Free Rosie by Lesley Pearse Page A

kitchen sink, but he must have been watching her in the mirror. ‘Those sandwiches are for men, not a bloody garden party. Seth! Norman! Get down here, you lazy buggers!’ he roared up the stairs.
    It was half past six. Rosie had been up for an hour already. She’d lit the stove, collected up eight new-laid eggs from the hens, and three huge fried breakfasts were waiting in the oven, the kettle nearly boiling for tea.
    Cole was so big he blocked out all light from the kitchen window. He wore the same dirty grey trousers he wore every working day, his braces hanging down at the sides as he washed his armpits. People said he was a fine-looking man, and at times when he was dressed in his Sunday suit Rosie agreed with them; but not in the early mornings, with thick black stubble covering his entire lower face and his hairy paunch hanging over his trousers.
    Rosie silently put the three plates of breakfast on the table as Seth and Norman came into the kitchen, wearing just their trousers.
    ‘D’you want a flask too?’ she asked her father. He had put on his clean shirt, combed his hair and his braces were back on his shoulders. She was nervous now her brothers were in the room. She was never comfortable in their presence any more. The girls in the village might find them handsome, but she didn’t.
    Seth stunk of urine, and that meant he had wet the bed again. There was a strong smell of stale sweat too, and it sickened her to think they would probably put the clean shirts she’d just ironed over their unwashed bodies. Neither of them ever cleaned their nails, or brushed their teeth. Cole might have a vicious temper but at least he was fastidious.
    ‘Don’t you go getting no lads in here today while we’re gone,’ Seth said. ‘Or we’ll cut off their balls when we get back.’
    ‘Leave her alone,’ Cole scowled at his eldest son. ‘Our Rosie’s got more sense than that. And you, lad, can wash yerself proper before we leave. You stink worse than pig shit.’
    Rosie slipped silently out the door and off up the stairs at that comment, not even waiting for Cole’s answer about a flask. When Seth was reprimanded by his father, he usually took it out on someone. She had no intention of being the target.
    She gagged as she went in to see Alan. As she expected Seth had wet his bed and the smell of ammonia was disgusting. He never apologized, much less stripped the sheets. But then he was an animal in every way. He often vomited on the floor and left it for her to find, just as he would sometimes do more than just pee in the chamber pot and leave that too. She suspected if she wasn’t there to change the sheets and clean up after him, he’d just go on wallowing in it like a pig.
    As she pulled off the sheets, Alan woke.
    ‘Shush,’ she whispered, putting a finger up to her lips. ‘Stay there till they’ve gone out, then we’ll have our breakfast together.’
    Ten minutes later Rosie heard her father bellow out her name. She ran down the stairs. ‘I was just making the beds. Are you going now?’
    Cole smiled at her and held out a half-crown.
    ‘Well be at the auction all day, and we won’t be back until late, so we’ll get sommat to eat there,’ he said. ‘It’s a hot ‘un again, so after you’ve done the chores, take a walk down to the village and get yourself an ice-cream.’
    The unexpected treat and consideration pleased Rosie. On impulse she ran down the last few stairs to hug him. Fortunately Seth and Norman had gone outside to the pickup truck. Cole was never as warm when they were in earshot.
    ‘You’re a good ‘un,’ he said, hugging her back. ‘Now don’t you go forgetting to shut the hens up this evening, there’s foxes about. And get that lazy little bugger up, he should be helping you at his age, not lying abed.’
    She followed her father outside to wave him off. It was a beautiful morning, a light haze hanging over the moors. She suddenly felt very happy. With the men out till late