Chapter 11: Guarantor

I sat up on the cot and looked at Peggy's hands for a long time.

Then I sent the picture to Zoe with one line.

"Don't show Peggy. Not yet."

She answered at once, which meant she wasn't asleep either.

"Wasn't going to. Going to kill him though."

I lay back down and watched the lamp until the first train came over at five.

In the morning I went to my bench as usual.

Oliver was already at the cutting table.

He looked up when I came in.

I walked past him to the stitching benches and sat down beside Peggy.

For two weeks, that was how it went.

I didn't speak to him unless it was about leather.

He didn't try to make me.

The crew noticed.

The crew noticed everything.

The apprentices stopped joking near the cutting table, and the old cutter started carrying messages between us.

"He says the side panels for twelve to twenty are cut."

"Tell him thank you."

"She says thank you." The cutter looked between us. "This is ridiculous. You know that? I'm sixty-five."

On Friday I found an envelope on every bench.

Inside each was a payslip for overtime, the hours Garland's zero budget wouldn't cover, and a note in Oliver's square handwriting.

"For the trunks. Back pay included."

Zoe did the sums in the office with her mouth full of crisps.

"That's twenty thousand pounds," she said. "Almost to the penny."

I looked out through the glass.

Oliver was at the cutting table with his back to us, working.

He didn't look round.

The following Tuesday the letting agent rang me.

"Your lease," he said, crunching. "Board wants a UK guarantor with property. Overseas tenant. Or there's no keys on the first."