Poppy Day by Annie Murray Read Free Book Online Page A

like, but I could use yer.’
    Two little children with Mr Mather’s slate-coloured eyes were staring at her from the doorway behind him. She smiled at them and the older one smiled back.
    ‘I’d like the job,’ Jess said. ‘I need to start somewhere.’
    ‘Not yer first job, is it? Yer look more’n fourteen.’
    ‘Oh no – but I’ve only just come to Birmingham. I don’t ’ave any references to give yer.’
    Mr Mather snorted. ‘We take yer as we find yer, wench. References be damned. If yer don’t come up to scratch yer’ll be out and that’s that. Awright?’
    He explained that her job would be to wash up, keep the tables and floor clean and generally keep the place nice while he brewed coffee and tea and looked after the customers.
    ‘Think yer can manage that? It’ll be six shilling a week – I can’t spare more.’
    ‘That’s awright,’ Jess was pleased. She’d have that to give to Auntie Olive for her board and food. ‘When do I start then?’
    Mr Mather’s eyes filled with mirth again, looking at the pretty, and somehow unworldly girl in front of him.
    ‘’Ow about this minute?’
    ‘That’s all very well,’ Olive said when Jess proudly presented her with her first week’s earnings. ‘But yer’ve got to keep yerself clothed and shod as well.’
    Jess’s excitement subsided a little. ‘Oh – I ’adn’t thought of that. Sarah made a lot of our clothes, see . . . ’
    Olive perked up, hearing this. ‘Did she teach yer? You any good at sewing?’
    Jess absolutely loathed sewing, but she was anxious to please the hard-faced woman in front of her.
    ‘I can sew a bit.’
    ‘Well that’s summat, ’cause we’re a right cack-’anded lot ’ere, all of us. Why didn’t yer say? You could get yerself a job as a seamstress.’
    ‘I never thought,’ Jess said, vowing silently that that was the last thing she’d ever do.
    ‘Not to worry – yer can move on when yer’ve found yer feet a bit. Factory pay’s better, no doubt about it. Tell yer what – you keep this family in darned stockings and yer can keep ’alf your wages every week. ’Ow about that?’
    Over the first week as she settled in, they had a mattress stuffed for her and got some bedding from a pawn shop sale. She lay down to sleep between her cousins every night and it was cosy, chatting before they slept. That was, until Bert shouted up to them.
    ‘Shurrup gassing, will yer, and let us get some kip!’
    Sometimes they could hear him snoring, and Olive snored like a dormant volcano as well.
    ‘It’s a wonder the house can stand it!’ Polly giggled sometimes, when they were both at it.
    The weeks had passed and Jess hadn’t reminded Olive about writing to Budderston. It was only now that Olive remembered.
    ‘I reckon it’s about time you let ’em know where yer’ve taken off to. Yer father wouldn’t’ve kept a note of my address, would ’e?’
    ‘No. It was only on your letters and I’ve got them.’
    Olive painstakingly penned a note saying that Jess had come to live with them, had found work and was in good health. She wrote her address clearly at the top of the paper.
    ‘Right – you go and post it.’
    Jess felt churned up as she slipped the letter in the post. She walked back slowly down the road.
    I miss ’em, she thought, in a funny way. Even though being ignored and used as the family drudge was what she had been used to. She longed to know whether her father would forgive her for taking off, even though she knew it was his fault she had had to go.
    And as much as that she missed the beauty and familiarity of the countryside, the peace of it. Faces she recognized all round the village, when here she saw only strangers.
    I wish I could just go for a visit and come away, she thought. See the house again, and my room and the apple trees. She imagined walking along the edge of the hayfield, the rustle of the dry grass which she’d heard every summer of her life, until now. At that moment the city