Jean. With the biscuit barrel more like. Still, Penny and Rhona were cutting it fine.
They burst through the outer door together with a minute to go. Rhona looked as if she hadn’t had time to brush her hair, her coat was done up the wrong way and she was breathing heavily as if she’d been running.
‘Blimey, you’re taking a chance getting here with only a minute to spare,’ said Jean. ‘You do realise Forsyth has got it in for you after you dumped Andy? He’s been down here checking. You’d better watch your step or you’ll be out on your ear.’
‘Oh, I’m not worried about him,’ gasped Rhona. ‘I just overslept a bit, that’s all. We’re here now. Go on, Jean, pass me my overall and I’ll be ready in a tick.’
‘Good weekend, was it?’ Jean did as she was asked, arching an eyebrow. She could make a fair guess at why the girl was in such a state.
‘The best,’ grinned Rhona. ‘Thanks, you’re a star. Right, I’m ready to go.’
Jean wondered if her colleague would be safe to work near machinery but decided it wasn’t her problem. ‘OK, let’s make a start. You and Penny get down to the packing end of the production line.’
Rhona and Penny set off to their appointed places, Rhona leaning heavily on her friend.
‘You could have landed me in it,’ hissed Penny. ‘I’m all right to work even if you aren’t. I never should have waited for you on the corner.’
‘But you wanted to hear what happened yesterday, didn’t you?’ Rhona laughed. ‘Just as well ’cos I never would have told this lot the details.’ She grinned. ‘It was worth it, even if I can hardly stand up today.’
‘Rhona! That’s disgusting.’
‘I only meant with tiredness. Seriously, we didn’t go all the way. Not on our first real date, and that in the afternoon.’ Rhona smiled dreamily at the memory. ‘I didn’t mean to stay up half the night with Gary, and we were only talking. Well, and having a drink. Or several.’
‘You better suck on some more mints before Forsyth comes by,’ Penny advised her. ‘I can still smell it on your breath. He’ll notice it at once and you don’t want to be giving him any excuse to fire you. Turning up half drunk when you’re operating machinery is asking for trouble.’ She pulled out a stool and sat down at the conveyor belt.
Rhona collapsed on to the stool next to her. ‘Sorry. But you did enjoy the other night, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ Penny admitted. ‘It was great. Shall we go again or will you just want to be with Gary?’
Rhona jumped to catch a tin that almost made it past her. Damn, she thought, she really was going at half speed today. She’d better sort herself out or it wouldn’t just be her who was in trouble; it would mess up the whole shift. She liked her co-workers and didn’t want to get them in hot water if she could help it – but she wouldn’t be giving up her nights out for anybody.
‘No reason why you can’t come along when I next go out with Gary,’ she said kindly. ‘He might have other friends for you to meet. He’s bound to have, he knows lots of people. We’ve definitely got to go back to the Talisman. They play all the best music. How about next weekend?’
‘You sure I won’t be a gooseberry?’ Penny wasn’t completely convinced. ‘I don’t want to cramp your style or anything.’
‘Not much chance of that,’ said Rhona, tossing her head.
‘Next time your van breaks down on a Friday for God’s sake don’t wait until Monday to tell me,’ groaned Tommy. It was all very well handing over the day-to-day work of signwriting to his team but that relied on them having some common sense. Now it looked as if Jerry had none. The big man stood by the stationary van, looking helpless.
‘Didn’t want to bother you,’ he muttered.
‘Well, you were going to have to bother me at some time and if you’d done it on Friday we could have fixed it over the weekend and had it up and running this morning,’ Tommy told him, wondering if the message was getting through. ‘Now we’ve got a client who’s going to think we’re unreliable. That’s the last thing we want.’
Jerry shrugged. Clients weren’t his problem.
Tommy thought fast. ‘Right, you’d better have my van. Come back to the yard with me, and bring your stuff.’
‘What, do you mean I have to carry it all?’ asked Jerry, frowning. ‘It’s heavy.’
Tommy gave him a straight look. ‘It’s not far. Good job you only live a couple of streets away. The exercise will do you good.’
He set off without looking back to check that Jerry was following him. He certainly wasn’t going to offer to help carry anything after all the trouble the big man had caused.
Turning into his yard, Tommy ran into the office which stood at the back of the premises and came out with a set of keys to the van parked beside the main gate. He opened the back doors and took out some boxes. They contained his own materials, which he still sometimes painted with, but he didn’t want Jerry to use them. The man was a good signwriter when it came down to it, which was why he’d taken him on in the first place, but he was always losing things and was completely disorganised.
Jerry came puffing along the pavement and nearly collapsed as he staggered into the yard. ‘That’s all I’m taking. I couldn’t manage it all. Shall I sling it in there?’ He nodded to the open van doors.
‘Yeah, better put your foot down.’ Tommy watched as his employee threw his gear into the vehicle, his thinning strands of sandy hair plastered to his head with sweat despite the chilliness of the day.
‘I’ll be off, then.’
Tommy nodded, watching as Jerry backed the van up to the office and turned it before leaving the yard. He realised he’d better ring the mechanic straight away or else he might not get the broken van ready for tomorrow, and they had a lot on.
Before he could go into the office to use the telephone, a voice called out to him.
‘If it isn’t Tommy Wilson. It is you, Tommy, isn’t it?’
Tommy turned around and looked at the figure, whose face was indistinct because the late morning sun was behind him. The voice was sort of familiar but he couldn’t place it. He shielded his eyes and could see it was a man, almost as tall as him and heavily built. There was no point in denying who he was as there was a big sign over the gate saying ‘Thomas Wilson and Company, Signwriters’, so he went towards the stranger and said, ‘Yeah, that’s me. Who wants to know?’
The man stepped forward. ‘Don’t you recognise me, mate?’
Tommy squinted and moved so that the shadow of the overhead sign fell across the man and suddenly he could make out the features on his face. He was definitely familiar but he just couldn’t place him. ‘Yes, of course, it’s …’ He ransacked his memory
