Read 06 Educating Jack for Free Online Page B

had just had a baby girl. Krystal Carrington Ruby Entwhistle was now seven weeks old and Ruby’s pride and joy. The highlight of her day was when Racquel brought her rosy-cheeked daughter to visit. Ruby’s other four children shared their cramped council house. Twenty-seven-year-old Duggie was an assistant to the local undertaker and his nickname ‘Deadly’ was appropriate. He was content to sleep in the attic with his Hornby Dublo trainset, a packet of Castella cigars and the posters of his Abba pin-up, the blonde and beautiful Agnetha Fältskog. Meanwhile, twenty-two-year-old Sharon was saving up to get married to Rodney Morgetroyd, the son of the Morton village milkman with the Duran Duran looks, and twenty-year-old Natasha worked part-time in Diane’s Hair Salon. The baby of the family, nine-year-old Hazel, was a cheerful and hardworking little girl in Sally Pringle’s class. As chief breadwinner it had always been a tough life for Ruby … never more so than now. She sat back and stared at Ronnie’s spare bobble hat on top of an untidy pile of racing-pigeon magazines on the sideboard. It was then she wondered if miracles happened to ordinary folk and not just those people in the Bible that the vicar talked about. Ruby closed her tired eyes and prayed.
    ‘Y’can ’ave a trial,’ said Norman Nesbit, packaging supervisor at the local chocolate factory in York. ‘We start off packagin’ Easter eggs six months afore they go on sale in t’shops, so this is a busy time an’ another pair o’ ’ands would be, well, er, ’andy so t’speak.’
    Ronnie stared at the huge conveyor belt. Chocolate eggs appeared at one end in rapid succession and a lady who resembled a Russian weightlifter wrapped foil round each one. Further along, two women, deep in conversation, put them in cardboard boxes with metronomic ease and without ever appearing to look at what they were doing. Finally they were stacked on a pallet and whisked away on a forklift truck.
    ‘An’ that’ll ’ave t’go,’ he added, pointing to Ronnie’s bobble hat. ‘It’s not ’ygienic. You ’ave t’wear a special white ’at an’ coat.’
    Ronnie nodded but wasn’t happy. He felt naked without his favourite bobble hat. Soon, looking like an advert for a Persil commercial, he sat on a high stool opposite the Russian weightlifter.
    ‘Y’sit ’ere wi’ ’Elen an’ wrap t’eggs in foil as they come past, ten seconds f’each one,’ said Norman. ‘Ah’ll go start ’er up an’ come back shortly t’see ’ow y’gettin’ on.’
    Ronnie looked across the conveyor belt to his new colleague. ‘Nah then,’ he said nervously. He was unaware of Helen’s charisma bypass, although he did notice that on her neck she displayed a tattoo of a love heart with the word TROY underneath. Even so, this was definitely not the woman who launched a thousand ships.
    ‘Foil,’ said Helen with a glassy-eyed stare.
    ‘Y’what?’ said Ronnie.
    ‘Foil,’ she repeated. ‘We do t’foil, they do t’boxes.’
    Two other women further down the conveyor belt looked at Ronnie and shook their heads in dismay. ‘We’ve gorra reight one ’ere, Elsie,’ said one of them. ‘’E’s not ’xactly Shakin’ bloody Stevens, is ’e?’
    ‘Y’not kiddin’, Doris,’ replied her friend. ‘Looks like summat cat’s dragged in.’
    With a roar the conveyor belt started up and the first chocolate egg came Ronnie’s way. He picked it up clumsily and it cracked in his hand, but he wrapped it anyway just as the second arrived. This one he dropped, so he decided to eat the broken pieces as fast as he could. When the next one arrived, in panic he threw it back, where it landed on top of the next egg and both shattered. Again he scooped up the broken pieces. Helen pressed the emergency stop button and looked at Ronnie, who was eating the broken chocolate as fast as he could shove it in his mouth.
    Norman wandered back, shook his head and looked at the clock.