The Telling

stains from preparing vegetables, cleaning copper pans, blacking boots and fireplaces. He turned it over, examined the cracks between the fingers, where the flesh is geranium-pink, that come from the cold, from scullery and laundry work. His fingers pressed strong and warm into my flesh. Then he let go.
    ‘No harm done,’ he said.
    Mam ducked in between us with a rag and dabbed at Mr Moore’s shirt. I went back to the table. I stood with my sister. I lifted my spoon and pushed the pudding around on the plate. My mam was still leaning over him, dabbing, talking. He said little, and calmly. I could feel my cheeks burning. Sally looked strangely at me. For once, I did not give a tinker’s damn what she might notice, or what she would find to say about it.
    He went upstairs not long after and we tidied away the things. The boys went out and Dad took himself to a corner with a newspaper, a half worn-out rag of a thing that must have done the rounds of a dozen households already. Mam had me stoke up the stove, and get the irons out of the cupboard. I stirred myself and set the irons to heat.
    We dragged the chairs and stools out of the way, brought the table across to the fireside. We sorted the linen. Sally took her unfinished basket and sat herself down on the far side of the kitchen, at a distance from the heat. There’s not enough room or irons for more than two of us to work at once. Mam lifted an iron from the hearth and spat on to its polished base. The spittle sizzled and was gone. She nodded at me. I picked up another iron and we began to work.
    The room grew hot and damp, the windows misting; there was no sound but the crumble of wood as it burned, the creak and tap of the basket-making, the hush of irons on linen. From time to time my dad turned a page, shook the paper straight. My hair fell in tangles around my face, my shoulders ached, my nose itched. I rubbed at it with the back of a hand.
    ‘Would you read to us, Dad?’
    He glanced up at me, frowned thoughtfully, and went back to his silent reading.
    The first knock was a jolt to me; I’d been lulled into such a stupor, a fug of repetition. Lift an iron, chase it around the creases and folds of a shift or shirt, fold the clothing, change the iron, take another item from the heap and start again. Mam flinched too; she glanced at Dad, who didn’t move. She set her iron on the hearth and went to the door. Mr Gorst stood on the doorstep; behind him his two boys. It had started to rain; a fine light drizzle.  Dad rose from his chair, folded his paper and welcomed them in. Mr Gorst took off his cap, shook it, flicking the drops of rain into the street. His boys followed him indoors. Mam closed her eyes, breathed carefully. She left the door a fraction open, came back to the hearth, lifted an iron, and smoothed out the last creases from a chemise. She folded it, set it on the pile, picked up another. She pursed her lips, said nothing.
    They came from further off, this time: Mr Woods and his oldest boy from Broomfield, and the Mackereths from out at Docker, the Blacows from High Carr, and the Tysons from Cawood. They brought cool air, the sweet musty smell of cattle and the sour smell of clothes that had been long worn and got damp.
    We had our sleeves rolled at the heat. The room was full of steam and the smell of scorched cloth. We were dripping with sweat. Sally was hunched like a goblin in a dark corner, working on her basket and muttering to herself. We were in no state to receive a soul, much less half the men of the parish.
    I was dipping down to change irons. There was a knock on the open door, a quick quiet tap that pushed the door a little further back. I heard Thomas say good evening to my mam. I stayed down, my skin scorching, my eyelashes sticking together as I blinked at the fire’s heat.
    ‘Lizzy,’ Mam said. ‘Lizzy. Get up. Thomas is here.’
    I had to stand up, and wipe my sore hands on my apron, and push my hair off my forehead, and smile, and say that I had not heard him come in. He offered me his big pink hand; I was expected to shake it. It was as ridiculous to be shaking hands with Thomas as it would be to shake hands with Ted or John. I glanced at Mam; she nodded at me, urging me on. I lifted my hand to be shaken. It was worn, sore with the iron, and a little scalded with the tea. Thomas’s hand when it closed around mine was cold and hard; he squeezed my hand tight. Mam would have left me crouching at the hearth, let Thomas