Pure as the Lily by Catherine Cookson Page A

day afore, you’ll have all afternoon and evening, I’ll tell you what to do.”
    Alee hadn’t interrupted Alice’s flow, but now he turned from the darkened window, walked to the foot of the bed and, looking over the mound they had made out of a fire guard to keep the clothes off her injured ankle, he said thickly, “She’s not a bloody dray horse.”
    “I’m not expecting her to be a dray horse. But she’s had it too easy up till now, and this isn’t for ever.
    I’m only asking her to do it until I get on me feet again.”
    “Mrs. Weir would do it, she proffered.” His voice was quiet, dead-sounding.
    “Mrs. Weir! Huh! She’s just another of the bitches around here who are waiting to jump into me shoes. They’re as jealous as hell of me working down there because they know that we eat better than any of them, have more than any of them.... Aw you! you can’t see beyond your nose.” She flung her arm in a wide sweep, and its gesture threw him away from her. He turned and went into the kitchen, and after a moment Mary followed him silently, keeping her eyes away from her mother as she passed the bed.
    In the kitchen, where Jimmy was standing, a look of apprehension on his face because he was frightened of rows, Alee looked from one to the other, and from deep in his throat he ejected his misery and bitterness: “It should have been her bloody neck,” he said; ‘that’s what it should have been, her bloody neck. “

Chapter Four
    the routine worked. After a few days the sullen look left Mary’s face, and at the end of a seven-day week she brought home the pound Mr.
    Tollett had given her and also her reduced wage of six shillings from Mrs. Turner, which she placed on the bedcover and said to her mother, “There! twenty-six shillings.” 4 49

    As Alice’s hand went out to take the money Mary quickly picked up the six shillings and, looking straight into her mother’s eyes, said, “I want more than a shilling pocket money.”
    ‘what! “
    ‘you heard what I said, Ma, I want more than a shilling pocket money.
    I . I want to buy some clothes; I want five shillings a week. As long as I’m doing two jobs I want fi.
    “You’ll-get-my-hand-across!”
    “Ma!” Mary backed a step from the bed.
    “You’re in no position to bargain, Ma. I’ve told you, I want five shillings every week, an’ if I don’t get it I’m not going back there. You can’t make me you know.”
    She poked her face towards her mother, who she thought for a moment was going to collapse.
    “You’re not getting’ five shillings, an’ that’s that “ No, I’m takin’ it, Ma. There you are. “ She thew a shilling on to the bedcover.
    “I’m going to take it every week, say what you like. I haven’t any stockings, and me shoes are nearly through. You see to Jimmy’s things but you never do mine. I’ve never had a new thing that I can ever remember;
    it’s been Mrs. Turner’s, or afore that the market stall on a Saturday morning I’m going to get something new, Ma. “
    ‘get our! “
    Mary went out and into the kitchen, and there she looked mischievously at her da and whispered, “I did it.”
    “And you got off with it?”
    “I got off with it.”
    They both smiled at each other. Then taking a half-crown from her pocket, she pressed it into his hand.
    But he pushed it back at her, whispering, “No, no!”
    “Aye, yes; fifty-fifty.”
    Aw, lass! “
    He put his hand out and touched her hair. Then he turned and looked at Jimmy where he was sitting by the table staring at them, and Mary, too, looked at Jimmy, and she thrust her hand into the pocket again and handed him a sixpence. But he didn’t take it, not right away; he looked from her hand up to her face then said, “For me?”
    “Aye, who else? It’s not for coffee-Johnny, or Tommy-on the-bridge, ‘cos they haven’t done nowt for me.” Whereupon Jimmy put his head down and his hand tight across his mouth to smother his laughter.
    But he was unable