The China Factory Read Online Free Page A

her.
    As they drive her mother sighs. When her mother is far away like this she tries to bring her back. She asks her about her life when she was a child. Were there really three hundred and sixty-five windows in your house? she asks, though she already knows the answer.
    â€”Yes, one for every day of the year, her mother says.
    â€”And two stairs?
    â€”Two stairs. One lovely wide one in the front hall and a narrow one near the back kitchen.
    Her mother’s home was called Easterfield. She remembers it from when she was very small, a big house with tall windows and a wide lawn facing the wrong way—facing out to the fields instead of to the road—and a gravel yard with barns where her father parked the car. And upstairs long landings with creaking floorboards and rooms with no light bulbs, and the creepy backstairs at the far end. She has a faint memory of her mother’s father with snow-white hair and round glasses sitting by the range holding a red plastic back scratcher in his hand. The house is all closed up now. On the day of her mother’s fourth birthday a blackbird flew into the dining room and tore a piece of wallpaper from a spot above the window. The wallpaper had swirling ivy and serpents, and was very old. She sees her four-year-old mother standing in the room looking up at the blackbird. Suddenly her thoughts turn dark. She is getting too close to the sadness of her mother’s life.
    At home her father and her older brother are gathering in the sheep and lambs and flocking them in the yard, for dosing. She hates when there are big jobs going on. The night before the sheep-shearing or silage-making or cattle-testing she cannot sleep. She lies there, rehearsing it all in her mind, searching for dangers—open gates, charging cattle, escaping children—or the rage of her father when an animal breaks loose or the baler breaks down. By morning she is exhausted, and all day long she keeps watch. She is not as quick at the farm work as her brother and sister—at turning the turf or stacking the bales—and she is relieved when evening comes. She is always waiting for evenings and happy endings.
    In the yard her father and her brother make hooshing sounds at the sheep and Captain the sheepdog rushes in and nips them on the legs. When they are penned tightly she looks in through the rungs of the gate at the ewes’ big faces. They look calmly back at her. She has the feeling that they know more than she does andthat, somehow, like her mother, they understand her. And maybe even love her.
    One day when she was seven she turned to her mother, smiling, and said, What was your mammy like? Her mother stopped for a second.
    â€”I never knew my mother, she said. She died when I was three. A week later the bird flew in and tore the wallpaper in the dining room.
    The mother was in bed, coughing, for a long time and her mother’s older sisters came home from boarding school to mind her and their baby brother. Her mother remembers being lifted up on the bed to give her mother a kiss.
    â€”She had a white nightdress on and long hair. I put out my hand to touch her hair but they must have thought I was going to pull it so they lifted me down and took me away.
    She wanted to say something but she was afraid she would make her mother cry.
    â€”She told my sisters which dress to lay her out in. And to be sure to use the linen tablecloth for the meal after the funeral. I remember the men carrying the coffin down the stairs.
    Her mother stands on the steps at the front door and calls her in. In the kitchen her grandmother is sitting by the range knitting. She tells her to take the brush and sweep the floor. Afterwards she plays with her small sister and brother on the floor. Her other sister, who is eight and the middle child, is cutting out cardboard shapes with scissors that are too big for her hands. Her mother is making bread at the kitchen table, and every now and then turns to