Free The River Flows On by Maggie Craig Page B

bullies like this one needed standing up to.
    ‘I’m used to hard work, Miss Nugent.’ Oh, Mammy, Daddy, what was she saying? Did she really want to spend five years with this tyrant? Did she have a choice? No - she didn’t. There was, however, one last question to be answered before she committed herself.
    ‘What about the girls who were laid off? Won’t they all expect their jobs back?’
    Miss Nugent looked shocked. ‘The decision on who gets a position here is taken by Mr Donaldson, his management -and trusted members of staff.’ A conspiratorial smile to Arthur Crawford left no doubt that Miss Nugent considered herself and him to belong to the latter group.
    ‘Half of them’ll have gone to Singer’s anyway,’ he put in.
    Kate knew that to be true. The Singer sewing-machine factory up on Kilbowie Hill was doing well - had even increased its workforce. Miss Nugent was speaking again.
    ‘With a new order on the books we at Donaldson’s have vacancies, especially for beginners like yourself whom we can train up.’
    Kate knew what that meant. It was an old shipyard trick. Once the apprentices completed their time, they were paid off and new apprentices taken on in their place. It saved the bosses from having to pay a time-served man the pay he was due.
    That five shillings wasn’t going to go very far. Lily would expect her to hand over almost all of it. And a five-year apprenticeship! Her dreams of the Art School were receding by the minute.
    Kate gave herself a mental shake. Both Arthur Crawford and Miss Nugent were looking at her, waiting for her answer. Who did she think she was, keeping these trusted members of Mr Donaldson’s staff waiting? A bubble of humour surfaced. And her only the daughter of a riveter, too. The lowest of the low.
    One day she would show them. She would become the best tracer Donaldson’s had ever had. She would rise through the ranks. Maybe she would even become a - what had Mr Crawford called them, ‘the folk who make the insides beautiful? - interior designers, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s what she would do. One day people would ask each other if they’d seen the beautiful designs Kathleen Cameron had done for the new ship - a transatlantic liner, of course, like the Lusitania and her sister ships, all built next door at John Brown’s. None of your rubbish. That would show Miss Nugent.
    Amused by her thoughts, she gave the woman a lovely smile. She would be gracious, like the young Duchess of York whom she’d seen on a newsreel last week. What was her name again? Princess Elizabeth?
    ‘Yes,’ she said, extending her hand the way she’d seen the Duchess do in the film, so dainty and lady-like. Maybe Miss Nugent’ll kiss it instead of shaking it, she thought. Aye, and then I can look out of those big windows and see the pigs flying past. Kate smiled again. ‘Yes, I should like to be considered for a position here.’
    Arthur Crawford saw her out, escorting her to the main gate. The shipyard was unusually silent, only a few men having been kept on to keep things ticking over. Even Robbie and his father had been laid off. Kate, remembering the boisterous and light-hearted crowd on the day of the launch of the Irish Princess, shivered.
    ‘Watch your feet.’
    Glancing down, she saw a patch of oily water, and stepped around it. They were at the gate. Arthur Crawford nodded to the gatekeeper who sat in a small office to one side of the huge double wooden gates, and opened a smaller door built into one side of them. Signalling to her to go through in front of him, he came out behind her into the sunshine of Dumbarton Road. He held out his hand.
    ‘Well, goodbye then, Miss Cameron,’ he said, ‘and well done. You can give yourself a wee pat on the back.’
    Kate, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, smiled at him and took the plunge. A tram car, bound for the terminus at Dalmuir, clanked and rattled past. She waited until the noise died away before she spoke.
    ‘Mr