Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead Read Free Page A

sat shivering and crying under the kitchen table.
    “Pull the curtains, you fools!” screamed the grandmother as a flash of blue lightning filled the kitchen. Norah climbed onto the table to reach the window; but a great clap of thunder came, and she made a dash to the broom-cupboard under the stairs.
    Grandmother Willoweed yelled, “Coward! What do you think I pay you for, you insubordinate slut?”
    There was another flash, more yells and cries and a tearing clap of thunder. In the midst of it Ebin Willoweed appeared on the back stairs holding a candle. He saw his mother crouching under the table with the children. Emma remained upstairs. Eunice had joined her sister in the broom cupboard; Hattie was crying lustily; and Dennis sat apart, his teeth chattering.
    “Pull the curtain, you fool!” shouted his mother, so he climbed on the table and did so just as another blinding flash came. A small china cup on the dresser broke into fragments, and he shot under the table to join his family. Now the heavy rain came beating down and the worst of the storm was over.
    “What about some cocoa?” he shouted down his mother’s trumpet.
    “Yes, those lazy bitches must make cocoa,” she said. “We always have cocoa after a thunderstorm. Come girls, out of the cupboard!”
    The maids crept out and lit the smoking paraffin stove and the candles in their brass candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and the occasional flashes were not so visible.
    As he watched Norah working, Ebin noticed that she had a great mole shaped like the map of Australia on her chest. She saw he had ginger-beer bottle tops wired onto his pyjamas instead of buttons.
    “Poor man,” she thought, “we are a lazy lot.”
    During the days that followed they had little time for laziness. The carpets had to be dragged onto the lawns to dry and the mud washed off the floors and furniture; the house had not had such a cleaning for years. Most of the heavy work fell on Emma and the two maids. Grandmother Willoweed went from one worker to another brandishing a wicker carpet-beater, and if anyone was not working to her satisfaction they received a whack with it. The two children were put on to furniture polishing, which they did in a half-hearted fashion. Dennis knelt on a book, which he read when his grandmother was out of sight. Eunice called to her sister:
    “Have you heard that Grumpy Nan who lived in the cottage by the mill was drowned?”
    “Yes, poor woman,” her sister answered, “but she has been dying this long time. They say she had cancer and suffered something awful, the poor thing! You could hear her groans as you passed the cottage. Yes, it’s a merciful release.”
    Crack! The wicker beater came across her back. Subdued, the sisters bent over their work. Emma passed them with one arm outstretched to balance the weight of the bucket she carried. She emptied the dirty water it contained down the great brown sink. A smooth white cat had been sitting on the draining board watching intently the water dripping from the pump. It jumped on to her shoulder and rubbed its face against her neck. She stroked it absent-mindedly; but her hands were wet and the cat leapt to the dark stone floor and looked at her with reproachful yellow eyes.
    Into the scullery her father tripped. Although he was a large man he always walked on his toes, rather leaning forward with his shoulders hunched.
    “He is like a gingerbread man,” his daughter thought, “ginger hair, ginger moustache, ginger tweed suit.”
    He put his breakfast tray on the draining board. He always had breakfast in bed. It was usually taken up to his room by Hattie; the maids seldom went to his room, and his bed was often left unmade for days. When he had deposited the tray, which was decorated with crusts and congealed egg yoke, he put his arms round his daughter, hugged her hard and kissed the back of her neck. She pushed him away impatiently.
    “Oh, alright, I was only being affectionate,” he said