The Loom Read Online Free Page A

She’s nice is Mrs. Baker.’
     
     
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    Summer had come and gone with astounding swiftness. It had been a warm summer, long hazy days of blue skies and balmy breezes. An idyllic summer, had it not been for the war. Suddenly, however, the season broke, and there was not even a gradual slide into winter. An icy blast of cold air straight from the Arctic descended on Harwood.
    As the gray light filtered through the cheap curtains of the upstairs bedroom window of number five Glebe Street, it threw into silhouette the double bed in the centre of the room. This was the only piece of furniture in it, except for a wood chair over which clothes had been flung haphazardly. There were three people in the bed. Cheap, faded oil cloth covered the floor and there was a coloured, although faded clippy mat next to the bed. It was a bare, cold looking room with only a rather garish water-colour of the Pennines on the wall.
    ‘ This room is really horrible,’ Leah would say to Emma, who always gave the same reply.
    ‘ Well, you can’t see owt when you’re asleep, so don’t worry about it.’
    The house, like most of the others in Harwood, was a ‘two up and two down’. There was no bathroom and no inside toilet. If you wanted a ‘good wash’ you used the slop-stone in the scullery, or, luxury, in winter a tin bath full of hot water in front of the fire. The toilet (the long drop) was at the bottom of the yard. If you were lucky you might see squares of neatly cut newspaper, hung on a nail on the inside of the door.
    Emma had been dozing, knowing she must get up soon but was loath to leave the warmth of the bed. It was always the same thing her mind dwelt on lately - that Darkie would join up. She knew she couldn’t dissuade him. He didn’t talk about it much, but whenever she mentioned it he’d get that closed look on his face. He was stubborn, like she was! Most people were fed up of the war and a kind of resigned lethargy had replaced the initial fanatical enthusiasm. It seemed that it would never end. So many dead, missing and maimed!
    Leah lay in bed between her mother and Janey, listening to the iron runners of clogs ringing on the cobbles outside the window. The first clang always made her wake with a start. It brought back so vividly those same sounds she’d heard all those years ago when her father had made his Friday night calls. She’d never forget that time, wondered if her mother had any idea how terrified they’d been. Even now, any loud noise made her heart beat faster. Only yesterday Paddy O’Shea, from next door, had nearly frightened her to death when he’d come up behind her and banged a pair of symbols he’d got from someone in the Salvation Army. She’d flown at him and boxed his ears in her anger, even though he was a good two inches taller.
    ‘ You silly sod,’ she screamed. ‘Don’t do that again.’
    ‘All right, all right.’ Paddy had been taken aback by the normally cool Leah flying at him like a tiger. He’d only meant it in a bit of fun.
     
     
    Amazingly though, none of the Hammond children seemed to have suffered from the separation. Separated women were often denigrated. You didn’t leave your man and you either liked married life or ‘lumped’ it. But not Emma, in fact she was rather proud of the way she’d got ‘that lot out’. The children never tired of her endless anecdotes and she had the knack of turning even tragic incidents into a comedy. How many times had she told them of Harold in the throes of the D.Ts? She’d lost count.
    ‘ What a performance,’ she would begin her story. ‘Up and down the stairs, he was, like a pissing cricket. He was a Catholic, you know, was your Dad and sometimes he’d frighten me to death because he’d jump out of bed like a bullet. In the middle of the night, mind you, run down t’stairs, open the front door and say, ‘hello, Father, come in, Father.’ Then he’d close the door and run back up the stairs and jump