“I think the train’s coming,” interrupted the meek woman, looking over her glasses up the platform.
“Eh, by gum!” ejaculated the fat woman. Instantly she dug podgy hands into the top of her bundle, hoisted it to her hip and waddled forward. The bundle collided heavily with a porter who was looking the other way. He turned angrily. “D’you want all the ruddy platform?” promptly demanded the fat woman.
“Not much ruddy hope if I do,” the man retorted, his frown changing slowly to a grin, though as it were unwillingly.
“If you’re a gentleman, open th’ door,” said the fat woman.
The porter trudged round and tugged at the first one he came to. “You’ll take all the carriage wi’ that; what’re you goin’ to do with it?” he asked.
“Hang it on the knob,” was the quick reply; and at once the woman tried to butt the bundle through the door. It stack and she leaned against it. “’Ere, you, give a shove.”
She let go and the bundle stuck where it was. The porter gave a shove and then put his shoulder to it. “What the hell did you put it in this way for?” he demanded, and began to tug to get the bundle out again. The fat woman lugged, too, and the meek woman looked over her spectacles. Flo, who had followed them, suddenly realized that she needn’t get into their carriage, and that in fact she didn’t want to, but they were going to Manchester and might be useful to her there. So she made to get into the next carriage nearer to the engine.
“’Ere, you, there’s room in ’ere,” said the voice from behind that she already knew well. “You’ll be gettin’ lost if you’ve never been to Manchester.”
The fat woman, who was now leaving it all to the porter, looked at Flo in a possessive way. Flo felt caught.
“Why the hell didn’t you leave it at the laundry?” panted the porter as he struggled to turn the bundle in his arms and get it through sideways. It went in suddenly, so that he sprawled in after it over the step.
“You’ll want goin’ to the laundry yourself if you dust the floor wi’ your waistcoat that way,” said the fat woman.
He dumped the bundle in the far right-hand corner. When he turned to get out he was obstructed by the fat woman who was helping Flo with her bass.
“You should ’a had a train of your own,” was his comment as he pushed backward into the corridor and turned to get out through the next compartment. The fat woman tugged the corridor door shut after him. Flo was wondering whether she could put the bass on the rack when the fat woman took it off her and planted it on the seat opposite to the bundle.
“If they see ail th’ luggage as we’ve got, nobody’ll push in; I like a bit o’ room,” said the fat woman, and her meek companion waited while she plumped in the seat by the platform window with her back to the engine, and while Flo on the fat woman’s nod took the opposite window seat. The meek woman then selected a place by Flo, explaining carefully that she always found it better to face the way the train was going. “You like to see where you’re goin’; I like to see where I’ve bin,” said the fat woman, placing one podgy hand on the other comfortably on the round of her stomach.
Flo felt that the ride was going to be spoilt. Little as she had travelled by train she had always liked it. She found it fascinating to glide along through strange country, past strange houses, getting intimate peeps through back windows, down strange streets, seeing life going on calmly without one, as it were; it was like watching a film, and a film that to her was more interesting and satisfying than those she had seen in cinemas. She settled, staring steadily through the window, hoping that her companions would leave her alone. The guard’s whistle shrilled; someone shouted urgently “Get in!” The porter who had been standing idle close by suddenly rushed at the door and dragged it open with a “’Ere y’are. Plenty o’ room ’ere”, and in came in a flurry a young woman with a hat-box of black patent leather with scarlet edging.
“By gum, that were a near do,” said the fat woman, staring her over.
The newcomer seemed inclined to go through into the corridor, but hesitated on seeing the obstruction of the bundle and bass.
“You’ll be all right in ’ere,” said the fat woman, taking possession of her, too. “Are you goin’ to Manchester?”
The young woman said “Yes” clearly, as if she knew how to look after herself. “I was seeing my luggage in; that’s what delayed me.”
“I always keep mine.” The fat woman nodded diagonally at her bundle. “I’m havin’ none o’ my stuff put off at the wrong shop. Where I get off, that’s where my luggage gets off. Sally, there, were once goin’ to Brummagen an’ couldn’t find ’er luggage quick enough an’ got it took to London, didn’t you Sal?”
The meek woman said, “I did, but it wasn’t my fault,” and appeared to be going to explain why it wasn’t, only her companion went on:
“You’d look well landin’ in Manchester wi’ nothing but a new hat . . . I suppose that’s what you’ve got.”
The newcomer said that it was. The train slid from under the gloomy, station canopy and in the new white light Flo saw that the young woman was made up to a doll-like white and pink with ruby lips. The collar of her long grey coat was cream fur on which her hair rested in golden spring-like curls. The neck of her blouse, which was pink neatly sprigged with tiny daisies, went down in a deep “V”.
Flo, who had been so satisfied with herself before, at once felt the contrast. Why hadn’t they let her have a fur? Why was her hair so dull and straight? And she wished she had this young woman’s confidence, for she showed no sign of being flustered over nearly missing the train; she continued to answer her questioner evenly and pleasantly.
“What are you going to Manchester for?” asked the fat woman. “She’s goin’ to a farm, hand I’ve told ’er as she doesn’t know what she’s lettin’ herself in for.”
“I shouldn’t think she does,” said the woman with the curls, smiling with very blue eyes at Flo.
“I can tell you’re not goin’ to Manchester for that, anyway,” the fat woman went on. “You’re in a shop, I should think, aren’t you?”
“I’m travelling.”
“What for, hats?”
“No; moving on.”
“Moving on; what for?”
“She doesn’t want to tell you,” put in the meek woman with a suggestion of surprise, though it might however have been her most daring effort at reproof.
“What she doesn’t want to tell, I don’t want to know,” and the fat woman turned her bland greeny-grey stare at Flo again.
Almost without pause she went on: “I’ll tell you before you get there who wears th’ breeches at Prettyfield, an’ that isn’t Emmott. No bigger than two-three penn’orth of copper she isn’t, an’ ’e’s six foot summat . . . like a telegraph pole, wi’out wires . . . and he daren’t open his mouth when she shoos him.” The fat woman laughed loudly, ha-ha, and looked through the window as if she owned the landscape and just wanted to assure herself that it was there.
Flo felt confused before the newcomer. She had taken from her patent-leather handbag a neat oblong mirror and was finnickingly touching her curls into place with long fingers.
“You’re not a hairdresser, are you?” asked the fat woman, abruptly changing again the direction of her attack.
“No,” replied the other at once. “I wish I was; what profits they must make!”
“They don’t make owt out o’ me; nor out o’ Sal,” said the questioner as if what they might make out of others didn’t matter. “Them as want to go to them can afford to pay . . . if they’re soft enough.”
Without replying the young woman went on looking at herself. For the moment she appeared to be oblivious of them. The fat woman frowned, looked as if she were about to speak; then gave it up and stared out of the window again. The train’s motion joggled her breasts in the loose front of her cheap black dress. All at one she turned on the meek woman. “Where was it you buried your Jim?”