Pure as the Lily by Catherine Cookson Read Free Book Online Page B

room was a cabinet. The lid was up, and when she walked towards it she saw it was a gramophone, a fancy one called a radiogram. She had seen them advertised.
    When the child said, “Tea. I want tea,” she put him on the floor, saying, “Oh yes, dear; I’ll get your tea, come on.”
    She went out into the hallway again, and opened the first door going off it, and was amazed to see that this was a dining room, not as posh as Mrs. Turner’s because there were only two pieces of silver on the sideboard, but it was very nice. She hadn’t imagined Mr. Tollett going in for a separate dining-room; she thought they only ate like this round Bloom Crescent and Croft Terrace and places like that.
    The child struggled from her arms now and impatiently ran across the hallway and pushed open another door that revealed the kitchen. Here, too, net curtains were close to the window so that people couldn’t see in from across the road. She stood gazing about her, and she told herself she wouldn’t have believed it, the kitchen was far superior to Mrs. Turner’s. There was a modern gas stove, and besides a larder going off there was a separate china cupboard. But most amazing of all, next to the gas stove was a lift-up table and underneath was a copper, a washing copper which, she saw, was connected to a gas pipe.
    He had a gas copper, there was no need to use the wash house Still, she didn’t suppose they could get into the wash house it would be full of boxes. But all this luxury amazed her.
    The child tugging at her skirt and whining’ now brought her out of her dream, and she went about finding where things were kept. When she asked him if he had milk for his tea he replied bluntly, “No, tea...
    tea.”
    She gave him his meal on a little table set under the window. It consisted of weak tea, bread and butter and jam, a piece of Swiss roll and a plate of jelly and custard she found in the cupboard, and when he was finished he trotted away from her out of the kitchen, across the hallway and into another room.
    There was a cot in the corner, a play pen in the middle of the floor, and more toys scattered about than she had seen in the whole of her life.
    “Gona play?” When he looked up at her solemnly she replied, “Yes, yes, I’ll play. What do you want to play?”
    “Engines.” He proceeded now to drag from a box an engine, coaches and wagons and pieces of rail, which he arranged with surprising dexterity in a circle on the oilcloth. She found that all she was required to do was to sit and watch him.
    They were like this when Ben Tollett first saw them. He stood in the doorway and they weren’t aware of his presence for some seconds.
    When Mary did become aware of him she jumped to her feet, saying, “He wanted to play.”
    “Yes, yes.” He nodded at her.
    “He always wants to play. But tell me, what happened to your mother?”
    “I don’t really know.” She was standing picking one nail with another as she spoke, conscious all the while of the thing that was between him and her mother, and yet wasn’t, because he would have none of it.
    “They’ve sent for the doctor, they think her leg’s broken. We ... we were at me grannie’s, me da and me, and Jimmy came for us. That’s... that’s all I know.” Dear, dear! “ He shook his head. Well now, we’re in a fix, aren’t we?” He smiled, then asked her, T)o you think you can put him to bed later?
    I’ll close early. They’ll have to put up with it. And then I’ll have to think of what I’m going to do, won’t I? “
    “Oh, I can see to him.” She nodded her head, then looked down at the child, who now took his hand and swiped the whole arrangement of engines and trucks to the far corner of the room.
    Ben put his hand to his brow and, smiling grimly, said, “He needs putting up with.”

    “He’ll be all right. What time does he go to bed?”
    “Seven, if he will.”
    “Can ... can you tell me what you have for your supper?”
    “Oh anything. It