Free The Girl From Seaforth Sands by Katie Flynn Page B

cabbages, and seemed to have no intention of finishing the work.
    ‘Do you know what we were doing a year ago today?’ she asked, carrying some of the groceries over to the pantry. It wasn’t a proper pantry, it was a cupboard which was floored and shelved with slabs of slate, and because the outer wall had a northern aspect it was the easiest part of the kitchen to keep cold. ‘Or can’t you remember that far back, puddin’ head?’
    ‘A year ago today?’ Albert said vaguely, not looking up from the paper. ‘How the devil should I know? Trust a bleedin’ girl to ask a bleedin’ silly question like that!’
    ‘It’s not a stupid question at all,’ Amy protested indignantly. She carried the last of the shopping into the pantry and slammed the door shut, turning back to Albert. ‘I called you puddin’ head but I should think even a puddin’ has more brains than you,’ she went on derisively. ‘What’s the date, you stupid clunch?’
    ‘Dunno. This is an old newspaper.’ Albert grinned at his own wit. ‘I think it’s yesterday’s, or tomorrer’s, I ain’t sure which.’
    Amy heaved a deep, dramatic sigh and returned to the sink. ‘It’s the ninth of bloody August,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you, puddin’ head?’
    By way of answer, a plum stone whizzed passed her ear and disappeared through the open kitchen window. ‘I knew all the time, eejit,’ Albert said breezily – and untruthfully, Amy guessed. ‘It were the coronation, o’ course, and we went fishin’ on the shore wi’ Philip and Paddy. You and Mary come along too, as I remember. Eh, we had a grand day! Us fellers got a grosh of fish.’ He laughed raucously.‘And you gals got soaked to the skin and sent to bed early, as I recall.’
    ‘It was a lovely day.’ Amy ignored the slur on her good name. She distinctly remembered hurrying up the stairs and changing her clothing before her mother had had a chance to comment upon the state of her. Supper, she recalled, had been liver and onions, followed by marmalade pudding; a feast which had been eaten in the King’s and Queen’s honour. But it was no good reminding Albert of that; he’d likely say she’d made it up. ‘Do you remember, Albert, how the sun shone and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky? The King had a grand day for his crowning, Mam said, and the pictures were prime. I know the King’s children aren’t kids any more, but they all looked pretty happy. Well, it must be a bit of all right to have a king and queen for your mam and dad, wouldn’t you say?’
    ‘Not bad,’ Albert said. He leaned back in his chair so that it stood on its hind legs, like a rearing horse, then lifted up his feet so that the chair crashed to the ground once more. ‘What’s for supper, eh?’
    ‘Belly on legs,’ Amy muttered. ‘We’re having white fish, boiled spuds – I’ve just finished scrubbing them, I’ll put them over the fire presently – and some of those carrots you got from Mr Evans. Mam’s upstairs; when she’s ready I’ll go up and change.’ She looked down at her fish-stained apron and the skirt, draggly from pushing the handcart through the dust of the warm August day. ‘I don’t envy Mary being in service, doing someone else’s housework and so on all day, but it must be grand not to smell of fish. Coming home, a feller shouted out as he passed me, “Two penn’orth o’ cod, miss – and go easy on the bluebottles.” I could have died it was sohumiliating. Why, even when I’m working on the market stall and could afford a tramride home I usually walk, on account of the pong. It’s awful when folk move away from you on the tram, or young women give up their seats just to get away from the smell.’
    ‘I don’t see why it bothers you.’ Albert returned to his perusal of the paper. ‘After all, it ain’t as though you can smell it yourself . . . and when you wash it goes.’
    ‘Ye-es, but I hate people shouting at me