Free Extensions by Myrna Dey Page A

on the stove. At the sound of the mine train whistle at the Chase River stop, she hurries to fill the galvanized tub in the scullery with hot and cold water. By the time she has added strips of roast lamb, cold potatoes, and onions to the hot grease in the frying pan, her brother’s heavy steps sound on the path.
    Soot-faced, Tommy enters wearily, discards his boots and tosses his lunch pail next to them. On the way to his bath he passes behind Jane drizzling beaten eggs through the hash, which she will dish onto a plate at the sound of his coal-stiff clothes dropping to the floor. A scrubbed Tommy emerges from the washroom, more ready to sleep than to eat. He never speaks until he has completed this ritual, and sometimes not until after his meal. Or sometimes not at all.
    Jane spoons out a small plate for herself and takes the chair across the table from her brother. He is tall and, she thinks, quite handsome, but too shy and retiring to encourage anyone to look at him for long. When he left Wales for Canada five years ago, she remembers him boarding the ship in Cardiff, his greatcoat so large only his head protruded from it — no hands and just the ends of his feet. His hair was sandy-coloured then and now it is dark. She is not sure if it has been dyed permanently with coal dust or if it is just the natural deepening of colour almost everyone in her family experiences. She glances at Gomer’s tousled head, still blonde but once white. She alone was born with the same brown hair she has now. When Tommy pushes his empty plate to the side, Jane sets a dish of preserved plums and a mug of tea in front of him.
    â€œShift go well?” She takes a sip of tea.
    â€œNobody killed.”
    â€œYou off for a while.”
    â€œSunday noon.”
    â€œGoing to the dance tonight?”
    â€œMight. Rollie wants to go.”
    Tommy’s friend Roland Hughes often ends up at their house. He lives with his father, a moody, mean man, and admits he likes being in a house run by women. Jane welcomes Roland only because he is more talkative than Tommy, and she gains news about people in the mine and Chase River. But he drinks too much and she is certain he will end up like his father. “Stella is sure to go on about what she’s wearing when I get there.”
    â€œIf Lance takes her.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    Tommy glances at his young sister protectively. “Lance sometimes talks as if he’s single.”
    Jane stifles her surprise so Tommy will not think she’s too innocent and stop talking. “How can people become so different because of a new position? Stella told me herself his uncle got it for him.”
    Tommy pushes his chair back from the table, nodding. “Not so long ago he was a mucker, cleaning up while our crew laid timbers, and complaining about all the orders. Now he gives more as tram boss than he ever took.”
    Jane likes to see her brother smile, a triumph that often comes from speaking two or three sentences at once. She loves the soft cadence of Glamorganshire he tries so hard to lose. Whenever their mother speaks in Welsh, he answers in English, so Mama has stopped. Tommy possesses the sweetest voice in the family and, like Papa and Gilbert, has a whole choir in his throat when he sings. Even Gomer is developing a fine singing voice, more the pity he won’t have church to practise it the way the rest of them had back home. Mama’s illness has robbed them of many traditions. As for Jane, Mama says her voice is too full of shrill curiosity to be musical, but she does love to sing to Stella’s wee baby when she is alone with him.
    â€œ Da bore, Thomas. Time for another cup of tea with your mother? And a slice of bara brith. ”
    Mama shuffles from the bedroom, wrapping her dressing gown snugly around her. She sits down on the chair Jane vacates to make porridge. Jane has noticed Mama regains her health most in the presence of her oldest son.