said Is next morning. She and Arun had breakfasted scantily off a loaf, which Is went out and bought in Wear Street, and they were now making a rather hopeless attempt to clean the filthy kitchen with brooms and rags and pails full of sea water, scooped from the high tide which chomped and frothed beyond the shingle bank on the south side of Cold Shoulder Road. “Mrs Boles is a horrible woman,” said Arun. “There’s lots of things missing from the house: Ma’s work-basket, and the pink mug my Granny Twite gave me when I was born, and all Dad’s fish-hooks and lines – and the clock. I bet she took them—” “Hush! Here she comes now,” warned Is, as the garden gate clicked. Mrs Boles, seen in daylight, was no great improvement on last night’s version: she had pale-grey skin, scanty grey hair done up in curl papers, and a well-used apron tied over layers and layers of grimy clothes. She was holding the pink mug. “Took it for safe keeping,” she explained. “Ah hah! Getting the place a bit straightened up, are ye?”
What do You think about Cold Shoulder Road (2010)?
