Simon on Factory Girl;
"I guess at some point we have all, or at least most of us dreamed of something new in our lives, and that isn't to say we don't lead happy lives. It is just that some people would like to go just that little bit further, and ambition? Well, there is nothing wrong with ambition, but don't take my word for it.
Listen to the story through the eyes of Jody, a Factory Girl that not only wants but deserves better."
Contains words and scenes that may offend some people.
She crashes, she bangs, and she wallops her old battered red car into the factory car park. Her bad driving is either a result of the anti-depressants she is on, or the fear she feels for the factory, but she still manages to land her vehicle next to all the other working-class chariots. She is aware that all those cars tell a story, there is passion or prejudice in the paintwork of each one, she just has to figure out which is which before she drowns in it all.
She holds in her hands her lunch, her pad, and her pencils. They will all occupy her troubled mind come mid-day whistle time when the dash for the local chip shop looks like an Olympic event and those that blew all their money on booze at the weekend with settle for cheese sandwiches and a flask of lukewarm coffee.
As she pulls open the doors to this working cathedral, she realises that it isn’t the noise, the roar of the factory that greets her first. No, that honour belongs to her boss. She has exactly one minute to get to her place and doesn’t he let her know it? Sixty seconds, no less no more and she will make it.
She always does, so why does he, he, insist on yelling?
She shrugs her shoulders at him and makes her way forward to do the best she can, but she is terrified, disappointed, hopeful and beautiful because most of her beauty is in her honesty.
It is apparent as she picks up yet another piece of card and treats it with honour. She knows that once the card is done, once yet another birthday has passed, and that same card is in a bin on an estate where the candles have been blown out and life has moved on, well she did her bit.
“Happy Birthday,” the card reads as she pushes down the printing press on it, the steam all but curling her hair. No one knows they forgot hers. No one even knew that today was the day she reached another milestone and another year on her clock passed by.
The whistle, well it whistles, the machines stop, and the factory girl takes her goods, takes them by the hand and walks past the wolf-whistling men. Men who try to romance her, men who try to belittle her, men who just ignore her. She likes the last ones the best.
Except. Little rat-faced weasel is the first to break ranks.
“Hey Irish,” he shouts. “Are your lot planting any bombs in this English town tonight?”
“Jeez,” she thinks. “The fucking ignorance of these people.”
Instead, she says this. “No Frank, my dad has a Union Jack on the wall and a mug with the Queen’s head on. We’re the other side.”
Frank laughs, as do his co-workers. They laugh at factory girl, at her, not with her and she notices the difference.
One. Just one has to. He couldn’t help himself.
“So, Jody,” he sniggers. “We all want to know. Do you spit or swallow?”
Jody is dignified and proud. She neither denies, confirms or indeed acknowledges the filth that comes from the voice of disdain.
Instead, she walks on. She walks on and sits herself down outside, takes out her sketch pad and does what she does best. And it isn’t spitting or swallowing.
*
Once the working day has passed and the people trundle out of the factory to homes filled with televisions, shouting, cuddles and kids, factory girl takes her red car and reverses the journey to her own humble abode and a house without a mother, the mother that passed away some time ago at the hands of bottle after bottle of Irish stout.
It isn’t that she minds her dad. It isn’t that she is afraid of him because he has never given her cause to be afraid. It is just his Irish brogue can play on her sometimes. On her nerves like.
If he is singing his songs, his misty-eyed love songs, or talking to her like a child, then that brogue is a quite beautiful thing. But heaven forbid there is another atrocity, another bomb, another slight on Queen and Country, then Jesus Christ and his disciples, the language in the house, the veiled threats, well they make Jody go and seek solace and comfort in her room. Her room and her art.
Later though when her dad has calmed down, she will join him for a nightcap.
“Don’t let it worry you Dad,” she will say. “It’s their problem, not ours.”
And her dad will nod, and her dad will tell her, “That factory isn’t yours forever you know sweetheart.” And this time it is her turn to nod. “I know Dad, I really do.”
*
The factory hums the full hums it needs to make to keep the owner rich. The glue is pasted to the birthday cards, the Christmas cards, the ‘sorry your fucking cat has died’ cards, and Jody does her bit.
She does her bit but come lunch time her sketches become something more and it is all she can do to keep herself running home to the cheap easel her dad brought for her. It’s all she can do to stop the paint spilling onto the cheap carpet of this worn-down house, she and her dad occupy.
She paints, she draws, she creates and her ever-nagging doubts tell her “NO!” She should not enter it into that small gallery showing that accepts newcomers. “NO” She screams at herself.
“Why not Jody? Why not you?”
She is startled by her dad’s voice in the open doorframe, leaning in, surprising her.
“Because it’s crap,” she moans.
Her dad chuckles. “We both know that isn’t true. We both know you wouldn’t have picked up a brush if you really thought that” he says, his Irish brogue neither here nor there. “I’ll spot you the entrance fee if you’ll do me the pleasure,” he says, for he is a kind dad, despite his occasional temper.
Jody nods.
*
Young girl and old man load a canvas into a battered old car. They shut the doors shut (as doors should be shut) and they trundle down the road to a small, independent art gallery, though it is very well known, and very well respected.
They unload the car and set up the stand, setting up the stand being the most difficult part. And then they wait.
They wait and wait and wait and nobody even nods in their direction.
“Time to wrap up pop” Jody says, but her dad’s eyes say otherwise as he has noticed a very distinguished chap approaching and looking at Jody’s work.
“This,” he says. “This is very, very good. We should talk,” he says before moving on, but not before giving her his card.
And Jody looks at her work, looks at the women toiling on her canvas, toiling one fucking birthday card after another as certain men watch them, the eyes of Wolves on their faces.
And Jody realises. She will never have to listen to someone ask her if she spits or swallows again.
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