THE FACTORY.

Below is the first chapter of a work in  progress novel. 

I wrote four chapters aprox same length then put it aside for other things.  Resurrecting it and aiming to finish it now, hopefully.

Hope you enjoy the story so far.

‘Grrrrrrrr.’

The pillow hit the window with a soft thud.   Jenny gave a yelp as the glass wobbled in its frame. It held, the glass settled. 

The noise in the courtyard below continued.  Bolts scraped back; boxes dropped; voices chattering and LOUD.

Jenny grabbed the other pillow and almost…almost.  Instead she slapped the pillow against the bed.  Not nearly as satisfying.  If this was the way of things they were going to have to bite the bullet and get new window frames so that she could throw something half way decent at the bloody thing. 

That is, or move!  Chance would be a fine thing she thought.  She didn’t have the energy to try and persuade Bobby.

She had been half awake anyway but all the same, the other half of her was still sleeping!  Even though Bobby always tried to keep quiet, the creak of the floorboards, and the loudest kettle in the world, pulled her into the day. She would listen to him move around as if a distance away then up close with the new day sloppy kiss on her head.

`Morning beautiful. That`s me off now. The early shift calls. `

She would sleepily smile at his smile and drift away again…Till the courtyard concert began.

Her head hit the pillow.  She puffed and breathed hard into the cold linen.  Soon enough she had to come up for air.

She listened.

Silence.

She risked a smile.

Mistake.

Another box getting dropped on something solid. ‘Some people are trying to sleep.’ Jenny jumped up and shouted at the window.  She knew what it was.  Bread trays on the concrete floor in the back of the bakers shop.

It didn’t help matters knowing.

She collapsed back on the bed and kicked her legs in the air mentally sending the bread trays flying. She glanced at the clock. 

5.45am.

An hour and a half till she needed to get up from work.  

Bobby Bobby Bobby the love of my life, her darling, her soul mate.

If only he was snoring beside her right now she could thump him awake.  A brass band would be marching through their bedroom and Bobby would sleep the oblivious sleep. 

She rolled out of bed and headed for the toilet, giving up trying to go back to sleep?

Bobby damn Bobby, why did you fall in love with this place?    

Every turned on tap or voice whispered in the other flats, or deliveries to Baker shops’ sounding like they were in the room with her.

Sitting on the loo realizing that tomorrow would be their first month anniversary in their first home.

She stopped at that thought. 

She wiped herself.

Their ‘first’ home.

Another bloody crate.

She kicked the bathroom door closed.

‘Think.’ Bobby had said in his usual excited little boy voice. ‘Fresh rolls every morning.  I can bring them in after I finish the night shift. And all we have to do is roll out of bed and we’re at our work.’

She hadn’t been convinced that was a positive but he’d grinned and…he was Bobby. The deal was done.  Why did she have to go for little boy lost looks?  A grizzled rough and ready biker would have been so much simpler!  For a start the biker would have gone down and scared the living daylights out of the baker and no more early morning deliveries.  Bobby was too…She’d gone down once and the baker had promised, the bloody man had promised…next morning….THUMP THUMP THUMP.

She pulled off her tee shirt and turned on the shower. It took her the usual forever to settle on the right temperature.  She shivered and contemplated putting her tee shirt back on.  She didn’t. She shivered until the water was right and she stepped under the harsh stream.  When the water hit her skin it tingled hot on cold.

The cold melted and the hot water calmed her.  She soaped her face and body washing away her doubts.

When she closed her eyes her mum was there with her raised eyebrows.

‘ Say it mum’.

‘ You want to live together.’ Her mum had said. ‘ That’s your business.  It seems to be the modern way. But…’

‘ But?’ Jenny practiced biting her lip.  It was better to let her mum have her say now than have those eyebrows flicking up and down for evermore.

‘ All I’m saying is…’ Her mum had started.  ‘ You work together.  You see each other every night.  It’s all very romantic and…living together is another kettle of fish.  Married or not.’

The water turned cold and Jenny did a dance of frustration in the shower. 

The water turned scolding and she jumped out the shower.  She tested it a couple of times then ventured back in.  If she could just get her hair washed!!

She wasn’t an early morning person that was it.  Unlike Bobby who was awake as soon as his eyes opened and bouncing into the day.  She needed more time.  Lack of sleep churns stuff to the surface that has no right to be there.

Shampoo applied the water drifted to lukewarm, then cold, then hot.

She stuck it out.

She loved their flat that was the truth of it, though she was determined not to admit it.    It was just that Bobby had used up all the jumping up and down. She had to be the sensible one of the pair.  The pointer out of things.  Bobby was the one that ignored things and dragged her along.  Like up those bloody hills. She needed that.  Though that was something else she would never admit. 

She loved the living together thing.  She caught herself smiling and didn’t notice the water chilling till her hair formed icicles.

She shivered and stepped out the shower.  Enough was enough, her hair was clean enough.

She towelled herself and decided to think positive.  The kitchen room enough for one where they played their own game of Twister to get plates out of cupboards, and cutlery out of drawers; their bedroom, wobbly window frame and all; their living room cuddling and kissing while watching their Box sets. Their social life now that they had the flat and the factory was on short time. 

Last night it had been Season Five of the Sopranos.  Not her favourite really but like climbing those bloody hills it made Bobby happy.

Noise or no noise this was their world. When they made love everything receded and fell away.  They had made love every night before Bobby went in for the night shift.    

One time she had cried and didn’t know why. 

Bobby’s face.  ‘Did I hurt you or something?’

‘No.’ She’d said.  ‘I’m happy. Just have a funny way of showing it.’

The second time she cried she’d said.  ‘I don’t like you doing nights.’

‘We need the money.’ He’d said.

‘I don’t like being alone here.’

‘ Something happened?’

‘No. It’s just…Nothing.’

A week later he’d swapped shifts with his brother. 

Since he’s started on the early shift they made love less often.  Now and again he would cuddle her and she would arch her back and he would slip in.  It was nice.  She had never liked the word ‘nice’ and she would never say that to Bobby but that’s what it was.  Dreamy.  Nice. 

She lay on the bed still wrapped in the towel. Now if Bobby had lain on the bed in a wet towel she would have given him merry hell.

Was she a nice person she asked herself?

The noise continued in the courtyard below muted now by the towel pulled up over her face.

See, she told herself, it isn’t that bad.  All you have to do is go about with a towel over your face!! And folk have got to make a living.  Yes, be positive.  Bobby had been true to his word about bringing in the rolls after the night shift.  Now it was her turn. She would start going down for early morning rolls.   

Yes, that’s what she would do.  She might even take him in fresh rolls for his lunch.  The look on his face would be priceless.  She would be a good wife, even though she wasn’t a wife, and they’d never talked about going down the legal church type route, no matter how many times her mum hinted when she came to run the disapproving rule over the flat.  At least her mum had stopped bringing little bits and bobs to help her. Last time it had been bleach since she’d noticed they were out.  How she had noticed without delving into cupboards Jenny had never asked. 

Jenny had the idea that her dad had a word with her mum.  So no more bits and bobs. 

Jenny and Bobby were on their own.

  By the time she had dried herself and wrapped herself in her dressing gown it was one minute past six.  She switched on the radio and sang along to whatever the song being played regardless if she knew the words or not.  Most of the time she made up her own words. 

She filled the kettle and dropped two spoonfuls of coffee in a cup.

All was quiet in the courtyard.

She waited for the kettle to boil. 

 It had been quiet for some time.

She listened.  They weren’t usually finished this early. 

The kettle boiled and poured the water into the cup.  She opened the fridge and pulled out the milk. 

Even that bloody diesel engine bloody lorry wasn’t rattling the walls.

She walked past her coffee and out of the kitchen milk still in hand.

She went to the window in the living room and tugged it open.

The driver must have switched the engine off.  Why would he do that?  He was always in too much of a hurry to get off to the next delivery.

Then she heard footsteps on the cobbles, and voices.  She couldn’t see who.  They were in the close that led onto the High Street.

Voices mixed and high pitched with…what?

The voices came into the courtyard and materialised in the form of Hugh Jackson the Baker, and a man who Jenny took to be the delivery man.  He was on his Mobile.

And…

‘Bobby!’ She shouted, not meaning to shout.

He stared up at her.

‘Bloody hell Bobby why aren’t you at work?’  His face.  ‘What’s happened?’

Many said that the factory it looked like church.  With its rough pimply walls and two high rectangular windows that it was rumoured once pictured angels in all their Raphaelite glory.  The building was over one hundred years old and in that time it had been many things.

It had once been a cinema.

It had never been a church.

As far as anyone knew.

Jenny pushed at the factory door and let it swing open.  She half expected someone, Chris more than likely, to jump out and shout ‘boo’ and collapse laughing at the whole stupid lot of them.

No-one jumped out. 

She stepped inside.  To her right was the yarn store.  She tried the door.  It was locked as it should be.  The store men started work the same time as Jenny. 

One, two, three footsteps past the yarn store there was a ramp that marked the official beginning of the Frame Knitting Department.   She stopped on the lip of the ramp.

She was on her own.

‘Bobby.’ She said.  The men were packed tight at the factory entrance each pushing and shoving to see what was happening.  Bobby was at the front.  

‘Come on scaredy cat.’

‘I’ve already checked.’ He said.

‘Well we’ll check again.’ He didn’t move.   ‘My big brave man.

Even though no-one had jumped out on her it was all one big joke of course.  She knew that!  Something to wile away the boredom of watching knitting machines shunt back and forth, and back and forth again…and again.  

Still Bobby usually wasn’t one for practical jokes.  He had looked scared dragging her out of the flat, barely enough time to pull on a decent pair of jeans.  Never mind dry her hair.  She was commando below her jeans.  The tee shirt was the one she`d  slept in.

The baker had said something about phoning the police.  The driver was half way through dialling when Bobby had stopped him.  He’d told her this as he pulled her along the High Street.  She was wearing his slippers for God Sake.  More than once they’d slipped off on the short journey to the factory.  More than once she’d stepped on a stone and cursed Bobby to the high heavens.  She’d been cursing him when he told her about how he thought ‘get Jenny’ before calling anybody.

Jenny would check. Jenny would tell him and the other men that they were not mad.  You didn’t want the police turning up and you ending up the laughing stock of the village.

No, Jenny had thought, just drag your girlfriend half dressed along the street.  Nothing laughing stock about that!!   Empty street or no empty street folk would find out.

When Jenny, Bobby, the baker and the driver had arrived the rest of Bobby’s shift, Adam and Grant, were standing on the pavement outside.  They weren’t quite cuddling each other for support but not a kick and a shout off it.

Jenny had almost laughed at the pair of them.  Usually they were ten pint a night men and see how many they can throw up on the way home.

Bobby had asked them.  ‘Well?’

Adam had answered.  ‘We’re not going back in.’

Jenny had said.  ‘I don’t hear any machines.’

‘I switched them off.’ Said Bobby.

‘Too spooky.’ Said Grant.

She had waited and she had waited, looking from one man to another, starting with Bobby, and ending with him.

‘We’re right behind you.’ He had said.

‘My heroes!!  Not.’ She’d said.

She said it again to herself as she turned and stepped into the knitting flat. walked slowly down the passageway toward the managers office.  Machines running or not it was spooky.  There was always something spooky about a silent factory.

 There were six frame machines in all.  Each with twelve knitting heads they took up most of the department.  The manager’s office at one end, and the machines that knitted the cuffs and ribs for the jumpers at the other, topped and tailed the frame machines.   With short time only three ran at any one time during each shift.  Each machine had one operator.

Chris, Jack and George. 

Eyes searching over and under the machines Jenny cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted.  ‘Okay you lot.  Ha ha and all that. April Fool has been and gone.’

Her voice echoed around the empty, silent, room. She shivered.  It was her hair not dried properly, she told herself.

Every thing felt unfamiliar.  Yet she worked here five days, sometimes more, every week.  Most days she visited the Frames half a dozen times a day.  Mostly to bring back work that wasn’t up to scratch.  Now and again to chat to Bobby.  Once or twice just for a break.  She worked next door in the greasy linking department. The frames shaped the yarn into body and sleeve parts.  She joined the sleeves to the body before they went to get washed.  The frames were hardly ever silent.  Except on shift changeover.  The shoosh shoosh of the machines a constant backing to the chatter and gossip that went on in the linking department.  Not that she joined in with that much.  They other girls probably though she was a bit stuck up.  She wasn’t.  She liked to keep her head down. That way you made the money.  Maybe the other girls didn’t like her making the money. It didn`t help in the popularity stakes when the supervisor used her as an example of getting the work done. 

`Teachers pet.` Was the not so quiet whisper.

She climbed the three steps that led up to the manager’s office. It too was locked as it should be.  Jenny had wanted him to call Roberts but like the police Bobby convinced her it was best first to check.  What if it was all a joke?  What if he ended up landing Chris and the rest of them in trouble?

‘Serves them right.’ Jenny had said. Still this wasn`t like Chris either-

A short way along the walkway that led into reception she stopped and leant over the wall that ran along side the walkway. 

Each machine had a table at the end which the men measured the pieces coming off the machines to see if they were the correct size.  If they weren’t’ they would have to adjust the weights that governed the tension of the wool.  On one of the tables a piece sat measuring tape stretched across its length.  At another a lunch box sat opened, sandwiches displayed. Next to it a flask the cup half empty with tea.  At another a paper was open at a crossword mostly finished pen sitting at the ready.  At all three jackets hung on the back of chairs by the tables.

She took all this in, and the fact that Bobby was walking her way.

A few moments later he was leaning on the wall beside her.

‘Everything just left.’  He said.  ‘ No-one.  There’s no-one here Jen. The bloody Marie Celeste.’

In her head she was telling him don’t be so stupid…but the words didn’t come out.

 He touched her hand, and they both jumped as a phone rang. It took them a few moments for them to realize where it was coming from.

One of the jackets.