Threadbare

Chapter 1

The scream was blood-curdling, as if an animal were having its throat cut. It reverberated through the hot, stifling air of the weaving room, slicing through the steady hum and thud of the looms with the sharp cruelty of a blade.

Inside my sheltered office I heard the noise as clearly as if I were on the factory floor. I was on my feet at once, though my bookkeeper held out his hand to pacify me. “Sir, please don’t trouble yourself, the manager will see to it…”

In two strides I passed both him and his tedious reports, the sheets of paper fluttering from his fumbling hands as he tried to get out of my way. I stepped out on to the platform outside my office, from where I had a view of the looms below. I could hear the wails and shouts even over the relentless clattering of the bobbins. Clusters of workers were huddled against the wall, their bodies silhouetted against the light from the tall windows. I saw the floor manager crouched down at the back of the room. The heavy spindles of coloured thread lay on the floor around him as if toppled aside in his haste to reach that particular loom.

Slowly the frantic noise lessened. Wails sank to mere moans; the pace of the machines slowed. The manager moved and then I could see the crumpled figure on the floor at his feet. A slender shape—a young woman, I thought. I employed many of them at the mill, as their hands were more skilled on the delicate finishing work, and they so often had young families or old parents to support. She was so still and her face so white I realised at once she was badly hurt. Then I noted the awkward position of her left arm and with sickening horror saw that her arm was almost torn from her shoulder, the elbow twisted awkwardly against her hip. A pool of blood seeped steadily from under her body.

The smell hit me for the first time; cloying, sickly-sweet blood. The wooden floor was stained like an abattoir.

The manager was shouting and gesticulating, ordering the other workers back to their positions. He glanced up at me and shook his head. She would die in a very short while, as any person would after such an accident. We’d seen it happen before. Carelessness or tiredness would nudge a worker one step too close to the machinery, and there’d be no mercy for them. I consider myself a humane employer and I’ll call my doctor to treat illness, but for this level of shock and dismemberment there was no aid to be sought.

There was another small group of workers gathered around the body. Some were crying, and they clutched at each other for support. They all had the same long dark hair as the dying woman, the same thin body under the shapeless shifts they wore, the same pale skin. I wondered briefly if they were family members, or from the same ethnic group. Then one of them, a tall young man, stepped away from the group and ran a hand roughly over his eyes. The sleeve of his shift fell back from his wrist, showing a strong arm but long, delicate fingers.

I was about to go back into my office but in that instant he looked up at me, and it gave me pause. Even from this distance, I could see his eyes were damp with tears. His pupils were dilated, an impenetrable blackness surrounded by vibrant blue irises. They glinted at me, vivid in his thin, smooth-shaven face. His mouth was surprisingly well-shaped for a man, and as I watched, the full lips formed words I couldn’t physically hear over the hubbub, but appeared just as clearly to me as if I had.

Help us all, he seemed to be saying. Help me.