Above the Harvest Moon by Rita Bradshaw Read Free Book Online

was going on again about me not having one of Naomi’s kittens, not that I’d asked for one anyway. She said it’s because of the shop downstairs but I don’t think it’s anything to do with that. She just doesn’t like animals, any animals. She says they’re all dirty and full of fleas and take too much looking after.’
     
    Aye, she would. Miriam spent most of her days with her legs up on the sofa reading magazines she’d borrowed from the shop and drinking endless cups of tea, only to spring into action once Edward made an appearance. She knew, oh yes, she knew. She might be confined to this bed most of the time but that didn’t mean she was half sharp. Keeping her thoughts to herself, Agatha said, ‘Your mother has never had anything to do with cats or dogs, that’s the thing. What folk don’t understand they’re often nervous of.’
     
    Her mam nervous about anything! Hannah could have laughed out loud. Instead she said quietly,‘Perhaps. But she needn’t have said Mrs Wood should have drowned them when they were born. They’re such bonny little things, Aunty. So helpless and small.’
     
    ‘She said that?’
     
    Hannah nodded. They stared at each other for a moment, Agatha shaking her head slowly, and then they continued to drink their tea without further conversation.
     
    Hannah was just leaving her aunt’s room with the tray a few minutes later when her uncle came in from his Sunday morning visit to the Oak Tree in North Bridge Street. He smiled as she passed him, his voice soft as he said, ‘You been looking after your aunt, lass? There’s a good girl.’
     
    Before she could say anything, Miriam appeared in the doorway to the sitting room.‘There you are, Edward. Dinner will be a little while but I’ve poured you a glass of beer and put your slippers by the fire. Come and sit down.’ Her gaze switched to her daughter. ‘Turn the roast potatoes and check on the Yorkshire pudding while you’re in the kitchen.’
     
    Edward stared at his sister-in-law. For a moment he seemed to be about to say something but then he walked across the hall and joined her in the sitting room where he sat down before the fire and picked up the newspaper. He hadn’t spoken and he did not do so now, settling back in his chair and beginning to read.
     
    ‘Here.’ Miriam knelt at his feet, his slippers in her hands. ‘Let me take your boots off and you put these on.’
     
    He submitted to her ministrations with merely a grunt, the newspaper held in front of his face, and after she had fitted the slippers on his feet, Miriam stood up and looked at him for a moment. When he continued to read, she bit her lip and then returned quietly to the seat she’d vacated when she heard him come in.
     
    Edward Casey was a large man in breadth as well as height. He had a rough, pockmarked complexion, thick grizzled hair and a bulbous red nose, the result of a penchant for several glasses of port of an evening and beer throughout the day. It was his wide, thick-lipped mouth that dominated his features and revealed the sensual nature of Hannah’s uncle.
     
    The fact that his wife had been unable to give him a son or daughter did not worry Edward unduly. He had married Agatha because as the only child of a well-to-do shopkeeper, a shopkeeper who was reportedly in ill health, he’d thought he was on to a good thing. And so it had proved. His father-in-law had died within twelve months of their marriage and, Agatha’s mother having died some years before, his wife inherited the shop and flat and a nest egg into the bargain.
     
    He had been grateful to his wife for providing him with a living which had taken him out of the pit. It was a living he considered comfortable and easy, and one in which he could freely indulge his love of food and drink. Moreover he liked Agatha and she had always been obliging in the bedroom. Until the last miscarriage, that was, after which she’d become confined to bed most of the