Early to the Welfare Hall, Calico Adams, union member, cloth-worker without cloth, accountant, searches through papers and figures to find how much is owed by the Dockers', the Transporters', the Miners' Unions and the town council, and finds, with no surprise, that the outdoor care bill still does not balance with the town's needs.
CALICO ADAMS : One day, my dears,
sighs Calico. And the pile of paperwork deepens further.
ALICE WEAVER : Come,
cries Alice Weaver, the Cloth-Workers' Union boss,
ALICE WEAVER : there are children starving and parents unable to work! All these machines are killing our craft and their owners ignore our safety. There is no art left to weaving cloth and too few jobs in it to support us. Still, workers continue to come flooding in and find themselves without income or food or shelter or family, betrayed, dreams broken.
But no-one hears or applauds, for Alice Weaver, chairperson, is alone in the meeting room, preparing for battle, to beg, plead, and steal, to keep the Welfare open.
And below, in the refreshment hall, Lijah Corey counts, marks off, each of the people queuing for a meagre breakfast, writing down numbers from gingerly offered membership cards.
LIJAH COREY : Thirty-four, thirty-five, good morning, Etta, thirty-seven...
ETTA WATTS : Good morning, Lie, how are you today? Been many in tonight?
Lijah Corey, his count marked on his clipboard, considers the to-ing and fro-ing carefully.
LIJAH COREY : We ran out before breakfast was ready,
and old Mrs Watts queues and nods.
Lijah Corey, long faced, returns to the morning count but knows he'll not reach the end. He nods to each person. He marks them down. He knows they exist.
In line, Marjory Proops
MARJORY PROOPS : waits impatiently, glares at others, and still curlered and nightgowned, mutters about the unfairness; until a small child asks her in a piping, far-carrying voice,
CHILD : Are you allowed to work in your night clothes, then?
MARJORY PROOPS : My husband worked fifty years. Worked hard and paid his union dues.
Mr Alfred Proops, weaver, unlike his wife, voted to open the Welfare to the other unions of Under Smoke City, and to the poor when the city council failed to care.
MARJORY PROOPS : We paid our dues, we did,
his wife insists, and every morning, noon and night, she claims her meals instead of a non-existent pension.
Young River Khan sneaks into the empty library room, where workers may study to be engineers and managers.
Another young man laughs and catches at him.
RIVER KHAN : Hush, you idiot!
Calico Adams' eldest, Jacquard, peels off his heavy grey woollen jacket and rolls up white sleeves that show no signs of the labours to come in the bowels of a factory by a furnace in the coal and heat that will power his sisters' and his father's work.
JACQUARD ADAMS : Oh come on River, it isn't like no-one knows.
Dark fingers run through darker hair, flex, hold, lips meet and silence jokes and indignation alike, then part, allowing River to pout as Jacquard's broad chest rumbles with loving laughter that rolls around the library like the two men wish they dared to. Jacquard whispers of
JACQUARD ADAMS : Life together, forever, married, public
River hides his face, closing his eyes to the day.
RIVER KHAN : You're spoiling my fun.