with her loss, although Imelda herself knew from experience you never actually got over the death of a loved one, just learned to live with it. Because of her own bereavement and her soft spot for Aidy, Imelda had been making allowances for her mistakes, but she couldn’t afford to any longer.
She had just come out of a very tough meeting with the factory owner, the works manager, and all the rest of the departmental foremen and women. The recession was biting deeper. Thousands of jobs were being lost on a spiralling basis across local industries, with no prospect of those workers obtaining other gainful employment until the situation improved. Up to now the hosiery industry had got off lightly; people always needed clothes, and despite a huge rise in poverty amongst the working class, there were still others who did have money to spend, especially among the middle classes who bought the good-quality wares produced here. But now the recession was affecting even the moneyed classes who were also cutting back on their spending. As a result of this the factory’s orders were being cut, some even cancelled. The owner had ordered that each department was to halve its workforce and warned there would be no pay rises in the foreseeable future for those who remained. Once it had been decided which workers were to lose their jobs, a general announcement would be made. Until then, management had been warned to keep tight lipped.
As she looked at Aidy, it distressed Imelda to observe how the once lively and happy young woman had changed. She seemed drained, as if her life blood were being slowly sucked from her. Imelda couldn’t afford to be sentimental at a time like this when even her own job was in jeopardy, but there were many others she’d sooner get rid of than Aidy. She decided she would offer her one final warning to pull herself together or else her name would have to go on the dismissal list.
‘You should have had that batch finished by now, Aidy. Your mother’s been dead five weeks … I can’t afford to carry your slacking any longer. Pull your socks up! I’m warning you, this is the last time I’m going to speak to you on this matter.’
Aidy gulped. She knew exactly what was meant. This was Imelda’s way of warning her that if she didn’t up her production, then it was time for her cards.
But how did you manage to summon up energy you just did not have? While still grieving terribly for the loss of her mother and her marriage … she wasn’t sure which of them was the worst … Aidy was working in the factory nine hours a day, five and a half days a week, plus tackling all the work involved in single-handedly looking after her family. It was all beginning to tell on her. She looked and felt exhausted. As soon as her head touched the pillow, she was swept into oblivion. But it wasn’t a restful sleep, not with the constant nightmares Aidy was prey to. She suffered from vivid dreams of her family and herself knocking on the door of the workhouse, that prospect being her ever-present dread. She feared it would become a reality if she didn’t somehow muster the energy to up her pace and fulfil her daily work quotas.
She hadn’t even the strength to make an excuse now for her underachieving. Imelda took the look on Aidy’s face to mean she’d got the message, and went on her way.
‘You ain’t told Hardwick about yer home circumstances, have yer, Aidy? You ought to, then she’d know just why you’re having a job keeping up and hopefully make allowances for you, until yer gran’s back on her feet and taking some of the workload off yer.’
Aidy turned to look at her friend on the machine next to hers. Colleen Brown and she had started at the firm within a week of each other and had immediately hit it off. It wasn’t long before they were spending all their free time together and had met their respective husbands within months of each other at the local youth club. The couples had often made up a foursome while they were courting. These days they didn’t see each other much at all out of work as Colleen’s spare time was taken up by her husband and three children, the same as Aidy’s family took up her time now. Only Aidy knew that