The Urchin's Song Read Online Free PDF

release.
    Josie was aware of his ill-humour and she guessed immediately what had caused it. She also knew that her father would seize on the faintest excuse to vent his spleen, but that - although his anger was directed mainly at her - it would be one of the others that he punished. Therefore she kept her voice quiet and flat when she said, ‘I only wondered, that’s all. The two of them are always together.’ She didn’t look at him as she spoke.
    ‘Aye. Well, Jimmy’s doin’ a little job for me. All reet? A little job that should’ve bin done a while back if I’d had me wits about me.’
    There was a definite threat in his tone, and out of the corner of her eye Josie saw her mother squirm anxiously. Immediately she wanted to say, ‘Don’t worry, Mam, and don’t say anything. That’s what he wants. Don’t you see?’ But as that was impossible what she did say was, and coolly despite her churning stomach, ‘There’s some tea in the pot, and a bit of brawn and cold pease pudding but I’ve no bread to go with it until I bake tomorrow.’
    ‘I want nowt.’
    ‘Can I have some bra--’ Hubert’s voice was silenced by a vicious cuff round the ear which sent the small boy reeling against the table in the corner of the room, but still Josie didn’t respond. This was a lead-up to something, she recognised the signs, and she had a horrible feeling her father had somehow been made aware of the subterfuge concerning Gertie.
    Into the silence broken only by Hubert’s whimpering they all heard the front door open, and now Josie was praying soundlessly whilst pretending to concentrate on the task in hand. She placed the jug containing the remainder of the milk for morning on the tiled kitchen windowsill where it would stay cool, and turned back just as Gertie stepped into the living room.
    It was obvious the small girl, who looked much younger than her ten years, sensed the charged atmosphere, for her brown eyes darted from one face to another as she remained frozen just inside the door. And then, as her father said very softly, ‘You got anythin’ for me, lass?’ Gertie fumbled in the pocket of her thin coat and brought out a handful of coins, which she held out to the big man in front of her.
    ‘There . . . there’s a thruppence, Da.’ Her voice was trembling.
    ‘Oh aye?’
    ‘One of the toffs in a top hat comin’ out of the Villiers give me it.’
    Just then, the front door opened again, a gust of icy wind blew into the room through the open dining-room door, and when Josie saw the expression on Jimmy’s face she knew it was all over, even before her brother said, ‘I waited, Da, an’ she come out of that old bitch’s house sure enough. Smilin’ an’ wavin’ halfway down the street, she was.’ She had never fully realised it before but their Jimmy was the spitting image of how their da must have been at nine years old, in nature as well as looks. Josie cast Jimmy a glance of deep loathing and nerved herself for her father’s reaction.
    In the same moment that her father’s hand came down and swiped the coins out of Gertie’s outstretched hand, Josie took several rapid steps forward, crying, ‘You leave her be, Da! I mean it! If she’s called in to see Vera for a bit warm-up before she came home, that’s no crime.’
    ‘A bit warm-up afore she came home?’ Her father’s big bulk swung back from the cowering Gertie to fully face her, and he swore, obscenely, before he hissed, ‘You think I’m half sharp, lass - is that it? I’ll flay the pair o’ you, you see if I don’t.’
    ‘She hasn’t done anything!’
    ‘Jimmy, what time did you start watchin’ the house?’
    ‘When you left me there, Da.’ Jimmy could neither read nor write, and telling the time would have been beyond him even if there had been a clock handy in Northumberland Place where Vera lived.
    ‘Which was early on, reet?’ his father ground out slowly.
    ‘Aye, Da. She must’ve bin there afore I got