Born to Trouble Read Online Free PDF

mend. Not that you’d know it. All the family had gone down with it in the run-up to Christmas except herself and Seth, but her mother was determined to wring every last ounce out of playing the invalid, even though her two baby sons had been much worse.
    She was tempted to pretend she hadn’t heard her mother’s call – there had already been one for a hot drink and another for her to replenish the stone hot-water bottle at her mother’s feet during the last hour – but knowing that she would just keep on and on, Pearl wiped her hands on her pinny and made her way upstairs.
    ‘You’ve took your time.’ Kitty looked up from the penny picture paper she was reading. ‘Empty the pot, an’ I’ll have a sup of tea and a piece of that sly cake you made earlier, while you’re about it. I need to build me strength up.’
    Build her strength up! Her mouth set in a grim line, Pearl reached for the chamberpot under the bed and left the room without commenting. If anyone needed to build their strength up, it certainly wasn’t her mother. Lying in bed all day like Lady Muck and reading the People’s Friend and The Lady while stuffing her face with peppermint creams. James and Patrick were still middling but they weren’t an ounce of trouble compared to their mother.
    After tipping the contents of the chamberpot in the privy, she rinsed the pot out under the tap in the yard before entering the kitchen, where the warmth hit her after the cold outside. James and Patrick were taking their afternoon nap in the desk bed where she could keep an eye on them, snuggled up together under a heap of blankets. She had been so worried about them when they had caught the flu, especially little Patrick. It had been touch and go for a while, but they were both fighters. She stood looking down at the sleeping babies, a faint smile on her lips. That was what Dr Newton had said, and he was right. She and Seth had sat up for several nights when the boys were at their worst, spooning broth into them teaspoonful by teaspoonful when they wouldn’t take anything, and pacing round the kitchen, each with a baby in their arms, to try to soothe their crying.
    After stroking each velvety forehead Pearl turned away from the desk bed as the kettle began to sing, taking the brown teapot from its place at the side of the hob and spooning in the tea. Once the tea was mashing she fetched the sly cake from the cupboard, putting the plate on the table. The pastry, full of butter and sugar and currants, smelled wonderful and she stared at it regretfully. The sly cake looked so nice and she hadn’t wanted to cut it until Seth and the lads were home. It was typical of her mother to have smelled it cooking, she had a nose on her like an elephant.
    The dough was ready for the bread tins and so she divided it between them and placed the tins on the hearth to prove. That done, she scraped the last of the elastic dough off her hands and turned to the table to prepare a tray for her mother. As she did so, her mother shouted again. Pearl was about to spring into action when she checked herself. Instead, her movements slow and deliberate, she cut the sly cake and poured the tea at her own pace. By the time she took the tray up to her mother, Kitty had called several times and was red in the face.
    ‘You gone deaf or summat?’ Kitty glared at her daughter. ‘I’ve bin callin’ me head off.’
    ‘I heard you.’
    ‘Oh, you did, did you?’ As Pearl settled the tray on her mother’s lap, Kitty’s glare deepened. ‘Then why didn’t you answer me?’
    ‘I was getting the tea as quick as I could.’
    ‘Well, that’s not sayin’ much. A snail with arthritis moves faster than you.’
    ‘There was the bread to see to and the dinner won’t make itself.’
    ‘Don’t you give me any of your lip, girl. You might think you can wind the lads round your little finger, but not me. I know what you’re like, so think on.’
    Pearl stared at the woman in the bed. This