Opal Plumstead Read online

  I stared at the great golden mass, fascinated. Alfred took a phial, pulled open a lump of the golden glory and sprinkled a few drops here and there, kneading them in quickly to distribute the flavour.

  ‘What is he making?’ asked Mr Beeston.

  I sniffed. ‘Lemon drops!’ I exclaimed. ‘Oh, he’s going to make hundreds of lemon drops.’

  ‘No, our Alfred isn’t a one-trick pony, dear. We pride ourselves on our variety of sweets at Fairy Glen,’ said Mr Beeston. ‘Let’s see what he tackles next.’

  Alfred cut off another lump of sugar dough and sprinkled it with a different phial.

  I sniffed again. ‘Peppermint!’

  Alfred kneaded the new piece of dough thoroughly, turning it time after time and slapping it about on the slab.

  ‘It must be quite cool now,’ I said.

  ‘Only on the surface,’ said Mr Beeston. ‘You try sticking your little finger right inside the sugar dough, Opal Plumstead.’

  I did as he suggested and gave a little squeal. It was still boiling hot. I had to suck my finger hard. Mr Beeston and Alfred laughed at me.

  Alfred seemed to have hands made of cast iron, because he continued working the dough without flinching. Then he suddenly seized it and flung it over a great hook set in a post. I stared, open-mouthed, as he pulled the sugar into a great shining strand, then threw it over the hook again and again and again, his rhythm as regular as a metronome. As he worked, the yellow syrup turned pure white before my eyes.

  ‘It is magic,’ I said.

  I watched Alfred make several skeins of peppermint, then carry them to another corner to lay them in front of a row of gas jets. He went backwards and forwards making more pliable candy, keeping it warm once it was successfully pulled.

  He now coloured one of the skeins bright pink.

  ‘To make raspberry drops?’ I asked.

  ‘To make pink-and-white kisses,’ said Mr Beeston.

  ‘Kisses!’ Olivia and I had often bought these lovely little pink-and-white sweets, giggling as we popped each one in our mouths, comparing it to an imaginary kiss.

  ‘Kisses are pink and white,’ I said. ‘How do they get mixed up together?’

  ‘Look, look!’

  Alfred snipped off another lump of white, pulled it together with the pink, then folded them firmly. He fed them into a little machine, placing the pink and white mixture between the rollers, like Mother passing shirts through our mangle. There was a grinding noise as a young lad turned the crank of the machine. The dough came out the other side, a long strip of pink and white marked into small squares.

  ‘See to it, Freddy,’ said Mr Beeston. The young lad beat it firmly, and it divided into familiar little kisses.

  Mr Beeston consulted his pocket watch and speeded up our tour. I watched sugar syrup being mixed with gum and turned into a paste spread out on a marble table. It was punched out into little lozenges with a tin tube. I saw the syrup boiled extra vigorously until it turned brown, and was then sprinkled with slices of coconut to make dark coconut candy, cut into slabs when cold. I saw sugar mixed with great slabs of butter over the flames, the smell so sweet and rich my mouth watered.

  ‘It’s toffee!’ I said, and watched as my favourite toffee chews were concocted, a toffee layer poured on the slab and left to cool a little, then a layer of flavoured soft sugar dough, and then another layer of toffee. It seemed so strange to me now that when I’d popped one in my mouth I’d never wondered how each toffee chew had been constructed.

  ‘Where will I work, Mr Beeston?’ I asked, wondering if I could turn the handle of the kiss machine, or cut the slabs into little squares.

  ‘You’ll be upstairs, missy, with the other young girls,’ he told me. ‘Come with me. And pick up those skirts, I can’t have you taking a tumble.’

  I clutched handfuls of my unwieldy overall and made my way up the rickety spiral staircase at the end of the vast hot room. I was clearly showing too much leg because Freddy, the young lad on the factory floor, gave a loud whistle. I blushed scarlet, my shirt sticking to me under the starched overall.

  ‘Careful now,’ said Mr Beeston as we got to the iron landing. He opened a door and I stepped into a strange new room with a stifling atmosphere. Mr Beeston had said that young girls worked upstairs, but at first glance the room seemed full of grey-haired old grannies. I wiped my steamed-up glasses on the sleeve of my overall and peered again. No, they were girls – girls with pale grey hair and pale grey skin and pale grey overalls.

  ‘What’s happened to them?’ I whispered in alarm.

  ‘These are my ghost girls,’ said Mr Beeston. ‘I lock’em up here for months if they give me any cheek and they go grey when they don’t see the sunlight.’

  I stared at him.

  He nearly split his sides laughing at me. ‘You believed me! Just for a moment you believed me!’ he spluttered.

  I hadn’t seriously believed him, but I smiled foolishly to be obliging.

  ‘It’s starch, Opal Plumstead. Don’t look so worried – it soon washes off,’ said Mr Beeston. ‘Here, Patty, let me demonstrate to our little new girl.’

  He gestured to the black-haired girl who had called me a guy. She was stooping over a large shallow box, and rolled her eyes, but came and stood before us, grey hands on hips.

  I knew she’d been as pink and white as a candy kiss half an hour ago. Mr Beeston took a white handkerchief from his overall, licked the corner with his big pink tongue, and then wiped it on her cheek. The handkerchief was smudged with grey, while she was left with a pink stripe on her face.

  ‘Have you had your bit of fun now, Mr Beeston?’ Patty said.

  ‘Yes indeedy, Miss Pattacake. Back to your work now. Do you see what the girls are doing, Opal? They’re making starch moulds – all different shapes, see.’ He opened a drawer and showed me a selection of sticks with a dozen little plaster balls like halves of marbles fastened to each one. He went over to Patty’s box of starch powder and pressed it down lightly. It left a row of little hollow shapes.

  I thought hard. ‘Fondants!’ I said.

  ‘Fondants indeed. These are the standard moulds, but we’ve got rosettes, bows, little fish, flowers, all sorts for our seasonal novelties. Come with me.’ He steered me towards the corner, where two men in protective aprons hunched over another big copper pan.

  ‘Here’s my burly twosome, George and Geoff,’ said Mr Beeston. He patted their rolled-up shirt sleeves. ‘See the muscles! It’s a wonder they don’t join the circus as strongmen.’

  The older man, George, took the vast copper pan and lifted it off the flames as easily as a teacup. He poured some of the fondant mixture into a smaller pan with a little spout. Then young Geoff delicately poured his mixture into each of the holes in the starch powder in the box.

  ‘They go off to the drying room over there and will be left until tomorrow. Then they are given their special finish – look, over here,’ said Mr Beeston. He took me over to another girl, who was standing in front of shallow pans and yet more boxes. She poured sugar syrup over the hardened fondants. We waited a little, and then watched the sugar crystallize on the shapes. She drained the syrup off to be used again and showed off the finished fondants, shining like precious jewels.

  ‘Here, sample the wares,’ said Mr Beeston, and he picked out a gleaming fondant and popped it in my mouth. I pressed my tongue against it, my whole mouth filling with sweetness. It was the taste of Happy Days, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  ‘There now, Opal Plumstead. Isn’t it sweet to work at the Fairy Glen sweet factory?’ said Mr Beeston.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I replied uncertainly.

  ‘So we’ll set you to work straight away,’ he went on. ‘Patty, you’re in charge of this little lass.’

  My heart sank as the dark girl looked up again, her eyebrows raised quizzically.

  ‘Keep an eye on her, show her what to do, and generally be kind to little Opal Plumstead,’ said Mr Beeston.

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