There was a snap in the air. The winter sun was bright on the footpaths.
‘I am glad there is a half holiday this afternoon,’ said Miss Trueman, looking out of the window.
The accountant, standing behind her, said, ‘You know, I always feel sad when I look out of windows. I suppose it is because when you look out of windows you generally have nothing else to do. But that may not be the reason. I daresay it is a hang-over from the rainy days of my childhood.’
‘I don’t feel like that. I like looking out of windows. It makes everything look beautiful; like a framed picture.’
She commenced opening the mail he had handed her.
‘Hurray! Another one.’
She detached a small blue sticker bearing the word ‘Please’ from a statement, and with some paste stuck it among a collection on the wall above her desk. They bore such words as ‘Thank You,’ ‘Attention,’ ‘Can you oblige.’
‘You remind me of those people who collect “In Memoriam” notices from the papers,’ said the accountant.
‘Ghouls?’ queried Miss Trueman.
The accountant laughed.
Clynes emerged from Mr Fulsham’s office, and closed the door softly behind him.
He crossed the office furtively and, entering the factory, slunk off among the racks and chattering machines.
The buzzer on Miss Trueman’s table whirred imperatively. She rose and entered Fulsham’s office.
‘Tell Jack Correll I want him.’
She went into the factory seeking him.
The accountant brought a list of figures into Fulsham.
‘The shop’s takings for the week,’ he said.
He returned to the office and met Correll coming in. Correll was flustered.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked of the accountant.
The accountant did not reply.
Correll, quaking, entered Fulsham’s office. ‘Sit down, Jack.’
Correll sat down.
‘I want to have a serious talk with you,’ began Fulsham, deliberately intimidating. ‘I have been hearing rumours about you approaching different girls in the factory with the object of getting them to go out with you. Is this correct?’
Correll’s jaw dropped. He looked blankly at Fulsham. He began to redden. He drew a slow, deep breath, then shot it forth tangled with words. ‘It’s a lie,’ he shouted. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Lower your voice,’ said Fulsham angrily.
‘I’d like to see the one who told you that.’
‘Didn’t you ask one of the girls to go to a football match with you?’
‘Go to a football match,’ repeated Correll, sparring for time. ‘I asked Gladys one day to meet me at the gate, “I’ll meet you at the gate,” I said. I was just going to stand with her, see. That’s nothing. What is there in meeting her at the gate? I said to her, “I’ll meet you at the gate,” I said. That’s all.’
‘Well, I won’t allow it,’ cried Fulsham, banging the table. ‘I won’t have responsible employees of mine taking girls from our factory to football matches. Now you remember that.’
Correll’s expression again became blank. ‘Christ!’ he said. His face clouded.
‘All right,’ he replied sullenly. ‘I didn’t know there was any rule about it.’
‘That is all.’ Fulsham dismissed him.
Correll sought Clynes. He found him hovering about his packing bench.
‘The Tall Fella has just been giving me hell,’ he said. ‘That bastard McCormack has been telling him that I have been putting the hard word on some of the girls. I saw him coming out of the office when I went in.’
‘What did he say,’ asked Clynes.
‘He said I was asking girls to go to football matches, the bloody liar. I stood up to Fulsham. I said to him, I said, “Look here, old chap. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself. Just forget it, see. Just forget it. Don’t go listening to yarns that don’t concern you, and if you hear anymore just bring the ones that told you in front of me. I’ll show ’em. I’ll go the bastards.” ‘
Clynes listened, his head lowered. He envied Correll his courage in asking one of the girls to go out with him. He saw himself with the girl. He moved through a crowd with her. He leant over the fence with her. He pressed against her. He touched her. He smelt her. He hated Correll.
He made resolves to follow this lead. He was asking Sadie. He was asking Leila. He was asking Mabel. He was charming. He was well dressed. He was kissing and being kissed. He was … The deep breath of him filled his lungs.
He asked in a sudden, intimate whisper: ‘Who did you ask to go out with you?’
The firm was going bung. What did it matter. What matter anything now the firm was going bung. What did it matter what Correll thought of him?
Correll stampeded. ‘I didn’t ask any of them to go out with me.’ (Christ! I must be careful. The wife …)
Clynes felt suddenly superior to him. He said, ‘The way these girls throw themselves at you, though. It is hard to resist them sometimes.’
They both turned and watched Leila Hale walk past them, carrying her head like the holy sacrament.
‘God bless the King,’ said Miss Trueman, putting on her hat. ‘I’m glad his birthday is not on the twenty-ninth of February.’
The accountant was still writing.
‘Don’t you know it is a half holiday.’ Miss Trueman stood looking through the doorway. ‘Come on. Every one has left but us.’
‘Half a jiff,’ said the accountant.
Miss Trueman sat on the table’s edge and began reading the paper.
The factory was silent. Only the scamper of rats like pattering fingers between the walls. Out in the factory the racks huddled together. The belts were still. The dark machines, fatigued from their bitter conflict with men, stood spent and silent along the walls gaining strength for the morrow’s battle. The untormented air was heavy with the weight of leather’s smell. The long benches, lonely of girls, slumbered in peace.
The accountant and Miss Trueman stepped out on to the street.
The street too was silent. The factories were deserted. Beyond their roofs and beyond that again were other factories and streets — all deserted.
‘These streets depress me on holidays,’ said the accountant. ‘They seem wistful or something. They seem to be conscious that everyone is away enjoying themselves, and they are left.’
‘They don’t affect me that way,’ said Miss Trueman.
‘I always think they look nicer when I knock off early or on a holiday. Everything looks nice to me on a holiday.’
‘You are going to have a marvellous time if we go bung.’
She laughed. ‘But how sad for you.’
‘For a day or two, perhaps.’
‘It won’t be long now. Mary gone, Freda gone … Who next, I wonder.’
‘We will all go together next time, I think.’
‘Freda said that she thought she could get a position at Rollow’s. Did she get it, do you know?’
‘Yes. She started in his office next day.’
Miss Trueman glanced at him with a twinkle in her eye. ‘You won’t see so much of your fiancee now. You will miss her passing your table each morning.’
He smiled and said, ‘I will that.’
‘Terrible thing to be in love, isn’t it?’
‘You should know.’
She laughed and continued on her way. He turned into his street and commenced the climb up the hill.