Brotherhood of Blades by Linda Regan Page B

door closed behind her Georgia Johnson peeled all her clothes off and dropped them on the mat. She hurried into the bathroom and straight into the shower. After covering her skin and hair with almost a whole bottle of body wash, she scrubbed herself under the near-scalding water for ten full minutes until she was sure all the excreta that clung to her had been removed. She repeated the process before stepping out of the shower and wrapping her body in a large fluffy black towelling robe and her hair in a matching towel.
    Wearing heavy-duty rubber gloves, she picked up the foul-smelling clothes from the doormat and dumped them in a black bin liner, which she put by the back door for the bin men. She then returned to the bathroom to wash her hands again, over and over under more scalding water.
    Suddenly hungry, she headed for the kitchen and poured soup from a can into a saucepan. While it was heating, she went back into the bathroom and carefully scrubbed under her nails with a brush, then as an indulgence, she smothered herself in expensive body lotion. She flicked the towel off her shoulder-length black hair and plaited it.
    After she had drunk her soup, she turned on her electric blanket, set the alarm clock and slipped into bed. Within minutes she was out for the count.
    Sally Young wiped each piece of china carefully before laying it back on her wooden trestle table. These were the best pieces; most of her stock was in cardboard boxes and wooden crates, which stood on the ground next to the table so that prospective customers could root through it.
    Her striped woollen mittens came halfway up her fingers, leaving the exposed half to grow stiff and cold, but it was easier to grip the crockery without fear of dropping it. That was one downside of this trade: her merchandise broke easily and she had to pay for her own losses; she wasn’t making enough to afford an insurance policy yet. She needed to be even more careful now she wanted to help Jason through dance school; cracks and chips ate into her profit.
    Pilfering was a problem too; she needed eyes in the back of her head and an extra pair on her shoulders, and still expensive items like casserole dishes disappeared as if the bloody fairies had arrived.
    She had to make this stall work. She was used to the humping and cleaning; it was the selling she found the hardest. Selling was new to her. The other stallholders seemed able to sell any old junk. Hers wasn’t junk, just oddments. Everyone needed odd pieces of crockery, milk jugs, and plates and dishes to make up broken sets. That was why she bought plenty of plain white, you couldn’t go wrong with that. All she needed was to learn to convey that to customers, then she’d be on a roll. She was too honest to try to sell someone something they didn’t want, but the other traders told her it wasn’t dishonest; some folk didn’t know they needed it until they’d bought it. She was learning all this.
    She loved it down at East Lane, and was starting to make friends for the first time in her life, joining in the banter with other street traders, sharing stories and chat while they warmed their frozen joints in the café over a bacon roll and a mug of tea, even standing in for another trader while he or she took a break. Making friends had never come easy to Sals; she hadn’t time, and she had always been a loner.
    Cleaning offices had been quite different. No one spoke to the cleaners, mostly no one even saw them; they came in when the offices were closed, and mainly worked alone. That had never bothered her, but now she liked hearing, ‘Morning, Sals,’ and ‘How’s it going today?’ or ‘Watch my stall, would you, Sals, I’ve got to ’ave a pee.’
    This morning as she dusted and displayed her wares, her mind was elsewhere. Jason was all she had, and she was so proud of him. Getting that scholarship can’t have been easy; it showed he must have talent. But now she was worried for him. He was still silly