The Urchin's Song Read Online Free Page A

against the wall, an oilcloth covering the battered wood on which reposed Josie’s most recent gift to her mother and one which had aroused her father’s fury at such useless extravagance - a red earthenware pot of pure white hyacinths.
    Either side of the window, which again was clean and sporting bright yellow curtains of thin cotton, were two orange boxes covered with the same material as the curtains and housing one spare set of darned clean bedding, one folded white tablecloth and the few extra items of clothing the family owned between them.
    Above the grate on the thin flat piece of wood which didn’t deserve the grand name of a mantelshelf were two brass candlesticks complete with flickering candles, and in the centre of these stood an empty oil lamp. And it was to this item Josie now directed her gaze as she said, ‘I’ve got the oil, Mam, and the flour and everything. Mr McKenzie gave me the pig’s fat free an’ all.’
    ‘He did?’ Shirley Burns was lying on one of the wooden platforms, a faded patchwork quilt pulled up to her chest; so slight was her thin body she barely caused a rise in the covers. Numerous miscarriages and stillbirths - the last being two years ago at which point both the doctor and the parson had warned Bart that the next pregnancy would take his wife’s life - had stripped her of her health and her looks, and she appeared twenty years older than her forty years.
    Shirley’s voice was soft when she said, ‘That bag’s too heavy for you, lass. I’ve told you afore: you should get one of the lads to help you of a Monday night.’
    Josie smiled at her mother but said nothing as she lugged the bag through the doorway, shutting the door behind her before she walked through to the other room. They both knew the furore that would erupt should she ask for help from one of her brothers. She didn’t like to think what Jimmy and Hubert were about most nights, but knowing her father was at the bottom of it, it was bound to be sailing close to the wind, if not downright illegal.
    Like the first room, the kitchen was a different place from the filthy hole it had been five years before. The shining, blackleaded range had another clippy mat - larger than the ones in the living room - lying in front of it, and the brass-tailed fender reflected its colours in a rainbow haze. A large wooden table to one side of the range held a tin bath, a smaller tin bowl and assorted cooking utensils, along with plates, mugs and cutlery, all clean and scrubbed.
    Along one wall was the desk-bed where Josie and her sister slept. The bed was made from wooden lathes and they had to lift the chiffonier storing their meagre food supplies to get the bed out each night, whereupon the hard lumpy flock mattress was revealed in all its glory.
    Her mother had suggested the lads sleep on the desk bed when Josie had first purchased it some three years before, but Josie would have put up with far more than the stiff limbs and aching muscles the mattress caused, for the joy of sleeping in a separate room to the others with just Gertie snuggled beside her.
    A smaller and very battered table used for preparing food, with a wooden box slotted beneath which did as a seat, made up the sum total of furniture in the kitchen. Another door led out into the end of the hall. Beyond this, the back door of the house led into a communal yard shared by the inhabitants of seven houses. The privy - a square box with a wooden seat extending right across the breadth of the lavatory and filling half its depth - could be a stinking place both winter and summer, depending on the cleanliness of its last occupant. Josie had got into the habit of leaving a full bucket of fresh ashes, along with squares of trimmed newspaper, by the kitchen door at all times. Although there was a daily rota which accounted for each household taking its turn in cleaning the privy, there was rarely a day that one or two buckets from the kitchen didn’t find their way down