A Daughter's Duty Read Online Free PDF Page B

He was kneeling before the tin bath in front of the fire, sluicing the coal dust from his upper body. He sat back from the bath, raising his arms and flexing his muscles, watching her out of the corner of his eye. ‘By,’ he remarked casually, ‘I’m ready for my bed.’ He took the towel from where it was hanging on the brass rail over the range and began rubbing himself dry, the upper half of his body gleaming white in the firelight.
    ‘I’m back.’ Rose put the bags down on the kitchen table and began to put the groceries away.
    From the room her mother called, ‘Rose? Rose, is it you?’
    ‘Yes, Mam, I’ll be in in a minute.’
    ‘Oh, aye, do that,’ her father said, his voice muffled by the towel. ‘Never mind me and my dinner, I’ve only been working all day.’
    Rose bit back a retort that so had she and went in to see to her mother. ‘Have any of the neighbours been in, Mam?’ she asked. For her mother was lying in a bed wet with sweat and her hair was sticking to her forehead. The grotesque lump on her neck loomed smooth and white, in contrast to the yellowish tinge of her face.
    Sarah Sharpe took hold of Rose’s arm and weakly pulled her close so she could whisper. ‘Your dad told them to keep out, that we can manage on our own,’ she confided, glancing at the door to the kitchen.
    ‘But why?’
    It was her father who spoke from behind her. Rose swung round and there he was, lounging in the doorway in his pit hoggers, the clean top half of his body in contrast to the coaly legs sticking out of the dust-caked shorts.
    ‘Because we don’t need anybody poking their nebs into our business.’
    ‘But what are we going to do, man? Can’t you see me mam needs somebody to look after her? Not to mention the bairns!’
    ‘Aye, well, pet, we’ve got somebody, haven’t we? You’re big enough now, aren’t you?’
    ‘But I have to go to work!’
    ‘No, you don’t, you can give in your notice. In fact, I should think you won’t have to go back, not if you explain how we’re held, wi’ your mam and the bairns and everything.’
    ‘But the money?’
    ‘Aye, the money.’ Alf Sharpe was ready to give his big news. ‘We don’t need the money now, do we? ’Cos I’ve got the job of nightshift overman, that’s why. I’m going to be making plenty of money!’
    Rose could only stare at his grinning face, feeling like a trapped animal.
    ‘There’s a letter for you, pet,’ said Mam as Marina came through the back door, a heavy shopping basket hooked over her arm. It was the Saturday following her interview in Durham and Marina’s pulse did a funny little jump when she saw the long brown envelope propped up before the wedding picture of her brother Robson and his wife Edna, which stood on top of the sewing machine. She put the basket on the kitchen table and turned to stare at the envelope. Durham County Council, it said along the top, Treasurer’s Department. There wasn’t a proper stamp, just ‘postage paid’ in the same red ink.
    ‘Go on then, open it,’ Mam encouraged her. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come in ever since the postman came.’
    Which was a sign that she was now officially an adult in the Morland household, thought Marina. Her mam wouldn’t have thought twice about opening her letters if she’d still been at school. She picked up the envelope and slid her thumbnail under the flap, tearing it along the top. She took out the single sheet of paper, it too headed ‘Durham County Council’.
    ‘Well?’ demanded her mother.
    ‘Mam,’ said Marina, ‘are you sure there’s absolutely no chance of me going back to school? You know I’d get a grant from the county if I went to college?’
    ‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘Turned you down, have they? Never mind, pet, they’ll be missing a good worker in you all right. And there’s plenty more jobs –’
    ‘Mam?’
    Kate plunged her hands into the earthenware bowl and began rubbing lard and margarine into flour; Saturday