My Clocking In System

He got to Jodie’s road at 5 to 9 with a bag of biscuits he had bought at a garage on the Wandsworth Road, and she had the door open before he was off the scooter.

Jumper, tape measure round her neck, hair up in something with a pencil through it. She looked at her own watch and then at him.

"Five to."

"You said nine and you said you meant nine."

"I did say that." She stood back to let him in. "Right. Rules. You’re doing the tea, you’re not touching that machine, and if I go quiet it’s not you, it’s the sleeve."

The front room had been turned into a workshop overnight.

The table was pushed against the wall with the wobbly leg on a folded envelope. The machine was out of the corner and into the light with the flex taped down across the floor. There was a cutting mat on the carpet that took up half the room and a pile of dark green wool on the settee with tissue paper between the layers.

And on a hanger on the back of the door, the one from Saturday. The one she’d worn to Bernadette’s.

"That’s the pattern," she said, seeing him look at it. "That’s the only one that exists. If I cut wrong I’ve got nothing to check against."

"Should you not hang it up somewhere safer?"

"Where? There’s 3 rooms." She was already on the floor with the chalk. "Kettle’s there. I’m not having one yet."

He made one anyway at 20 past, because she had not looked up in 25 minutes, and she took it without saying anything and put it down where she could reach it and did not touch it for 40 minutes.

Then she drank all of it in one go and held the mug out sideways without turning round.

"That was cold."

"You left it."

"I know I left it. I’m not blaming you." She had 4 pins in her mouth and it came out with all the consonants gone. "Ffanks."

The machine does not go continuously. It goes for about 9 seconds and stops for 2 minutes. Brrrrrp. Then nothing. Then a chair scraping round. Then brrp. Then nothing for 4 minutes while she looks at something with her head on one side.

She swears at seams and she swears quietly, under her breath, in a completely different voice from her normal one.

The people above have a child of about 3 who runs from one end of the flat to the other and back at 20 minute intervals all morning, and Jodie does not hear it any more and Danny could not stop hearing it.

Somebody knocked at 11 for next door and Danny took the parcel in because Jodie had a sleeve in her hand, and the delivery man said "you’re a legend, mate" with no feeling in it whatsoever.

At 5 past 12 the needle broke.

TCH.

"Oh, you are joking."

"What’s happened?"

"Needle’s gone." She was already up. "Because I’ve been going through 4 layers on the collar, which you’re not supposed to, which I know, and I’ve done it anyway 3 times."

It took her 20 minutes.

Not to change the needle, which took 90 seconds. To find the box of needles, which was in a tin, in a bag, in the bottom of the wardrobe, under a bag of zips she had bought in 2019 and never used.

Danny sat and watched her go through it on her knees.

"You could get a little box," he said. "One of them plastic ones with the compartments."

"I’ve got one."

"Where?"

"That’s the problem, isn’t it." She came out with the tin. "Right. Where were we."

At half 12 she stopped, stood up, put both hands in the small of her back and swore at the ceiling.

"Right. I need you to do something."

"Go on."

"Hold that." She put a half-made sleeve in his hands and turned him by the elbow to face the window. "No. Higher. Up by your shoulder, and don’t grip it, you’ll mark it."

He stood there holding a sleeve up at the light for about 4 minutes while she looked at it from 6 feet away with her head on one side.

"Is it wrong?"

"Ssh."

"Sorry."

"It’s not wrong. It’s not right either." She came over and moved his hand about an inch and went back to where she’d been. "There. That’s the seam pulling. That’s because I did it on the machine and it wants doing by hand."

"How long’s by hand?"

"Forty minutes a sleeve."

"There’s 12 sleeves."

"Yes, Danny. There’s 12 sleeves." She took it off him. "You can put your arm down now."

She got going properly after that.

Two sleeves and a collar between half 12 and 3, and she talked for most of it, over the top of the machine and in the gaps, and about a third of it was to herself.

"See, this is where it goes wrong for everybody. Everybody does the body first because it’s satisfying and then they get to the collar and the collar’s the whole garment." Brrrp. "Anybody can do a body."

"Who taught you?"

"Nobody. I did textiles at school and I was all right at it, and then I did nothing about it for 10 years."

"Why?"

The machine stopped.

"Because I got a Saturday job at 16 and they made me a supervisor at 19 and an assistant manager at 22." She was picking at something with her fingernail. "And every time somebody moved me up, the reason I gave for not doing the other thing got more sensible."

"Right."

"That’s how it goes. Nobody stops you. You just get promoted out of it slowly by people being nice to you."

She got the seam under the foot again.

"My mum thought the machine was a mid-life crisis. I was 26. She stood in that doorway when it come and said, oh, that’s a big one, is it? And I said it’s a Bernina. And she said, is it, and went and put the kettle on." Brrrp. "And then about a month later she come round with a bag of her mother’s buttons. Never said anything about it. Just put them on that table."

"Have you used them?"

"On these?" She looked up properly for the first time in an hour. "No. Not on these. They’re not for these."

At half 1 she was sat on the floor with a calculator and a bit of paper and her mouth doing something.

"You’ve gone quiet in the specific way," Danny said.

She looked up.

"That’s mine, that is."

"I know it’s yours. I’ve been saving it."

"Well, don’t." She went back to the paper. "It’s horrible when it’s pointed at you."

"What is it?"

"It’s numbers and it’s depressing." She turned the paper round anyway. "Fabric’s £14 a metre and there’s 2 and a bit in each one, so call it £32 with the lining and the thread and a zip. Six of them, that’s near enough £200 and I’ve paid that already."

"Right."

"And she’ll take them sale or return, and sale or return means she takes half."

"Half of what?"

"Of whatever they go for. That’s standard, I’ve not been done." She tapped the pen. "So if they’re priced at £120 I get £60, minus £32 to make it, so I clear £28 a dress. And that’s 7 hours’ work each, so I’m on 4 quid an hour."

Danny sat forward with his elbows on his knees.

"That’s not the sum."

"It’s exactly the sum."

"It’s the sum for 6," he said. "You’ve done all your setting up for 6. If you did 20 you’d not be pattern cutting 20 times, you’d cut them 4 at a time, and your fabric would come off a roll and not a length, and a roll’s cheaper."

Jodie stopped tapping the pen.

"How much cheaper?"

"I don’t know your trade. But I’ve been buying stuff for a shop for a month and the difference between a length and a bulk order on everything I’ve bought is somewhere between 20 and 40 percent, and the first order’s always the dearest one you’ll ever place." He nodded at the paper. "So do the sum again for 20."

She did it. It took her about 90 seconds and she did it properly, muttering.

"Nine quid an hour."

"And that’s before she puts the price up, and she will, because £120’s what you’ve decided it’s worth and not what she has."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I’ve had 3 people in a month tell me what my own shop’s worth and every one of them said a bigger number than I did."

Jodie sat and looked at the bit of paper.

"Nine quid an hour is still rubbish."

"It’s rubbish for 20. What’s it for 100?"

"I can’t make 100, Danny, I’ve got a job."

"No. But somebody could." He shrugged. "That’s a different conversation and it’s not this week’s one."

She was quiet for a bit.

"You’re annoyingly good at this," she said.

"I’m 4 weeks ahead of you and I’ve made every mistake you’re about to make. That’s not good at it."

"No." She was folding the paper up. "That’ll do though, won’t it."

She went back to the machine and did not say anything else for 20 minutes, and then, without turning round:

"Twenty. Not this lot. The next lot."

He did not answer that, because she had not asked him anything.