Strawberry Fields Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sara. ‘I could give up the pub cleanin’ tomorrer, if I’d a mind – we’d scarce miss the money.’
    ‘Aye. But there’s others not so lucky,’ Mrs Prescott said soberly. ‘Them next door to you; things ain’t so good when you’ve a dozen kids, none of ’em workin’ yet, and your old man’s not done a hand’s turn for six months.’
    ‘A dozen kids? In a house the same size as yours, Nanny?’ Sara started to say, then stopped short. There were quite a lot of kids in this house and they all had to sleep somewhere. Either in the decent front, or the small back, or in the slip of a room which Sara thought of as her own. But . . . twelve kids and two grownups? How on earth did they manage? She looked interrogatively at her nanny, who was placidly drinking her tea from the cracked and handleless cup.
    ‘I know, poor souls,’ Mrs Rushton said. ‘But there ain’t many of us what haven’t known the pain of an empty belly, so you do your best. Alf took ’em round a leg o’ mutton yesterday and some veggies; they’ll not sup on blind scouse this Christmas at any rate.’
    ‘It won’t go far between fourteen of ’em,’ Kate said. She was a plain, cheerful girl with straggly hair and ears which stuck out, Sara thought, like a car with both doors open.
    Mrs Prescott was about to reply when the door burst open and a crowd of kids surged into the room. They were all thin, with untidy hair, and they were all grinning from ear to ear.
    ‘Is the dinner cooked?’ shouted an urchin of about Sara’s age. ‘The smell’s that good, Mam, I dunno as I can wait another second!’
    ‘Well, try,’ Mrs Rushton said grimly, ‘because norra mouthful will any of yez get until your da’s home. But if you’re real starvin’, there’s a new loaf on the kitchen table and a packet o’ margarine . . . there might be some jam an’ all if you look behind the meat safe.’
    The kids surged out of the room, shouting and laughing, and Kate turned to her visitor.
    ‘Our Seth works at the jam factory; that’s where I’ll work when I leave school,’ she said, sitting down beside Sara on the lumpy sofa. ‘They give you jam cheap, sometimes, so we’re better off’n some. Not bad, eh? Where’ll you work when you’re growed?’
    ‘I’m only twelve,’ Sara said. ‘I haven’t thought, not yet. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, you see, so I can’t work with them.’
    ‘Only twelve? I’d ha’ put you at thirteen, mebbe fourteen,’ Kate said flatteringly. ‘They grows ’em big up your way, queen. Have a mince pie!’
    The pies looked good, but Sara was still uneasily conscious of what Jess had told her. Not everyone could eat, even when they were hungry. These people seemed happy and successful and talked cheerfully, but the mother hadn’t offered the kids pies, it had been bread and margarine. She was being offered a pie because she was a visitor – but she would go home presently and have a very large luncheon, with plum pudding and fruit to follow. And there would be boxes of chocolates and heaps and heaps of nuts and at teatime more food, more treats.
    ‘No, thanks, Kate,’ she said, therefore, ‘I don’t want to spoil my lunch.’
    And when they’d finished their tea Nanny said they’d best be getting back because she didn’t want anyone thinking she’d not had a bag to pack . . . more laughter . . . and they had said their farewells and left, with Christmas wishes ringing in their ears.
    One thing struck Sara as odd, though. As they were about to open Mrs Prescott’s front door Mrs Rushton stuck her head out into the cold and shouted after them, a halo of steam rising from her open mouth.
    ‘Ask your Letty if she ever thinks about the Sunday school treat, the year we was twelve,’ she shouted. ‘We ’ad some fun on New Brighton funfair! Our Sid remembers it an’ all, he often asks after Letty.’
    Sara, who knew that Nanny Prescott had once been her own mother’s nanny, pricked up her