Saturday's Child by Ruth Hamilton Page B

work at her age might kill her.’
    Lily Hardcastle pondered. In a funny kind of way, the dirty old woman next door owned a sort of dignity, an aloofness that had come from many years spent alone. Magsy O’Gara was the same,
just a little Irish girl with nothing to her name, few expectations, yet she managed to be a lady. Magsy wasn’t dirty, but, like old Nellie, she was . . . unusual. ‘We can’t just
walk in,’ said Lily eventually, ‘and there’s no use knocking.’
    ‘I know.’ Magsy pulled a silky skein of hair from her face. ‘Lily, I can’t leave her like that. What if she takes a fall? What if she gets a heart attack?’
    But Lily remained hesitant. She didn’t want to go pushing her way into the hell that was next door. The very thought of it made her shiver, as if someone was ice-skating over her grave.
‘You go,’ she said after a few moments’ thought. ‘You go, have a look what’s going on, then, if you need me, come and fetch me.’
    ‘Coward,’ grinned Magsy.
    In that moment, Lily realized how much she liked this young woman. It was as if they had known one another all their lives, as if the religious divide had never existed. ‘Listen,
you,’ she said, ‘I’m the one what has to live next door. She might turn on me.’
    ‘Away with your bother,’ answered Magsy, ‘she’s just a little old woman who needs a bit of help.’
    ‘Aye, so were Dot,’ replied Lily. ‘Nobody tried to help her, did they? She was in more trouble than enough every day of her life.’
    ‘Then let’s not make the same mistake again.’
    Lily fixed her eyes on a woman who still managed to look about eighteen, not a line on her face, a sprightly figure, eyes that shone with health. She was a worker, too, forever at the hospital,
always looking for overtime. ‘You’re saying two wrongs don’t make a right.’
    ‘I am indeed.’
    Sighing, Lily dragged an old cardigan from the back of a chair. ‘Come on, then,’ she ordered smartly. ‘Let’s go and get it over and done with. She might clout
us.’
    ‘Aye, she might.’ Magsy giggled at her own attempt to speak Lancashire.
    In the scullery doorway, Lily ground to a halt so sudden in nature that Magsy all but shunted into her back. ‘I’ve just had a thought,’ she exclaimed.
    Magsy grinned. ‘And it isn’t even Christmas.’
    Something about this remark found a giddy spot in Lily, and she started to laugh. It was a deep, almost manly chuckle that grew in strength until even poor Nellie next door might have heard it.
She backed into the kitchen, pushing Magsy into reverse. They finished up at the table, each bowed over its surface, both on the verge of collapse. They could scarcely remember why they were
laughing, because nothing very funny had happened.
    ‘You . . . er . . . I think you had a thought,’ managed Magsy, her voice trembling with the last vestiges of glee.
    ‘Did I?’
    ‘Course you did. You stood on my foot when you decided to come in here backwards.’
    ‘Did I?’ repeated Lily, the two words causing another few seconds of manic amusement.
    Gradually, they calmed themselves. Lily thought her heart would burst with gratitude, because she hadn’t laughed like that in years. They were like sisters, tuned into one another, one
English, the other Irish, one Methodist, one Catholic, both blessed with a marvellous sense of the ridiculous. ‘By,’ said Lily when sufficient oxygen fuelled her lungs,
‘I’ve not carried on like that since the war finished. You do me good, you do that.’
    Magsy straightened face and spine. ‘The thought?’ she insisted.
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘Don’t be starting again with me, Lily. ’Tis a desperate state I am in already. Share your thought, please.’
    Lily Hardcastle pulled herself together. ‘There’s a clean room.’
    It was Magsy’s turn to be taken aback.
    Lily, pleased by her coup, nodded vigorously. ‘Our Roy went up her drainpipe a few days ago and he were that surprised, he near