Saturday's Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

remained here, on Prudence Street. ‘Nowt prudent about it,’ Lily said now.
    ‘You what, Lily?’
    ‘Name of our street – it means wisdom. What’s been wise about it, eh? I mean, I know it’s different now, but I had to think before crossing over to stop Magsy
O’Gara falling off her chair.’
    Dot managed a slight blush. ‘Well, we know whose family were at the back of all that.’
    A very different day, Lily realized. Nellie Hulme was running a one-woman industry, Lily had enjoyed a brief conversation with a papist widow, Ernest Barnes’s wife had not only expressed
an opinion but also had finally admitted that her man had caused more trouble than enough in these parts.
    ‘He’s not up to much these days,’ commented Lily.
    A corner of Dot’s mouth twitched disobediently. ‘No,’ she answered after a pause, ‘no, he’s not.’
    Lily waited for more, was not surprised when Dot offered nothing. ‘I’ll see you later, then,’ said Lily.
    ‘Wait.’
    Lily froze.
    ‘Have you got ten minutes?’ asked Dot. ‘Can I come in for a cup of tea?’
    ‘Ooh, course you can. There’s a good half hour before they come back from the pit,’ said Lily, her ‘they’ encompassing her husband and her eldest son. ‘And
our Aaron’s gone straight to the baths after school.’ Roy was in, but he was upstairs with the Beano and the Dandy . Trying to keep the shock away from face and voice, Lily
went back into her house.
    Dot left her washing where it was, walked through her gate and into the entry, then through Lily’s back gate. At the rear door of number 3, she hesitated for a few seconds.
    ‘Come in,’ yelled Lily from the scullery.
    Dot hovered in the doorway. ‘Eeh, Lily, I’ve not been in here since . . . I can’t remember.’
    ‘Since better and worse days, Dot.’
    ‘Aye, since better and worse.’
    Not much had changed about Dorothy Barnes, thought Lily as they sat at the kitchen table, each with a pint brew of Horniman’s and a thin slice of walnut cake from Warburton’s.
‘Not same as home-made,’ declared Lily, ‘but it’ll do at a push.’
    ‘Aye, at a push,’ said Dot.
    Dot agreed with everybody, usually about three times. When she made a rare statement of her own, it dropped slowly from her lips and was underlined immediately by repetition. The visitor stared
into her tea for a few moments.
    ‘You all right, Dot?’
    After a further pause, Dot raised her face. ‘I’m not, Lily,’ she replied. ‘No, no, I’m not.’
    Lily teetered, both physically and mentally, on the edge of her seat. People in these parts didn’t go in for tea parties, weren’t forever in and out of each other’s domains.
During the war, doors had always been left unlocked so that neighbours could have a borrow. Many was the time Lily had come in to find a note: ‘I owe you two spoons sugar, Dot next
door.’ But things were a bit different now that rationing was less stringent. The camaraderie of war had ended with the signing of treaties; peace had brought unease and wariness. Yet here
sat Lily Hardcastle, drinking tea with Dot Barnes from next door.
    ‘It’s not the same any more, is it?’ said Lily.
    ‘It’s not as bad now as he can’t hardly walk,’ came Dot’s cross-purpose reply.
    Another opinion, noted Lily.
    ‘I . . . er . . . I don’t know how to say it, Lily. No, no, I don’t know how to say it.’
    Lily paused, hand containing cake hovering halfway between mouth and table. ‘Just say it,’ she answered. ‘Get it over and done with, Dot.’
    ‘Just say it,’ echoed Dot. ‘Right, I will, I will.’
    Lily’s cake found its way back to the plate. She waited, watched Dot’s face closely. ‘Come on, love,’ she wheedled. The men would be back soon and Lily had to know. Why,
she wouldn’t catch a wink tonight if Dot Barnes didn’t cough up.
    Dot drew in an enormous breath. ‘I’m going,’ she said.
    Lily waited. ‘Going where?’ she asked at last.
    ‘Away, love.