The accountant was examining cards in the stores office when Freda Beveridge arrived next morning.
‘Another hot day,’ she sighed.
She ran a comb through her fair curls.
‘Yes,’ he said, preoccupied. He lay down the cards and looked up at her. She met his look and they smiled.
‘You have a lovely smile,’ he said.
She looked away, confused.
He studied her face a moment.
‘Would you like to smell the sea with me tonight?’ he asked.
‘Let’s go and drink cool drinks down at Frankston, and we will talk, and I will say things to make you smile, and then I will watch you, and we will both enjoy ourselves. What about it?’
‘Well, yes. I’d — I’d like to.’
‘Good. Where can I pick you up?’
‘I could meet you in the City.’
‘Any favorite spot?’
‘In front of the Town Hall. Would that suit you?’
‘Anywhere suits me. At eight o’clock, say.’
She nodded hurriedly, hearing footsteps.
Miss Claws entered.
‘Good morning,’ said the accountant cheerfully.
‘Come out and have look at these shoes,’ said Miss Claws. ‘This is Clynes for you.’
‘Where are they?’
‘They are just through the Cleaning Room.’
The accountant followed her out. They moved between racks laden with shoes, passed a bench coated with ‘cleaners’ before which girls dabbed a black liquid on to men’s boots. They wore a canvas glove on the hand they thrust within the boot. The glove was spattered with black gloss. With the other hand they applied the liquid, using a sponge at the end of a piece of wire. A bent piece of cardboard was used to squeeze surplus liquid from the sponge each time it was dipped into the tin beside them.
The accountant noticed that the little girl who washed the dishes (what is her name now? Rene — yes that’s it—Rene) had received promotion and was brushing paste on to the leather socks which later she would press within the shoes on the rack behind her.
She smiled shyly at him.
He bent and said, ‘Keep on. You’ll soon be forewoman.’
‘Here they are,’ said Miss Claws.
The accountant took the shoe she handed him, examining it critically.
‘The buck is not so hot,’ he said. ‘It’s too pipey.’ He bent the upper between his fingers. ‘It should be much firmer.’
‘Well, that’s what I’m expected to sell,’ she said, closing her lips. ‘I don’t know what they think I am. I’m going to see Mr Fulsham about this. What is wanted here is a good clean up.’
The accountant caught the eye of Mrs Bourke. She winked at him.
‘It certainly wants investigating,’ he said, turning to Miss Claws. ‘If you get many more through like that, you’ll never sell them.’
They walked back through the racks together, discussing the shoes. Miss Claws returned to her office.
The accountant, noticing a signal from Tom Seddon, walked over to him.
‘How is the lad today?’ he asked.
‘He’s all right now, the doctors say,’ said Tom, bending to place shoes on the lower shelf of his rack. ‘He can come out any time now—as soon as I can go out for him.’
‘Will they let him leave there at night?’
‘Oh yes, any time.’
‘I will go out and get him for you.’
‘Thanks, Mr McCormack. It’s worried me, getting him home. I’ve been busy on a job at nights. Mick will go out with you if you like. Mick goes out to see him a lot.’
‘Right. You tell Mick to be standing in front of the Metro Theatre tomorrow night at seven, will you? I’ll pick him up.’
‘I will, Mr McCormack. Thanks …’
In the office Miss Trueman was listening to a carrier.
‘Yes,’ the carrier was saying. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I get up tired every morning. I’ve been in bed at nine o’clock every night, too.’
‘You should take a tonic,’ said Miss Trueman sympathetically.
‘I think I will,’ said the carrier, raising his parcel. The accountant held open the door of the factory for him. He walked through and placed his parcel on Correll’s bench. Correll advanced upon him radiating propaganda. The accountant, watching them through the glass panels, smiled to himself.
When the carrier returned he said, theatrically, ‘Well, the Douglas Credit is coming into its own. I said to him, “What about them taking all their money out of the bank, then?”‘
He waved his hand airily, mimicking Correll’s voice and gesture. ‘“That’s what we want them to do. After all it’s only paper. The printing press can run it off any time”.’ He resumed his ordinary tone, ‘I said, “I wish I had a few pounds of it”.’
He paused at the street entrance and looked back.
‘Aw, he’s a maniac. I never come in here but what he argues with me. He reckons we’re fools to march on Anzac Day.’
‘Why?’ asked the accountant, interested.
‘Oh, the capitalists are working it, or something — So long.’
‘He is an interesting bird,’ said the accountant, turning to Miss Trueman. She was answering the phone. She hung up the receiver and said, ‘Some woman said to tell Miss Richards that Biddy of the Skiver was taken to the Melbourne Hospital last night with appendicitis, and can’t come in, and would Miss Richards keep her job for her.’
‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed the accountant. Then — ‘I’ll tell Miss Richards.’
‘I believe Leila’s running hot in the box,’ said Sadie tossing a crust on the roadway.
‘She’s not? exclaimed Mabel eagerly. ‘Who told you?’
‘I heard,’ said Sadie non-committally.
‘That just shows you,’ said Mabel, feeling pleasantly virtuous. ‘Those quiet ones are always the same. Ron Hughes, is it?’
‘Yes,’ said Sadie, then added contemptuously, ‘He’s a dirty dog.’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said Mabel, ‘I’d rather keep a fast man down than bring a slow man on. He’s fast, but every man is. He doesn’t kid you that he’s not.’
‘Anyway, I feel sorry for Leila,’ said Sadie.
‘Oh, so do I,’ defended Mabel. ‘But what’s she doing about it? Has she taken anything?’
‘Those black pills. But they’re no good.’
‘Gladys fixed herself up,’ said Mabel. ‘I don’t know how she did it, but she says it’s good. You ought to tell Leila about it.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with me,’ said Sadie, opening a sandwich to examine the contents. ‘You can get blood poison that way. Those things you use are always dangerous. I’d sooner have an operation.’
Mabel shuddered. ‘Isn’t it awful? It makes me sick. I’d like to see the man that would catch me.’
‘I’ve a good mind to tell Leila about a nurse I heard of out at St Kilda,’ said Sadie. ‘I know a girl who went to her. She fixed her up for a fiver.’
‘Isn’t that robbery!’ exclaimed Mabel, shocked. ‘She ought to be run in.’
‘It’s cheaper than having a baby,’ said Sadie succinctly.
‘Where’s Leila now?’ asked Mabel, feeling compassionate.
‘She didn’t come down,’ said Sadie.
‘Let’s go up and talk to her,’ Mabel suggested.
She rose eagerly from the curb. Sadie brushed crumbs from her clothes.
‘Hurry up,’ said Mabel. She noticed Sadie’s hair. ‘You’ll have to get your hair cut or you’ll be getting in a row,’ she warned. ‘The inspector told Miss Richards yesterday to speak to some of the girls.’
‘I push it back behind my ears,’ said Sadie, rising. ‘I’m getting it trimmed on Saturday.’
‘The week before I came here one of the girls got her hair caught,’ said Mabel. ‘It pulled half of it out by the roots.’
A workman, passing, poked her in the ribs. Mabel grinned at him understandingly.
The accountant was mounting the stairs when they arrived at the foot. ‘Where’s he going?’ whispered Mabel.
In the machine room he glanced round, then walked over to Leila, who was reading before her machine. He rested his hand on her bench.
‘Your friend Biddy has been taken to the Melbourne Hospital to be operated on for appendicitis,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d like to know.’
‘Oh,’ said Leila, staring at him, confused by his sudden appearance.
He turned to leave her before she recovered from her surprise.
Sadie and Mabel were behind him.
‘Hullo, Sadie,’ .he smiled at her. He turned to Mabel. ‘I belive you won a dancing competition the other night, Mabel?’
‘Yes,’ she said, pleased that he knew.
‘By jove, that’s good. Did you make anything out of it?’ He moved away, looking back at her.
‘A guinea,’ she said.
‘You will be winning the championship next.’
‘I hope so.’
She watched him swinging across the room. ‘Isn’t it a pity he’s crippled?’ she said to Sadie.
Leila told them about Biddy. They arranged to visit her.
Sadie sat down on the edge of Leila’s bench and swung her legs.
‘We know the fix you’re in, Leila.’
Leila, suddenly stricken, looked into her eyes. Painful colour slowly suffused her face. She attempted no defence. She said piteously, ‘I’m going to have a baby.’
‘Have you tried everything?’ asked Sadie.
‘Yes,’ said Leila huskily.
Look, I know a nurse,’ began Sadie …
They talked until the start work bell stirred the factory into life.
‘Eight o’clock in front of the Town Hall,’ said the accountant to himself.
He pulled up in front of a flower shop.
‘A big bunch,’ he said to the woman with the grey hair and the lines around her eyes.
‘How big?’ she asked.
‘Two bob big,’ he said, and laughed.
‘No,’ he became serious. ‘Put in gladioli and all that sort of thing. Ferns, with drops of water on the leaves, and wrap them in coloured paper.’
‘I’ll make you a lovely bunch,’ she said, glancing at him.
‘I’ll let you know how I get on,’ he said.
‘You say it with flowers, do you?’ she asked, her head on one side, arranging, altering.
‘I open up the conversation with flowers,’ he said, sitting on the corner of her table.
‘Well, what sort of opening is that?’ she asked, holding up the bunch.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘If I can follow that up, I’m right. How much?’
‘Three shillings.’
He paid her.
‘I’ll carry them to the car for you,’ she said.
‘You’re the one,’ he said, ‘I’ll come here again.’
‘Good luck,’ she said.
‘Here’s hoping,’ said the accountant, raising his hand as the car moved away.
He stopped before the hospital. He searched his pocket for a piece of paper. With a pencil stub he wrote:
‘After all, what is an appendix? It’s only the atrophied end of a bowel. I’d hate to think you had anything atrophied about you. Get the nurse to place these flowers where they can look at you occasionally. I’ll be up to see you just as soon as you are strong enough to make eyes at me. Rod.’
He attached the note with an elastic band to one of the gladioli stems. He carried the bunch of flowers up the main steps and into the office.
‘Would you mind delivering these to Miss Biddy Freeman immediately?’
Half an hour later, he was waiting in front of the Town Hall.
He saw Freda approaching before she noticed him. As he looked at her he felt a sudden depression of spirits. She represented an existence that with all his striving he felt would always be denied him. Her appearance spoke of shimmering frocks and animated faces, of lights and music drifting through open doors, of tinkling glasses and laughter, of soft arms and bodies and parted lips a breath away.
She had youth. Her lithe and erect torso rode proudly on her hips. He felt sudden fear of her. Yet when she noticed and came up to him it was she who was afraid.
Her nervousness gave him confidence.
He said, ‘I’m going to enjoy myself tonight. Come. Sit closer. We will start off just as if we had known each other a hundred years, and I will call you Freda and you call me Rod.’ He placed his hand on hers resting on the seat between them.
She met his smiling gaze and felt at ease. They did not feel the need to talk.
He drove slowly round the beach and parked the car beneath some tea-tree confronting the sea.
With his arms around her, his lips near hers, he said, ‘I think I am falling in love with you.’
She pressed her face against his. ‘And I with you,’ she said.