Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Shaw Media/Global TV.
There are certain kinds of people Betty McRae just plain doesn't like. Rich folks. Snobs. Airheaded girls. Oversexed, meathead guys who think that women's sole purpose in life is to look pretty, cook five-course meals at a moment's notice, put out for any man who whistles after them, and spit out babies. As it stands, Betty hasn't quite decided which category Kate Andrews belongs to.
Kate is a new factory girl who has moved into the room across from Betty's in the rooming house. She's on Betty's shift at work, too, so Betty is responsible for training and supervising her. Betty saw from her papers that Kate is twenty-four years old, but honestly, Betty's seen sixteen-year-old girls more equipped for life than that timid little mouse. Last night, in the rooming house, Kate just about had a fit at the thought that she wouldn't be able to lock her bedroom door, like she was scared the other third floor girls would rob her blind the minute she turned her back.
If that were the only thing Kate had done, Betty could just forget about her entirely, but this morning, on the line, Kate dropped her amatol can. It's one of the most dangerous things a worker can possibly do, in a place like this. The can was nearly empty, so it just made a loud bang and sparked a bit, but Betty's not in the habit of going easy on people who put everyone else in jeopardy. Firing is far too good for anyone who makes a mistake like that.
Yet somehow, it's been four hours and Kate is still an employee here. Betty keeps going over and over it in her mind, and she's still not quite sure how that happened. Betty told Kate she was done at Vic Mu, Kate's eyes filled up with tears, and Betty … just backed down and let her stay.
All the new girls will be spouting crocodile tears now, to try and get round Betty. It just goes to show what a moment of weakness can cost you. Betty honestly thought she had a heart of ice when it came to anyone who compromised the factory's safety. She's proven it over and over, which just makes Kate even more puzzling. Kate is far from the first worker to cry in front of Betty, but she's the only one Betty hasn't canned on the spot for a mistake that big, even on their first day.
"Just remember to be nice," Edith says, taking the work station on Betty's right, snapping Betty out of her reverie.
"Nice to who?"
"Seems you've got yourself a little shadow." Edith nods at the main doorway from the canteen.
Betty looks over her shoulder. The rest of the Blues are returning to their stations for afternoon shift. Most of them are obviously reluctant to get back to work after getting twenty minutes to rest their aching bones. By contrast, Kate Andrews has broken away from the crowd, hurrying back onto the floor in double-quick time, her gaze fixed on one work station in particular. Her eyes are as young and sad as any Betty has ever seen, but her mouth is fixed in a determined line – which is, again, somewhat at odds with her soft, reticent voice when she reaches the amatol line and asks Betty, "Do you mind if I work here?"
"It's a free country." Betty is severely bemused. Usually, the new girls' strategy for dealing with Betty after she's shouted at them is to squeak out, "Can I get a sub?" and then run like the dickens whenever they see Betty coming. They do not take the work station next to Betty's and try to engage her in conversation.
"I didn't see you at lunch," Kate ventures, after a moment. "Vera and Edith said that you usually sit with them...?"
"I decided to sit someplace else today." The second Betty saw who Edith and Vera had inexplicably chosen to eat lunch with, Betty opted to sit with Hazel instead. It's not often that two such spectacularly annoying people start on the same day: Gladys Witham, the poor little rich girl, and Kate Andrews, the walking disaster. If anything, Kate is the worse one of the pair. At least Gladys is safely up in the office, where Betty won't have to deal with her if she doesn't want to.
"I was hoping you might turn up," Kate says. "I wanted to talk to you."
Betty gives a shrug. "If you wanna say something, here I am."
To Betty's right, Edith gives a wry chuckle. It's the sound of her deciding not to get involved in what will surely devolve into Betty making a new girl cry … again.
Kate seems to steel herself before she says, "Please tell me if I make any more mistakes. I don't want to do anything else wrong."
"Well, that is my job," says Betty curtly. "I don't know about you, but I'm focussed on doing my job, and doing it well."
She looks sideways to find Kate's eyes lowered, her shoulders slumped forward. Something about Kate's stoic acceptance of Betty's bad-temperedness irks Betty. Show some backbone, she thinks irritably. Roll your eyes or something, like you can't believe how mean and unreasonable I am. Smirk like you can't wait to run off and tell everybody what a dragon that McRae broad is. Don't just stand there and take it! Don't you have any pride?
As aggravating as Betty finds people who can't stand up for themselves, when she next speaks, it's to make a clumsy gesture at goodwill. "I know it's hard being leered at while you're trying to work. That can't be helped. It's just what men are like. We've gotta be twice as tough as them, just to get by. Show 'em some gumption and they'll steer clear."
Kate's eyes flicker up, at long last. "Like they do with you," she says.
"They're not all bad," Betty says gruffly. "Don't get me wrong, most of them are completely full of shit – Archie Arnott, for instance – but Marco Moretti's a good guy. Flirts with anything that moves, but he doesn't think that any girl who says no to him is a frigid cow who doesn't deserve his respect."
Marco tried to chat Betty up when they first worked together. She could tell it was courtesy flirting, not a genuine attempt at seduction. Marco's not much for mouthy girls who wear trousers, he prefers really feminine women. Betty can understand what the appeal is. She figures that where she's concerned, it's probably the sheer novelty value, after spending her life surrounded by so many men, and being so butch herself. (Betty never heard the word "butch" before she came to the city. She still doesn't know if it's quite right for her, but she figures twenty-eight is too old to think of herself as a tomboy.)
With a jolt, Betty remembers where she is. She could kick herself for even thinking about that around someone like Kate Andrews. She can almost feel Kate being corrupted just standing next to her.
"I've got a bone to pick with you, though," Betty goes on. "All that business with the trays this morning. Didn't they tell you not to do that when you took the test to get in here? Keep your eyes on your work, call for help if you have a spill, does that ring a bell?"
"I think so," Kate says vaguely. "I suppose I wasn't listening."
"Hmm." Betty sighs. "Let me remind you that there are hundreds of people in this factory. I'll tell you if I see you're doing something wrong, but you've got to come and ask me if you're not sure, okay?" There is a slight pause before she adds, a little more forcefully, "I can't be all the time looking at you."
"I guess you'd prefer I asked you a stupid question than made a stupid mistake."
"Well, if you want someone brutally honest, I'm not about to mince words. You've gotta be a particular kind of bitch to train firsties. Putting the fear of God in 'em is key."
Kate is startled. "Oh, I don't think you're – one of those."
"A bitch?" Betty asks lightly, wiping off the spout of her amatol can.
Kate shakes her head. "Not at all." Clearing her throat, Kate stammers, "So, um, what do you like to do in your spare time?"
Betty never thought she'd see the day when she would meet someone who was even worse at making small talk than her. "Go out, have a drink, have a smoke. Normal stuff."
"The girls were talking about the dance tonight at the Sandy Shore Pavilion," Kate says. "I wondered, have you ever gone?"
Betty shakes her head decisively. "I don't go anywhere near the ocean. There's German submarines out there, ain't you read the papers?"
"Except..." Kate hesitates. "I think that's not an ocean. It's just a big lake."
Betty looks at Kate, whose eyes are once again on her tray. She's biting her lip. Is she trying to stop herself laughing? Normally, Betty would let rip with a cutting remark, to let everyone within hearing distance know that no fresh-faced little upstart in her first coverall gets away with giggling at her … only she can't think of a thing to say. She hasn't been this flustered by someone in ages. No, no, not flustered, annoyed. That's what it is.
"I'm from the prairies. Water's water," Betty snaps. It's far from the best retort she's ever made, but it'll have to do, because honestly, Betty is less concerned about putting Kate Andrews in her place, and more interested in forgetting that she ever made such an ass out of herself to begin with.
Suddenly, Edith is tugging urgently at Betty's arm. It's far from a happy distraction, though, because she's indicating two airmen crossing the floor. A hush falls over Blue Shift as they begin climbing the steps to the office. The stencil line, the amatol line, the cordite line all fall deathly silent as every woman with a son or husband in the armed forces – which is everyone, more or less – begins praying very hard indeed.
"What do you think they want?" Edith asks in hushed tones, as they disappear through the office door.
Every woman on the floor is making frantic deals with God in their heads. Not my husband, not my son, they beg as one, with a few of the younger girls, the ones fresh out of high school, starting to panic and silently plead, Not my boyfriend, not my brother...
"Maybe it's a message for someone in the office," Betty says. Better one of them than one of the Blues, she thinks, but can't quite muster the necessary spite, even just thinking it silently. Military uniforms are never a good sign around here.
"That's quite enough speculation," Lorna, the floor matron, says as she passes behind them. With anyone else, she would call it gossiping, but she likes Betty and Edith best out of everyone on Blue Shift. "Back to work, girls."
Everyone's hearts sink as the office door opens and Mr Akins descends the stairs, accompanied by one of the airmen. "Lorna, I need to speak with you," he calls.
Lorna goes stock-still. Her back is to them, but Betty can certainly picture the expression on her face. She always talks about her sons Stanley and Eugene with such love, such pride...
"Oh, Lorna..." says Edith softly, but she can't hide the relief in her voice. Awful as it is, Betty doesn't blame her one bit. She's got two kids under the age of ten, and no family here in Toronto – aside from her mother-in-law, but Edith makes no secret of the fact that they don't get on. For Edith to lose her husband would be disastrous.
"Yeah," Betty agrees. "Poor Lorna." They watch her walk over to Mr Akins, so slowly, like she hopes he might change his mind.
They watch as Lorna stands listening to Mr Akins. She's trembling, Betty can see it. Then, to their utter surprise, Mr Akins laughs at something Lorna says. Betty and Edith exchange a puzzled glance. He can't possibly be laughing and telling her that her sons are dead, can he? Betty wonders, perturbed. Nobody's that awful at breaking bad news.
The longest moment in the world trails by as they realise that it's not Lorna. Yet somehow, it's much too quick when Lorna turns on her heel and starts to approach the women on the amatol line. The silent clamouring reaches a crescendo – Not my baby boy, not the love of my life, not the man I was supposed to marry! every woman except for Betty is shrieking without making a sound – which ends so abruptly as Lorna's eyes pick a face out of the line. She says a name. "Edith?"
Slowly, deliberately, Edith takes off her gloves and cradles them against her chest. She looks so small as she steps out of the line. Betty wonders if she ought to go with her, to see if there's anything she can do, but it's all just wishful thinking. Betty is rooted to the spot.
Lorna takes a deep breath. "Edith, I'm so sorry, but Doug –"
If she says anything more, it is lost in Edith's wail of anguish. Edith crumples to the ground, dissolving into sobs. Lorna tries to help her up, to help her walk, but Edith is crying so hard that Lorna and the young airman have to support her off the floor. As the sound of Edith's grieving moves out of earshot, a terrible, towering, billowing silence fills the factory as everyone is simultaneously weak with relief that it wasn't them, and wracked with guilt for being so relieved.
Betty feels like she's been hit over the head with a sledgehammer. When nobody you love is fighting at the front, it's easy to forget that lives are being lost, that a person's entire world can change in the space of a second. Edith is all alone now, with two dependent children to bring up on the pitiful wages they get. She thought she was going to grow old with Doug, and in a flash, it's all gone. In fact, it's probably been gone all day and most of last night. Edith slept and dreamed of her husband, rose, ate her breakfast, guided childish arms into jacket sleeves and waved goodbye to her kids, never suspecting that the man she loved was gone. Betty couldn't think of anything worse than walking around like that, with God and his angels sniggering up their sleeves at you.
He's a bastard, she thinks viciously. Betty doesn't believe in God, hasn't since she was a kid, but she's got to blame someone for doing this to her friend and God seems as good a person as anybody.
Someone begins to sing. It takes Betty a moment to realise that it's Kate. Other girls sometimes sing on the line, but Betty always swings around and tells them to knock it off, that this is a place of work, not an opportunity to show off for the floor boys. Betty doesn't tell Kate to stop. She simply hasn't the energy to tell Kate to stop. Besides, Kate has quite a nice voice.
Kate's voice is more than nice, actually. Listening to her speak, the way she manages to make every word hesitant, you'd never think she'd have a singing voice like that. It's so pure and sincere and good. Kate Andrews' singing seems to make up for everything, every bad thing that ever happened in Betty's life or anyone else's. It's like that voice is reaching through time and space and singing Doug McAllum to a quiet, dignified death, a gentle closing of the eyes, with ample opportunity - days, weeks, months, years - to hug his kids and kiss his wife, instead of the quick and terrifying end he met in the skies over Germany.
When the song fades away, Betty almost wants to shout for it to come back. It was nothing more or less than the most wonderful music she's ever heard. She feels ... clean, somehow. How can she feel this clean so far into shift, when she's soaked with sweat and chemicals?
It's the damnedest thing, though. The second that Kate finishes singing, Betty can't remember a word of the lyrics, couldn't hum a single note of the tune. Her chest feels so tight, she feels pent-up and wretched, but some of what she's feeling – quite a lot of it, really – has nothing to do with what just happened to Edith.
Perhaps, in a way, it's best that she's so numb right now. Betty tries her hardest not to think about anything except pouring the amatol correctly.