Hunger Town by Wendy Scarfe

the workers were black figures silhouetted in the mouth of Hell. That their faces, eyes and hair were not seared was a miracle.
    I had made some drawings of the workers in their leather aprons and sketched the boy suspended from the huge belt. Barely able to hold on, he was a figure dancing in space, carefree but precarious, his grip on the belt as tenuous as his grip on life.
    Earlier when my father expressed his anger at the unprotected dangers of the foundry I had taken out my drawings and rather shyly shown them to him and to my mother. My mother, busy preparing the evening meal, glanced at them cursorily. ‘Yes, dear, very nice,’ she said. My father grunted dismissively, ‘Those leather aprons are bloody heavy to wear all day.’ And at the sketch of the belt-swinger, ‘Bloody idiot. I’d take a belt to him, no mistake. And it wouldn’t be the one he’s riding like some crazy cowboy.’
    Although not certain what it was I had expected or even wanted from them I had hoped for more. Disappointed and deflated I returned my sketches to the drawer. Over the years I had accumulated quite a pile of them.
    Reflections about Harry’s fate had brought my own life into focus. Lack of education doomed him to the foundry; lack of education doomed me to the Chew It and Spew It. My life stretched before me a desolate dreary wasteland of drudgery. I read of other women with different lives. They weren’t always happy but it seemed that their strivings had some dignity. Even the tragic endings were beautified and uplifted by passion. In the pages of a book, women’s lives unfolded meaningfully and their fantasy lives made my own seem worthless by comparison. Sunday excursions to the gardens with Winnie seemed minor diversions, sweet but pointless interludes. In fact, I was set to have a real fit of the blues.
    My mother watched me gloomily pick at my food and suggested that I accompany my father to the Club to change my books. As our financial situation worsened, she fell back on my love of reading as some consolation she could offer me. I knew she felt guilty that I was unhappy and knowing her financial struggles I felt miserable for inflicting my gloom on her.
    This emotional tangle passed my father by. Hard physical work from childhood had been his lot. He lacked the imagination to perceive that for me it might not be enough. So my mother watched and worried and suffered for me silently. I was coming to dislike my father and didn’t think that a trip to the Club would help me but in the face of her worry I agreed to go.
    â€˜Got over your grumps?’ my father said. Sulking, I refused to give a yes or no answer.
    â€˜Still feeling sorry for yourself?’ he needled me and in a hectoring voice told me how lucky I was to have a job, three meals a day and some pleasures in life. He had never been able to stroll in the gardens with friends or go to the cinema, all he had had to do was work and damned hard work it had been. I should be grateful that my life was so much better.
    Close to tears, I resented his attack. My mother intervened: ‘Stop it, Niels. Stop harassing her. You’ve said enough. More than enough. Button your lip and take your daughter to borrow some books. You should be grateful that you can offer your daughter something more than you had. She needs other things for her life. We all need other things.’
    He grumbled and I would have liked to refuse to go but after her intervention it was impossible. In a fit of defiance, to assert something that was individually mine, I took out several of my drawings, placed them in a folder, collected my over-due books and went with him. Maybe, I thought, Joe will be there tonight and we can talk.
    I kissed my mother goodbye. She had turned on the wireless and taken out her darning. The wireless was her consolation and tonight she listened to George Wright singing ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes’.