Fireweed by Jill Paton Walsh

Author:Jill Paton Walsh [Jill Paton Walsh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2013-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

6

There was nothing to wake us the next morning; no light save a crack or two filtered round the shutters, and there were none of the disturbances as other sleepers woke and left. Julie woke me at last, pulling my blanket off me and letting the cold air sting me to life.

‘Help me make a fire, Bill, and I’ll get you something to eat!

I rose and stretched. She lit the lamp and we looked around. It all looked dirty and cold.

‘I’ll get some more wood,’ I said.

In a little while we had a new fire going in the grate, and the kettle warming on it. I pulled a stool up to the windows, pushed down the top pane of the sash, and pulled away a broken slat in the shutter. The first one I tried let in a shower of pinkish dust, and I hastily jammed it back again; but higher up I managed to make a couple of slits which let in daylight. Then I went to the back room, opened the free shutter there, and opened the door between the two rooms.

The more light we had, the worse it all looked. It was incredibly filthy, with heavy deposits of white dust everywhere. The back room, where there was a usable window, looked pretty uninhabitable in every other way. I opened the door of the stove that warmed the oven, and the grate was choked with fallen brick and plaster. Not much hope of getting that going. And an icy draught blew under the broken back door. There was a huge damp patch on the ceiling, with the cracked plaster coming away, and dark wet marks on the floor beneath showed that the rain was coming through there heavily.

‘This doesn’t look much use,’ I said to Julie.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m going to move all the things that are any use out of here into the other room, as soon as we’ve had some grub. Help me find something we can eat.’

We found a tin of dried eggs, and some biscuits in a tin. There was a green mould on the biscuits, but it brushed off, more or less. The dried eggs were pretty nasty, but then they always are. We made more cocoa without milk. The kettle got so hot on the fire that we had to lift it off with fire-tongs, and it scorched the cloth we put over the handle to lift it and pour it out, but the water inside wasn’t really quite hot enough, and so lumps floated on the cocoa.

‘How far from here is Marco’s?’ I said, looking miserably at my plate. Still, however awful food tastes, it makes one feel stronger when it is safely tucked away.

‘Look, Julie,’ I said, pushing my plate away. ‘It’s two days since we did any work. We’ve got to keep earning money. I’m going back to the market. You coming too?’

‘There’s a lot to do here,’ she said. ‘Why have we got to keep on earning? Haven’t we got any left?’

‘Yes, we’ve got lots left.

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