Free Tangled Threads by Margaret Dickinson

noises.
    Eveleen felt a huge lump in her throat and the tears she had tried to hold back spilled over and ran down her face. To see this big man being so gentle and caring with her distraught mother
seemed to emphasize the painful truth as nothing else could have done.
    ‘Bill?’ Dorothy stepped into the kitchen and, at her husband’s nod towards Eveleen, opened her arms to the girl. With a sob, Eveleen allowed herself to give way to her own
grief, leaving, for the moment, Bill to cope with her hysterical mother.
    At last they got her calmed down, but it took Bill, Dorothy and Eveleen to coax Mary to sit down by the range.
    ‘Here, Mary dear,’ Dorothy said, ‘drink this. ’Tis hot sweet tea. Now,’ she went on gently, ‘Bill and Ted will move poor Walter into your parlour and then
I’ll see to him. Ted came back with us,’ she explained to Eveleen. ‘He’s waiting in the yard in case we needed him.’
    Dorothy was the person the community ran to in times of trouble. A motherly, buxom woman with a round, placid face, she was the unofficial midwife and nurse. She was always there to lay out the
dead when a family could not bring themselves to carry out the sad duty.
    ‘Has anyone called Doctor Roper?’ Dorothy asked Eveleen. ‘I can’t do anything until the doctor’s seen him.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that. I knew the minute I found him face down in the beck that he – that he . . .’ Her voice trailed away and Dorothy put her arm
around Eveleen’s shoulders.
    ‘It’s all right, love. You couldn’t be expected to know what needed doing. You leave it to us now. We’ll sort everything out for you.’ She turned towards her
husband. ‘Send Ted for Doctor Roper.’
    ‘Jimmy could go,’ Eveleen put in.
    The two kindly people looked at her. ‘He’s run off, love. He came to fetch us and then he went off somewhere.’
    Anger sparked in Eveleen’s dark eyes. ‘That’s just like him.’
    ‘Don’t be too hard on him, dear. He’s very young to have to cope with something like this. I know you’re only a year older than he is, but you’re so much more
sensible.’ She gave a little gesture with her head towards where Mary still sat huddled in front of the fire. ‘You’re going to have to be the strong one in this family from now
on, love.’
    Eveleen felt the burden of responsibility settle like a heavy weight on her young shoulders. Automatically, she straightened up and lifted her head as she met the woman’s sympathetic
eyes.
    ‘Yes,’ the young girl said solemnly. ‘I am, aren’t I?’

 
Eleven
    All the legal requirements surrounding a sudden death had been satisfied and the funeral arranged, but still Mary Hardcastle had scarcely moved from her chair in front of the
fire. Eveleen had been trying to coax her to undress and go to her bed when Mary hit her and shouted, ‘Leave me be. Let me rot. I don’t want to live any more.’ Then she began to
wail. ‘What am I going to do without him? Who’s going to look after me now?’
    Rubbing her arm where Mary had lashed out at her, Eveleen said quietly, ‘We’ll look after you, Mam. Jimmy and me.’
    ‘You? You, look after me?’ Mary’s voice was shrill with bitterness. ‘You haven’t a thought in your head except skipping off to meet that young feller.’ She
shook her fist at Eveleen, anger rousing her from her apathy for the first time. ‘You’ll come to a bad end, my girl, you mark my words. Where’s Jimmy? I want my Jimmy. He’ll
look after me. Jimmy’ll look after his mam.’
    Jimmy would do nothing of the sort, Eveleen thought. There was only one person that Jimmy Hardcastle was ever going to look after. Himself. But aloud she said, ‘He’s had to go to
work, Mam,’ as she sat down on the opposite side of the range in the chair that had been her father’s.
    A wild shriek from her mother made Eveleen jump up again as if she had been burnt.
    ‘Get out of that chair. That’s his chair.