Pure as the Lily by Catherine Cookson

Author:Catherine Cookson [Cookson, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Historical, Family, Fathers and Daughters, Family Life, Sagas, Secrecy, Life Change Events, Slums, Tyneside (England)
ISBN: 9780356190211
Publisher: s..n.
Published: 1974-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

Jimmy shooed the children from the wall, then began tearing at a tangled mass of splintered timbers and bricks out |? of which a hand was sticking upwards as if in salutation. Two other men came and worked alongside him, and when

they got the woman out she was quite dead. She was wearing a pink pinny, and gripped in one hand a woman’s weekly magazine. The man next to Jimmy, who was dry-eyed but had tears in his voice, said,

“They won’t go into the bloody shelters, they think it’s over.” Jimmy said hoarsely, “The shelters!” When they scrambled over the smoking ruins there were already men unearthing the blocked entrance to the shelters, and as he feverishly began to help one of them said,

“They’ve got Wearside Row, they say it’s flat.”

Jimmy stopped in the act of lifting the frame of a door from the rubble and, grabbing the man by the arm, said, “Wearside Row? You’re sure?”

“Aye. Well, the warden’s just said.”

His grannie and gran da were in Wearside Row; they had moved there not two months ago when their house in Bing—ley Street was shattered.

Wearside Row! Oh my God, no!

He turned from the men and scrambled across the rubble and ran in and out of the fire hoses and the ordered chaos now filling the roadway, round corners, down back lanes and through alleyways until he came to Wearside Row, or where Wearside Row had been.

The eight little houses were now as flat as a toppled pack of cards, except the end one. That still had some walls remaining, and inside it a fire was blazing; it looked like a magic lantern. He stood with one hand on top of his tin hat and the other across his mouth until a man passing him said harshly, Don’t stand gaping there, lad, get a move on. “

Gulping, he clutched at the man.

“Everybody out?”

What do you mean, everybody out? If you mean dead out, aye, it hit the centre. The bloody bastards!

God! I wish one would come down on a parachute, just one. Christ! Oh aye, just one. You know somebody here? “ His voice had dropped.

Jimmy shook off the faintness that was overwhelming him.

“Num-number-s’seven. My grannie and gran da

iz The man looked towards the smoking rubble and the men tearing at it.

Number 7 had been one from this end. He now turned and said, “Come on lad, we’ll see.” It took them two hours before they saw, and then the sight made him vomit. He turned his back and staggered across the road and leant against the standing wall and retched his heart out. It was near ten o’clock when, with dragging steps, he made his way to Cornice Street. He didn’t know whether or not Mary had been informed but he’d have to go to her.

He heard her before he saw her. The deep heart-wringing moans came to him as he lifted one weary step after the other up the stairs. When he opened the door he saw her sitting on the couch with Annie by her side.

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