Extract: 

 

Chapter One

The row started on Friday night, when Dad came home late with just a few pounds left in his pay packet.  Mam never said anything to him about it but this Friday she started on at him as soon as he got through the door.  He was late and the depot, where he worked as the assistant manager in the office, had closed hours before.  Even Tina could tell he’d had a few drinks.  Usually she’s the first to say hello to him when he gets home but this time she took one look at his face and disappeared.

‘You promised me you were going to pay the coal-man so he’d drop a few bags off today.  He hasn’t been,’ said Mam, who was busy peeling potatoes at the sink.

‘Well I haven’t, so stop nagging and get the supper on.’

Mam turned round with the potato-peeler in her hand and waved it at him.  ‘No, Gordon, I won’t stop nagging and get the supper on.  The bairns haven’t been bathed tonight, there’s no hot water and it’ll be Monday now before we can get any coal.  What are we going to do until then?  It's still cold at night and there was a frost yesterday morning.  You tell me what we’ll do without coal?’

'I'll get the bloody coal.  Don't go on about it.'

Mam wouldn't let go.  'We can't get any from the coal-man.  We haven't paid him from the last lot yet.'

'Just shut up, will you Sal.  I'll get us some bloody coal.'  He picked up his jacket and stormed out of the house.  Mam’s lips drew together into a tight line as she turned to finish peeling the potatoes.

When you have to have the fire on summer and winter to heat the water in the back boiler and there isn’t any coal left, it gets bad.  This week it ran out on Wednesday so we didn’t have our baths and the pile of dirty washing in the corner of the kitchen’s getting bigger and bigger.  If we don’t get some coal soon we won’t have any clean clothes left at all.  I haven’t had a clean top for school since Tuesday, but that doesn’t matter because we broke up for half-term today.  We can make do with old stuff until we go back a week on Monday.

I boiled the kettle up on the electric hob to wash the dishes after supper - that’s my job - washing up after supper, along with the other jobs I have to do -  like keeping an eye on Tina, who’s only five, and looking after baby Janie. 

I don’t know how our Jack gets away with it.  His job’s taking the dog out for a walk every night after supper.  I wish I could do that.  I’d do it better than Jack does.  He fastens the lead to Beaut’s collar and walks him to the top of our street, where the houses end, then he lets him off to run free in the woods, while he meets his mates.  They share scrounged ciggies or ride their bikes round the streets like mad things until it’s time to go home for bed.  He’s not supposed to do that.  Not since Beaut went missing that time and we didn’t know where he was until the farmer brought him back in his Land Rover, saying he’d shoot him next time he caught the bloody animal among his sheep.  It was our last chance, he said.  Mam said he could shoot the bloody dog any time he liked for all she cared but Jack started to cry at the thought of Beaut getting shot so Mam gave him a cuddle and said she didn’t mean it.

 

This morning the row got worse.  Mam was being sick again in the bathroom, while Dad was waiting to go in.  She’d locked the door and he was hammering on it with his fist.  I could hear her retching and it made me feel a bit sick, to tell you the truth.  I’ve always been like that.  When I first went to school, when I was about four-and-a-half, if anyone was ever sick in morning prayers I was sick about ten seconds later.  The teachers soon caught on and they made me stand at the end of the line, nearest the sand bucket.  Even though I’m eleven now, I still feel ill if anyone is sick nearby.  Hearing Mam being sick made me feel bad two ways.  First, I want to throw up myself but at the same time I knew why she was sick and I didn’t know how we’d manage with another baby in our family. 

When Mam came out of the bathroom, she looked awful.  She was as white as a sheet and her eyes were watering.  I think they were just watering but she might have been crying.  Dad was standing there, waiting for her to come out.  When she opened the door, he took hold of her elbow and pulled her from the doorway then pushed her towards the top of the stairs.  I caught her just as she missed the top step and managed to pull her back before she fell.  She held me and I could feel her shaking, as if she was crying inside. 

‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Meggie,’ she said.  ‘You’re such a help to me.  You’re a good girl.’  Then she let go and went downstairs.

After I put my clothes on - it was the red jumper again and that old blue skirt with the broken zip – I went downstairs for breakfast.  Jack was already there, stuffing cornflakes into his mouth as fast as he could.  I poured some into a bowl and reached for the milk-jug.  It was empty.

‘Mam, has the milkman been yet?  Jack’s used all the milk.’

‘Have a look on the step.’

I stood up and went to the door.  I opened it and looked outside.  It was a beautiful day, with sunshine scattering the wet weeds beside the path with tiny jewels of light.  I breathed in.  The air was clean and fresh.  There was no milk. 

I closed the door and turned round.  Dad was in my chair, Mam was in her chair and Jack was still eating his cornflakes.  Tina, who is Dad’s favourite, was sitting next to him, while Janie’s chair was pushed up to the table and she was bashing her spoon into her dish of dry cornflakes.  Mam took the top off Janie’s feeding bottle and poured the warm baby milk over the cornflakes.  I was hovering around behind Mam, wondering how to squeeze another chair round the table when Janie walloped her spoon into her milky cornflakes and they went everywhere.

Tina got some in her eye and started to cry.  Mam got up and tried to take the spoon away from Janie, who screamed and wouldn’t let go.  Dad pushed himself away from the table, where he’d been eating toast, and reached for a tea towel to mop up some milk that had gone on his trousers.

‘Can’t you control this lot at all?’ he shouted, which made Janie yell even louder.  He threw the tea towel at Mam and the corner of it went into her eye.  She let go of Janie’s spoon and put her hand over her face.

‘What’s wrong with you now?’ he said to Mam, who was still covering her eye with one hand.  He reached over, dragged her hand away and leaned close to her so that his face was only a few inches from hers.

‘You are,’ she yelled back.  ‘You’re what’s wrong with me.  It’s high time you took a long look at yourself, before you start to call me names.’

He didn’t reply, just pulled her closer.  He clenched his fist but he held back.  He let her go and walked out of the back door. 

By this time, everyone was crying.  Jack mouth was clammed tight shut – he was trying to keep his tears in, while Tina’s wet, rosy cheeks shone like Christmas apples.  Janie was furious and she was yelling even louder than before.  Mam was holding her belly, tears sliding down from her eyes to her lips.  She licked them off.  I didn’t think I was crying but when something plopped down onto the front of my jumper I realised I was, though I didn’t make a sound. 

I didn’t want breakfast any more.  I couldn’t swallow anything.  Jack and me started clearing up the mess, while Tina went over to Mam and tried to give her a hug.  Mam lifted Tina onto her knee and sat, rocking her backwards and forwards, until Tina’s crying had died away into hiccups.  Of course, Janie, who’d caused most of the trouble, was by now eating her soggy cornflakes as if nothing had happened.

Jack tipped the uneaten toast crusts and the rest of his cornflakes into the waste bin, while I got the dishcloth and started to wipe the mess from the table.  No-one spoke until there was a clatter from the back step.

‘I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea,’ I said, as the rattle of the milkman’s dray faded away. 

Jack’s jaw unclenched itself, Tina slid down from Mam’s knee and Mam lifted Janie out of her high chair.  I filled the kettle and put it onto the hob to boil but by the time the whistle went I was by myself, so I poured the boiling water into the washing up bowl.  There was no washing up liquid.

While I was washing the dishes, Mam had put Janie outside in the Silver Cross pram to wait for Tina to finish getting dressed so Tina and me could take Janie for a walk round the block in the sunshine.  I like doing that.  We always stop beside the garden where the hens are.  Janie loves those hens and sets up a horrible racket when she sees them.  When they see us with the pram they make a rush for the hen house, which makes Janie cry.  I didn’t know that when it was Jack’s turn to take Janie for a walk in her pram he threw stones at the hens or poked sticks at them through the wire mesh so just the sight of that pram sent them running for cover.

When we got back, Mam was trying to chop some old bits of wood from the shed.  Jack was helping by holding the wood while Mam hacked at it with the small axe Dad used to make sticks for the fire.  Mam gave a little chop at the wood but the axe slipped and just caught Jack on his wrist.  There was some blood - not very much; it was more like a deep scratch, but enough to set Tina off again.  Mam threw the axe back through the shed door and lifted Jack’s hand to have a closer look at it.  She bit her bottom lip.

‘Come on inside,’ she said, ‘and I’ll put a bandage on.  I’m sorry Jack, it was an accident.  If only we had … I’m sorry,’ she said again, as she led Jack back into the house.  I wandered in after them, holding Tina’s hand.  She sniffed snot and tears back up her nose with a disgusting snorting noise.

I don’t know where it came from but as I went into our living room and looked at that black fireplace, dead and cold, something swelled up inside of me and I knew I’d had enough.  I was going to do something.  I was going to do something big that would make a difference.  I would get some coal.

End of Extract