‘I’ve never seen you so happy about going to church before,’ her father commented dryly, seeing her expectant face; then he tapped his fob watch, swung his umbrella in little circles and said, ‘Righteo.’ He was bound tightly into his three-piece suit; it was pulling at his middle, which was slowly expanding with age.
Edie was perplexed. In truth she was a little annoyed. He hadn’t even bothered to look at her skirt. He was so vacant these days. She looked questioningly at her mother, who was leaning against the wall. She had dark rings under her eyes and a large loose cape over her dress. But Edie didn’t notice her mother’s tired appearance and looked back at her father, who was still tapping his watch, timing their departure perfectly, and then she looked at Beth standing a few feet away in her linen skirt, waiting to see if she was family or servant today. She was always fluctuating between the two, sometimes an intimate, at other times an observer; the tide entirely depended on the family’s mood.
Two years ago Beth had been lost and empty, living with her oldest sister Dottie’s family and working for Mister Scully at his bakery. She knew she wanted something different but she didn’t know what that something was. Beth at thirteen was the youngest of four sisters; Dottie was the eldest and was fifteen years older than Beth. Dottie liked to remind the other sisters that she was the practical one, like their mother, but Aggie (who was two years younger than Dottie) said Dottie was just plain bossy and it had nothing to do with being practical or being like their mother. Beth bit her lip when Aggie said this because she couldn’t remember their mother; whenever she was mentioned the other three sisters looked uncomfortably at each other and changed the subject. Florrie was one year younger than Aggie and Dottie called her Aggie’s shadow — not to her face, of course. Florrie and Aggie worked at the Bunch of Grapes where they poured warm beer into cold miners’ stomachs and didn’t come home until four in the morning. Dottie said the two of them were as useless as their father, who had upped and disappeared when their mother died. Beth said nothing because she couldn’t remember their father either. Dottie’s husband was called Laidlaw, but even Beth couldn’t tell you his first name. He worked down the mines and when he got home and collapsed into his chair at the end of the kitchen table the whole house became noisier as his laughing voice boomed its way around the kitchen and up the hall. If Dottie’s two kids had been asleep, they were soon awake. When his voice filled the house, Beth knew there was no room left for her.
Every day Beth came home from Scully’s bakery with her clothes covered in flour, but one night she came home and the flour was imprinted with Mister Scully’s fingerprints fluttering all over her like flies she was forever trying to brush away. Dottie had stopped mashing potatoes and looked at her good and hard but she didn’t say anything. The next night her mother’s friend Nurse Drake had turned up at the door and spent a good half-hour whispering with Dottie in the entranceway. Beth had stood and watched them, leaning against the hallway wall. She knew they were whispering about her because they turned at regular intervals and gave her long meaningful looks, and after much nodding of heads Dottie had turned and said to Beth, ‘Get your things, Bethie, you have a new job. Nurse Drake is going to take you there now. It’s live-in.’
‘You mean I won’t be living here?’ said Beth, and added pointedly, ‘With my family?’ just to make Dottie feel guilty, even though they both knew there was no room.
‘It’s an opportunity,’ said Nurse Drake. ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, missy.’
Well, it just so happened that Beth liked opportunities. She liked to spot them and jump on them because you never knew where they might lead, and as long as they led somewhere, she didn’t mind taking a risk on the unknown.
So Beth had gathered her other dress, her hairbrush and her stockings and underthings and shoved them into her small tattered suitcase with someone else’s initials inscribed in the worn leather and followed Nurse Drake up the street. Nurse Drake nattered all the way, filling Beth’s head with noise, which was annoying because she wanted to take in where they were going.
‘They’re a good family; you’ve really landed on your feet, missy. I’m doing this for your poor mother because I said I’d watch out for you. Don’t waste this opportunity, young lady.’
Beth had no intention of wasting the opportunity to get away from Mister Scully’s fat clammy fingers and Dottie’s full house, where Beth had to share her bed with Aggie and Florrie who woke her as they clambered in tipsy, giggling, and loudly sshh-ing every night.
And the Cottinghams were good to her. Miss Cottingham told her she would be treated like one of the family and they were true to their word — most of the time. Missus Cottingham taught her how to iron Mister Cottingham’s shirts the way he liked and how to use the hot meat fat to make sure the potatoes crisped. She was a patient teacher and now Beth could do it herself. She ate the same food as the Cottingham’s at the same table at the same time, but she prepared all the food and served it and cleaned up afterwards. She had her own bedroom and
