‘Tell ’em,’ he said, ‘will you?’
He remembered before Bert married her, a highly made-up, round-faced nineteen-year-old wearing a tight skirt and high heels. She laughed loud at any dirty joke, and even in those days was never seen to smile. George was sorry for her. ‘She’s been with Bert long enough,’ he told Pam, ‘to have too much of him in her to be trusted, though I don’t suppose she would have been a very agreeable customer no matter who she married.’
The men were more easygoing. Pam had seen them so full of fun that even she had to laugh. It was their women who bore the cost of their juvenile ways, no matter what George thought. She hated what they did to their wives and, though with lesser intensity, what the women allowed to be done to themselves.
George stood on the doorstep. ‘Just tell ’em I called. I’d like to know when they can start the painting they promised.’
Mavis glared. ‘I’ve got to go out shopping. I shall have to see what I can get on tick.’
‘Tell ’em what I said.’ He walked down the pot-holed garden path, back to his car by the kerb.
19
They came to the workshop a week later, at half-past three in the afternoon. George was walking across the yard towards the office with a blueprint under his arm, and saw Bert smiling from the gate, Alf and Harry trying to get in behind.
George wanted to sound amiable. ‘You aren’t going to start today, are you? Be bloody dark soon.’
‘We had a few jobs to finish,’ Bert told him. ‘That’s why we had to put it off for a fortnight.’
They unloaded ladders from the van and carried them into the yard. ‘We’ll get half a wall done before we knock off,’ Alf shouted, as if an audience was present to cheer this announcement.
They reeked of ale. ‘You know your business.’ George continued his way to the office. They did: he had passed a newly painted house which they told him was their work, and though it wasn’t top class it proved that they could do a job well enough when they tried.
He was pleasantly surprised when they arrived at eight next morning. Even a grey sky and drizzle didn’t discourage them. On the other hand he disliked the fact that whenever he walked outside to the toilet one of them would call, urged by guffaws from the others: ‘What’s this, then? Got the shits?’ Or, if he were going across the yard to the cubby-hole of an office: ‘Hey up, George! Going to cook the books?’
It was as if three malevolently mouthed parrots were half-concealed at different points of his premises to taunt him for his two basic weaknesses. He didn’t even look up. They had always needed their bit of fun, though he didn’t like them using his first name so blatantly. The dozen workmen addressed him as Mister Hargreaves, but if he asked his brothers to do so, the ensuing ructions would diminish his status even further in the esteem of his employees. It was plain that his brothers knew it, and he should have realized the folly of allowing them to carry out any part of their trade on his property. They were well aware that he regretted his mistake in this respect, and so were determined to make him pay in case he had entertained any hope of them not taking advantage of it.
Their way of working seemed illogical, but they had laboured as a team for nearly a year, so obviously knew what they were doing. George had learned from experience that within reason you must let your workmen do things according to the method suggested by their own temperament, otherwise you were asking for trouble.
But what puzzled him was the way his brothers started work from three of the most widely separated points. While Bert began at the gate, Harry was on a high ladder painting the guttering just under the roof that overlooked the canal, and Alf laboured on window frames at the far end of the yard. No doubt they would eventually come together somewhere in the middle, providing, George thought, that sufficient standing room was left for them to apply the finishing flourishes.
On the second day George was shaping a complicated tool at his lathe when he felt a tap at the shoulder. He was irritated at the interruption, for none of the men would disturb him in his work, unless Edward had been injured when the school bus had crashed, or he had been kidnapped, or Pam had been taken ill, or his house had burned to a cinder. He switched off the motor and sud-tap, then turned to see what was the matter.
‘Would you come outside for a minute?’ Bert said. ‘We’d like a couple of words with you.’
He wiped his hands on a rag, and followed him into the yard where the others were waiting. Three newly painted patches shimmered at different corners of his eyes.
‘It’s like this,’ Bert said.
‘Like what?’ George snapped. ‘I’m busy this morning.’
‘We’ve run out of paint.’
‘And you stopped me at my work to tell me that? Get some more, then, can’t you?’
‘We’ve got no money.’
If he struck one, all three would surely hit him back. Even to shout would lead to his destruction. ‘No money?’
Bert looked grave, as if concerned for the reputation of their old-established firm. ‘Not a cent. Not even enough for a pint of ale, let alone paint. Even the petrol tank in the van’s nearly empty.’
‘And what are you planning to do about it?’
‘Not much we can do,’ Alf said.
Bert was more reasonable. ‘There’s a job we can start, up Mapperley. The bloke’ll give us fifty on account, and when we finish we can buy more paint and come back here. That’s the only way I can see out of it. It’s just a little difficulty, George. There’s no need to look so upset.’
He had been aware for a long time how much Pam disliked them and their stunts, but she could never know the depth of his loathing. ‘How much time will you need then to finish that other job?’
‘A couple of weeks,’ Bert said, ‘if we get a move on, and we can hurry, when we set our minds to it. This sort of upset happens all the time, George. Other small firms like ours have troubles as well. I know for a fact that one bloke’s been waiting eighteen months for some chaps to finish his house. He had terrible arthritis, and had to sleep in a garden shed all winter. It’s shameful what some of ’em are allowed to get away with. But we’re not like that, George, so don’t look so down in the mouth.’
He should have sent them away, then called in the biggest firm, no matter how high the cost, to finish what they had barely started. In other areas of business he acted with shrewdness and decision, but in anything involving his brothers he was totally unable to follow his intuition.
Bert was unnerved by the silence, and said: ‘There is one more way.’
George knew.
‘You advance us,’ Alf put in, ‘another fifty quid.’
George’s clipped tone impressed no one. ‘Never.’
‘And we’ll go in our own dinner hour to buy paint so that we can carry on this afternoon, with no time lost.’
‘Never. I told you.’
Bert knew when to conciliate. ‘That’s the best solution I can think of to our difficulties. It’s the only reasonable one, in fact. And it’s our money you’ll be giving us, after all.’
‘Can’t be done.’
‘Well, George,’ Alf said, as if heart-and-soul were on his side, ‘it’s up to you.’
It was. He felt as if his face had been blown off by the wind, his feet about to go the same way. He was helpless. They were right. ‘The robbing boggers had me over a barrel,’ he told Pam, ‘so I paid up. But families!’ he cried, in the only real anguish she’d ever heard from him, going on to describe her own feelings in a more vulgar manner: ‘I’ve shit ’em, before bloody breakfast!’