Saturday's Child by Ruth Hamilton Page A

supposed to be one of them child prodigies? Like Mozart?’
    Magsy burst out laughing. ‘Not quite, but she’s blessed and cursed with an inquisitive mind, Lily. She’s leaving me behind, but. It’s all anatomy and physiology –
clear as mud.’
    ‘I read,’ Lily said. ‘I enjoy reading – it takes me out of myself, gets me mind going. Yes, I love books.’
    ‘You do?’
    ‘Oh yes.’ Lily nodded gravely. ‘I’m doing the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. You know, he was only little, that Bonaparte, but look at the damage he did. And
I’ve been having a go with that there Dickens. He goes on a bit, but he takes you there, pulls you back a hundred years. Tale of Two Cities was what dragged me into the
Revolution.’
    Magsy sipped at the thick tea favoured by people in these parts. So Lily Hardcastle was a reader and amateur historian. It was amazing what went on behind lace-curtained windows. Perhaps Beth
wasn’t so unusual after all. ‘Well,’ she said carefully, ‘I came about a strange matter, Lily.’
    Lily, eager as ever for gossip, leaned forward. ‘Oh?’ she said expectantly.
    Magsy smiled. ‘Have you heard no noise from next door?’
    ‘Which side?’ Lily asked, wondering whether Ernest Barnes had had the burglars in.
    ‘From Miss Hulme.’ Magsy placed her cup in its saucer.
    ‘Well, she rattles about a fair bit.’ Lily frowned. ‘When she pulls a day’s clinkers out of her fire bottom, I sometimes think me wall’s going to cave
in.’
    Magsy laughed. ‘That’ll be her deafness – she doesn’t know how loud she is. But it’s not the fire she’s tending. She has her kitchen window pushed right up,
and there’s stuff flying out into her yard at a grand rate of knots.’
    ‘You what? Never.’
    ‘It’s true,’ insisted Lily’s unexpected guest. ‘I’ve never seen the like except on the back of a rag-and-bone cart. There’s paper, cardboard,
clothes—’
    ‘Oh my God,’ exclaimed Lily, ‘she’ll have all the rats and mice on the move. What the hell’s she playing at?’
    ‘Not tig, that’s for sure,’ came the quick reply. ‘You know what?’
    ‘No, I don’t know what.’
    ‘I think she’s having a clear-out, Lily.’
    Lily blanched. ‘Never.’
    ‘Then why all the piles of rubbish in her yard?’ asked Magsy.
    Lily considered the question. ‘Well – happen the house is full to the brim and she’s started on the outside. I mean . . . no. No, love. That place has seen neither sweeping
brush nor mop since her mam died. Adopted, were Nellie. She got brought up clean, decent and Methodist. According to what I’ve heard, she were doted on. Then, when the Hulmes were dead, she
started to let things slide. She’ll not alter, lass, not at her time of life. She must be well past seventy, you know.’
    Magsy took another bite of cake. ‘Mmm,’ she murmured, ‘that’s good.’
    Lily all but preened. She was a fair hand at baking, though she didn’t do it very often these days. Come to think, there were quite a few things she’d cut down on, like polishing and
black-leading, brass-cleaning, bed-changing. Her heart wasn’t in it any more. The house was clean and tidy, but it no longer sparkled. Like herself, it was losing its sheen. ‘I wonder
how Dot’s going on?’
    The wistful edge to Lily’s words was not lost on Magsy.
    ‘I mean, it’s countryside up yon,’ Lily continued, ‘all fresh air and fields. Her Frank’s got a little shop.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Magsy.
    ‘When’s the wedding?’ Lily asked.
    ‘Just a few weeks.’ Magsy finished her cake.
    ‘Dot’ll be happy,’ said Lily. ‘She’ll like that, nice little shop, their Frank settled and happy, decent place, no factory chimneys, no soot getting stuck to her
curtains.’
    Magsy reverted to the original subject. She could almost feel Lily’s sadness, as if it reached out and touched her. ‘We should find out about Miss Hulme,’ she said now.
‘All this sudden hard