Swansea Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

mass of brown clay shards, damp clumps of tea leaves and sticky brown puddles as she reeled into the Belfast sink.
    ‘Hit her again and I’ll knock you into the middle of next week.’
    Katie sank down on the step as her brother Martin stepped through the door that connected their basement with the rest of the house.
    ‘You?’ Ernie sneered as Martin moved between him and Annie.
    ‘It’s my fault ...’
    ‘It’s not your fault, Mam, it never is. Jack and I could hear him upstairs. So could Mrs Lannon and we were helping her move furniture on the top floor.’
    ‘I pay the rent. I’ll make as much noise as I like.’
    ‘You can have a brass band playing down here for all I care. But you’re not hitting Mam again. Not while I’m here to stop it.’ Unlike Ernie, Martin was calm, composed and completely in control. Katie had never been so afraid of, or for him. ‘I mean it. Touch Mam again and I’ll hit you harder than you ever hit any of us.’
    ‘You young ...’ Ernie drew back his fist. Martin caught it mid-air as their brother Jack walked in behind him. Gripping his father’s arm, Martin flung Ernie into the only easy chair in the room. Ernie jerked back. The thin cushion proved no protection against the wooden frame. Katie heard her father’s head crack against the top bar. Dazed, he stared up at Martin in disbelief.
    Wiping her eyes on the dishcloth, Annie winced gingerly as she moved from the sink towards the chair.
    ‘He’s all right, just stunned.’ Martin turned away in disgust as his mother hovered over his father.
    ‘Better all round if you’d killed him,’ Jack pronounced acidly.
    ‘Now I’m home from National Service and bringing in a wage, Mam, you and the kids can move out of here. I’ll look after you.’ Martin glared contemptuously at his father. ‘And better than he ever has.’
    ‘You don’t understand,’ Annie broke in fervently, pressing the damp dishcloth to the back of Ernie’s head.
    ‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand why any woman would stay with a man who beats her.’ Martin gripped the back of a kitchen chair so tightly that Katie flinched, expecting the bar to snap. ‘Mam, take a hard look at yourself and this place.’
    ‘You bastard,’ Ernie mumbled drunkenly. ‘Home less than a week and you raise your hand to your father. Is that what they taught you in the army? Well, I’ll not have you back in this house ...’
    ‘I only returned to this pigsty to help Mam.’
    ‘I’ll ...’ Ernie left the chair, tried to square up to his son and crumpled in a heap on the floor.
    Annie fell to her knees beside him.
    ‘He’s piss-drunk, Mam.’
    ‘Less of that language in front of Mam and Katie,’ Martin warned his brother.
    ‘All high-class and refined now you’ve been away, aren’t you. Well, I’ll tell you something for nothing. You haven’t a bloody clue what it’s been like for us back here with him while you’ve been off gallivanting, seeing the world.’
    ‘I said no swearing in front of Mam and Katie and I meant it.’
    ‘Or what? You’ll thump me like you thumped him? Or do you only pick on drunks?’ Elbowing Martin aside, Jack scooped Ernie none too gently from the floor, slung him over his shoulder and carried him into the passage. Opening the door to the bedroom, he tossed him on the bed.
    ‘Martin – what your father said – when he wakes up you’d better say sorry.’
    ‘Not to that animal.’
    ‘You know how he is,’ Annie begged. ‘There’ll be no peace ...’
    ‘There’s never been any of that in this house, Mam, and there won’t be while you stay with him.’
    Annie stared at the mess of broken crockery and spilled tea on the floor, and began to cry. Soft, fat, silent tears that tore at Martin’s heartstrings.
    ‘This is my fault. I shouldn’t have borrowed Judy’s dress.’ Katie crouched and gathered the larger pieces of teapot, all the while staring at the floor so her mother and brother wouldn’t see her own