Saturday's Child by Ruth Hamilton Read Free Book Online

to start with. In fact, I would
go so far as to say . . .’ She mopped at streaming eyes. ‘That Mr Barnes did her a service, since she looked so much better in the guise of a man.’
    The older girls fell about the beds in agony, while the younger ones continued to mix themselves up on the floor, arms and legs tangled as they pushed and pulled at each other. Even Rachel,
worried as she was, managed to giggle. In the doorway, little Thomas Grogan laughed along with them. If he couldn’t have his real mam and dad back, these were the very people he would have
chosen for himself. The papers had been signed; he was now Thomas Grogan-Higgins and he was happy.
    Ernest Barnes was on the floor of the kitchen. His inability to return to the vertical was the product of anger rather than a result of his bad leg. The bitch; the scheming,
good-for-nothing piece of trash. He had married her, had stood by her, had kept her fed, clothed and warm until that damned horse had finished him. God, if he could just get his hands on her now .
. .
    Of course, she had denied all knowledge of Frank’s intentions. Here she had sat in the very chair against which he leaned, oh no, she had heard nothing, oh no, their Frank had never said a
word. Liar. She was a damned liar and he was no fool.
    He closed his eyes and replayed the scene. Bert Mansell stood in the doorway, hat twisting in his hands. He came straight out with it, his face red with embarrassment. It hit Ernest deep in his
guts, as if he had been kicked by yet another brewery animal. ‘Our Frank?’ he asked more than once, as if an echo would make the words sink into his numbing brain. This had to be wrong,
had to be a mistake. A Barnes sinking into the abyss dug by popes and Irish idiots? Impossible.
    ‘It’s one of that lot from across the road,’ concluded Bert. ‘Eldest, Theresa or Rachel or some such daft name. Aye, the oldest, I think, nice-looking girl, works at
Derby Mills.’
    Dot put the kettle on.
    ‘But . . . no,’ stammered Ernest. ‘He’s forty-bloody-two, Bert. He’s never been one for the women, more interested in saving up to get out of the pit.’
    ‘Well, I’ve heard it’s right,’ Bert said, ‘my missus is never wrong about these things.’
    Dot poured hot water into the brown teapot.
    Ernest stared hard at the back of her head, trying to enter her mind, almost. Did she have a mind? She had said very little during forty-five years of marriage, had scarcely screamed when
beaten. In fact, it was the calm, the lack of reaction that angered him. She forced him to hit her, forced him to see red. Apart from the fact that she made meals and kept the place tidy, she
wasn’t much of a person at all, seemed to have no opinions, no ideas.
    Bert Mansell hovered in the doorway. ‘Bolton’s at home,’ he said. ‘So . . . well . . .’
    Dot stiffened. Although the movement was barely discernible, Ernest marked it, notched it up in his mind. Frank always visited his mam after a home match. ‘Sit down,’ he advised
Bert, ‘have a cup of tea and tell me all about it.’
    Bert lowered himself gingerly into a chair, his eyes darting from Ernest to Dot and back again. Knowing full well that the news he carried would bring trouble, he believed sufficiently in the
cause to see this through. No way could he have sat back and watched while Frank Barnes turned Catholic. Frank was of an Orange family, a long line of papist-haters. But Bert replied to
Ernest’s barked questions in monosyllables, fingers still clawing at the already tortured cap. All he wanted was to be outside when the balloon went up.
    Dot made the tea, poured it into the solid silence that filled the room. Ernest never took his eyes from her. ‘Well?’ he asked as he lifted his cup. ‘What’s going
on?’
    ‘How should I know?’ she replied.
    ‘He tells you everything.’
    ‘Frank’s said nowt to me,’ said Dot.
    And in that moment, Ernest Barnes knew. She didn’t fool him, not