That day after Clementina arrived, I’d to jog the two blocks from home to get to the factory on time, and I left my apron behind on the kitchen table. No clean apron, no start. But Lois came to my rescue with a spare she always kept rolled tight in her basket. Lois had never forgotten an apron once that I knew of, but she was a careful person who liked to be prepared.

I rushed, sweating, past Forewoman Vi outside the Creaming Room, but aproned I was and late I was not.

So they arrived, then, did they, ya friends from Pommie Land? Ollie asked as she squeezed blobs of buttercream onto shortbread halves through the nozzle of a huge bag.

Good thing Clementina Ratter canna hear ye calling her a Pommie!

Ollie looked puzzled. Well, isn’t she? Same as you?

What? Meggie English! Lois said, looking up from the lines of biscuits she was setting out for Ollie to cream. A Scottie, her—no mistaking that accent!

Ollie shrugged. Scotland, England, all the same to me! And she gave me a no-hard-feelings-you-can’t-help-it hug with an arm already greased to the elbows with cream.

Ollie!

All right, all right!

I placed the top halves on each biscuit, lightly pressing down to sandwich the cream, and Vi ran the trays of assembled biscuits into the Packing Room for wrapping in paper and sealing with wax. We swapped jobs, the four of us, every week, to ease the boredom of the same old routine, and Vi kept a watchful eye over the whole operation. There was nothing to stop us from talking from start of shift till the noon bell.

So what was it like, seeing your friends after all this time? Vi said, grinning.

I hesitated. I’d been thinking of little else all morning, but there wasn’t much I wanted to say just then. I liked my workmates at the factory—the girls from the Creaming Room, Enzia and Franca in Packing—and in time we became friends, but when it came to things that mattered, I was wary at first, shy of offering them up to be turned into fun, which is what the girls always did.

Clementina is the same, same as she always was, aye, an’ Stivvy looks a bit fatter …

And they’ve got two young kiddies, haven’t they? Ollie interrupted. Twins? What a handful!

I caught Lois’s look, the little shake of her head at Ollie.

Oh …

Vi broke the clumsy silence, bursting through the door. There was a problem with one of the ovens and we were to take our dinnertime early, as soon as this load was creamed.

We finished the trays. The girls chattered about the state of the ovens, glad to have moved the conversation on.