A Girl Can Dream Read Online Free PDF Page A

large copper in the brew house, and when the clothes had had a good boil, Meg hauled the white shirts and the like into a shallow sink, She’d already added Beckett’s Blue to the water and Billy and Jenny swirled the clothes through there before wringing them out and taking them to Jenny who was operating the mangle. The rest of the clothes were heaved into the maiding tub and then Meg pounded them up and down with the dolly stick, That finished they all had a go at turning the mangle, while Meg hung the damp clothes on the lines criss-crossing the yard. This was all done to cries of encouragement from the women from the yard, who knew that Meg was keeping them busy for their own sakes.
    And when the family wash was completed Meg fished out all the baby things their mother had put in a trunk in the attic and these too were washed in the sinks by hand for as Meg said, ‘There will be nothing new for this baby, so the least we can do is welcome her with sweet-smelling clothes and bedding.’
    Later that evening Meg laid down the iron after pressing the last of the little smocked dresses and said to Terry, ‘You know, small as these clothes are, they are going to swamp Ruth. She is so incredibly tiny still.’
    ‘She must be all right to come home, though.’
    ‘Yes, she’s five pounds now.’ She began folding up the clothes. ‘I suppose I’m just nervous generally. I mean, I really want to bring Ruth home, it’s where she belongs, but I am worried how I’ll cope with everything.’
    ‘We’ll all help as much as we can,’ Terry said. ‘I think we’ll have to because I can’t see our dad giving you much of a hand with her.’
    ‘No,’ Meg said, shaking her head. ‘I can’t understand him. How can he blame a tiny baby for Mom’s death when it’s more his fault than her’s?’
    ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘Nothing,’ Meg mumbled, not wanting to discuss the sexual side of marriage with a boy only twelve years of age. ‘Don’t mind me. I’m just cross with Daddy generally. I mean, we’re all suffering, but he just can’t seem to pull himself together. Where did he slope off to at dinner-time and where is he now?’ That didn’t need an answer. They both knew he was at the Swan. ‘Quite apart from anything else,’ Meg said, ‘he can’t afford to go to the pub every night.’
    ‘He says he is bought drinks,’ Terry pointed out.
    ‘Maybe he is being bought a few drinks at the moment,’ Meg said, ‘especially with Mom’s funeral just over, but that’s not going to go on for ever. And I doubt people buy him enough for him to get in the state he seems to be in some nights. I hear him stumbling around and muttering to himself.’
    ‘So do I,’ Terry said. ‘And I know it was agreed that you move into the bedroom with the baby while she is so small and needing night feeds so she won’t disturb us, but Dad disturbs us much more coming home drunk.’
    ‘Maybe he’ll take a grip on himself with another mouth to feed,’ Meg said.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Terry, with a rueful grin. ‘And maybe pigs fly.’
    The following day, Meg and her aunt Rosie went to fetch the baby home. The nurse seemed a bit surprised and said, ‘I thought your father might be here with you today to discuss the little one’s care in the future.’
    Meg’s eyes met those of her aunt, but she felt she had to defend her father. ‘He … he had to work,’ she said. ‘You know the funeral and all was a great expense.’
    ‘Of course, I understand,’ the nurse said, but Meg knew that she didn’t. It was small wonder:
Meg herself didn’t fully understand why her father had never been to see his baby daughter since the day of her birth.
    But she said to the nurse, ‘What do you mean about the baby’s care? She is all right, isn’t she?’
    ‘Oh, yes, she is,’ the nurse said, ‘but she is a month premature and so her feeds will have to be little and often – every two to three hours.’
    Meg nodded and the nurse went