Woman of the House by Alice; Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

but Nana and Jack agreed about most things. Nana always said that she considered Jack to be “sound”.
    “Give me a few minutes’ head start,” he said to Nora, “and then slip out the back door after me and come over to the calf house.
    “Why?” she asked in a puzzled voice.
    “Just do as he says,” Nana said quietly.
    They watched him edge his way unobtrusively across the kitchen, a small-boned, wiry little man with tufts of white hair curling up around his grey tweed cap.
    “Now, Nora,” Nana instructed, rising from her chair and leading her across the kitchen. They were intercepted several times by neighbours wanting to talk to Nana and to pat Nora on top of her sore head. Old Mrs Conway loomed in front of them, so large and wide that there was no getting past her. Nora shrank back against Nana.
    “Ah, he’s the heavy loss to ye,” she boomed. “Herself won’t be able to manage at all without him.” Nana agreed quietly but kept going. The scullery was full of women, but Nana being small was able to slip out behind them, and as she closed the door she somehow managed to have procured a coat off one of the hooks on the back of it and wrapped it around Nora.
    “Run over to Jack now, child, “she said and stepped back into the scullery.
    Nora looked around the yard. This was Dada’s yard and she almost expected to see him come out of the stalls or Paddy’s stable or the calf house. But it was Jack who called across the yard.
    “Over here, Nora.” She walked across slowly. A cold white moon glittered off the frosty stones. Her legs were stiff and she felt numb inside and outside and the bitter night air pierced the scratches on her face. Jack was standing in the shadow of the house and he had a mug of hot steaming water in his hand.
    What on earth is Jack doing? she wondered, but next to Dada Jack was the man she knew best, so she felt sure that whatever he was doing must be right.
    “Up you go, girlie,” he said, lifting her on to the wall that divided the calves. She heard them snuffling in the house behind her.
    Then she saw Jack’s outline move across the house and heard something being dragged and a clink of glass against stone. He came back with a bottle, and when he wiped the cobwebs off it with the sleeve of his coat, its contents glinted in the moonlight. He uncorked it carefully and poured a precise amount into the steaming mug and followed it with a pour of sugar from a crumpled brown bag.
    “Now, girlie, drink that very slowly,” he instructed, and Nora felt that she was being allowed into a secret department in Jack’s life that would never have been opened to her but for the terrible thing that had happened. Slowly she raised the warm mug to her lips with Jack’s eyes fastened on her face. She took a sip and spluttered.
    “Jack,” she protested, “I never tasted anything like it!”
    “That you didn’t, girlie,” he said, “but desperate situations need desperate remedies, and if anyone told me last night that I would be giving you the cure tonight, I would have thought that they were off their head. But then today was enough to send us all off our heads.”
    “Is that what it’s called?” she asked. “The cure?”
    “That’s right,” Jack told her; “it will warm you and heal you and make you feel better.”
    She had to agree with Jack because as she continued to sip she began to heat up slowly. A warm thaw started at her big toes and seeped up her legs and the stiffness eased out of them, and by the time it had reached the lump at the side of her head, she did not feel so frozen.
    “Jack,” she declared, “that’s a magic cure: why don’t you give it to everybody?”
    “Listen, Nora,” Jack said urgently, “this is best kept between ourselves.”
    “But doesn’t Nana Lehane know?” Nora said.
    “Your Nana is a rare woman,” Jack told her; “other people might not be as understanding.” Nora felt that her mother might be included in the other