A Perfect Christmas

Chapter TWELVE


Glen strode purposefully into the reception area at seven-thirty prompt the next morning. Regardless of his own reason for choosing to work here, he was determined to earn his money and not make Reg Swinton regret taking him on.

The factory manager had instructed him to arrive via the works entrance, accessed from the canal tow path, and make his way through to the reception area from there. He would be met and taken down to the maintenance office to be introduced to the other men. As Mr Swinton hadn’t arrived yet Glen took a seat to wait for him. As he did so he wondered how Jan was getting on.

Jan had been told to make her way to the canteen kitchen and report to a Mrs Digby who was in charge and would be expecting her. Jan lost her way a couple of times before finally finding her destination and going inside. Her first impression of her boss, Hilda Digby, was not favourable. On Jan’s arrival her new boss had been in the process of putting on a clean white overall in the small room at the back of the canteen where the staff kept their personal belongings. She was the sort of woman people think of when picturing a cook: as round as a beachball, with a smaller ball for a head. She appeared to have no neck as it was hidden by heavy jowls. On hearing someone arrive, she turned and looked over. Seeing it was the new recruit, she scrutinised her with small shrewd grey eyes.

Jan immediately judged her to be hard-faced, the type to sit on her fat backside barking out orders while her underlings ran around like headless chickens, doing all the work for which she took the glory. She had wanted her friend to get the job as she was operating money-making scams with the other canteen workers in which her friend was willing to participate, and that might not be the case with a complete outsider coming in. She would make Jan’s working life a misery in order to get her to leave, then do her best to ensure it was her friend who was hired this time.

But Jan was working here for something more than a canteen assistant’s wage. She was helping a very deserving man try to get his life back together, a man to whom she owed a debt of gratitude because he had saved her from a terrifying situation. In return, she was concentrating all her efforts on helping his rehabilitation and would deal with the consequences of her own marital failure after that. She wasn’t going to allow this bully of a woman to jeopardise her future.

Before the cook warned her off, she decided to get in first and warn her instead.

In a meaningful tone of voice, Jan spoke out. ‘I got this job fair and square. Your friend shouldn’t have taken it for granted she’d be given it just because you’d promised it to her, and she should have arrived early for the interview to avoid the risk of someone else getting in before her. I did, and that’s that. What you and the other staff have going on between you here is nothing to do with me. I just want to get on with my job. And you can give me the evil eye like you’ve just done as much as you like, but you won’t scare me. When I leave here it’ll be under my own steam, not because you’ve hounded me out.’

She was then very embarrassed to find out that her assumption about her new boss was completely wrong.

The other woman stared blankly at her for a moment before she said, ‘I have no idea who this so-called friend of mine is. It’s an old trick though that, love, to frighten off the competition. I haven’t the jurisdiction to hire and fire. Only the powers that be have that. If you thought I was giving you the evil eye then I’m sorry. I was just sizing you up for an overall. Size fourteen is my guess. Actually I was wrong to do that first – I should have introduced meself before I did anything else.’ She held out her hand in a friendly fashion. ‘I’m Hilda. Digby is me last name but we’re all on first-name terms here.’

Mortified, Jan accepted her hand and said weakly, ‘Pleased to meet you. Janet Clayton. Jan.’

‘Was I right?’ Hilda asked her then.

Jan looked puzzled. ‘About what?’

‘Size for your overall?’

Jan smiled in embarrassment. ‘Yes. Fourteen it is.’

Kitted out and ready for the off, Hilda took her into the main kitchen area while explaining that there were two other women working alongside them, both part-time from nine until one. In the kitchen, Jan took a good look around. The equipment was old but spotlessly clean. A large gas stove dominated the back wall. Sitting on top of it was the largest frying pan she had ever seen. To each side of the cooker were metal tables; on the shelf underneath one was stacked an assortment of saucepans all larger than the biggest pan in a normal household. Under the other table was an assortment of mixing and preparation bowls. There was a huge metal table in front of the cooker on which all the food preparation was carried out. A door at the far side of the room led into a walk-in larder and cold store. Over the other side of the room, filling its width, was a large counter with various warming trays set inside to keep the food hot during service. At one end of the counter was a shelved glass cabinet holding filled cobs, crisps, chocolate bars and biscuits. At the other end stood a large brass till. To the far side of the counter was a large area filled with Formica-topped tables and wooden chairs, where the workers sat to eat their food.

While Jan had been taking a look around, Hilda had gone off into the cold room and arrived back with an armful of sausages and a stack of rashers of bacon. She gave a jolly chuckle, making her fat jowls wobble, seeing the look on her new recruit’s face.

‘Yes, it really does look like we cater for the forty thousand in here. You’ll soon get used to it. Now let’s set to and get these sausages on the go as the daily bread delivery will be here in a minute and I’ll show you how we check that off. And best you know . . . Bert Braddock – or Bert Bread as we call him – thinks he can charm his way into any woman’s underwear with the promise of half a dozen fancy cakes. He probably has . . . he’s not a bad looker is Bert . . . but I’ll warn yer, not that I think you’re the type that would fall easily for a flirty wink from a good-looking man, Bert’s got a wife who’d not think twice about knocking you into next week if she got just an inkling you had designs on him. Thought I’d better mention that.’

She reached over and picked up two knives from a tray at the back of the counter, giving one to Jan. ‘Right, first we need to separate the sausages. Like this,’ she said, slicing the twisted gut between six of them in a flash quicker than lightning. A thought then seemed to strike her and she stopped what she was doing and looked at Jan questioningly. ‘Er . . . just what did you mean by “what you and the other staff have got going on between you here is nothing to do with me”?’

Jan gawped at her for a long moment before she blustered, ‘Oh, er . . . did I say that? I don’t remember.’

Hilda shot her a look that said: I know you did. ‘Well, let me tell you, nothing untoward goes on in my canteen. My books will stand up to any scrutiny. I can account for the last pea. Any wastage, of which there’s very little, is marked down too. If any of the staff were caught with light fingers, they’d be reported to the management and got rid of. I’m glad to say in all the years I’ve been running the canteen, I’ve never had cause to report anyone. I hope my record won’t be broken,’ she said to Jan meaningfully.

She responded with conviction, ‘Not on my account.’ Inwardly she hoped that she didn’t end up getting the sack for snooping around before either Glen or she had found out what they were after.

Back in the reception area Glen was becoming concerned. It was approaching eight and Mr Swinton had not yet turned up to meet him. Glen wondered if he’d forgotten, but he hadn’t seemed like a man who would forget an arrangement he’d made. Maybe something urgent had come up that was keeping him. Just then he heard the door the other side of the stairs open and someone come in. When they came into view at the bottom of the stairs he saw it was the young receptionist who had dealt with him and Jan yesterday when they had first arrived to apply for the jobs. But instead of the cheery smile her pretty face had sported yesterday, today she seemed very subdued, upset even. Glen wondered if she’d had an argument with her boyfriend the night before.

As she approached her desk she looked surprised to see someone sitting there before she said, ‘Oh, yes, of course, you’re our new maintenance man. I’d best telephone up to Miss Trucker and ask her what we’re to do with you in the light of what’s happened. Just give me a moment while I take the switchboard off night service and open the main door.’

Glen felt he had been right after all, judging by what the young woman had just said, and that something had happened that was commanding Mr Swinton’s full attention. He watched her as she took a set of keys from a drawer in her desk then hurried over to the reception door, unlocking it. She returned to her desk, sat down in the chair, replaced the keys in the drawer, then swivelled around to face the switchboard. She flicked off the night-service switch, then put on her headset, pushed a plug into a hole and dialled a number. After a few moments she spoke in hushed tones into the mouthpiece then listened for a few moments. Pulling out the plug from the hole, she swivelled back round to address Glen.

‘Miss Trucker has asked me to apologise but she’s tied up at the moment and can’t take you to the maintenance room. She’s asked me to telephone Harry Owens the store man who’ll be expecting you and will give you a walk around the place so you can familiarise yourself with it. The jobs that are outstanding you’ll find written down in a book on the desk in the maintenance room. Just get on with them. Miss Trucker said she’ll try and get down later if she can, to find out how you’re settling in and answer any questions you might have.’ She then proceeded to instruct Glen on how to get to the maintenance room, which of course he already knew, but regardless listened intently.

As he made to depart he thanked her before adding, ‘Would you please tell Miss Trucker that it’s apparent to me something major has happened that needs all Mr Swinton’s attention and he can rely on me to sort myself out.’

To Glen’s shock he saw the young woman’s eyes fill with tears, her bottom lip tremble. She then uttered, ‘Oh, of course, how stupid of me! You wouldn’t know, would you? I’m still so upset myself that the fact never even crossed my mind. You see, Mr Swinton . . .’ She paused for a moment to pull a handkerchief out of her cardigan sleeve and blow her nose before she continued. ‘Such a lovely man he was, everyone liked him. He won’t half be missed. ’Course, it’s selfish of us all, we know, but we’re all worried about just who will take his place . . . well, we could get a right tyrant and . . .

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m going off at a tangent, but Mr Swinton had a heart attack yesterday morning. Just after ten-thirty it was. He was found by one of the workers collapsed at the bottom of the back stairs, obviously on his way back to the office after his walk around to see that everything was as it should be in the factory. He died before we could get the ambulance to take him to hospital. We’re waiting for Mrs Thomas, she’s the owner of the factory, to come and deal with things.’