Instead, she hurried there straight after work on Monday, her mind fixed on everyday affairs such as searching in her purse for the right money to pay the fare and dreading the moment when she must alight from the tram then walk down Ada Street to Granddad Preston’s green door. She arrived still in a state of high anxiety and was about to raise her hand and knock when the door was flung open. ‘Come in, I was expecting you,’ Bert said, his voice thick with phlegm. ‘I knew it would be you, not your mother. Margie’s upstairs in the spare bedroom.’ ‘Has she said anything to you?’ Lily asked in a low, anxious voice, as they hovered in the narrow hallway. She stood beneath a picture called The Light of the World, which had been hanging there for as long as she could remember – a black-and-white engraving of Jesus in his long robe, his crowned head surrounded by a halo and his raised hand holding up a lantern to show the way to benighted souls. ‘No, but then again I haven’t asked,’ Bert replied with a steady look that told Lily that he preferred not to know awkward truths about the goings-on of the modern world.
What do You think about The Mill Girls Of Albion Lane?
