Page 43 of Lessons in Life

‘Well, there’s the canteen across the yard,’ Miss Gray suggested. ‘You can get a nice plate of pie and chips there as well as the day’s specials; they seem to be doing a lot of that awful curry stuff these days. The chippy down George Street will be open, but there’s generally a queue… Or, if you head into Beddingfield village – just a five-minute walk – there’s a very nice sandwich shop. A bit pricey, but…’ Again she trailed off, obviously considering the boss’s daughter, straight from finishing school in Switzerland, would not be unduly concerned with spending a few shillings on her lunch.

‘Oh, look, please don’t worry about me.’ Eloise smiled. ‘Honestly, I really could do with some fresh air. I’ll explore the place; see how much it’s changed since I used to come down with Daddy… with my father… with Mr Hudson…’ For heaven’s sake, what was wrong with her, reminding this woman who’d been in charge of the General Office since Methuselah was in nappies who her father was?

‘If you’re sure?’ Miss Gray looked anxiously at the clock and then towards the door.

‘Oh, please, please don’t let me spoil your lunch hour.’

‘Forty-five minutes,’ the other woman warned. ‘Back here sharp at one fifteen.’

Miss Gray finally hurried out, a white M&S cardigan round her shoulders, and Eloise blew out a sigh of relief. That didn’t stop her being starving though. The thought of a plate of pie and chips (Muriel always held forth that the two together on a plate were for the working class and refused to entertain them in her dining room) had Eloise salivating, and she headed to where she thought the canteen was. She crossed a cobbled yard encumbered with huge containers of greasy-looking raw wool where the mill workers were sitting in the midday sunshine eating sandwiches, fish and chips from a newspaper and drinking from Thermos-flask beakers, while smoking, stuck into a tabloid or simply chatting.

‘Excuse me.’ Eloise hovered uncertainly where a group of men, all in dark blue overalls, were playing cards. ‘I’m so sorry to disturb your game, but could you point me in the general direction of the dining room?’

‘Yer what, love? What y’after?’ A balding, elderly man looked up at her, his voice kind.

‘The dining room?’

‘’Ey up, Lofty. Canteen, you’re after?’ A younger man grinned at his mates. ‘Aye, love, it’s up them steps over there.’

‘Thank you so much.’ Eloise smiled gratefully. ‘I’m actually really rather hungry.’

‘Aye, well, you’ll get sorted up there.’

She turned to where he’d pointed and started walking, a chorus of laughter following in her wake. Unperturbed, she took the metal steps indicated, her nose following a delicious smell of fried food, her growling stomach once again reminding her how hungry she was. On into a small canteen where she was met by a sea of navy blue interspersed with several tables of women wearing pink, lime-green and yellow nylon overalls. There must have been fifty of the mill workers sitting at tables of four or six, all tucking into plates of what appeared to be chips with everything: sausage and chips, egg and chips, beans and chips as well as the – much lauded by Miss Gray – pie and chips.

Embarrassed as heads turned, Eloise made her way to a serving hatch where four white-aproned women were on duty. Oh, she thought with some relief, not a great deal different from the school refectory at St Bernadette’s.

‘Could you tell me what’s in the pie of the day?’ she asked politely with a smile.

‘Sweeney’s best,’ a voice behind her guffawed loudly.

‘Lovely, I’ll have a portion of Mrs Sweeney’s best, if I may?’ Eloise continued to smile at the first serving woman.

‘Eh, love, he’s having you on.’ The woman tutted, shaking her head but laughing at the man behind Eloise. ‘And whoever’s sent you up here’s having you on an’ all. Office staff are next door,’ she added. ‘You can get through that door over there.’ She indicated with a nod of her head a door in the far corner. ‘You’ll get something in there.’

‘Right, thank you so much.’ Her face flaming with embarrassment, Eloise made her way through the tables, cannoning off a couple in her need to be out of where she appeared to have been made a laughing stock. She opened the door and was thankful to see two of the women from the General Office sitting round a big table of other females. Most were eating from their Tupperware containers while talking and laughing; some knitting in between bites of sandwich, a feat which Eloise, staring, found dextrously resourceful as well as riveting.

‘Miss Hudson, are you all right?’ Shirley from the General Office was on her feet.

‘Oh, Eloise, please…’

‘Have you not had lunch? I think they’ve just about finished serving now.’ As she spoke, the metal shutters came down on the hatch in the corner of the canteen.

‘Oh, not to worry, I really wasn’t very hungry anyway,’ Eloise lied. ‘I’ll get a cup of tea back in the office…’ And with that, she hurriedly left the room, taking the outer door and the steps on her right, bringing her out onto a patch of grass where ten or more girls from the weaving shed were laid out, stockings and tights off in an attempt to tan their pale legs in the hot sunshine. Trying to avoid their curious stares, while acting as if she always took this route through a sea of sunbathing girls and knew exactly where she was going, Eloise purposefully looked at her wristwatch as though she had an important appointment to keep.

‘Did you get your pie?’ one of the girls called.

Eloise turned to find half the girls now sitting up, staring after her.

‘’Fraid not.’ Eloise pulled a face.

‘You hungry?’ The girl, her hair in curlers and nylon headscarf, began to pull on a pair of stockings, fumbling under her lime-green overall for the suspenders to hold them in place. They were an old-fashioned shade of Calvados, Eloise noted, and there was a long ladder in one.

‘Starving,’ Eloise called back, fed up of answering to the contrary.

The girl stood. ‘D’you want a sandwich? I’ve a couple left. My mum always makes too many for me. Potted meat?’

Eloise’s stomach gave another rumble and her mouth watered. She hesitated and then walked over to the group of girls, who were now all sitting up, looking blatantly her way, an obvious object of curiosity.

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