The Travelling Man Read Free

thought. Annie almost knocked her over in her dash for the door.
    ‘That lass’s father was bog-Irish, and it’s coming out in her,’ Nextdoor said, rolling the blankets down to give the bed a bit of an airing while her neighbour was on the commode. ‘Mary Clancy thought herself a cut above, just because she served her time to millinery and dressmaking.’
    Grandma Morris said a diplomatic nothing. It never mattered whether you answered Nextdoor or not. She was always far too busy listening to herself, in any case.
    ‘Did you know they’ve got bugs across the street? I’ve seen two men going in this morning with elastic bands round their trouser bottoms to stop the flecks crawling up their legs.’ Nextdoor was giving the flock mattress a good pawing to even out the lumps. ‘One thing about young Annie. She does her best to keep the place clean. Did you hear her creating merry ’ell a bit since? Her mother’ll be turning in her grave if she was listening.’
    ‘I’ve finished, thank you,’ Grandma Morris said. In a voice as quietly dignified as circumstances would allow.
    When Annie got back home she was joined almost immediately by a small boy with the build of a stunted gnome.
    ‘Where’s me tea, our Annie?’ Snatching off his cap he skimmed it onto the table. ‘Me back’s sticking to me front I’m that clemmed.’
    Annie rounded on him, her anger far from spent. ‘How many times have I to tell you, our Georgie, not to put your mucky cap on my clean table?’ She jerked her head. ‘Out in the back with it, then get your head underneath the tap before the boys come in from school. You’re all sitting down together for once, and if our dad misses his tea then it’s his own look-out!’
    Not all that long ago Annie had been able to talk to her younger brother. She’d been able to confide in him, unburden herself to him. A month ago he would often get the coal in for her, side the table, chivvy the other boys to bed, crack a joke with her, but now he was a miner he was above behaving like a sissie. Already Annie could see him turning into a replica of all the other pitmen she knew who treated their women with a superior contempt. Annie had seen the same happen to a lot of lads once they followed their fathers down the mine. She had noticed that the relationship between them changed from that very first time they stood together in the pit cage, to drop far, far below the ground. From that day on they were brothers, not father and son.
    ‘Where’s me dad gone to?’
    Georgie had no intention of doing what he was told, and Annie knew it. He was staring at her with eyes set in a face as black as pitch, showing her who was boss.
    ‘I don’t know where he’s gone. Your dad never tells anybody where he’s goin’, an’ you know it.’ She moved to the fire to stir a brown stew glistening with globules of fat, then took the poker and moved the trivet away from the glowing coals. ‘I suppose if I ask you about this lodger he’s wanting to bring here, you’ll say you know nothing about it?’
    Straightening up, she saw her brother slowly backing away. ‘Oh, our Georgie, why don’t you stick up for me like you used to? Just this once?’
    Opening a drawer set in the side of the big square table she scattered spoons in a heap before setting them out: ‘Billy, Timmy, Eddie, John, Georgie, our Dad, and me, if there’s time to sit down.’
    She dropped onto a stool as a stab of pain shot through her ear. Closed her eyes and pressed her lips tightly together.
    When she opened her eyes again Georgie had gone out, and standing in his place was a man she had never seen before.

2
    THE SEPTEMBER SUN was as weak as blue milk, but even so, coming out of it into the gloom of the small front room, Laurie Yates thought the bowed figure was a boy. But when Annie straightened up he saw her blouse straining across her chest and guessed it was Jack Clancy’s daughter. He held out his hand.
    ‘Miss Clancy?’
    Her