Free The Potato Factory by Bryce Courtenay Page A

woman, taking a candle from a ledge in the hallway, then led Mary through the darkened house to the door of Ikey's study where she tapped three times and departed, leaving Mary waiting in the darkness. She had a sense of being watched and then she heard a sniff followed by the muffled giggle of a child, though she could see no one.
    In a moment or so Mary heard the rattle of a key placed into the lock and the door opened, though only a crack. The light was behind Ikey's head and Mary could only just make out his long nose, a single beady eye and a scrag of beard in the space allowed by the opening. The door opened wider and Ikey silently stood aside for her to enter the small room beyond. The door closed behind her and she heard Ikey lock it once again.
    Ikey brushed past where Mary stood, turned and surveyed her with his hands on his hips. He was wearing his great coat though he'd removed his hat and she now saw his face clearly for the first time. This she found the way she had imagined it to be. That was the point with Ikey's face - to those who saw it clearly it was exactly what you would expect his face to look like if you knew his vocation in life. Behind Ikey stood a coat-stand and beside it a high desk above which a lamp burned brightly. Two further lamps lit the room to give it an almost cheerful look which contrasted markedly with the general darkness of the house.
    Ikey did not bid her to be seated, though there was a small table and single chair some four feet from the desk. Mary moved past Ikey and placed her abacus flat upon the table and then returned to where she'd formerly stood.
    'Well, what is it? Why 'ave you come? Show me, I 'ave no time to waste.' Had she been a man who might be carrying news of a rich haul, Ikey might have been more circumspect, he might have smiled at the very least, ingratiating himself, but such pleasantries were not necessary for a woman of Mary's sort.
    'Please, sir, you 'ave granted me ten minutes, it will take some of this time to tell you me story.'
    'Story? What story? I do not wish to hear your story, unless it is business, a story o' the business o' profit, some for who it is who sends you 'ere and some for yours truly! Be quick. I am most busy of mind and anxious to be about me work.'
    Mary smiled, attempting to conceal her nervousness. 'You will assuredly profit from what I 'ave to say, kind sir, but I begs you first the small charity of your ears, no more, a few minutes to 'ear a poor widow's tale.'
    Mary then told Ikey how she had been recently widowed from a merchant sailor who had been swept overboard in the Bay of Biscay. How she, penniless, had been forced with her darling infant twins to share a miserable room with a destitute family of five and pay each day from her meagre salary for an older child to mind her precious children while she worked as a laundry maid in a big house in Chelsea. How the husband of the mistress of the house took advantage of her desperate circumstances to use her body for his pleasure whenever he felt inclined and without any thought of payment. How one night a most frightful fire had swept through the netherken where she slept with her baby infants and she had been dragged from the flames but had rushed back to save her precious children.
    'I bear the marks, good sir, the marks of that terrible tragedy!' She gave a little sob and withdrew the woollen mittens from her hands, holding them up to reveal her horribly blackened and mutilated claws. 'It were to no avail, me little ones was already perished when I pulled them from that ghastly inferno!'
    'Ha! Burnt into two roast piglets, eh?' Ikey snorted.
    Mary ignored this cruel remark. 'I lost me billet as a laundry maid 'cause of me 'ands and being burned an' all and not even a sovereign from the master of the 'ouse to send me on me way!'
    At this point Ikey waved his hands, fluttering them above his head as though he wished to hear no more.
    'Enough! I 'ave no need for a laundry maid 'ere,