Kehua! by Fay Weldon Read Free Book Online Page A

laundresses before and I daresay a few after – and hear the sound of
     bristle brush on fabric and the squeak of a wringer as the handle revolves and the rubber cylinders turn. There’s also the
     fitful sound of what could be a woman singing. But then again it might be the plumbing of the house above or thecentral heating radiators down here – they are turned up high; it is very cold today – and it’s true one interprets sound
     as one does sight, in accordance with what one expects.
    I get up as smoothly as I can from my desk – I find I do not want to draw attention to myself, almost as if I am according
     her more right to be here than I have, which is absurd – scuttle to the wall, turn the knob of the central heating panel to
     off, and get back to my desk as quickly as possible. I don’t want to disturb the status quo, lest I stir something up even
     more unsettling. The panel cools, its gurgling and hissing stops. But that leaves the other sounds, clearer than ever. What
     I’m hearing is what I heard vaguely last night, but now in detail: someone wetting the clean dried sheets, applying the iron
     – heated on the range – so the steam rises, hissing, and then the heavy hot weight smooths the damp, newly boiled white laundry:
     the sheets, the embroidered pillowslips and tablecloths, the aprons, and the master’s shirts. The folding is being done to
     perfection, edge to exact edge. I reckon somebody who once worked here was so proud of their work they never quite wanted
     to go away. I prefer this comforting version of servant life, rather than the alternative – that past misery keeps their spirits
     trapped down here. Life may be hard but people have a great gift for enjoying it.
    A house this size – substantial but not too grand – would have had a cook, a nanny when the children were small, a maid and
     perhaps a tweenie to assist; a manservant, a gardener’s boy, and a groom. The cook would have slept down here near the kitchen,
     female servants would have slept up in the attics under the eaves, two or three to a bed if necessary – where now my husband
     has his office and plays his piano. The outdoor staff, the men, slept above the stables. No one was necessarily unhappy, and
     they certainly weren’t lonely. At least they were safe, warm and fed, which wasmore than could be said for many.
    The Yatt House staff would have a Saturday afternoon off once a month if it could be organised – looking after the gentry
     was a 24/7 affair – and a jaunt to Evensong every Sunday afternoon, when Sunday lunch was cleared away and a cold Sunday evening
     supper for upstairs had been prepared and laid. It isn’t far to go; All Saints’ Church, designed by Pugin, is just across
     the road. Once a year staff would have a weekend off to visit their families.
    ‘There now, that be a good job, quist,’ I hear a woman say, in my head or out of it. I also know I cannot believe the evidence
     of my own ears, since someone told me the other day that ‘quist’ in these parts was once used much as ‘innit’ is today. I
     have somehow got this notion of a wicker basket piled high with fresh, ironed, folded washing, and am all too likely to dredge
     my mind for convenient evidence.
    The room is getting noticeably colder, but at least the sounds from the time-slipped world are diminishing, fading back to
     their proper place in, I imagine, somewhere around 1900. According to the local directory of that year a Mr and Mrs Bennett
     and their three sons Ernest, William and Thomas lived in this house. At any rate it feels safe enough for me to get up, turn
     the heating on again, listen to the gentle hissing and gurgling as hot water in the here-and-now world flows back into the
     pipes, and get back to my laptop.
    Unfortunately it is now my characters’ turn to take offence at my neglect of them; they will not come easily to mind, other
     than that Alice née McLean, daughter to Beverley McLean, is up in