The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  Ella saw Danny, holding a tool like a gun in his hand, glance at her and then look up at her grandmother. Above the squealing he shouted, ‘Hadn’t Ella better go?’ but from behind her, Esther shouted back, ‘No, she’ll have to learn.’

  He gave a slight shrug and turned his attention back to the job in hand.

  ‘Right, hold her . . .’ Danny said and he held the humane killer close to the sow’s forehead. There was a noise and the pig slumped sideways to the ground and was silent. Grandpa Godfrey and Rob held the limbs still and the long, sharp knife flashed in Danny’s hand. Ella held her breath, her body rigid. The knife slid deeply into the soft folds of flesh between the sow’s front legs and was drawn quickly upwards to her chin. Ella shut her eyes, screwing up her face.

  Now all she could hear was scuffling as the men and the boy struggled with the awkward thirty-stone lump. Ella risked opening one eye, squinting fearfully. ‘Is – is she dead, Gran?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes. I told you Danny was quick, didn’t I now?’

  Ella nodded, her gaze held by the sight of the blood pouring from the slit in the animal’s throat. Her grandfather was working the front leg to pump the blood out. Then they heaved the pig into a large rectangular wooden tub.

  Ella pointed. ‘Why’ve they left that long chain in the bottom of the tub under the pig?’

  ‘They use that to slough all the bristles off. You’ll see in a minute,’ Esther said.

  Now Danny was lifting buckets full of near-boiling water from the copper in the wash-house and pouring it over the carcass. Standing one on either side of the tub, Danny and Jonathan each picked up one end of the chain and worked it backwards and forwards under the pig, gradually moving it along. Ella watched as they turned the carcass over and repeated the action. Jonathan bent down and, with a metal scraper, began to clean all the bristles from the pig’s skin. Then together, he and Danny lifted it on to the cratch, a low wooden bench with barrow-like handles at each end, and swilled water over the carcass. With sharp knives they shaved off all the remaining whiskers even on her tail and inside her ears.

  Ella winced as she watched Danny cut off the head, but to her surprise, once that was done, she found she ceased to think of the pig as Lady and was now fascinated by all that was happening.

  Danny put a stretcher between the back legs to hold them wide open and hoisted the whole carcass up by its back legs onto a tripod of poles, just clear of the cratch beneath. He slit open the pig’s belly and all the insides, red and slimy, came tumbling out, but instead of throwing them away, he placed them carefully into huge brown pancheons which her grandmother had carried out from the pantry.

  ‘You can help me with all that later,’ Esther said, close by her ear. ‘I’ll show you how to clean and turn some of the intestines to make sausage skins.’

  The two men and Rob were hoisting the pig even higher and stretching the gaping slit wider open.

  ‘Right, Missus. We’ll leave her like that for now but I’ll be back tonight. Can I give you a hand to carry this lot into the pantry?’

  ‘No, Danny, we’ll manage for a while now, thanks. I’ll get you a beer afore you go.’

  Danny’s mouth widened in a smile. ‘Home-made, Missus?’

  ‘Of course.’ Esther smiled back, pretending to bristle with indignation that he should suggest that she would offer him anything else but her own home-brew. Ella saw her grandmother wink at Rob. ‘And a little drop for you, eh, Boy? If ya do a man’s work, ya deserve a man’s reward.’

  And Rob’s grin seemed to stretch right across his thin face.

  ‘Do you use all that?’ Ella watched as the pancheons were carried carefully into the pantry and set on the red tiled gantry.

  ‘Every bit.’ Her grandmother laughed. ‘We always say we use everything but the squeal.’

  ‘What’s Uncle Danny coming back tonight for?’

  ‘To cut the carcass up, once it’s cooled, into hams and flitches. Then he’ll put it all in that big tub again with salt and we leave it in the little barn for about a month to cure.’

  ‘Won’t the rats and mice eat it?’

  ‘Not if your little cat does his job.’

  Ella’s eyes widened and she stared at Esther, who laughed and said, ‘I’m only teasing. He’s not really big enough yet. No, we’ll cover it over with a wire-meshed frame.’

  Ella nodded, relieved that poor little Tibby would not be expected to stand guard.

  ‘Can I watch Uncle Danny tonight?’

  ‘My, my, we are changing our tune.’

  The girl shrugged. ‘It wasn’t as bad as I thought except just the bit where Uncle Danny – did it.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve more farming in your blood than you know, Missy.’

  Ella looked up at her grandmother, half expecting, half hoping to see, for once, her grandmother smiling down at her. But Esther was turning away. ‘Well, I can’t stand here idling all day, there’s work to be done and a lot of it over the next couple of days. I’d best be gettin’ a move on. Rosie’ll come over tomorrow to give us a hand. Come on, Missy, there’s plenty for you to do an’ all. Get yarsen an apron out of that drawer and—’

  Rob appeared at the back door. ‘Missus, me dad ses I’ve to ask ya. Can I have the bladder to blow up for a football?’

  ‘Aye, course ya can, Boy.’

  His face beamed. ‘Aw thanks, Missus.’ And he was off and running across the yard, his work, for the moment, done.

  ‘Now then, Missy,’ came her grandmother’s voice again. ‘Don’t stand there day-dreaming, let’s set you to work . . .’

  The following morning, Rosie arrived. ‘Hello, love,’ she said to Ella. ‘You going to help us, then?’

  Wrapped in a copious white apron, her hands scrubbed to pink cleanliness, Ella was standing at the kitchen table. ‘What are we going to do today?’ she asked, and Rosie smiled.

  ‘We’ll be making sausages.’

  Ella nodded. ‘I cleaned the skins last night. Gran showed me how to turn them inside out and scrape them with a spoon. They’re in a bucket of salt water in the pantry now.’ This morning, laid out in the pantry were bowls and dishes with all the different meat sorted and graded ready for use. They had all worked late into the night the previous evening, even Ella had not been told, ‘Off to bed with ya.’

  Outside in the small barn the previous evening, she had watched Danny cut up the carcass and rub salt into all the huge joints of meat. When at last he stood up and eased his aching back, she had skipped around him as he crossed the yard towards the house. ‘Is that it? Have you finished?’

  ‘Yes, all done, for now at any rate. D’ya reckon ya know how to kill a pig then, young Ella?’ and she had giggled at his teasing as he opened the back door and they went into the house.

  ‘Well,’ he said to Esther, still busy at her kitchen table, ‘ya’ll soon have some pretty pictures up there now, Missus,’ and he had nodded towards the hooks in the ceiling awaiting the hams and flitches which would be hung there once the joints had been cured.

  ‘Aye, thanks to you, Danny,’ Esther had said. ‘Ya’ve done a grand job as usual. There’ll be a chine for ya.’

  ‘Thanks, Missus. That’s good of you. But only if ya can spare it. We know ya’ve lost ya other two pigs.’

  Esther had smiled and flapped her hand saying, ‘Go on with you, it’s nothing.’

  ‘What else are we making?’ Ella asked Rosie now.

  Rosie wrinkled her smooth forehead and ticked off the items on her fingers, ‘Haslet, brawn and pork-pies, though I’ll leave them to ya gran. I can’t make hot water pastry like ya gran does.

  ‘What’s that, Rosie?’ Esther said, coming out of the pantry at that moment.

  ‘I’m just telling Ella, no one makes pastry for the pies like you.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Esther said, modestly, and then glanced at Rosie, a strange look in her eyes. ‘Danny’s mam, she’s always been a good hand wi’ pastry.’

  Rosie smiled
and said softly, ‘She’d be glad to hear you say that, Missus.’

  ‘Aye well . . .’ Esther sniffed and turned away back into the pantry.

  For the rest of the morning, as they worked, Rosie’s bright chatter filled the kitchen. Ella rinsed the sausage skins whilst Rosie prepared the meat to fill them. ‘I always used to love coming here at pig-killing even as a youngster. You used to let us turn the mincer handle.’

  ‘I’ll set young Rob on that if he comes this afternoon,’ Esther promised.

  ‘Oh, he’ll be here.’ Rosie laughed.

  ‘And then the two of them can take pig’s cheer round the neighbours.’

  Rosie’s eyes clouded. ‘Aye,’ she said softly. ‘Me an’ Kate used to do that.’ Her busy hands were idle for a moment, but then she seemed to shake herself and her nimble fingers were once more chopping up the pig’s trotters.

  Rob arrived just in time for a mid-day snack of scraps – bits of meat and fat baked crisp and piled on rounds of toast.

  ‘By heck! You know how to time it, Boy,’ Esther teased him and ruffled his black, curly hair.

  ‘I came to show Ella what to do.’

  Ella saw her grandmother glance at her. ‘Oh, she’s doing quite nicely for a townie!’ and the older woman and the boy exchanged a grin at Ella’s expense, but far from being offended, the girl felt a warm glow spread through her. Though it was said in an off-hand way, it was the closest she had come, yet, to a compliment from her grandmother. Then the older woman spoilt it by adding, ‘At least it’s keeping her out of mischief.’

  After dinner, the two youngsters were dispatched with plates of pig’s fry to the neighbours.

  ‘That one’s for Rosie’s mam and dad in the cottages at the Point,’ Esther pointed in turn to each plate containing pieces of liver, kidney, heart, sweetbread and bits of pork all covered with a piece of something that looked, to Ella, like a lacy white doily.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a sort of fatty skin, the skirt, we call it,’ Esther said.

  ‘Skin? It doesn’t look like skin. It’s too pretty.’ The girl leaned closer touching it with curious fingers; it felt smooth and slightly greasy.

  ‘Get ya fingers off, Missy,’ her grandmother said, tapped the back of Ella’s hand sharply and then continued telling her which plate was to be taken where. ‘That one’s for the Harris boys.’

  ‘And that one,’ her gran was pointing to the third plate, ‘is for the Souters.’

  Ella met her gaze. ‘I’m not taking that one.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you are, Missy.’ The green eyes met the challenge steadily. ‘And while you’re about it, ya can say ya sorry to Missis for hitting young Jimmy.’

  ‘I—’ Ella began but, feeling a sharp nudge in the back from Rob, she thought better of it and clamped her jaw shut.

  As they left the house, carrying the three plates, Esther shouted after them, ‘And don’t forget to tell ’em not to wash the plates.’

  Ella glanced at Rob in surprise. ‘Not to wash the plates?’

  Rob nodded. ‘S’posed to be bad luck.’

  Having delivered the two plates to the cottages at the Point, they were half-way along the lane leading inland from the coast road, past Rookery Farm and coming nearer to Souters’ Farm, when Ella said, ‘I don’t want to go there.’

  He sighed. ‘You’d do better to get it over with. Ya gran’ll find out if you don’t go.’

  Ella was silent, knowing what he said was more than likely true: her gran had a way of finding out things. She sighed. ‘All right, then.’

  Her knees were trembling as Rob banged on the back door of the Souters’ farmhouse and stood back, leaving Ella standing waiting for the door to open, the plate of pig’s cheer held out in front of her.

  The door flew open and a woman stood there: a fat, blowsy-looking woman, with straight grey hair that looked as if it needed washing. A dirty pinny covered a dress with a frayed hem. ‘Who on earth’s banging like that? Has another war started?’

  But Ella recognized the shrill voice as the one she had overheard in the front garden at Brumbys’ Farm; this was Mrs Souter.

  ‘Er, Gran sent this for you, Mrs Souter, and—’

  ‘Yar gran? Who . . . ?’ The puzzled expression cleared. ‘Oh-ah, I know who you are.’ The woman’s mouth was open as if she were about to say more, but forestalling her, Ella said quickly, ‘I’m sorry for hitting Jimmy, Missis, but he called me a rude name and he shouldn’t have.’

  The woman’s mouth dropped open to reveal yellow, uneven teeth and, fleetingly, Ella wondered where on earth Janice got her good looks from; it was difficult to believe she had inherited her prettiness from this woman.

  ‘Well! Well, I don’t know.’ Mrs Souter took the proffered plate and said again, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ll say this for you, young ’un, ya’re honest,’ and added, muttering, though Ella’s sharp ears caught her words, ‘It’s more’n I can say for me own.’ Louder, she said, ‘Do you want to come in for a bite?’ She pulled the door wider open, inviting them to step inside.

  Ella shook her head and said politely, ‘Thank you, but we’d better be getting back.’

  The woman nodded and said, ‘Well then, thank yar gran, won’t ya?’

  ‘Gran said, don’t wash the plate.’

  The woman gave a cackle of laughter. ‘Oh, I knows not to do that, young ’un.’

  Walking back through the Souters’ farmyard, Ella looked about her and wrinkled her nose. Cow dung littered the cobbles of the yard and wisps of straw blew across the surface. An old tractor, rusty with neglect, stood near the barn wall, grass and nettles grown up around it.

  Ella nodded towards it. ‘Grandpa would like to get his hands into that.’

  Rob laughed. ‘He’d have a double-duck fit if he saw it in that state.’ He leant towards her and whispered, ‘They’re a right scruffy lot, the Souters. It’s a wonder they haven’t been turned out ages ago. But the landlord lives up in London and doesn’t care much about what’s going on down here just so long as he keeps getting the rents paid on time.’

  They walked back down the lane and as they passed a large square building, Ella said, ‘Is that the place that’s empty?’

  ‘Yeah, the Grange. It’s where the old landlord, Squire Marshall, used to live. He’s dead now. It’s his son who’s the present landlord.’

  ‘Why doesn’t anyone live there now?’

  ‘I told you, he lives in London. He’s not bothered.’

  ‘It looks – lonely.’

  ‘Well, it won’t always be, ’cos one day I’ll live there. Come on,’ he said, tiring of her questions. ‘I’ll race you back.’

  Ella took a last glance at the house standing forlorn and lost amongst overgrown gardens. She shuddered. She couldn’t understand anyone wanting to live in a big, deserted house like that, miles from anywhere. And once again she was filled with longing for the cosy, noisy terraced house in Lincoln; the house she still thought of as home.

  Fourteen

  ‘What are you looking for, love?’

  Ella emerged from the disused stable into the sunshine of the July day and sneezed three times in quick succession.

  ‘This.’ She held out a shrimping net. ‘Me and Janice are going shrimping. Rob says cats love cooked shrimps. We’re going to catch some and cook them for Tibby.’

  Jonathan touched the dusty, torn net. ‘Why, fancy you finding that,’ he murmured and his eyes misted over. ‘I made that for your mam when she was little. It’s years old. I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen to pieces.’

  ‘The net’s all torn, but Rob says his dad’s got some old fishing net he won’t mind cutting up.’

  Jonathan nodded, his gaze still on the old shrimping net. ‘From the days when his dad was a fisherman off the Point.’

  ‘I can have it, can’t I, Grandpa?’

  ‘Eh? Oh, yes, of course you can, love.’

  Carrying the shrimping net, she squeezed through the hole in the hedge an
d made her way across the meadow; if it could be called that now, as her grandmother remarked resentfully, after the ravages of the flood this meadow’s crop of hay was going to be of little use. But once across the plank footbridge over the dyke, in the next field where the salt sea-water had not reached, the grass was high, lush and green and almost ready for harvesting. As she ran, Ella left a flattened pathway through the crop until she climbed over the stile and jumped down into the lane leading to Rookery Farm.

  ‘Uncle Danny, Uncle Danny,’ Ella called, skipping across the yard, her skimpy cotton print dress above her knees. ‘Please will you mend this for me?’

  Ella had found her niche at school, had won a small circle of friends, though mainly because she was under the protection of Janice Souter. They played together after school and at weekends, often, at Janice’s suggestion, tagging along after Rob and Jimmy; at least, they did when Ella could escape from the never-ending chores her grandmother set her.

  ‘Ya can wash the walls down in the kitchen again, Missy. The salt’s still drying out. I don’t know when we’ll ever get this place right,’ she muttered crossly.

  ‘We could have the walls rendered with some special stuff to seal it, Esther, if you like,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘I’ve tried repapering in the front rooms, but the salt just comes through again as fast as I do it. The paper won’t seem to stick. It’s all hanging off again near the floor already.’

  ‘It’ll be a long time before we get things back to normal,’ Jonathan said, and Ella heard his voice drop as he added, ‘if ever.’ She knew he was thinking about her mother and bent her head to hide the sudden tears that threatened, pretending to concentrate on her scrubbing.

  ‘What have you got there, Ella?’ Danny was asking her now.

  ‘It’s a shrimping net Grandpa made for Mum years ago, he said.’

  Danny reached out to take the net from her. The girl was surprised and a little embarrassed to see that his hands were trembling. He held it for several moments until Ella asked, tentatively, ‘Could you mend it for me, Uncle Danny, please?’