Jam and Roses by Mary Gibson Read Free Book Online Page B

before the weekend. We’re leaving Saturday morning, meet outside the Swan at eight.’
    ‘Thanks, Pat, I’ll let you know.’
    When the lorry was out of sight she turned for home and smiled. Pat’s offer of a lift had given her a glimmer of hope. She’d been wishing for wings to fly away, but if escape came in the form of Pat’s lorry instead, who was she to argue? Perhaps Pat wouldn’t be drifting away from her on the tide after all.
    Back in Arnold’s Place, the old man was gone and the sausages were congealing on the plate. She inspected them gingerly. She was hungry herself, but even her normally healthy appetite couldn’t face them; she’d burned them black. They went into the dustbin and she went up to bed to wait for the old man to come home, hoping that when he did roll in, he’d be too drunk to drag her out of bed for the hiding she knew would be coming. When the front door finally opened and he stumbled upstairs, she was gratified to hear him tumble all the way back down again.
    ‘Good, hope you break your bloody neck!’ she muttered silently and turned over.
    Next morning, she made sure she was up and out of the house before him, but he caught her that evening as she walked through the door. His fist hit the side of her head, spinning her round across the kitchen before she even had time to register his presence. He must have been waiting behind the kitchen door. Normally she was home first and if she’d had some warning at least she could have run, but now he had her.
    She tumbled over one of the chairs and now lay sprawled in front of the fire, face down on the rag rug. She felt his boot in her side, lifting her over on to her back. He leaned over her, his face red with rage, poker in hand. She rubbed the side of her head. She might have taken this without complaint if her mother had been home because it was always her mother who ultimately paid the price for any rebellion on Milly’s part. But now some demon of defiance rose up.
    ‘I see you found the poker.’ She grimaced. She had hidden it in the scullery, knowing how addicted he was to his ritual of poking and prodding at the fire when he came in. Nothing annoyed him more than not being able to find the poker.
    ‘Think you’re effin’ clever, think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?’ he said, swiping the iron down towards her. But before it could smash into her ribs, she shot out a hand, twisting the poker from his grasp. Jumping to her feet, still dizzy from the blow to her head, she tried to judge which way to run. He stood facing her, his taut frame trembling with anger. She was as tall as him now and somehow that realization gave her the strength to stand her ground. She pushed him even further.
    ‘Southwell’s said I can have next week off—’
    The back of his hand struck her cheekbone with a crack, and sent her stumbling back towards the fire. Catching at the mantelpiece with her hand, she steadied herself. She could feel the warm trickle of blood on her cheek, where his ring had broken the skin.
    ‘I’m sick o’ the sight of you! Go an’ eff off down hoppin’ if you want, but see how you like walking all the way because you won’t get a penny train fare from me!’
    Milly wiped the blood from her cheek, smiling behind her hand. She had won the war.
    Milly was the only woman there. A group of men were already clustered round the doors of the Swan and Sugarloaf when she arrived that Saturday morning. She stood, awkward and unnoticed, on the edge of the group, wishing Pat was here to meet her. His lorry was parked outside the pub, but he was nowhere to be seen. She recognized many of the men, some were drinking pals of her father’s, others from Southwell’s or neighbours. At first she hung back, clasping a battered cardboard box to her chest. As well as her clothes, it contained tins of food, filched from the supply her mother had left for the old man. She hadn’t told her father how she’d be getting to Kent;