The Factory Girl

‘There’s a job going at George Mason’s, Mom. Rosie’s leaving to have her baby. If Alice sees Wally Bibb he’ll very likely set her on.’

Resigned to a long conversation, Lizzie settled back on her chair again and watched Henzey add milk to the two cups, ready for another cup of tea. She said, ‘It’d be better than nothing, our Henzey. You can’t pick and choose these days with so many out of work. Will you put a word in with Wally Bibb for her?’

Henzey shook her head, recalling how he was continuing to look at her so lecherously. She did not want to be beholden to Wally. She wanted to owe him no favours. ‘I’d rather not. It’s best if she goes herself and doesn’t even mention I’m her sister. He’ll take to her all right when he sees her. He enjoys a bit of glamour round him.’

‘What’s the best time to catch him?’

‘If she goes in her dinner break she’ll catch him.’

‘Then let’s hope she can get the job. It’d be nice for you, as well, having our Alice working beside you. Her wages have come in handy. I don’t know what we’d do if you lost your job as well, our Henzey.’

‘You wouldn’t have to worry about things like that if you and Jesse got married, Mom. It’s time you did.’

Lizzie sighed. ‘Yes, maybe it is. It’s his mother, though – old Ezme. I should be back where I was before, looking after your father, except I’d be nursing her instead. I didn’t mind so much with your father. It was hard work, but at least I was married to him. But I’m hanged if I’ll nurse old Ezme. The thought of having to look after her puts me right off. She never could stand me, and she never could stand my mother before me. There’s no love lost between us, Henzey. If we all had to live under the same roof as Ezme, it would be Bedlam.’

‘It wouldn’t bother me very much, Mom. Maxine would be at school, and the rest of us would be out at work all day.’

‘But I wouldn’t be. Not if I was married to Jesse. I’d have to be at home.’

‘Couldn’t you just grin and bear it? She might not live that long.’

‘Ezme’ll live forever, just to spite me.’ Lizzie sighed. ‘Anyway, we’ll see. Who knows what the future might bring?’

‘What’s the matter, Mom? You seem fed up?’ Henzey had thought for some time that her mother seemed depressed.

‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ She smiled in an effort to look brighter. ‘Just one of my moods…Now then, madam…who’s this Billy, who sent you a card for your birthday? I’ve noticed you mooning over him for ages.’

Henzey smiled coyly. ‘I can’t keep anything from you, can I?’

‘I was a young girl myself once, our Henzey. I know what it’s like being in love when you’re young.’

‘D’you remember that party Alice and me went to ages ago? I met Billy there.’

‘Oh? And what’s he like?’

‘I think you’d approve. He’s twenty-four…’

‘Twenty-four?’

‘Yes, twenty-four, handsome, steady…and well-off…’ Henzey smiled challengingly. ‘Anything else you want to know?’

‘I think twenty-four’s a bit old for you.’

‘Well I don’t think so, Mom. I like men older than myself. Younger chaps are too stupid. Look at Jack Harper, and he’s twenty-one.’

‘Jack Harper,’ Lizzie repeated reflectively. ‘I see what you mean.’ She picked up her cup and sipped her tea, holding it in front of her with both hands, her elbows on the table.

Henzey said, ‘Anyway, what about Jesse? He’s nine years older than you. You haven’t heard me mention that he’s too old for you.’

‘Yes, but that’s different…So is this Billy working?’

‘Works for himself. He’s got plenty money, like I told you. And a nice car.’

‘Well he must have plenty money to be able to buy you pearl necklaces.’

Henzey smiled again. ‘You noticed it, then?’

‘I could hardly miss that glistening round your neck like I don’t know what. Are you taken with him?’

‘I like him a lot,’ she said quietly, looking down at the table cloth. ‘I’ve liked him a long time.’

‘Then you’d best let me meet him. When are you supposed to see him?’

‘Tomorrow. We’re going for a ride in the country.’

‘Well just mind what you’re doing, our Henzey. You’re only just seventeen, remember.’

That last Sunday in March was a blustery, wet day. The month had come in like the proverbial lion and was going out like one. Once out of Stourbridge and on the road to Kinver, Henzey noticed how the winter-yellowed meadows were taking on their spring greenery, bright even under the dark, rolling clouds. Trees swayed boisterously, and the wind boomed against the canvas hood of Billy’s car. The windscreen wipers struggled to maintain visibility in the squalling rain. It was not ideal weather for a trip into the countryside with a new beau, but one that she had eagerly looked forward to, rain or shine. The weather did not matter; the fact that she was with Billy, did.

In Kinver, Henzey was still intrigued by the houses hollowed out of a sandstone rock face on the outskirts of the village, though she had seen them before on her Sunday school trips as a child. People still lived in them, and neat they looked too, with nets at the leaded windows and brightly painted front doors. The main street was deserted as they drove through it. Any Sunday afternoon in summer it would be teeming with folk ferried in by the Kinver Light Railway, which was really just a tram that looked like a charabanc on rails. The village was noted for its public houses but, by this time, they were shut for the afternoon, and those who had been supping in them earlier were doubtless all having their after dinner naps by now.

Once through the village, Billy parked the car under some trees on a patch of ground off a narrow lane overlooking Kinver Edge, a natural beauty spot. Drops of water fell from the bare branches above and drummed intermittently on the motor car’s hood. Henzey wiped the inside of the misted window with her gloved hand and peered out at the landscape, unspoilt, despite the ravages of the wind and the rain.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she suggested.

‘We’ll get soaked.’

‘Oh, Billy, we’ve got our hats and coats. Come on, let’s have a look round.’

She stepped out of the car and pulled the collar of her coat up round her neck, and her pretty cloche hat more firmly on her head. The rain on her face, the tranquillity of the woods, the meadows and the smell of damp grass, were like a tonic. After the constriction of rows and rows of houses, of factory chimneys, of the crowded, jostling town centre where she worked, she allowed herself to wallow in this rural expanse. But, best of all, she found herself walking with Billy’s arm around her waist. She nuzzled her head against his shoulder momentarily and looked up into his eyes as they walked back down the hill they’d just driven up. He caught her glance and smiled.

‘Did you go out last night, Henzey?’

‘No, I stayed in…I told my mom about you…’

‘Oh?’

‘She wants to meet you.’

‘Honest? What have you told her?’

‘Oh, that you’re twenty-four, that you’ve got a car, that you work for yourself in the motor industry…that you’re always smartly dressed…’

‘And what did she say to that?’

‘She says you’re too old for me.’ She grinned at such a ridiculous notion, and he laughed.

‘Oh? And what do you think?’

‘I think boys my own age are immature…What about you, Billy? Did you go out last night?’

‘I went to the Tower Ballroom at Edgbaston.’

‘Not with Nellie, though?’

‘No, not with Nellie. With the usual crowd.’

But Henzey knew that Nellie was part of the usual crowd. ‘Was Nellie there?’

‘Oh, yes, she was there.’

Henzey felt a bitter pang of disappointment, like a stab in the heart, but she tried not to let it show. An image flooded her mind of Billy dancing with Nellie, who was clinging to him. Did he take her home afterwards? Did he kiss her goodnight? She was longing to know, but she tried desperately to let him think she was not particularly concerned. So when did he intend telling Nellie that he was seeing somebody else? The thought of waiting days, weeks, perhaps even months for him to pick his moment, horrified her. She’d assumed he would give up Nellie straightaway. That would be the honourable thing to do. That’s what she would do. But she was judging Billy by her own standards. If she wasn’t careful he would have her dangling on a string like some mindless puppet. He would still be seeing Nellie, and she’d be just a bit on the side. Under no circumstances could she allow that to happen; her self-esteem was far too high. She had to show him she was worthy of more. She had to let him see that she would not be so manipulated. Oh, she wanted Billy desperately, but he had to come to her in his own time, under his own steam, because he wanted to. It must also be on terms that suited her. So, she had to be the stronger attraction.

At the bottom of the hill they turned right into another quiet lane overhung with trees and ivy. It was steep, narrow and winding, with the village church at the top, its ancient bell-tower overlooking all like a sandstone fortress. Rain was spattering their faces as they walked huddled together.

‘Let’s not talk about Nellie,’ Billy said, uncomfortable with the subject.

‘I don’t want to talk about her anyway.’

He detected a note of scorn, of detachment in her voice. He did not wish to alienate her. Best to justify last night’s encounter and be done with it.

‘Henzey, I know I told you I’d finish with her, and in my own mind I have already. It’s just that…’

‘It’s just that you haven’t told her yet.’

‘Right. I haven’t told her yet…I haven’t had the heart to tell her. But I shall. As soon as it’s right.’

She shrugged dismissively, but her mind was awhirl. ‘It’s up to you, Billy.’

‘Last night was arranged ages ago, not just with her, but with the folks who were with us. It was an engagement party, see? Friends…Look, I don’t feel anything for Nellie now. I’d much rather have been with you. Just bear with me, eh?…Can you bear with me?…You’ve got to understand, Henzey, that I feel nothing for her. It’s just that I don’t want her to do anything stupid.’

‘Billy, I’m not making a fuss, you are,’ she said, though there was a hell of a fuss going on inside her head. ‘I’m not worried about Nellie, so you don’t have to account to me for what you did. If you still love her, all well and good. If you don’t, you don’t. I’m looking no further than that. I like you, Billy – a lot – but I don’t intend to compete with her, so don’t expect me to. If you still want her, have her. That’s all right by me.’ Already she had learnt never to declare her true feelings this early in the game.

‘One thing I like about you, Henzey, is that you’ve got your head screwed on good an’ proper. Anybody would think you were as old as me.’ He put his arm round her again and gave her a hug.

Yes, this was the way to handle Billy: pretend to be indifferent, then offer him some bait and keep repeating the process. He was not going to be easy to manage, that much she could already discern, but the challenge made him all the more interesting.

Within a few minutes, warmed and breathing hard after the steep climb, they reached the village church. Some way beyond the church lay the churchyard, and from its high vantage point they could see the countryside laid out before them for miles. Billy suggested they have a look at the inscriptions on the gravestones; they held a fascination for him, he said. As they ambled through, noting the names and the dates, making little comments about them, Henzey conjured up images of those people all those years ago whose names and dates of death she read; images of their homes, their families, habits, fears, loves, heartbreaks. They had lived and breathed, had been flesh and blood, and now they were all but forgotten. How had they lived? What mark had they made on their community? How had their lives affected those who came later? Had they been happy?

This last question was the most important. For to live and be unhappy made living pointless. For a few moments she pondered whether happiness was God given, or whether you have to strive for it. Indeed, she felt she knew the answer. Already she had seen enough of life to know that people often make their own happiness and their own unhappiness. It’s up to each of us to make ourselves and each other happy, she told herself. Nobody can do it for us. And if we turn out to be unhappy, usually we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

She did not communicate these thoughts to Billy. They were deep, and she did not know him well enough to speak of such things. He would probably be inclined to think she was mad. Besides, he was one of those elements likely to influence her future happiness. It all depended on her. It all depended on whether she made the right decisions, when the time came, to ensure her own future happiness.

From inside the church they could hear children’s voices singing.

‘Sunday school,’ Henzey said with a smile. ‘Don’t they sound angelic?’

They moved on, looking at the gravestones. Henzey’s feet were getting colder and wetter all the time. She shivered, and Billy laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘I bet when you agreed to come out with me for a Sunday afternoon spin you didn’t reckon on spending it in a soaking wet churchyard.’

She chuckled. ‘Oh, anything for a lark.’ She looked around her at the rain, still falling, splashing off the graves. She listened to it trickling down the drainpipe of the church and exiting over a drain. ‘I’d like to come here again some time, Billy. You remember I said I like drawing and painting?…Well, I’d love to do some water-colours of this place. Look at the view. Would you bring me back one day when the weather picks up? You know, if…’ If they continued to see each other, was what she wanted to say, but the words would not come out.

‘’Course I would. That’d be interesting for me as well. I’ve never known anybody before who paints seriously.’

Suddenly the wind whipped up and the rain became torrential. Billy suggested they shelter inside the church till it eased off. As they entered quietly, one or two of the children turned round to look at them. Their Sunday school was just drawing to a close and the teacher was telling them to say their prayers every night when they went to bed, and that she would see them all again next Sunday afternoon. Henzey and Billy sat in a back pew while they filed down the aisle on their way out. Those children whose parents could afford to buy them raincoats, donned them. Henzey smiled at each of them and waved goodbye as they departed.

It was a gesture that touched Billy. There was a warmth in this Henzey Kite he’d never witnessed in anybody else. She seemed the essence of kindness and affability. In the same situation, Nellie would have glowered at the children. She would have been impatient for them to be out of her sight. This girl beside him was so very different. As the Sunday school teacher closed the door behind her, Billy put his arm around Henzey’s shoulder and drew her to him. When she looked up at him, her eyes bright, her face wet from the rain, he kissed her full on the lips, tenderly, gently.

Oh, it was a delicious first kiss and long-awaited, but she was suddenly struck by the realisation that they were inside a church and should respect its sanctity, so she broke away.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘We shouldn’t, Billy. Not in church.’ She feared the heavenly host might see and hear, and wreak immediate vengeance. ‘It isn’t right.’

‘Well, it ain’t wrong either.’

He kissed her again, defiantly, more ardently this time. Every time, as she tried to pull away, laughing and uttering feeble excuses, his mouth followed hers till she resigned herself to his kisses and enjoyed them the more. She shut her mind to the sanctity of the church and, when he eased her down so that she was lying on the pew, she was surprised, both at his forwardness and her own passiveness, for she offered no further resistance. His caresses were mesmerising. She was unable to resist. Indeed she did not want to resist. He unbuttoned her wet coat as he kneeled between the pews on a hassock, his lips still on hers. She felt his hand slip inside her coat to her waist, her hip. Her arms were around his neck, then she held his face as she heard herself sigh with pleasure at his touch. He kissed her wet eyelids, her flushed cheeks, her forehead, and then again touched her lips with his own, as gently as a butterfly settling on a flower. Then, to her horror, he thrust his tongue into her mouth, and she tasted him with some shock…But it was not so bad…It was quite nice really…In fact it made her feel all weak inside, and so much closer to him. Jack Harper had never kissed her like this.

But they were in a church. The door was unlocked, open to anybody. The world could have walked in. The vicar might come in. God, what if the vicar walked in and saw her wantonly draped over his pew? There must be some law against this. At the thought of divine retribution she struggled and managed to sit up.

Billy ran his hand through his hair, for want of something to do with it, and smiled. ‘Blimey, you don’t ’alf kiss nice, Henzey. I got really carried away there.’

Feelings of guilt swept over her; not guilt for kissing Billy; not guilt for merely enjoying it. The guilt was for enjoying it inside a church; for the possibility of being caught.

‘I think we should go outside, Billy…’

With a smile he conceded, stood up and pulled his coat to. As Henzey also stood up and faced him, he drew her to him and kissed her again, lingering over the sensuality of her lips, so soft, so accommodating. They shuffled out of the pew, he took her hand and they moved towards the main door of the church, then walked out into the rain looking hungrily into each other’s eyes. Henzey leaned against one of the sandstone buttresses. Her arms went round his neck again as the rain teemed down, running in rivulets down her face, which was upturned to receive more delicious kisses.

She allowed his hands to wander inside her coat again, fleetingly over her bottom, her thighs. Willingly she would have lain in the soaking grass with him, but when he felt her breasts, even though her heart pounded, she deftly moved his probing hand away in case he might think her cheap. His right thigh docked between hers in another sortie, and she sighed, inducing him to kiss her even more passionately. The rain drenching their faces did not matter, nor did their cold feet in the wet grass. Even the wind blowing and gusting so rudely was intrusive. But, to Billy’s surprise and disappointment, Henzey broke off their embrace and moved away from the buttress.

‘My God!’ she sighed. ‘To think Nellie’s had your kisses all to herself.’ She took his hand, inviting him to follow her. ‘Shall we go, Billy? Else we’ll never dry out before I get you home to meet my mom.’

Chapter 4

That Sunday night Henzey walked down the entry with Billy Witts to bid him goodnight. It was half past ten. He had stayed for Sunday tea, for supper and had enjoyed the company and the hospitality of the Kites.

‘Nice of your mom to invite me to your house next Saturday night,’ he said.

‘Yes, but I won’t expect you if you’re still seeing Nellie.’

She was standing facing him, her arms folded. In the dimness of the entry he saw the catchlights in her eyes. Never before had he seen eyes so beautiful, with such a look of gentleness and honesty, as at that moment in the half-light. He took both her hands and held them down by her side. Their bodies touched and, as he leaned his head forward to kiss her, to taste again her lips, her heart beat faster. Whilst he had been sitting in the house, talking, laughing with the family, confident and at ease, he was still contemplating their afternoon out. He liked this girl; she was so refreshingly honest, and he realised that Henzey would never commit herself until she was certain that Nellie played no further part in his life. He also perceived that when – if – she did commit herself it would be whole-heartedly. That commitment would be his for the taking.

It presented him with a great dilemma. He had in mind his intense sexual encounters with Nellie, and how much they meant to him.

‘I’ll be finished with Nellie by Saturday,’ he whispered, unsure of the truth of it; but he kissed her convincingly enough. ‘So shall I see you Tuesday night?’

She shook her head, slowly, deliberately, meeting his eyes directly. But if he’d been able to read her expression accurately in the darkness he would have read her look of uncertainty. She wanted him for herself so much, that to refuse him was breaking her heart. Heeding Clara’s advice was decidedly painful.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Are you doing something else?’

She shook her head again. ‘No, but I’m not going to see you till you’ve finished with Nellie,’ she whispered coolly. ‘If that’s what you decide you want to do. When you have, you can tell me what happened, and how she took it. If you don’t…well…you won’t turn up here, will you? And I shall understand, Billy. At least we’ll know exactly where we stand.’

She was aching to hug him tight, to give him her love, but how much better to lose him now than to hurl herself headlong into an affair that might end in heartbreak because she was too soft in the beginning. Billy had to know she was not going to be a pushover. She had her standards, and she intended to implement them. A week gave him plenty of time. If he failed to do it there would be little point in carrying on, for this new affair would deteriorate into a charade. She was certain she had given him enough of a glimpse of how things could be. She could do no more. The rest was up to him.

On Tuesday dinnertime Alice found time to present herself in front of Wally Bibb at George Mason’s. He offered her a job at a shilling a week less than she was getting at Bean Cars, but she accepted it gladly, since it was almost certain that she would not have a job in the office there much longer. Shop work was not exactly what Alice wanted. Her heart was set on the glamour of being a private secretary to some suave company director, but it would do till such an opening came along. When Henzey asked Alice later what she thought of Wally, she replied that she’d probably have to watch out, because he kept looking at her bust.

‘Oh, I daresay he was trying to see where it had got to,’ Henzey quipped, and dodged as Alice went to swipe her playfully.

Henzey had kept out of the way while Alice was interviewed. Afterwards Wally asked her if she was any relation, since he reckoned Kite was not that common a name. She admitted Alice was her sister, and Wally made some sarcastic comment about there being safety in numbers, which seemed to amuse him.

But her mind was not on Alice, nor Wally, nor George Mason’s. As the week wore on, Henzey was becoming disconsolate, certain that Billy was out enjoying himself with Nellie Dewsbury. Each night as she lay in bed thinking, she would imagine them together. She pictured them laughing, holding hands, kissing. As sleep escaped her, and the night induced more disturbing images, she saw them making love with all the passion and commitment of a latter day Romeo and Juliet. The more she thought about these things the more she convinced herself that it was so, and the less chance she believed she had. She yearned to be with him again, to hear him laugh, to feel his lips on hers, to hold his hand, to feel his manly arms around her. If only she had agreed to see him on Tuesday night she might not be tossing and turning now, unable to sleep. If only he would call at the shop tomorrow. He would only have to smile at her and she would know. She would know immediately that all was well. But she did not know, and it was torture. This uncertainty was torture, and she still had this night to get through, and then two more to follow.

She was certain she had driven Billy away with her feigned indifference. How could she have been so sure of herself? How could she have been so arrogant? She could no more dictate to Billy Witts what he should do than he could dictate to her. Now she was angry with herself for ruining the best opportunity ever to find happiness, with a man who really suited her, a man she admired in every way. She liked him so much. No. It was more than that; it was much more than that. She loved him. Even more than that; she loved him desperately.