The Last Telegram

From The History of Silk, by Harold Verner

I was sitting in a deckchair in the garden on that warm May evening, refreshing my tired feet in a bucket of cool water, a gin and tonic in my hand and reading the latest edition of True Romance while horned stag beetles bumbled around me in the dusk. I should have been content, but I wasn’t. I was desperate for some romance of my own. Though fabled for having one pub for every thousand residents, Westbury offered few opportunities for meeting people, and John seemed to spend more and more time in London.

Robbie’s intimately whispered promise to ‘see you very soon’ rang hollowly in my ears. He hadn’t been in touch for three long months, not since the meeting at the mill. I’d stopped trying to be first to the telephone each time it rang, and had given up rushing to meet the postman. I was lonely and my social life was at a standstill.

So when I heard the raunchy toot-ti-toot of a car horn I didn’t waste any time putting my shoes on, and sprinted round to the front of the house barefoot. John was already waiting on the front step.

‘Nice motor,’ I said, as a low-slung dark blue sports car drew up.

‘It’s a Morgan, spelled M-O-N-E-Y,’ he whispered back.

The car scrunched to a halt on the gravel. Robbie looked just like a Hollywood leading man in his fur-lined flying jacket and a white scarf of what appeared to be parachute silk. His long absence was instantly forgiven. He pulled off his leather pilot’s helmet, pushed himself up and swung his legs over the door.

‘My new baby. What do you think?’ He seemed extremely pleased with himself.

‘Beautiful,’ we chorused.

He pumped John’s hand, ‘How are you, old man? Long time no see.’

He lifted my fingers and kissed them with mock formality, eyes flirting, then looked down at my bare feet. My toes felt suddenly vulnerable.

‘Hello Lily. Love the red nail polish, terribly erotic – I mean exotic.’ He grinned with easy familiarity. ‘How’s tricks, one and all?’

‘Not bad, not bad,’ said John. ‘Like the Morgan.’

‘Little beauty, isn’t she? Fancy a spin? There’s room for both of you, if Lily doesn’t mind sitting sideways in the back.’

The smell of Castrol on the warm evening air promised adventure. As Robbie shimmied the car through the twisty lanes, each bend brought a new aroma; a greenstick bonfire, hay drying in the field, pungent piggeries, water mint, wild garlic and the sweeter notes of bluebells and cow parsley.

We pulled up at the pub and while Robbie went inside to get the drinks John and I sat on a bench by the river, watching an anxious mother duck shepherding her ducklings and listening to the calls of coots settling in the reed beds.

‘I wonder why he’s popped up just now?’ John said. ‘We’re still waiting for him to sign that parachute silk contract, you know? It’s been a while.’

‘Are you going to ask him?’

‘Watch and learn, Sis,’ he said, tapping the side of his nose.

Robbie arrived with the drinks, and for a while we made small talk. ‘Been doing much flying lately?’ John asked.

‘She is no more,’ Robbie said, pulling a sorrowful face. ‘Had a bit of a prang.’

‘Golly. You crashed it?’

‘I’d been out for a spin – lovely evening, bit like this. I was just coming into land when out of nowhere comes this ruddy great removal van toddling along the edge of the field,’ he said smoothly. ‘Managed to avoid it but the wheels clipped a hedge and next thing I knew we were doing a somersault. Fine in the air, that kind of thing, but not so clever at ground level. Ended up with her nose half buried in a ploughed field and me hanging upside down in the straps.’

He demonstrated leaning out of his seat, chest parallel to the ground, arms gripping an imaginary joystick, mock terror on his face, making us laugh. It seemed like a bit of a lark. We expected a jokey punch line.

‘What did you do?’ John asked.

‘I felt this wet in my hair. It was petrol, dripping out of the tank onto the engine block. So my mind got made up sharpish. I jumped for it and ran away across the field. There was a ruddy great whoomph and the whole thing went up. Guy Fawkes would have been proud. That was the end of the plane, though. Miss her terribly.’ He jerked his thumb towards the Morgan glistening in the twilight, engine ticking as it cooled. ‘But the insurance paid for that little beauty.’

The story shocked me, much more than I’d expected. What if Robbie really had gone up in flames? I could imagine what John was thinking: we could have lost the contract, too.

Robbie took a swig of his pint. ‘C’est la vie. Anyway, what’s been happening in Westbury? How’s business?’

‘Not bad, not bad, considering,’ John said.

‘Tough times for us all,’ Robbie said. ‘The harder old Chamberlain bargains for peace, the harder we seem to be working for war, don’t you find?’

He offered us cigarettes from a slim monogrammed case and then, as he lit them for us with his gold Dunhill, added quite casually, ‘By the way, how’s the finishing going? The parachute contract’s yours, you know, just as soon as you’re ready to meet the specifications.’

John didn’t miss a beat. ‘The finishing plant’s in and we’re confident it’ll be up and running in a week or so.’ I sipped my shandy and smiled to myself at his bullishness. The truth, I knew, was less impressive.

For weeks now, John and Father had been preoccupied with installing the new equipment. By moving machinery around they had managed to clear a section of the winding mill to create a self-contained room next to the boiler house with its own double doors leading directly into the yard, convenient for the plumbing, drainage and hot water needed for the new plant. The equipment arrived from Switzerland on a lorry so long it had difficulty in negotiating the driveway. Each heavy section had to be lifted and rollered into the new finishing room before the machinery could be assembled. A team of engineers worked several days to construct it and link up the plumbing and wiring.

‘You’re very quiet, Lily,’ Robbie said, turning to me. ‘I gather you’re in charge of weaving the stuff? How’s that going?’

‘It’s going fine.’ I caught John’s eye. Just watch me play the game too. ‘It’s a plain taffeta in twelve momme habotai, and to be honest it’s a doddle compared with some of the other things we have to weave. We should be able to get you some samples any day now, just as soon as the plant’s up and running.’

Robbie nodded as if he knew what I was talking about and John suppressed a smile. I surprised myself, too; it was a heady feeling, being an expert. Not what men usually expected of women, I thought, smugly.

What I said wasn’t far from the truth. Weaving parachute silk was straightforward: thread of equal weight for both warp and weft, with no patterns or colour changes. Twist and tensions were clearly defined. The yarn we used was still ‘in the gum’ – the sticky sericin the caterpillar exudes to make its cocoon – which made it easier to handle. It would be ‘de-gummed’ by boiling the woven cloth as part of the finishing process.

Gwen had put me in charge of two looms weaving test runs with Stefan, so that he could take over two of his own once the contracts came in. As she predicted, he was already a good weaver and I found myself looking forward to working beside him each day. At first it was exciting to be developing a new material, but it was vital to be vigilant against broken threads, and these were tricky to detect against the blinding whiteness of the material. After hours of watching yards of plain white cloth emerging from the shuttle beam our eyes burned and we begged Gwen to let us weave stripes or Jacquard designs to relieve the boredom. But she was immovable. ‘It’s important work, has to be right. And you two are our experts now.’

After Robbie dropped us home John said, ‘Very impressive, schwester, the way you talked that up. You’re turning into a right little businesswoman.’

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ I said, feeling quietly proud of myself, flattered that he’d noticed.

‘Of course, it helps that he’s pretty sweet on you. Better keep it that way, we’re going to depend on him in the next little while.’

‘He’s not sweet on me, you’re just imagining it,’ I snapped. ‘Besides, just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I have to simper at any chap with a chequebook.’

John backed away, palms up. ‘Steady on, old thing. I just meant keep on the right side of him, nothing more or less. But mark my words, he’ll ask you for a date within the week. I’d bet my hat on it.’

‘It’s that charming Mr Cameron on the blower. Wishes to speak to my beautiful daughter,’ Father said, exchanging approving glances with Mother.

‘I’ll keep my hat then,’ John said, making triumphant nudge-nudge gestures as I went to the telephone, cheeks burning.

The days till Saturday dragged slowly by. I was so excited at the prospect of my first proper date I could barely sit still. I emptied my wardrobe and chest of drawers trying on a dozen combinations of outfits, eventually settling on a tartan skirt and baby-blue cashmere twinset which felt both casual but also flatteringly feminine. My new silk stockings, fresh out of the pack, felt sleek and sexy. At last the evening arrived.

As I sat in the cinema with Robbie’s arm around my shoulders I realised with a little thrill of excitement that he bore more than a passing resemblance to the star of the film, James Stewart. Being in the company of this handsome man felt deliciously glamorous.

Afterwards we went for a drink in the pub and it was past eleven by the time we returned home. Robbie offered his hand and I climbed with as much elegance as I could muster out of the low-slung car. He wrapped an arm around my waist, and with his other hand turned my face to his and kissed me. At first it was demure, like before, but then I felt him push my lips apart with his tongue, exploring my mouth with it. I felt myself in the hands of a skilled operator, closed my eyes and tried to lose myself in the moment.

But the sensation wasn’t what I expected, not swoony, like in the movies. All I could think of was that he tasted of cigarettes and beer. I was glad when he stopped.

‘You dear sweet thing,’ he said, stroking my hair. ‘We must do this again. We could have some serious fun together. Tell you what, I’ve got a friend who has a cottage in the Peaks. I could borrow a friend’s plane and fly you there for a weekend. What do you think?’

‘That sounds … cracking,’ I stuttered. I could hardly concentrate as he kissed me goodbye, my head was in such a spin. Whatever did he mean? Was he really suggesting we should have a dirty weekend? That was a bit fast, even for James Stewart.

‘You were back late last night. Have a nice time, dear?’ Mother enquired as we cleared the breakfast dishes.

‘Lovely. The film was a laugh,’ I mumbled. ‘James Stewart’s a great actor.’

‘Charming young man, isn’t he? Your father’s quite taken with him,’ she said, distractedly.

Robbie was ideal boyfriend material. I was sure that I was falling in love. But how could I know for certain? What was I supposed to feel? Vera had been promised a weekend off soon, and I couldn’t wait to tell her everything.

A few days later Mother, John and I were eating supper informally at the kitchen table. Father had stayed over in London. Out of the window I could see the mill in darkness, except for the lights of the new finishing plant casting bright stripes across the empty yard.

John pushed the ham and potato salad around his plate.

‘Not hungry dear?’ Mother asked.

‘I’m fine,’ he snapped.

‘Sorry it’s only a cold meal tonight, but I thought, with this weather.’

‘I said I’m fine.’ Like the slam of a shuttle.

Another silence, then he banged down his knife and fork. ‘It’s that ruddy vat in the finishing plant. I just can’t get the thermostat and timer to work properly. I’ve tried and tried. We’ve wasted God knows how much silk by over-boiling it. Now it’s useless for parachutes and no one else is going to want it. We’ve spent thousands on this kit but unless we can get the silk right sharpish, we’ll never get the contracts to pay off the debt.’

He sighed, rubbing his stubbly cheek. ‘I’ll just have to go back after supper and have another go.’

‘Do you have to? You look all done in,’ Mother murmured.

‘Shall I come and help?’ I said, surprising myself.

‘Why should you? You’ve done a day’s work already.’

‘It’s important to me too you know, the future of the mill and all that.’ He raised his eyebrows. I barely understood how it had happened, but my apprenticeship no longer felt like filling in time until something better came along. I was starting to care.

‘Come on then,’ he said, pushing away his chair and getting up from the table. ‘A pair of fresh eyes won’t do any harm.’

Unlike the weaving shed, with its oily smells and dark looms, the finishing plant was dazzling – brightly lit and newly whitewashed, with shiny stainless steel vats and tubes, steamy and clean-smelling like a laundry.

Although I’d seen the machinery being installed I hadn’t watched it working before. John showed me how the silk went through two large baths of boiling water to be de-gummed and rinsed, and how to lift the silk onto hooks called stenters which stretched it back to its previous width. After that it was hung in a hot air cupboard to dry, and run through yet more rollers to be pressed.

‘Looks simple, doesn’t it? But it’s not. The silk has to go over the rollers at exactly the right speeds, and at the same time the temperature in the vats has to be exact.’

He wiped his brow. ‘And even supposing we get all that right, we have to make sure the silk goes through the drier at the right speed and temperature so that it’s just damp enough to be put through hot rollers to iron it – what we call calendering.’

Stacked on a rack were rolls of the untreated white silk Stefan and I had woven. ‘I’ve had the vats heating and the thermostat says they’re at the right temperature, so shall we have another go? Help me up with this roll, would you?’

‘Hang on a sec,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you say there was a problem with the thermostat?’

He frowned. Why was I asking difficult questions when I knew nothing about it? ‘How am I supposed to know if we don’t try it first?’

‘Use a thermometer? Good old-fashioned kind?’

‘Where on earth can we get one of those at this time of night?’

I had a moment of inspiration. ‘Mother’s jam thermometer, the brass one on the hook above the stove. I’ll run back and get it.’

We lowered the thermometer into the vat on a piece of wire and, once the rolls were in place, John clicked a switch and the machinery started, pulling the silk through the first two vats. The steam ran in rivulets down our faces as we worked side by side hooking the silk onto the stenters. John turned his attention to the control panel and checking the thermometer. I went outside to cool off.

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