Rob appeared at the back door. ‘Missus, me dad ses
I’ve to ask ya. Can I have the bladder to blow up for a
football?’
‘Aye, course ya can, Boy.’
His face beamed. ‘Aw thanks, Missus.’ And he was off
and running across the yard, his work, for the moment,
done.
‘Now then, Missy,’ came her grandmother’s voice again.
‘Don’t stand there day-dreaming, let’s set you to work . . .’
The following morning, Rosie arrived. ‘Hello, love,’ she
said to Ella. ‘You going to help us, then?’
Wrapped in a copious white apron, her hands scrubbed
to pink cleanliness, Ella was standing at the kitchen table.
‘What are we going to do today?’ she asked, and Rosie
smiled.
‘We’ll be making sausages.’
Ella nodded. ‘I cleaned the skins last night. Gran showed
me how to turn them inside out and scrape them with a
spoon. They’re in a bucket of salt water in the pantry
now.’ This morning, laid out in the pantry were bowls and
dishes with all the different meat sorted and graded ready
for use. They had all worked late into the night the
previous evening, even Ella had not been told, ‘Off to bed
with ya.’
Outside in the small barn the previous evening, she
had watched Danny cut up the carcass and rub salt into
all the huge joints of meat. When at last he stood up and
eased his aching back, she had skipped around him as he
crossed the yard towards the house. ‘Is that it? Have you
finished?’
‘Yes, all done, for now at any rate. D’ya reckon ya
know how to kill a pig then, young Ella?’ and she had
giggled at his teasing as he opened the back door and they
went into the house.
‘Well,’ he said to Esther, still busy at her kitchen table,
‘ya’ll soon have some pretty pictures up there now,
Missus,’ and he had nodded towards the hooks in the
ceiling awaiting the hams and flitches which would be
hung there once the joints had been cured.
‘Aye, thanks to you, Danny,’ Esther had said. ‘Ya’ve
done a grand job as usual. There’ll be a chine for ya.’
‘Thanks, Missus. That’s good of you. But only if ya can
spare it. We know ya’ve lost ya other two pigs.’
Esther had smiled and flapped her hand saying, ‘Go on
with you, it’s nothing.’
‘What else are we making?’ Ella asked Rosie now.
Rosie wrinkled her smooth forehead and ticked off the
items on her fingers, ‘Haslet, brawn and pork-pies, though
I’ll leave them to ya gran. I can’t make hot water pastry
like ya gran does.
‘What’s that, Rosie?’ Esther said, coming out of the
pantry at that moment.
‘I’m just telling Ella, no one makes pastry for the pies
like you.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Esther said, modestly, and then
glanced at Rosie, a strange look in her eyes. ‘Danny’s mam,
she’s always been a good hand wi’ pastry.’
Rosie smiled and said softly, ‘She’d be glad to hear you
say that, Missus.’
‘Aye well . . .’ Esther sniffed and turned away back into
the pantry.
For the rest of the morning, as they worked, Rosie’s
bright chatter filled the kitchen. Ella rinsed the sausage
skins whilst Rosie prepared the meat to fill them. ‘I always
used to love coming here at pig-killing even as a youngster.
You used to let us turn the mincer handle.’
‘I’ll set young Rob on that if he comes this afternoon,’
Esther promised.
‘Oh, he’ll be here.’ Rosie laughed.
‘And then the two of them can take pig’s cheer round
the neighbours.’
Rosie’s eyes clouded. ‘Aye,’ she said softly. ‘Me an’ Kate
used to do that.’ Her busy hands were idle for a moment,
but then she seemed to shake herself and her nimble fingers
were once more chopping up the pig’s trotters.
Rob arrived just in time for a mid-day snack of scraps –
bits of meat and fat baked crisp and piled on rounds of
toast.
‘By heck! You know how to time it, Boy,’ Esther teased
him and ruffled his black, curly hair.
‘I came to show Ella what to do.’
Ella saw her grandmother glance at her. ‘Oh, she’s
doing quite nicely for a townie!’ and the older woman and
the boy exchanged a grin at Ella’s expense, but far from
being offended, the girl felt a warm glow spread through
her. Though it was said in an off-hand way, it was the
closest she had come, yet, to a compliment from her
grandmother. Then the older woman spoilt it by adding,
‘At least it’s keeping her out of mischief.’
After dinner, the two youngsters were dispatched with
plates of pig’s fry to the neighbours.
‘That one’s for Rosie’s mam and dad in the cottages at
the Point,’ Esther pointed in turn to each plate containing
pieces of liver, kidney, heart, sweetbread and bits of pork
all covered with a piece of something that looked, to Ella,
like a lacy white doily.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a sort of fatty skin, the skirt, we call it,’ Esther said.
‘Skin? It doesn’t look like skin. It’s too pretty.’ The girl
leaned closer touching it with curious fingers; it felt smooth
and slightly greasy.
‘Get ya fingers off, Missy,’ her grandmother said, tapped
the back of Ella’s hand sharply and then continued telling
her which plate was to be taken where. ‘That one’s for the
Harris boys.’
‘And that one,’ her gran was pointing to the third plate,
‘is for the Souters.’
Ella met her gaze. ‘I’m not taking that one.’
‘Oh, yes, you are, Missy.’ The green eyes met the
challenge steadily. ‘And while you’re about it, ya can say
ya sorry to Missis for hitting young Jimmy.’
‘I—’ Ella began but, feeling a sharp nudge in the back
from Rob, she thought better of it and clamped her jaw
shut.
As they left the house, carrying the three plates, Esther
shouted after them, ‘And don’t forget to tell ’em not to
wash the plates.’
Ella glanced at Rob in surprise. ‘
Not
to wash the plates?’
Rob nodded. ‘S’posed to be bad luck.’
Having delivered the two plates to the cottages at the
Point, they were half-way along the lane leading inland
from the coast road, past Rookery Farm and coming nearer
to Souters’ Farm, when Ella said, ‘I don’t want to go there.’
He sighed. ‘You’d do better to get it over with. Ya
gran’ll find out if you
don’t
go.’
Ella was silent, knowing what he said was more than
likely true: her gran had a way of finding out things. She
sighed. ‘All right, then.’
Her knees were trembling as Rob banged on the back
door of the Souters’ farmhouse and stood back, leaving
Ella standing waiting for the door to open, the plate of
pig’s cheer held out in front of her.
The door flew open and a woman stood there: a fat,
blowsy-looking woman, with straight grey hair that looked
as if it needed washing. A dirty pinny covered a dress with
a frayed hem. ‘Who on earth’s banging like that? Has
another war started?’
But Ella recognized the shrill voice as the one she had
overheard in the front garden at Brumbys’ Farm; this was
Mrs Souter.
‘Er, Gran sent this for you, Mrs Souter, and—’
‘Yar gran? Who . . . ?’ The puzzled expression cleared.
‘Oh-ah, I know who
you
are.’ The woman’s mouth was
open as if she were about to say more, but forestalling her,
Ella said quickly, ‘I’m sorry for hitting Jimmy, Missis, but
he called me a rude name and he shouldn’t have.’
The woman’s mouth dropped open to reveal yellow,
uneven teeth and, fleetingly, Ella wondered where on earth
Janice got her good looks from; it was difficult to believe
she had inherited her prettiness from this woman.
‘Well! Well, I don’t know.’ Mrs Souter took the proffered
plate and said again, ‘Well, I don’t know. I’ll say this
for you, young ’un, ya’re honest,’ and added, muttering,
though Ella’s sharp ears caught her words, ‘It’s more’n I
can say for me own.’ Louder, she said, ‘Do you want to
come in for a bite?’ She pulled the door wider open,
inviting them to step inside.
Ella shook her head and said politely, ‘Thank you, but
we’d better be getting back.’
The woman nodded and said, ‘Well then, thank yar
gran, won’t ya?’
‘Gran said, don’t wash the plate.’
The woman gave a cackle of laughter. ‘Oh, I knows not
to do that, young ’un.’
Walking back through the Souters’ farmyard, Ella
looked about her and wrinkled her nose. Cow dung littered
the cobbles of the yard and wisps of straw blew across the
surface. An old tractor, rusty with neglect, stood near the
barn wall, grass and nettles grown up around it.
Ella nodded towards it. ‘Grandpa would like to get his
hands into that.’
Rob laughed. ‘He’d have a double-duck fit if he saw it
in that state.’ He leant towards her and whispered, ‘They’re
a right scruffy lot, the Souters. It’s a wonder they haven’t
been turned out ages ago. But the landlord lives up in
London and doesn’t care much about what’s going on
down here just so long as he keeps getting the rents paid
on time.’
They walked back down the lane and as they passed a
large square building, Ella said, ‘Is that the place that’s
empty?’
‘Yeah, the Grange. It’s where the old landlord, Squire
Marshall, used to live. He’s dead now. It’s his son who’s
the present landlord.’
‘Why doesn’t anyone live there now?’
‘I told you, he lives in London. He’s not bothered.’
‘It looks – lonely.’
‘Well, it won’t always be, ’cos one day I’ll live there.
Come on,’ he said, tiring of her questions. ‘I’ll race you
back.’
Ella took a last glance at the house standing forlorn and
lost amongst overgrown gardens. She shuddered. She
couldn’t understand anyone wanting to live in a big,
deserted house like that, miles from anywhere. And once
again she was filled with longing for the cosy, noisy
terraced house in Lincoln; the house she still thought of as
home.
‘What are you looking for, love?’
Ella emerged from the disused stable into the sunshine
of the July day and sneezed three times in quick succession.
‘This.’ She held out a shrimping net. ‘Me and Janice are
going shrimping. Rob says cats love cooked shrimps. We’re
going to catch some and cook them for Tibby.’
Jonathan touched the dusty, torn net. ‘Why, fancy you
finding that,’ he murmured and his eyes misted over. ‘I
made that for your mam when she was little. It’s years old.
I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen to pieces.’
‘The net’s all torn, but Rob says his dad’s got some old
fishing net he won’t mind cutting up.’
Jonathan nodded, his gaze still on the old shrimping
net. ‘From the days when his dad was a fisherman off the
Point.’
‘I can have it, can’t I, Grandpa?’
‘Eh? Oh, yes, of course you can, love.’
Carrying the shrimping net, she squeezed through the
hole in the hedge and made her way across the meadow; if
it could be called that now, as her grandmother remarked
resentfully, after the ravages of the flood this meadow’s
crop of hay was going to be of little use. But once across
the plank footbridge over the dyke, in the next field where
the salt sea-water had not reached, the grass was high, lush
and green and almost ready for harvesting. As she ran, Ella
left a flattened pathway through the crop until she climbed over the stile and jumped down into the lane leading to
Rookery Farm.
‘Uncle Danny, Uncle Danny,’ Ella called, skipping
across the yard, her skimpy cotton print dress above her
knees. ‘Please will you mend this for me?’
Ella had found her niche at school, had won a small
circle of friends, though mainly because she was under the
protection of Janice Souter. They played together after
school and at weekends, often, at Janice’s suggestion,
tagging along after Rob and Jimmy; at least, they did when
Ella could escape from the never-ending chores her grandmother
set her.
‘Ya can wash the walls down in the kitchen again,
Missy. The salt’s still drying out. I don’t know when we’ll
ever get this place right,’ she muttered crossly.
‘We could have the walls rendered with some special
stuff to seal it, Esther, if you like,’ Jonathan said.
‘I’ve tried repapering in the front rooms, but the salt
just comes through again as fast as I do it. The paper won’t
seem to stick. It’s all hanging off again near the floor
already.’
‘It’ll be a long time before we get things back to normal,’
Jonathan said, and Ella heard his voice drop as he added,
‘if ever.’ She knew he was thinking about her mother and
bent her head to hide the sudden tears that threatened,
pretending to concentrate on her scrubbing.
‘What have you got there, Ella?’ Danny was asking her
now.
‘It’s a shrimping net Grandpa made for Mum years ago,
he said.’
Danny reached out to take the net from her. The girl
was surprised and a little embarrassed to see that his hands
were trembling. He held it for several moments until Ella asked, tentatively, ‘Could you mend it for me, Uncle
Danny, please?’
She saw him jump physically, as if she had dragged him
down the years from his memories back to the present.
‘Of course.’ His voice was a little husky, but he was
smiling now. ‘Leave it with me. You run and play.’
‘Where’s Rob?’
‘Gone to the Souters, I reckon.’
In the lane once more, she skipped towards the Grange,
its tall chimneys peeping out from a clump of trees, and
the road leading to the Souters’ farm. The day was hot and
humid, the heat bouncing off the lane under her feet, the
sun brilliant in an almost cloudless sky. Even the breeze
which normally blew off the sea seemed to be taking a rest
today.
As she reached the wrought-iron gate, Ella paused,
thinking she heard the sound of laughter from the undergrowth.
She pushed at the heavy gate. It opened reluctantly,
squeaking protestingly. She heard a rustle in the
bushes that lined the driveway. She stopped, holding her
breath. But now there was stillness, the only sound the
fluttering of a bird high in the treetops.