Black Country Orphan by Annie Murray

Author:Annie Murray [Annie Murray]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2021-04-14T23:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Five

‘All right, Luce?’ Clem came breezing into the house the next evening. As he passed behind her, where she was sitting at the table, he touched her on the shoulder, let his hand linger there for a moment. She sat quite still. That second’s touch, so careless by him – wasn’t it? – did make her at least feel that he saw her, counted her as a person. And it made the blood rush round her body.

‘Yes, ta.’ She looked up, startled. Since her walk with John, she had noticed, Clem suddenly seemed to be taking notice of her.

Clem halted, as if stopped in his tracks, and smiled down at her. Her own lips curved upwards in response.

‘D’you know, Luce – that smile of yours looks prettier every day.’

He glanced across the table to where John was sitting, as if to make sure he had heard, then back at Lucy.

‘Oh, don’t be saft.’ She looked down, her cheeks pulsing with heat.

If Bertha had been in there she would have said, ‘Listen to ’im, all flannel!’ But she was in the forge and there was no one else to break the mood.

‘’Ere –’ Clem perched beside her at the table – ‘look what I found.’ He put his hand in his pocket and opened his palm. Resting on his grubby skin, she saw something pink, flecked with grime but with a warm glister to it.

‘D’yer want it? Found it on my way ’ome – just lying there in the muck.’

Lucy reached for the oval stone that lay in his hand and rubbed it on her skirt until it shone. It was a lovely colour, a soft pink with thin veins in paler pink snaking across it.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said, tingling with pleasure just at the sight of the colour and even more that Clem was sitting beside her. ‘But someone must’ve lost it – it looks like summat out of a brooch.’ She looked up into Clem’s lively eyes – but in that second became aware of John, at the other side of the table, watching them intently. ‘D’yer think we should tell someone? I dunno who . . .’

‘Nah,’ Clem said, standing up again. ‘You keep it, Luce. It’s nothing all that precious, not like rubies or summat.’

‘But that’s dishonest,’ John said.

Lucy felt a tightening in her belly. Whenever the two brothers were in the same room now there was a tension between them.

‘Well,’ Clem said carelessly, ‘do as yer like, Luce – but I brung it back specially for yer.’

She tightened her own fingers round it. Clem, bringing it for her? She could never, ever, give it away, even if John did not think it was right.

‘What’s to eat?’ Clem lifted the lid of the pot which was simmering on the stove. He lowered his nose to it for a second. ‘Umm. I’m clammed.’

He disappeared into the scullery.

Lucy slipped her hand with the rosy stone clutched tightly in it under the table and into her pocket. She could feel John watching, and their eyes met for a second until he looked down, blushing.

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