Free The Denniston Rose by Jenny Pattrick Page A

birthday.’ Jimmy sighs, and Rose thinks that perhaps the picnic is going to end badly after all.
    ‘Rosie, Rosie,’ says Jimmy, ‘what a life we’ve landed you in.’
    Her mother says nothing, but looks away.
    Then Jimmy puts one finger into a small pocket in his waistcoat and hooks out a tiny bag made of leather, with a string to pull it shut.
    ‘Hold out your hand,’ he says, and Rose holds it out. He pulls open the drawstring and shakes a little warm thing into her palm. It is flat like a piece of paper and red-gold like the yolk of an egg. It is heavy for such a small thing and its edges are smooth as if it were a drop of water splashed on the ground and then gone solid.
    ‘Is it gold?’ she says.
    ‘It is. Happy birthday, girlie.’
    ‘Is it for me?’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Jimmy,’ says her mother.
    Her father says, ‘There is no need to look like that, it is the only piece I have, which I carry for luck. She might as well have it, though she will need more than one flake of the colour to see her through this world.’
    Rose closes her hand around the warm gold and looks at her mother.
    ‘Jimmy Cork!’ says her mother, flinging her arms wide and beginning to shout. ‘I know you, you would not give away your last flake. You are hiding something from me, and Jesus spare you if I find you are cheating on me!’
    ‘Cheating?’ says Jimmy, ‘Who is cheating who? Tell me that! I have sharp enough eyes and ears for what they are saying. And where is your evidence, woman? Do you see me a rich man? Calm down, for God’s sake, or they will hear in the mine and think it is a cave-in. I have given a small piece of treasure to my daughter, who is dying for some. And anyway it is only a few pennyweight.’
    Rose asks her mother if she can keep the gold and her mother looks away out over the flat land and the little humpy bushes with sun shining on the leaves, and she folds her hands in her lap where she is sitting on the rug and says nothing.
    ‘Can I keep it?’ asks Rose again.
    ‘Keep it, keep it,’ shouts her mother. ‘And we will see about the rest later — count on it, Jimmy!’
    Jimmy winks and smiles at Rose, and she hugs him, and kisses the bristly beard.
    ‘Ah now, Angel,’ says Jimmy. ‘This fresh air puts me in the mood, and why not when the world is smiling? Rosie, my little girlie, go down to the mine entrance and watch the boxes come out, while I talk to your mother.’
    ‘Can I have the bag too?’
    Her father gives her the little bag and she drops her first treasure into it. Rose pulls the string tight and slips the loop over her wrist. She tucks the bag with the gold flake glowing inside into the palm of her hand and holds tight.
    ‘Go on, off you go,’ says her mother, so Rose runs over to the tunnel entrance with the bag soft like a little mouse in her hand.
    The tunnel is dark and exciting like one of Con the Brake’s stories. Big logs of wood make a square opening as if for a giant’s house, but there is no door. Train rails go right into the mine, into the dark, and two heavy chains are rattling along above the rails, coming and going and never stopping. Rose hears a rumble andstands back to watch an empty wagon, pulled by the chain, disappear into the mine. Then there is another rumble from inside the mine and she looks in, but it is dark. A grey shape is coming and she screams and laughs as the full one comes out all by itself, heaped with shining black coal, out into the sunlight, and away it goes, rolling steady and proud towards the Bins.
    Rose watches while two more full boxes roll out from the darkness, and then she climbs up so she can see her mother and father. They are lying down in the sun. She wants to go back and jump in one of the empty boxes, ride it way into the mine, but her mother calls her.
    Her mother is standing up now, dusting her coat down and doing up the buttons. She folds the tea-towel and puts it in the basket and Rose knows the picnic is over.
    ‘Say