The Denniston Rose Read Online Free Page A

around. Out go the arms, flung wide in exasperation.
    ‘Where? Where?’ she almost shouts.
    ‘There is a bucket in the cave. I wasn’t expecting company.’
    ‘You are living like a pig, Jimmy Cork, you who used to be a fine man with education and ideas!’
    ‘This place is comfortable enough, by standards up here,’ he says, convincing no one.
    ‘Comfortable!’ she snorts, her volatile hands speaking for her as she turns and feels her way into the dark indentation of the cave.
    He is on fire now, booze and desire mixing in his blood, but there is a stirring also of apprehension. This unpredictable woman will make trouble and he will have little or no control over her. Evangeline Strauss can no more keep a secret than jump over the moon. Words tumble out of her of their own volition. Nevertheless … He glances down at the sleeping child. Then with a grin he uses his one good hand to pull out his prick and keep it up until Angel returns.
     
    WHEN Rose wakes there is a greyness to the dark outside that means it’s morning. She lies still so as not to wake her mother and the man. She hums a song, but quietly.
    ‘Be quiet and go back to sleep!’ says her mother.
    Rose lies still, looking up at the canvas. It is black with soot and she can see a drop of water growing where the canvas is nailed to the door frame. She watches as it falls to the floor and another one starts to grow. When her mother is snoring again she swings off the bed and holds the blanket around her while she looks for her clothes. She finds her pinafore and a knitted coat made by a kind lady down at the beach. Her stockings and vest and drawers are already on. She finds her hat and puts that on too, but she’s still cold. Every now and then the tent roof rattles as if someone istrying to come in. I don’t like this house, thinks Rose. It was much better at the beach.
    Opposite the fire is a table and beside the table are some wooden boxes with things in them. She looks to see if any have food in them.
    ‘For goodness sake go outside and play if you can’t be quiet!’ says her mother. She and the man who is supposed to be her father are lying close together, very still. Rose watches them for a while. When her mother is holding on to a man like that she usually doesn’t hear. Still watching them, she tiptoes to her mother’s coat and slides her hand into the pocket. The purse is there! Without taking her eyes off her mother she snaps open the lock and feels for a threepence. The cold round feel in her hand is very good.
    Now she puts on the canvas cape and ties the string around her neck, but not very well because the sides of the cape get in the way. Then she can’t do up her boots because every time she bends down the canvas reaches the floor and the boots are inside under the cape.
    ‘For pity’s sake! Crash crash!’ says her mother, without looking, ‘What’s the matter now?’
    ‘I can’t do up my boots,’ says Rose.
    ‘Take your cape off and do up the boots first, ninny,’ says her mother.
    Rose sighs and starts all over again.
    Outside, she can’t see very far. Everything is grey as if she were still under her blanket. The lumpy things they walked past in the night are rocks, not animals. The houses must be there somewhere but the mist is too thick. The mist smells of coal. She runs at one of the rocks and says boo to it in a loud voice, beating at it hard with a stick and laughing at it. In her other hand the threepence is held so tightly it hurts. She jumps along the path like a rabbit but her cape bounces up and down and scratches her neck. Now she can seethe long row of huts but doesn’t want to go near there today. She walks past a long building and hears snoring. Lots of loud snoring like a pen of pigs. She snores too, then runs away along the path, past other sleeping huts, looking for one that is awake.

Hanrattys
    THE HANRATTYS HAD been at Denniston three years when Rose and her mother arrived. Totty Hanratty was