A Perfect Christmas

Chapter FOURTEEN


Glen was trying his best to listen to Harry Owens as the man gave him a brief overview on what to himself were the important matters of tea- and meal-break times, and where the canteen and toilets were. Glen’s insides were turning somersaults. Thomas had been Nerys’s maiden name; she had obviously reverted to it after she had obtained a divorce from him. That was why Charles Gray couldn’t find any trace of her after she had sold their house and moved to another. At any time they were expecting his nemesis to arrive. If they crossed paths and she recognised him, that put paid to any plan of finding out where she lived so that he could visit the house and be reunited with his daughter. All he could hope was that, should they come face to face, either Nerys wouldn’t take much notice of a mere factory worker or else he’d changed so much since she’d last seen him that she wouldn’t recognise him.

He realised that Harry had stopped talking and was looking at him curiously. Glen said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.’

‘No, miles away, you were, mate. You look a bit green around the gills to me. Are you all right? Only one death in this place is enough for one week.’

Glen managed to say jocularly, ‘Oh, I’m fine, just got a lot to take in as you can appreciate, starting a new job, getting used to new ways and people. It all seems a bit overwhelming right now.’

‘No different to what I felt when I first started here, and everyone else who starts a new job. It will soon slot into place and you’ll feel like part of the furniture. I can only tell you it’s a good place to work . . . well, it was under Reg Swinton, but of course it depends now on who’s brought in to replace him. I expect the owner will have to run it meantime. Such a shock, Mr Swinton going so swift like that. I’d only seen him a couple of hours before it happened. He was doing his inspection round to make sure all the workers were okay and everything was running smoothly before he went up to his office for a client meeting. At the time I did notice he looked tired and had a bit of a sweat on him, but I put that down to the pressure of getting our orders out in time for Christmas.’

Glen tentatively asked, ‘What . . . er . . . is the owner like?’

Harry pulled a face and shrugged. ‘Dunno. Never seen her in all the seven years I’ve worked here. As far as I know she comes here once a month to go over matters with Reg Swinton, but she’s never graced us lot on the shop floor with her presence. Those that have had the privilege of crossing her path said she looks a stuck-up cow and acts like she’s royalty. In all the years Nell Green took a tray of tea through to the office with a plate of best butter shortbread, she never once heard a thank-you from her. There wasn’t ever any acknowledgement when she retired after forty-odd years of service.

‘Anyway, I think I’ve shown you as much as I can and the rest you’ll have to find out for yourself. I must get on, the shoes won’t box themselves, and it don’t look like I’m gonna get much help again today, same as every day, from that lazy sod of an assistant I’ve got. If he don’t buck his ideas up soon I’m off up to see the hierarchy about getting him replaced by someone who isn’t work-shy. So excuse me, mate, won’t yer?’

Glen thanked him for his time then made his way into the maintenance room which was hardly bigger than a small cupboard, lined with old wooden shelving that groaned under the weight of the assorted tools and paraphernalia needed to carry out his work. A well-worn desk was rammed in one corner with a rickety-looking chair at the side, allowing just enough room for Glen to sit on while he answered any summons on the scuffed black Bakelite telephone. The room didn’t even have a door on it. He knew from what Harry had told him that any supplies he needed were ordered through the stores department, but all orders then had to be sanctioned by the works manager before they were placed with their suppliers. Until Reg Swinton’s replacement was on board, he’d have to make do with what supplies he had. Glen was just mortally relieved to learn that he wouldn’t personally have to approach the owner for their approval and wouldn’t come into contact with Nerys that way while she was running the place until a replacement for Mr Swinton was found.

On examining the jobs book, it seemed to Glen that the last maintenance man had been very diligent. Apart from a couple of light bulbs that needed replacing in the gents toilets, situated in the clocking-in area, and a twice-daily replenishing with coal of the huge cast-iron boiler in the basement, it seemed at the moment that he wouldn’t be anywhere near the offices or in danger of bumping into Nerys. He was going to be eased into his job gently. But that was to change.

The telephone started shrilling. It was the factory foreman. A belt needed replacing on one of the stitching machines. Would Glen come straight away to avoid losing more production time? Grabbing the tool box and taking several belts of different sizes out of the stock on the shelves, to make sure he was carrying the right size replacement, he set off, praying that repairing machines was just like riding a bike. Once mastered, never forgotten.

Over in the canteen, Jan, who hadn’t worked for twenty years, was already feeling the strain and she’d only been at it two hours. Frying up two hundred sausages, then the same amount of rashers of bacon, cutting open and spreading margarine on a hundred cobs, readying the fat in pans for the fried eggs to be cooked fresh as required, and opening catering-sized tins of tomatoes and beans for those who wanted them on top of their sausage or bacon, grating cheese, slicing shoulder ham and tomatoes and onions for those wanting cold sandwiches . . . all this just to satisfy the appetites of the factory workers at ten o’clock, when they’d all swarm in demanding to be served quickly so as not to waste a second of their twenty-minute break. And there was still the dinner to be prepared yet, which today was cottage pie, peas and chipped potatoes, jam roly-poly and custard for pudding. In between this it was her job to take the trolley around the offices at eleven, but first she had to load it with the urn of boiled water for coffee and the huge pot of tea, plus a selection of filled cobs.

Jan was just putting the last of the cooked sausages and bacon in the oven to keep hot when Hilda wobbled up to her. ‘You’ve done a good job there, Jan. Some of the sausages are a bit burned, but then some of the blokes like ’em like that. Used to the burned offerings their wives dish up to ’em,’ she added, laughing. ‘You’ve earned a break. Fifteen minutes. Help yourself to a cup of tea and a cob with whatever you want in it, then sit and enjoy it at the table where Maggie and Dilys are sitting. I’ll be joining you all in a minute. Today we must be back ready to serve on the dot of ten. Not that we never are but we’d best be diligent. Mrs Thomas, the big cheese, is expected. She’s never condescended to show her face on the factory floor let alone in here before, but you can never be sure that she might not decide to lower herself. I don’t want her to have any cause to pick fault, and the new manager that’s brought in led to believe I don’t run a tight ship in here.’

She paused for a second as a thought struck. Her voice grave, she said, ‘Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know, would yer? Reg Swinton, the manager that interviewed you for the job yesterday, had a heart attack and died. So sad, such a lovely man. He’ll be a hard act to follow.’ Hilda wiped a tear from her eye and gave a sniff. ‘Right, come on, breaktime will be over before we’ve started ours.’

As Jan made herself a bacon cob, then poured tea into a cup, adding milk and sugar, she wondered if Glen had heard the news about Reg Swinton and that the owner was on her way, only she wasn’t a Mrs Trainer but a Mrs Thomas. That must mean that Glen’s ex-wife had sold the business after all, and Jan wondered where that left them in their search for his daughter.