Read Online After the Storm by Margaret Graham - Free Book Online Page B

wasn’t careful. She pressed her leg against Tom’s as she sat down.
    Betsy looked at Annie and then at Tom. His wide-eyed look betrayed him. Just like his da when he’s up to mischief, she thought. Ah well, let them have some fun, thinking all the time of the unpaid invoices she would have to deal with this evening and the partnership papers that Albert was coming to sign, though what good it would do to pool their meagre profits she could not understand. If there was no work, there was no money for traders. Even those in the pits knew they could be working today and not tomorrow so were being canny with the pennies, especially with wages going down, not up.
    She shivered, looking at the rashers she had put before the family and worried about the future. For the moment they werejust about fed and clothed. But for how long? She sighed. It must be time for another of Ma Gillow’s readings. Maybe the tea leaves would be clearer this time. She lowered herself heavily on to the chair and played with her meal; the fat had congealed and a thick whiteness coated the bottom of her plate and she had little appetite.
    ‘Your knife is not a pen, my dear,’ remarked Archie.
    Automatically Betsy shifted her grip, no longer stung to a retort. At least the bugger had been right about one thing she thought; she wouldn’t know what to do if she had a string of bairns hanging off her skirts as her mother would have said. At least she did not have to suffer a husband’s beer-breathed Saturday night demands and Archie’s pale hands on her body. Betsy wiped her forehead with her arm. The thought of her belly full with Archie’s child made her feel sick.
    She stretched back in the chair. Her hands were swollen and aching again from the beer kegs and they would be worse tomorrow and the next day and for as long as she had to drag and hammer and cork hop-reeking barrels.
    Again Archie broke into all their thoughts.
    ‘I’ll just get along to the study and make out Bert’s invoice. He’s coming along later to settle.’ He rose. ‘Now, be in by ten all of you and no mischief.’ He looked particularly at Annie before leaving and laughed at Don who said:
    ‘As if we would.’
    They all watched as he reached the door. He seemed to hesitate, then passed through. Betsy pursed her mouth in frustration; wouldn’t we all like a study to hide in, she thought, but at least this time he’d given her lad the same as the others. Annie and Don nodded to Tom to follow as they slipped from the table and made for the door.
    ‘Before you go, please make sure you wrap those lead bits in cloth,’ Betsy had spoken softly, smiling as she caught the clink when they stopped abruptly.
    Annie swung round, her mouth open.
    ‘And don’t think you were the first to work out that fiddle.’ Betsy laughed. ‘Just make sure you’re not the first to be caught.’
    Don and Tom dodged out of the door. Annie remained, looking closely at Betsy who stood with her back to the light but there was enough from the fire for her to really see her and shewas shocked. Her step-mother was not really old, she realised. In fact she was young where the lines hadn’t dug in and spewed out wrinkles. She must once have been a child and laughed in the sun, and pity twisted inside her and drew her across the room, back to the bowed shoulders and cruelly worked hands.
    Betsy was now looking at her with gentleness in her eyes. Annie touched her hands which were like the sausages in Fred Sharpe’s window, blotchy and glistening. How could Betsy bear to leave behind the things that she and Tom knew. The smell of blackberries as they burst, ripe segments between thumb and forefinger, the pink mice from the corner shop. Leave them behind for this. She thought of the cooking, the washing with arms deep in water again and again as she dollied and scrubbed the same clothes week after week. The house was a prison to be escaped at all cost and so was the shop with its smell of beer and a