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Authors: John Bemrose
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say. “There isn’t anything he doesn’t know about this place.” Alf wondered if Gordie was about to leave him with this bunch.
Prince introduced the others. Their names and faces flashed by him. Jacobson. Martin. Raleigh. Macrimmon. Each of them leaned forward, following their boss’s example, to take his hand. A thin man with rimless glasses looked at him more directly than the others. Then the green eyes fled.
“And this is Shirley,” Prince concluded, with a hint of affectionate condescension. He offered no last name, as if like a child or a mascot, the young woman at his side did not need one. Shirley preened in her heavy makeup, smiling at a place beside Alf’s head.
To his relief, Gordie stayed to conduct the tour. The assistant manager led them into the first aisle of machines. Unsure what he was wanted for, but relieved at no longer being the centre of attention, Alf tagged along.
They stopped by the first machine, a Richardson. In a circular drum, hundreds of latch needles made a soft hushing sound as they worked in rapid synchronization while, above, bobbins swept around and around on a carousel, wafting a faint breeze over their sweating faces.
“If you could stand up here by me, Alf.”
His mouth suddenly dry, Alf took his place beside Gordie. To his relief, the assistant manager seemed determined to do all the talking. Alf thrust his hands in his pockets. His fingers found a key, the teeth of which he raked absently with his thumb. A bit of lint drifted across the floor, and on a distant window ledge sun glinted on a pigeon’s neck. Gordie’s high, frantic voice scissored the close air. He was explaining how the mill was organized: knitting at the top, cutting just below, all the stages stacked over each other so that, at the end, the finished sweaters could flow out the door. Alf cast a glimpse at Shirley’s bodice, the artfully undone button there an undoubted happiness.
Out of nowhere, his father’s drowned body rose. He saw the pale head laid back on the metal table in the back room of McArthur’s Funeral Home, saw the deep, nearly bloodless gash crossing the shoulder and chest like a bandolier. The wound had not killed him, Rick McArthur told Alf. He had drowned first. Then sustained his injury while turning in the currents under the dam. “The old timbers down there,” Rick told him, “they’re thick with spikes.” He had never forgotten that phrase, “thick with spikes.” He would think of it as he crossed the Bridge Street bridge and happened to glance upstream at the dam, foaming benignly across the river. Thick with spikes , as if some monster were down there, bristling with spines: an unimaginable power.
Momentarily, he felt adrift in space, a ghost among the humming machines. Brushing the sweat from his brow, he looked up. Prince was listening to Gordie in a fume of impatience. The executive’s heavy jaw worked frantically at a piece of gum, and he was casting hard glances around the room. The other men seemed to have caught their boss’s unhappiness: their frowning faces fed off it like scavengers off a half-eaten kill. Only Shirley seemed unaffected. Her girl’s eyes, alive behind the mask of her makeup, had been drawn to the machine working in front of her. She seemed hypnotized by the streaming threads, which raced from the bobbins to be consumed by the drum of pullulating needles. But what mainly fascinated her was the place below the drum, where the tube of patterned cloth appeared as if out of nowhere, inching down between the machine’s iron legs like something newborn.
They moved deeper into the room, down the aisles of tall machines, under the drive-belts thrumming near the high ceiling. Most of the machines here were older than the Richardsons: with their stationary racks and dark metal they had been churning along since Alf’s father had started as a fixer here, back in the Twenties. The knitters took care to keep clear of the visitors. Occasionally, a
Prince introduced the others. Their names and faces flashed by him. Jacobson. Martin. Raleigh. Macrimmon. Each of them leaned forward, following their boss’s example, to take his hand. A thin man with rimless glasses looked at him more directly than the others. Then the green eyes fled.
“And this is Shirley,” Prince concluded, with a hint of affectionate condescension. He offered no last name, as if like a child or a mascot, the young woman at his side did not need one. Shirley preened in her heavy makeup, smiling at a place beside Alf’s head.
To his relief, Gordie stayed to conduct the tour. The assistant manager led them into the first aisle of machines. Unsure what he was wanted for, but relieved at no longer being the centre of attention, Alf tagged along.
They stopped by the first machine, a Richardson. In a circular drum, hundreds of latch needles made a soft hushing sound as they worked in rapid synchronization while, above, bobbins swept around and around on a carousel, wafting a faint breeze over their sweating faces.
“If you could stand up here by me, Alf.”
His mouth suddenly dry, Alf took his place beside Gordie. To his relief, the assistant manager seemed determined to do all the talking. Alf thrust his hands in his pockets. His fingers found a key, the teeth of which he raked absently with his thumb. A bit of lint drifted across the floor, and on a distant window ledge sun glinted on a pigeon’s neck. Gordie’s high, frantic voice scissored the close air. He was explaining how the mill was organized: knitting at the top, cutting just below, all the stages stacked over each other so that, at the end, the finished sweaters could flow out the door. Alf cast a glimpse at Shirley’s bodice, the artfully undone button there an undoubted happiness.
Out of nowhere, his father’s drowned body rose. He saw the pale head laid back on the metal table in the back room of McArthur’s Funeral Home, saw the deep, nearly bloodless gash crossing the shoulder and chest like a bandolier. The wound had not killed him, Rick McArthur told Alf. He had drowned first. Then sustained his injury while turning in the currents under the dam. “The old timbers down there,” Rick told him, “they’re thick with spikes.” He had never forgotten that phrase, “thick with spikes.” He would think of it as he crossed the Bridge Street bridge and happened to glance upstream at the dam, foaming benignly across the river. Thick with spikes , as if some monster were down there, bristling with spines: an unimaginable power.
Momentarily, he felt adrift in space, a ghost among the humming machines. Brushing the sweat from his brow, he looked up. Prince was listening to Gordie in a fume of impatience. The executive’s heavy jaw worked frantically at a piece of gum, and he was casting hard glances around the room. The other men seemed to have caught their boss’s unhappiness: their frowning faces fed off it like scavengers off a half-eaten kill. Only Shirley seemed unaffected. Her girl’s eyes, alive behind the mask of her makeup, had been drawn to the machine working in front of her. She seemed hypnotized by the streaming threads, which raced from the bobbins to be consumed by the drum of pullulating needles. But what mainly fascinated her was the place below the drum, where the tube of patterned cloth appeared as if out of nowhere, inching down between the machine’s iron legs like something newborn.
They moved deeper into the room, down the aisles of tall machines, under the drive-belts thrumming near the high ceiling. Most of the machines here were older than the Richardsons: with their stationary racks and dark metal they had been churning along since Alf’s father had started as a fixer here, back in the Twenties. The knitters took care to keep clear of the visitors. Occasionally, a
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