by Annie Murray
Evie saw Rita scowl and look daggers at her.
‘Why do I have to do it?’ she whined. ‘Why can’t Shirl? Or Evie? Make her do it!’ She turned towards Evie who was sitting on the splintery bottom step of the stairs, keeping out of the way. She looked down at the floor, the lino so thin you could see every floorboard through it.
‘Dain’t yow ’ear me? I said shurrit!’ Irene bawled. ‘Now gerrover ’ere!’
Rita got up with an exaggerated flounce of her bony body. Her cotton dress, pale pink and made for a full-grown woman, hung on her, puckered into folds round the waist by the belt. Barefoot, she winced as she trod on something on the floor. Evie thought she looked like one of the scrawny starlings that flapped in the road.
She kept her head down, trying to avoid notice. Even though she looked miles away most of the time, Evie’s whole being was constantly on alert for trouble, as if the hairs on her neck were permanently standing up. It was second nature to her to such an extent that she didn’t notice it. Rita would want revenge. Rita had a long memory for even the slightest of grudges. Luckily she was also as lazy as a sozzled cat. If she kept out of Rita’s way this week, Evie calculated, then school would start and they’d all be away from each other and it would soon get so that Rita couldn’t be bothered . . .
‘’Er went out without telling,’ Shirley added, making a face at Evie across the room. She was sprawled voluptuously along the settle, twitching one leg up and down being her most obvious activity. Baiting Evie was her way of sucking up to Rita.
‘I said shurrit! Stop yer mithering!’ Their mother turned, brandishing a metal spoon. ‘And where’s that cowing father of yours?’
Irene had bleached her hair that afternoon, tied it with rags and curlers. It was set in waves round her fleshy face and under her apron she was wearing an electric blue silky dress, fresh from Rag Alley in town. She had big eyes, enormous curves, full lips, coated at this moment in scarlet lipstick. She was fearsome, loud, childish and intimidating. You never knew which way her temper would go and usually, if she was in a rage with Ray, it was the rest of them who copped it. Ray would be coming home soon and this was her way of trying to keep her wayward husband at her side. It was Friday night, there was food in the house – not yet paid for but the money was coming – Ray was in work and it was time to celebrate this new start with her man.
But the factory bulls had boomed out long ago, signalling the end of a shift, and there was still no sign of him, nor of the famous wage packet he had promised to bring straight home.
She kept going to the door to look out, wiping her hands on her pinner. Evie could feel, by the second, Mom’s mood growing more explosive. All of them could. The three girls scarcely dared move. Rita shoved Shirley up and sank down on the settle beside her. The sisters exchanged looks. They even met eyes with Evie, across the room on the stairs, their feuds forgotten – for the moment.
Sooner or later, Mom would blow. They knew it was coming. The room was thick with tension like the ominous rumbles of a thunderstorm.
This electronic edition published 2017 by Pan Books
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ISBN 978-1-5098-4157-8
Copyright © Annie Murray, 2017
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