Free Tiger Bay Blues by Catrin Collier Page A

to her bed, she ran down the uncarpeted wooden stairs into the kitchen.
    Pearl, her grandmother, was up, dressed in her flowered work overall, and mixing oats in the porridge pan. The smell of soda hung, nose-stinging, in the air, the flagstone floor was damp from its morning scrubbing and the range gleamed with newly applied black lead.
    ‘Morning, Gran.’ Judy dumped her clothes on the only easy chair in the room.
    ‘You’ll do yourself an injury rushing around like that.’
    ‘I’m late.’
    ‘No, you’re not,’ Pearl contradicted. ‘It’s not half past seven yet. What time did you come home last night?’
    ‘A reasonable hour,’ Judy answered evasively.
    ‘I heard you and Jed talking at the door after midnight. But seeing as how Sunday’s your half-day, I suppose you can have a nap later.’
    ‘I will, Gran.’ Judy kissed her grandmother’s wrinkled cheek and went out the back. The family referred to Pearl King’s garden as a ‘cultivated wilderness’. The sprig of jasmine she had planted next to the ty bach when she had moved into the house as a bride over sixty years before now covered the roof of the outhouse as well as the walls. Knee-high lavender bushes bordered both sides of the crazy paving path below the washing line, and clumps of poppies bloomed, adding splashes of crimson to the shadows beneath the garden walls.
    Judy unhooked the tin bath from the back yard wall on her return from the ty bach , carried it into the washhouse and half-filled it with jugs of water that she drew from the cold tap set above the outside drain in the yard. She stripped off her nightgown, stepped into the water and washed as quickly as she could coax lather out of the carbolic soap in the freezing water. After drying herself, she dressed in her plain black cotton maid’s uniform. When she’d finished, she dragged the bath outside and emptied it down the drain before wiping it and returning it to the hook on the wall.
    ‘Breakfast is ready.’
    ‘Coming, Gran.’ She went into the back kitchen and sat at the wooden table, covered with a darned checked tablecloth which was older than her.
    Her grandmother set a bowl filled with porridge in front of her. ‘I don’t see why Mrs Protheroe has to have you in on a Sunday.’
    ‘I keep telling you, Gran, she likes me to do the fires and make her dinner. I won’t be long; she only eats salads in summer.’
    ‘Everybody is entitled to one day off a week,’ Mrs King grumbled.
    ‘I had one yesterday,’ Judy reminded her.
    ‘From Mrs Protheroe, maybe, but it was no day off for you when you were out singing with Jed’s band all day.’
    ‘Singing’s fun, not work. You should have seen the wedding.’ Judy’s eyes sparkled as she concentrated on the early part of the day and pushed Charlie Moore’s attack from her mind. ‘The wedding breakfast was in a massive house and they’d put up a huge tent on the lawn. The food was out of this world. The family even laid a buffet in the kitchen for the helpers, including us. And the bride was stunning. Her frock was satin and all the bridesmaids were dressed in gold –’
    ‘And you’ll have threads hanging from your mouth if you talk any faster,’ her grandmother reproved.
    ‘It was a good day.’
    ‘You never have time to rest.’
    ‘I get more time off living out of Mrs Protheroe’s than I would have if I lived in. And the chance to eat breakfast with you every day.’ Judy sprinkled brown sugar on her porridge and began to eat.
    Her grandmother poured a cup of tea, put sugar and a splash of milk in it, and set it next to Judy’s bowl. ‘Did you get paid yesterday for singing with the band?’
    ‘I put five pounds ten shillings in the box last night,’ Judy said proudly.
    ‘Where did you get that kind of money?’ Pearl frowned suspiciously.
    ‘Mr Evans, who hired the band, gave Jed five pounds plus petrol money for Mr Holsten’s van. My share was ten shillings.’
    ‘And the five pounds?’ her