Ragamuffin Angel by Rita Bradshaw Page A

the uniform, balking only at the starched cap with the long ribbons that tied under her chin. ‘I won’t be looking like a badly made Christmas cake that needs covering up for no one, now I do put me foot down about that.’ And so, with his father acting as gentle arbitrator, an uneasy peace had fallen again.  
    ‘Kitty. . .’ Dan shook his head at the big Irishwoman who, if the truth be known, had a bigger place in his heart than the woman who had given birth to him. ‘I really don’t think I can face going in there this morning.’  
    ‘You’d be surprised what you can do if you need to, lad.’  
    No he wouldn’t. Not any more he wouldn’t. ‘I’ll make it right tonight, bring her a bunch of flowers or something.’  
    ‘Do it for me then. You know what she can be like, she’ll make me life hell all day. And she loves you, lad. Whatever else, she does love you.’  
    He knew that. His mother’s love had always been like a thick blanket, suffocating him, weighing him down and filling him with enormous guilt because he had known, right from a bairn, that he couldn’t reciprocate the feeling. She didn’t give a fig about the others, not deep down. Oh, she went through the motions, made the appropriate noises and so on, but they all knew it was as though she had only had the one child. Art, he knew, felt sorry for him; perhaps Mavis did too as she’d had her share of being smothered, although in a different way. The twins had each other and didn’t care much about anyone else, but it was John who bitterly resented the favouritism. John, who was so like their mother and so ached for her approval.  
    The thought of his brother brought Dan’s mouth into a hard line and he said, opening the front door as he did so, ‘I’ll talk to her tonight, Kitty. I’m sorry.’  
    ‘All right, lad. All right.’  
    His father’s funeral the day before had been a nightmare, and the empty places belonging to Jacob and Mavis a constant reproach, but it wasn’t that, or the harsh words he and his mother had exchanged when her calm composure had driven him to voice his disgust at her lack of emotion, which had prevented him from joining his mother and the twins in the breakfast room. He hadn’t wanted to walk to work with Gilbert and Matthew this morning, he had other matters to see to, and Art, bless him, was providing him with the necessary cover by saying he’d sent him to oversee a consignment of marine engine, cylinder and burning oils being given speedy shipment down at the railway, should anyone enquire of his whereabouts.  
    He hadn’t allowed for this wretched snow though. Nevertheless, in spite of the conditions Dan walked swiftly, almost at a trot, cutting through the Cedars and then across the open ground away from the built-up area of the sprawling outskirts of Bishopwearmouth to avoid seeing anyone he knew. He skirted round the edge of the Old Quarries and into the road bordering Tunstall Hills Farm and then the fields beyond where he found himself wading knee-deep.  
    He could have missed her. That was the thing that haunted him for days afterwards. As it was he ignored the thin, reedy cry at first, putting it down to the solitary call of a bird if it registered on his consciousness at all. It was only when he had walked some ten yards past the great bank of snow that bordered a dry stone wall that something – a second cry, the disturbance of the smooth, lethal white coverlet behind him – caused him to swing round and retrace his steps.  
    And then he saw the tip of a small gloved hand sticking out of the pale silver tomb, and the beating of his heart filled his ears. His face blanched, turning as ashen as the beautiful frozen world around him, and he sprang forward, digging at the snow frantically and all the time babbling that it was going to be all right, that he was here now, he was here . . .  
    When he uncovered the small white face he thought for a moment that she had gone, that he