The Good Provider (16 page)

Tommy said, ‘I heard a rumour that ye were bonnie. I’m the man for freckles.’

‘I’m married, Mr Dykes.’

‘Call me Tommy, eh!’

‘Show me what I’ve to do.’

‘Ever seen how a doughnut gets made?’ Tommy asked her.

‘I can’t say I have.’

‘Like this.’ Tommy made a gesture with fingers and thumb. ‘I’ll show ye later, if ye like.’

‘I don’t think I do like, Mr Dykes.’

Tommy shrugged off the rebuff. ‘Suit yourself.’

‘I’m here to work, Mr Dykes,’ Kirsty reminded him.

‘Aye, right,’ he said. ‘See this? These are mixin’ bowls. You take flour out o’ the bins an’ put it into the bowls. Simple, eh!’

‘In what proportions?’

Tommy did not understand.

Kirsty said, ‘The measure, the recipe?’

‘Oh, aye.’ Tommy dipped a hand into one of the bowls and brought out a slip of paper identical to the order slips used next door. The pencilled message upon it was, however, more legible. ‘Four rice. Two oatmeal.’

‘Is that all?’

‘It’ll just be a wee batch or a special order,’ said Tommy. ‘The bakers’ll add in the sugar an’ stuff. You only get t’ do the basic. Another thing; don’t forget to remove the recipe from the bowl before ye put the flours in. The bakers get fair wild if bits o’ burnt paper spoil the risin’.’

‘Where do I put the bowls when they’re filled?’

‘On the table; just leave them on the table,’ said Tommy. ‘Don’t take them into the bakehouse whatever you do.’

‘Why not?’

‘Women aren’t allowed in the bakehouse.’

Kirsty did not question that answer. The bakehouse would be man’s domain where masters of the trade held sway.

‘Will I be doin’ this job every day from now on?’ said Kirsty.

‘Naw, just till Lizzie Weekes gets back.’

Kirsty put her hand into the big smooth bowl and fished out the recipe; six rice, ten corn. It could not be easier.

‘You can leave me to it, Mr Dykes.’

‘I’m here t’ see you do it properly.’

‘Oh!’ said Kirsty.

She did not trust Tommy Dykes one bit and kept a wary eye on the young man as she lifted up the metal bowl and made to carry it to the flour bin.

Tommy exploded. ‘
What the bloody hell do ye think you’re doin’?’

Startled, Kirsty almost dropped the bowl. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Don’t
lift
the bowl. You never
lift
the bowl, y’ stupid cow. Take the flour from the bin to the bowl.
Never
the bowl to the flour.’

‘But why?’

‘That’s the way it’s done. The
right
way. If I see you liftin’ a bowl again I’ll belt your bloody lug.’

‘That you’ll not do, Mr Dykes. Lay a hand on me an’ you’ll regret it.’

‘I’m in charge o’ all the girls here. They do what I say.’

Kirsty was not intimidated by his bluster.

She said, ‘How old
are
you, Mr Dykes?’

Tommy blustered even more.

‘Don’t be so bloody impudent,’ he told her. ‘Get on wi’ your work, chop-chop.’

Kirsty tucked the recipe, folded once, into the breast pocket of her apron, took the two-pound scoop to the flour bin, opened the lid and peered inside.

The rice-flour was like fine snow. It had a pleasing sensual texture but an unappetising colour. She held up the lid with her elbow, awkwardly dipped the scoop into the flour. Carefully she extricated the levelled scoop from the bin, let down the lid and returned, without spilling a drop, to the table and carefully padded the quantity of flour into the bowl.

Tommy watched her, arms folded, a scowl on his face.

She returned to the bin and repeated the procedure.

She felt cut off in the flour store. She could hear the clang and clatter of oven doors and male voices from the bakehouse and the prattle of the girls in the sheds, even the whistling of vanmen from the lane. But she could see nobody at all, and could not be seen.

Tommy said, ‘That’s two.’

Kirsty said, ‘I know it’s two, Mr Dykes. I
can
count.’

‘Freckles,’ Tommy said. ‘I like freckles.’

Forth and back between the tables and the bins Kirsty went, while Tommy lolled and scowled and grinned and passed remarks that bordered on or infringed the limits of decency. Kirsty had little choice but to put up with it. She would have preferred, of course, to be standing next to Letty and Mrs McNeil, for this work was no less monotonous than filling trays and she did not have Tommy to contend with next door.

Tommy Dykes’ knowingness was a mask for uncertainty. He was, Kirsty estimated, not much above sixteen and had no status at all in the bakehouse. The point was proved when a figure appeared in the archway between store and bakehouse, a small, flour-speckled, sepulchral man with a booming bass voice. ‘TOMMY FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, GET THAT STUFF IN HERE.’

By now Kirsty had filled recipes for fourteen of the mixing bowls and had only four left to complete.

At the man’s command Tommy grabbed the nearest bowl and ran with it into the bakehouse. Kirsty went on with her job, listening intently for the howl of protest that would tell her that Tommy was not so smart as he thought himself to be.

‘
Idle bugger. Get your bloody mind aff the dames, Tommy, or I’ll belt the hide aff your back wi’ my strap, so I will
.’

Kirsty could not restrain herself. She gave a little smothered chuckle of satisfaction not untinged with malice.

Tommy ran back into the store, shouting, ‘See you, ye cow, did I no’ tell ye to put the—’

Ready for him, Kirsty shouted back. ‘No, you did not.’

‘I did, I told you—’

‘You’ve been hangin’ over my back all mornin’,’ Kirsty cried, ‘so how did you not notice I was doin’ it wrong?’

Hands on hips, the baker watched the argument from the archway. Kirsty could not tell whether he was amused by or angry at her tirade against Tommy Dykes.

‘It’s all bloody wasted. God, it’s all ruined. You never marked the bowls wi’ the recipes,’ Tommy wailed. ‘How are we supposed to know what’s what?’

‘Oh, is that what’s botherin’ you, Mr Dykes?’

‘Botherin’ me? Botherin’ me?’

‘Take it easy, Mr Dykes.’

Kirsty fished the neatly folded recipes from her pocket. She had kept them in strict sequence and had no doubt at all about the accuracy of the procedure as she walked briskly down one side of the tables and planted a paper slip in the hillock of flour in each of the bowls. She walked up the other side of the tables and finished the planting with one slip left.

‘The one you took away, Mr Dykes,’ she said, holding the slip up before him.

He swiped the paper from her grasp, opened it and stared at it.

The baker called out, ‘Fetch them in here then, Tommy. At the bloody double.’

‘I think your ears are blushin’, Mr Dykes.’

Grabbing the bowl Tommy ran off into the bakehouse without another word.

Kirsty completed her work with the scoop and filled the last of the bowls after which she was dismissed to the room again to finish her shift at the tables. Her fingers were soon sticky with icing and she settled to the task, glad to be in the company of other girls and women.

Letty leaned towards her. ‘Did Tommy try for a wee feel then?’

‘Aye, but I managed to put his gas in a peep,’ Kirsty answered.

Letty sniggered. ‘He’s a daft big bugger, so he is.’

For several minutes, while Mrs Dykes prowled close, they worked in silence, laying out snowballs, rock cakes, ginger diamonds, chocolate cups and clusters; then Kirsty leaned towards Letty and asked, ‘By the way, what happened to Lizzie Weekes?’

Letty stiffened slightly and exchanged a glance with Mrs McNeil, but neither deigned to answer and left Kirsty, unfairly, to find out about Lizzie for herself.

As he hurried to the stables on Sunday morning Craig was in a black mood. He was aggrieved at being called out to do menial work in the stables and irked at the realisation that he had blown money that would have been better saved. He detested the straw boater now, the striped jacket, regarded the wedding ring too as a wasteful expense; nobody cared a hoot whether Kirsty and he were married or whether they were not.

To his surprise, however, the morning’s labour cheered him up no end. The yard was abustle with carters, vanmen, boys and horsemen. There was a camaraderie here that he had not expected to discover and, since Mr Malone did not employ Society or Association members, everybody pitched in equally. Malone was the boss, though, of that there was no doubt. His word was accepted as law. He allocated the Sunday jobs just as he did the weekly rakes and had in his gift, as it were, the plum piece of Sunday work, a trip on the manure cart to Beattock’s farm near Canniesburn where there were pretty daughters and servant lassies and the ‘dung crew’ were treated to dinner at the farm and might stay as long as they liked, enjoying the country air, provided they fed and watered the dray-horse on their return to the yard and did not disturb old Willy Ronald, the resident horseman, who bedded very early.

Most important of all Mr Daniel Malone wore about his shoulder a big fat kidskin satchel out of which, about noon, he would take the weekly paybook and the money due to each man and check the total and shell out the chink.

For most of the morning Malone occupied a stool in a corner of the yard close to a well-fired brazier. He would sup strong tea from a can and smoke fragrant and expensive Havana Delmonicos and summon his special chums to him now and again for a joke and crack and, for most of the time, seemed affable and amiable. But Craig had one glimpse of the sort of man that Mr Malone could be if he was crossed, and the scene was the only cloud over the pleasure of the shift and left a wariness in Craig that Mr Malone’s overtures never quite managed to erase.

After grooming, the horses were run round the yard for Malone’s personal inspection. Old Willy stood by him to offer his expert advice and between them they were quick to spot an injury or an ailment which had not been reported. One carter, a youngish man, had, it seemed, failed to bring to Willy’s notice a puffy swelling on the hock of a dray that he had been driving for most of the week. Willy’s sharp eyes detected it before the horse had taken hardly a step on to the cinders. He tapped Mr Malone’s shoulder and Mr Malone flicked away the butt of his cigar, put down his tea-can and got to his feet.

Harry Shaw, the carter in question, knew what to expect. He tried to retreat. But Malone, too swift for him, shot out a big fist, caught him by the collar and sank a punch into his belly with such functional force that Harry had all the breath knocked from him and could only gurgle and gasp and slump on to his knees on the cinders.

Some carters looked away, others watched furtively. A few went on working as if nothing remarkable had happened.

Malone put a vice-like hand on Harry’s shoulders.

‘Harry, you should have told me about it.’

‘I – I – forgot, Mr Malone.’

‘Forgot be buggered. You took a stick to the animal.’

‘Naw, I swear, naw.’

‘Don’t bloody lie to me, sonny.’

‘It kicked itsel’, Mr Malone.’

Malone entangled his fingers in Harry’s hair and jerked him back so that he could look down into his face. ‘It’s a capped hock, Harry. When did it happen?’

‘Last – last night, Mr Malone.’

‘Did y’ not ask Willy to treat it?’

‘I – I forgot.’

‘You seem to have a right bad memory these days, Harry. Where were you yesterday? Bath Street, was it?’

‘Aye,’ Harry confessed. ‘Aye, on the long hill.’

‘You took a stick to it?’

‘Aye. But he’s no’ lame. It’s only swole.’

Malone released his grip on the scarlet-faced young carter. Near to tears, Harry scrambled to his feet.

Willy had already led the limping animal quietly away.

In the stable doorway Craig leaned on his shovel, hardly daring to breathe lest some undetected ‘crime’ on his part was brought to light during this period of inquisition.

‘Ten shillin’s, Harry; that’s the price of forgettin’,’ said Malone.

‘But, Mr Malone, I’ve got weans to feed—’

‘Christ, sonny, will you argue wi’ me?’

‘Naw, naw, but—’

‘You’ll be docked ten shillin’s. Think yoursel’ lucky to still have work. Now get out o’ my sight.’

Harry Shaw crept off into the shelter of a stable where old Willy had already begun to prepare the horse for surgery, a minor but dangerous operation done with a heated needle. If Willy was careful and skilful, which he always was, then the beast would be fit to pull a light cart again by the week’s end.

Malone seated himself on the stool once more, grinning. He dug a fresh Delmonico from a leather case kept in his inner pocket. He struck a match and rolled the cigar end in it, lighting the tobacco evenly while he squinted this way and that through the smoke. Craig did not quite have the wit to turn away before Mr Malone’s gaze alighted on him.