The Travelling Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

dark curly head over her palm. ‘Ah, yes … I see … what do I see?’
    ‘Go on, mister.’ John’s small sharp nose quivered with excitement. ‘Tell us about our Annie.’
    ‘I see a room …’ Laurie Yates’s voice deepened. He ran his finger round and round Annie’s palm, making her want to snatch her hand back. ‘I see a room, a big room, with polished furniture in it, a great fire in the range with flames leaping up the chimney-back.’ Laurie dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘There’s a beautiful girl sitting on a low chair sewing. There’s a lamp on the round table beside her, and the cloth, a
white lace
cloth, is hanging down in folds …’
    ‘Shut up!’ Annie forgot to use her polite company voice. ‘Stop skitting me!’ She hated him so much she could have landed out at him and knocked him flat on his back. She had told him her dream and now he was spoiling it for her. He was making fun of her, laughing at her with his head thrown back, showing his white even teeth. She loathed him so much even his teeth revolted her. Surely there were too many of them?
    ‘Get out, the lot of you!’ Her small face beneath the kneb of the greasy cap was pinched and plain with hurt. She whirled round on John. ‘Go through in the back and wash that mucky face. You could grow potatoes on the tidemark round your neck.’ The pain in her ear was thumping again, and when Eddie said something underneath his breath she reached out and gripped his arm. ‘What was that you said, our Eddie?’
    With a jerk he was away, but by the door he turned and yelled at the top of his voice: ‘You’re a naggin’ owd witch, our Annie! That’s what I said, an’ it’s true an’ all.’
    With a ringing of clog irons on the cobblestones they were gone, leaving Annie standing hands on hips, waiting for Laurie to follow them.
    Instead, he walked over to the corner and picked up his bundle. ‘Is that what you always do when you’re in a paddy? Chuck people out?’He nodded towards the door. ‘And what do you do when they refuse?’ He opened the bundle and sorted through the jumble of clothes inside, bringing out a length of blue ribbon. ‘I wasn’t laughing at you, lass. They weren’t to know it was our secret.’ He dangled the ribbon in front of her. ‘And I
could
see you in a room, just like I said. Why don’t you clean yourself up a bit and tie this ribbon in your hair? I know you’ve got a bit because I can see some coming down at the back. Take that terrible cap off and let’s have a proper look at you.’
    The humiliation and shame were so great Annie wanted to crawl away from him and hide her face. Instead she stepped back a pace. ‘You can put that ribbon away, Mr Laurie Yates. And I’m not dirty. I wash meself all over on a Friday, and bits of me every day. An’ I wear this cap because it sets me apart, an’ that’s the way I want it.’ The tears were running down the side of her nose, dripping from her chin. She tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand. ‘The girls round here think I’m a bit barmy because I never go down to the Mission Hall or to Chapel. But I can’t go with them when I’ve no proper clothes to wear, can I? This skirt is the one me mother was wearing right up to the day she died.’ Annie took hold of a fold of her blouse. ‘An’ this doesn’t fit me proper neither, now that me front’s got too big.’
    Laurie blinked twice. The straightforward utter simplicity of this young lass had him beat. She looked so small, so vulnerable standing there, glaring at him with the tears rolling down her cheeks, he felt the faint stirrings of a compassion that hadn’t troubled him for a long, long time.
    She hadn’t finished with him yet. Annie’s cry was a childish wail of anguish. ‘It’s me birthday today and nobody knows, an’ don’t you go telling anybody because if they’ve forgot they’ve forgot.’ She glanced at the table. ‘So if you’ll just go I can get on with