Free Chasing Angels by Meg Henderson

fortnight to tidy the garden. And did Jessie do the shopping? No, Jessie did not; the
same woman who did the housework also did the shopping. So what exactly did Jessie do with her time then? Well, she worked in the hospital, didn’t she, said her son. Kathy never did work out
if Harry was saying this tongue in cheek, or if he believed it. For a start, didn’t he ever wonder how she could type with those nails? But in case he did believe it, she left it alone and
said no more.
    ‘Does she ever just laze aboot the hoose, though?’ she asked instead.
    Harry looked perplexed. ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘Well, sometimes, when ma Mammy has a bath, she puts on her pyjamas an’ lies on the couch wi’ her hair in curlers, readin’ a magazine. Does Auntie Jessie dae that kinda
thing?’
    Harry looked lost. ‘I’ve never seen her like that,’ he said with a smile. ‘She gets her hair and her nails done every week.’
    ‘Her nails?’ Kathy asked, raising her voice. ‘Ye mean somebody does her nails for her?’
    Harry nodded. ‘She goes to a beauty parlour and has a manicure, her hair, the lot, all done at once every week.’
    Kathy was amazed. It was all done with mirrors after all then; Jessie regularly got herself professionally refurbished, inside and out.
    ‘Whit else does she dae, when ye’re at school, or when ye go hame?’
    ‘Well, she has her work during the day, hasn’t she?’ Harry asked. ‘Then someone comes in and sits with me and Claire most evenings, so that my mother can go
out.’
    Ah ha! ‘Where?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘Clubs or somewhere, I suppose. Or to her dressmaker, because she’s too busy working at the hospital during the day to see her then,
isn’t she?’
    Was Harry having her on? Didn’t he know that Jessie’s ‘work’ took place at night? Kathy never found the answer to that one, because, being fond of her cousin, she
didn’t have the nerve to say, ‘Look, Harry. Your mother’s on the game, she always has been. Everybody knows she’s a slapper.’ Neither did she feel comfortable hinting
at what he should know, that not many hospital secretaries could fund the lifestyle Mrs Nicholson and her children enjoyed, and damn few could afford weekly trips to beauty parlours and
dressmakers. But Harry was a clever lad, she thought, surely he must’ve thought of all this himself and wondered? And if he had done, he had obviously decided to keep such musings to himself,
so just like the confused topic of Harry and Claire’s true parentage, Kathy stopped asking her cousin questions, though she never did stop wondering just what he did know, and how much he had
decided not to know.

3
    Her first taste of life outside the East End had been on a school trip when she was thirteen. Somehow Lily had scraped together a few shillings and, even more amazingly, had
successfully kept them hidden from Con, so that Kathy could go on a coach trip to Fort William with her class. She remembered Lily seeing her off that morning, her stomach in knots of anticipation
and fear, because however excited she was at the prospect of the trip, the Highlands were another world away. She had never been that far from her mother before, there hadn’t been a second of
their lives when they hadn’t known exactly where the other was, and though she felt embarrassed about it, there was a very childish fear deep inside that she might vanish off the edge of the
earth and never see her again. As she boarded the coach Lily had pressed more money into her hand, all of it in pennies and silver sixpences, telling her ‘Mind, noo, ye’ve no’ tae
bring back presents. That’s for you tae spend.’ She’d felt guilty, though, knowing that Lily would have done without herself to finance the trip, and she made up her mind there
and then that of course she would buy Lily a present. It was a cheap enamel brooch of a bunch of heather held together with a tartan ribbon, and Lily had worn it