Dead Man's Embers

Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan Page A

Book: Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan Read Free Book Online
Authors: Mari Strachan
motion whatever memory it was that Davey played out this morning. What was he doing, she wonders as she lugs the basket towards the area where she and Lizzie German wash the clothing every Monday. The way Davey stood and aimed his gun with such concentration had reminded her of something, and it comes to her now that Davey had settled his rifle on his shoulder and aimed and fired it just as she had seen the farmer do when he shot his mad horse all those years ago.

13
    Lizzie heaves the wooden tub onto the table for Non to scrub the collars and cuffs in it. Non marvels at Lizzie: the woman is thin as a piece of string, and where her strength comes from is a mystery. She could not, she knows, manage without Lizzie German. And Lizzie is glad of the money she earns and the produce Non gives her from her garden every Monday, Lizzie’s own garden being so meagre. Non used to provide salves and decoctions to keep Lizzie’s grandchildren healthy; now she supplies the means and instructions for Lizzie to make her own.
    â€˜I must remember to check the pockets in everything this week, Lizzie.’
    Non is still mortified at having last week handed Lizzie a shirt to pound in the big tub which had a bill meticulously made out by Davey, still in its crisp envelope, in the breast pocket. She delves into every shirt’s pocket before rubbing the collar and cuffs with the bar of yellow soap and scrubbing them against the corrugations of the washboard. Lizzie takes each shirt from her, drops it into the big tub from which steam rises lazily into the still morning air, and pounds it with the dolly.
    â€˜Look,’ Non says. ‘In his apron pocket this time.’ She waves the envelope at Lizzie and pushes it into her own apron pocket. She gives the front of Davey’s apron a quick rub on the washboard and passes it to Lizzie, to add to the big tub’s load.
    Non is already sweltering and tired though it is barely mid-morning. Davey had left the kitchen by the time she had returned indoors from dragging the wash basket outside into the garden, and he and Wil have long left for the workshop. Gwydion has made his no doubt leisurely way down the hill to Wern Fawr and the library where his work is done, and Meg had to race, as usual, to catch the train to school, complaining as she went. And it is slow, warm work all the way to Barmouth, Non knows, each halt and station with children waiting to board, and then the long walk from the station to the school.
    The first time Non had to attend school was when she was living with Branwen. A little orphan! She remembers kicking the first person she heard calling her that. She had not been exaggerating when she told Gwydion that Branwen had taken in a child who had been left to run wild. When she went to school she found she knew more than the schoolteacher about some subjects and nothing at all about others, which did not make for happy schooldays. She had to spend her days learning tasks she hated: cooking and mending, scrubbing collars and cuffs, and starching loose collars the proper way so that they rubbed the neck of the wearer raw.
    The County School had been an improvement; the whole day was not spent on housekeeping tasks. But what she had learnt there was not to question, not to be curious, to learn by rote: the opposite of everything her father had taught her. When she matriculated – by a miracle, Branwen had said – she became a student teacher, thinking she would have the freedom to teach her pupilsthe way her father had taught her. By the time she was nineteen she had learnt that there was no place in the world for her father’s daughter.
    And now here she is, doing the cleaning, the washing, the scrubbing, the cooking, the mending in an endless cycle. Because she followed her heart’s desire. She thought that she had found her place in the world at Davey’s side, but she is no longer sure of that. Will she ever have the need or the time again

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