November, 1st
Bessy:
Tough nut to crack.
Dogged, pigheaded, heartless man.
Mr. Thornton is all of that and even more, refusing both to me and father one day out to take Phil to the doctor's office. He thinks that because he didn't finish school and now owns a business, everyone must be like him. Of course, easy for him to say that. He wasn't knocked-up by the first pretty smile that shoved a hand down his pants, the idiot! I'd bet he wouldn't be so rich and airy now if he had had a baby latched to a boob all day and night before he was even allowed to drive a car.
I'm seething and angry and I stop to take a couple of breaths before riding my bike. I don't want to break a leg or worse, add a ticket to my budget. Maybe Mary can take Phil to the doctor or do the morning mail round, but her driving scares the hell out of me and I don't trust her to tell the doctor exactly what's wrong with my boy. I don't want her to come back with antidepressants instead of a lotion to cure that awful rash.
Today is a crappy day but has the promise of a better ending because I'm meeting Margaret at the pub. This Margaret is the most interesting person I've met, so pretty and polite. I sometimes wonder if she's shitting me, if it's all a facade and she laughs behind my back, but then I meet her again and she's so friendly that I forget these thoughts.
If this is all a ruse, then at least I'll enjoy it while it lasts.
Margaret:
The reality of mother's sickness is slowly trickling into our daily life. She spends more and more time upstairs in her room or with her friend Bertha, who has practically moved in. I've taken up some of my father's pupils, but not Mr. Thornton, my father's favorite.
Tonight I met Bessie at the Black Dog and she asked why I seemed so out of spirits, so I told her about mother. She told me her mother died of cervical cancer when she was 14 years old and that she got pregnant only a year later. I suppose that she had the worst possible introduction to female genital anatomy, contraception and sex education, but that's a thought I keep to myself.
In turn, she has problems of her own. She needs a day out to take her kid to the doctor but can't not show up to work. I offer to take him and she says she'll think it over. After all, hospitals are likely to become my natural habitat shortly.
November, 4th
Richard:
As it often happens, Mr. Thornton's lesson has morphed into something else entirely. We've had a very interesting conversation on managing capital and human resources, and how sometimes kicking someone out was mostly beneficial to the rest of the workers.
He believes that principles are fine, but as he explains, how do you get the job done when your employee is allowed a day off whenever he or she sneezes? And if your employee is absent and the job is not done, how do you keep your clients?
Margaret has arrived home and is sorting the mailing while we have this discussion. Mr. Thornton invites her to join us but I think he regrets doing it later. They butt heads over labourer's rights and profits, women as workers, over capitalism and environmentalism, global and local. It seems they got into a Gordian knot.
But this time Mr. Thornton emerges victorious from their sparring. His argument was so disarming that even he seems surprised of its effectiveness to end the discussion. He simply says that the system is already there and it's his duty, as business owner, to make the best of it for everyone; and that means, simply, everyone. He adds that another social and economic system wouldn't necessarily mean that everyone would have the same opportunities; matter of fact, he argues, it's this highly evolved system of social welfare what allows less than profitable opportunities to exist. Under other circumstances people like Bessy Higgins couldn't even get out their homes, let alone have a job.
Margaret's face looks as if someone (Mr. Thornton actually) had put duct tape on her mouth. She seems mightily displeased but she smiles politely and stays with us until the lesson is over, when she sees Mr. Thornton out.
I just hope she didn't kick him the the rear after he stepped out.