The Loom Read Online Free

Sometimes she even felt a little peeved about it, especially when he’d admitted (once only, after seeing Emma’s face) that he felt a bit sorry for him. Men were all the same, Emma thought in exasperation, stuck together like glue, whatever the situation.
    She couldn’t complain about Darkie though. He was a good lad. He worked hard down the pit, although there again, he’d followed in Harold’s footsteps. She hadn’t wanted him to work in the mines, but Darkie had been adamant because the money was good.
    It was Leah who showed the most hostility to Harold and these feelings were growing stronger as she walked with Janey towards his house. How she hated having to cadge money out of him. As her mother always said, it was like getting blood out of a stone because he’d um and ah for a good five minutes before digging it out of his pocket as though digging one of his coal seams.
    They crossed the Square with the huge Mercer Clock in the centre. A monstrosity with a large plaque on it that no one, not even blind Larry, could miss, extolling the virtues of John Mercer, who had invented the mercerization of cotton. Leah glanced at a huge poster pasted on the side. Lord Kitchener glared down on her with his fierce moustache and his finger pointing, at her it seemed. ‘Your country needs you’ it said underneath.
    Leah was all too aware of her mother’s fear that Darkie would soon enlist. She’d been in tears when she thought of Darkie going to war. It couldn’t happen, could it? He might get killed! She couldn’t bear to think about it.
    It began to rain, spitting at first and then drizzling. A few women, shawls wrapped tightly around their heads, then swathed around their bodies and tied at the back, hurried with heads down, intent on getting home. Leah and Janey began to run. Then the terrace house loomed dingy and gray in front of them. Leah knocked tentatively on the dirty knocker. There was no answer and the door remained firmly closed.
    ‘Knock a bit louder, our Leah,’ Janey said in exasperation.
    ‘You do it,’ Leah said angrily. She stood back as Janey knocked, much louder this time. There was a heavy tread from within. The door opened slowly and the lined, although not unpleasant face of Agnes Smithson, peered round. Seeing the girls she smiled at them with broken and stained teeth. Leah grimaced.
    ‘ Ee, if it isn’t Leah and Janey. Well I never. It’s a long time since we’ve seen you two lasses. I suppose you want your Dad?’ Agnes said. Before they could reply she continued, leaving the door open for them to follow. ‘Come in, come in. I’ll get him. He’s out the back.’ She disappeared into the next room.
    ‘I don’t want to go in,’ Leah said.
    ‘We’ll have to.’ Janey stepped into the room, which was very dim. Heavy curtains covered the windows and it took them a few minutes to see in the faint light.
    ‘ What’s that?’ Leah pointed to the table.
    ‘It’s a coffin,’ Janey said in a horrified whisper. The coffin was open. Leah stood petrified. She’d never seen a dead body or even a coffin before, and from where she was standing she could just see the tip of a bony nose protruding from it.
    Without a sound both girls turned and raced out of the house. They ran up the street as though chased by Lucifer and his henchmen, and didn’t stop until they’d turned the corner. Leah stood panting, leaning against the wall, her face as white as the corpse in the coffin. ‘That’s it,’ she said, heaving and wheezing. ‘That’s the last time I’m ever going back there.’
    Janey stood next to Leah, breathing just as heavily. ‘But we didn’t get the money.’
    ‘I don’t care,’ Leah said, by this time a bit calmer. ‘I’m not going back.’
    ‘What’ll we do then?’
    Leah stood for a moment, thinking. ‘Didn’t we say we’d play cricket with Dora today?’ she said. Janey nodded.
    ‘Right, we’ll go and see her and ask her mother if she can lend us the money.