Another washer rolls across the yard. ‘Well, not bad. As well as can be expected in the circumstances. I’m sorry I didn’t understand what you were on about.’

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more clearly but they were all looking at me. They’re really nasty some of them. They fitted a chastity belt to one girl just before she got married. It wouldn’t hav
e been so bad if they hadn’t thrown away the key.’

  I try and look sympathetic. It is obvious that this bint has a soft spot for yours truly and you never know when one might come in handy. ‘That’s terrible,’ I say. ‘I don’t mind a bit of horseplay but you can go too far.’

  ‘Quite.’ The bird gazes up at me through big goo goo eyes and I wonder how far would be too far as far as she is concerned.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she says.

  ‘Timothy Lea.’

  ‘Jean,’ she says. She obviously doesn’t reckon her second name a lot.

  ‘Do you like working here?’ I say, thinking that I might as well get a bird’s eye view of the place.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Her enthusiasm does not reach epidemic proportions. ‘I don’t know how long it’s going to last, though.’

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ I say, pricking up my ears.

  ‘I have a friend who works in sales and she says there aren’t any.’

  My heart sinks. Typical. Once again the dead hand of Noggett lights upon another stone-cold loser.

  ‘No stock?’

  ‘No customers. There’s a yard full of frames out the back and they don’t know where to put the mattresses that are piling up.’

  The full dimension of the problem comes home to me. If the efforts of Harry and Lenny are an indication of the rate of output achieved by the Slumbernog work force then it must require a quite remarkable lack of enthusiasm for the end product before stock can actually begin to pile up.

  ‘What do you think the problem is?’ I say. We are passing the room full of beds with blokes lying on them and as I watch some of them begin to stretch and fold up their newspapers. I imagine that they must be coming to the meeting too.

  ‘It’s difficult to put your finger on it.’ Another washer rolls across the yard and we both look the other way. I reckon there must be about forty-two left, now. ‘The management don’t know what they’re doing and the union wouldn’t let them do it if they did know.’

  ‘What about Professor Nuttibarm?’

  ‘He’s the worst of the lot. I don’t think we’ve ever sold anything he’s designed.’

  I groan inwardly. So much for Sidney’s secret weapon. My brother-in-law would enter a tap dancing contest in a pair of deep sea diver’s boots.

  ‘What are they doing in there?’ I say for a little light relief, indicating the blokes on the beds.

  ‘That’s the bed testing department. The union is very hot on that. No bed is allowed to leave the factory until it has been tested for two weeks.’

  ‘They just lie on them, do they?’ I ask.

  Jean blushes in a way that I find not unattractive. ‘Tests of a more personal nature are performed in the Cuddle Chamber,’ she says as if reading from a brochure. ‘You have to be married to take part.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ I say, ravishing her with my roguish eyes. ‘Where is the Cuddle Chamber?’

  ‘Over there,’ she says. I follow her quivering digit and see a corrugated iron shed that looks as if it has been used as a Pioneer Corps Naafi. Even as I watch, the whole structure starts to shudder and shake and two sheets of corrugated iron fall off the roof to be added to those scattered over a wide area. For a moment I think that I must be experiencing some kind of heat haze because the edges of the building turn fuzzy. It must be the speed at which the walls are reverberating.

  ‘They’re testing now,’ says Jean. Her tiny frame starts to shiver in time with the shed and it occurs to me that her heart — not to mention the more succulent parts of her body — may well lie within its walls.

  As I ponder about the kind of creatures that can manufacture so much rapture, the building jumps six inches out of its foundations, two window frames fall out and there is the sound of collapsing metal.

  ‘Reject!!’ bellows a familiar voice.

  As I try and think who it can be, the dust settles and the front door starts to open and then topples off its hinges. Framed in the opening is Mr Umbrage. His damp hair is matted over his eyes and one side of his moustache goes up in the air like that Spanish painter bloke — Salvolatile Daily or whatever his name is. Umbrage fastens the buckle of his thick leather belt and, swelling his chest, adopts a heroic stance and shakes one fist towards the sky. ‘Up the workers!’ he shouts.

  I am still thinking about it when he skips off and disappears through the door of what I imagine must be the canteen. In his place emerges a tall blonde woman, looking about her nervously and trying to smooth down the front of her crumpled dress. Jean sucks in her breath sharply.

  ‘OOOer!’ she says. ‘You know who that is?’

  ‘Search me,’ I say.

  Jean examines the means of access to my body and for a second I think that she may be taking me seriously. ‘Mrs Rightberk!’ she breathes, finally.

  ‘So you don’t have to be married to use the Cuddle Chamber,’ I say, fixing her with one of my beady orbs. ‘That’s worth remembering, isn’t it?’

  ‘You are awful!’ she says. She sounds about as genuine as two birds kissing each other.

  I am on the point of volunteering for a quick spot of bed testing when a geezer sticks his head out of the door Umbrage disappeared through and beckons us to get a move on.

  ‘We don’t want to cut into our dinner hour,’ he says.

  Inside the room there are about a hundred men and women sitting on benches and facing a platform behind which sits Umbrage, flanked by two blokes and a bird. As we enter, Umbrage rises to his feet.

  ‘Greetings brothers and sisters,’ he says. ‘This extraordinary general meeting of the Sedan Chair And Bedmakers Union has been called to draw your attention to a number of outrages which have been perpetrated against you, the downtrodden workers, and to decide what collective retribution should be levelled against those who seek to exploit you.’

  ‘Hear, Hear,’ says the bloke sitting on Umbrage’s left.

  ‘Did I hear a collective murmer of assent run round the hall?’ says Umbrage.

  Nobody says anything. Umbrage turns to his left and his mate stands up. ‘All those in favour of a collective murmur of assent running round the hall, raise their right hand.’ Everybody obediently raises their hand. ‘Carried unanimously.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Umbrage gives a satisfied nod. ‘Basically, I am disturbed on your behalf by the abysmal rates of pay accorded to those men engaged in the arduous chore of bed testing. Not only is there the immediate physical danger of one of the legs dropping off just about the same time that they are, but there are the longer term effects. I refer of course to the unhappy plight of those men who spend so much time asleep at work that they cannot sleep when they get home. They roam the house uneasily, make endless cups of cocoa and are driven to reading the articles in the TV magazines.’ There are shouts of ‘No!’ and ‘How horrible!’ from the floor. ‘Yes, brothers and sisters! And that is just the thin end of the wedge. Some of the poor unfortunates have taken to squandering their hard won earnings on model aeroplane kits. They sit there to the early hours of the morning trying to conjure up Mark I Spitfires until the smell of the balsa wood glue drives them to fits of rapacity unequalled since the days of Attila the Hun! Sweeping the frail fragments of polished wood to the floor they stampede up the stairs and wreak their sleepless lust on the ill-prepared bodies of their dear ones dreaming of pillow cases full of Greenshield stamps!!’ Umbrage pauses for breath and all around me, men and women start leaping to their feet and shouting ‘One out, all out!’ ‘It’s a scandal!’ ‘Send them round to me!!’ and other meaningless phrases.

  Obviously satisfied with the effect his words are having, Umbrage takes a sip from the glass of water in front of him and holds up a hand for silence. ‘I can see, brothers and sisters, that you agree with me that this disgusting state of affairs should no longer be allowed to continue. With your concurrence, my executive and I are proposing to management, in the strongest possible terms, that all bed testing work should be undertaken at time a
nd a half rate except when it becomes overtime or weekend work. In the latter eventuality the rate then increases pro rata. Is there anyone who understands what I’m saying?’

  One hand rises slowly into the air.

  ‘Then belt up, Smart Alec! Right. We’ll take a vote on it. All those in favour?’ A forest of hands goes up. ‘Carried unanimously. Now, since nobody knows the words of “The Red Flag” and they sound a bit daft anyway, we’ll all sing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow Traveller”.’

  ‘Oh Brother Umbrage.’ Umbrage seems surprised to find himself accosted from the body of the hall but leans forward indulgently.

  ‘Yes, Heckmondwyke?’

  ‘What about the Labour Day celebrations, this year?’ Umbrage smiles tolerantly. ‘I was going to mention that, brother. But thank you for asking —’

  ‘I’m sorry, brother. I wouldn’t have interrupted if I’d known.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, brother. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have said anything if —’

  ‘Shut up, you stupid old git!!’ Umbrage waits to see if he is going to need to squeeze off the second barrel and then relaxes. ‘What I was about to say concerns our annual pilgrimage to Tolpuddle, home of the ill-fated martyrs whose heroic sacrifices sowed the seeds of the great trade union movement. You, like me, I know, have returned from this trip purged and refreshed as by a visit to a religious monument. However owing to the cost of the coach to Dorset and complaints about the teas, we have decided this year to go to Southend.’ A whoop of joy rises from the audience. ‘Thank you, brothers and sisters. It is indeed encouraging to us on the executive to know that the reward of our toil is your approval. At this moment we are trying to fix up the first leg of an exchange visit with a group of brothers and sisters from the Worker’s Paradise — or Soviet Union as it is called by the capitalist press — and I will give you more details of this when our representative at the Anglo Russian Friendship Society returns from her holiday at Bournemouth. And now, let us rise to our feet and —’

  After a couple of choruses of ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow Traveller’, the meeting breaks up and Jean and I join the throng struggling for the exit.