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exactly what do you understand by that Margarite?’
    â€˜I don’t know Miss Jessop,’ Weekly replied, ‘it’s in the Bible and only God understands the Bible.’
    â€˜I see. And?’
    â€˜I like the Bible very much,’ Weekly said, ‘I say a bit before I go to sleep of a night.’
    â€˜Oh? And what parts do you say,’ Miss Jessop said. ‘Can you tell me one of the things you say?’
    â€˜Before Abraham was, I am.’ Weekly looked at the floor.
    â€˜Indeed!’ Miss Jessop said, ‘And why do you like that?’
    Weekly, keeping her head down, muttered, ‘It reminds me that this school and all the people in it are just nothing.’
    Miss Jessop turned pale and twitched her dress.
    â€˜Margarite Morris you may sit down,’ she said.
    Weekly missed her mother so much, and Victor. Shehated life at the Remand. Miss Jessop seemed to find fault with her all the time. And then there were the dreadful washings in cold water down to the waist every morning and always the placed smelled of greasy food cooking and, at table, the cutlery was greasy and smelled too. She longed for Victor’s voice, even if he would just be calling her rude names. She thought about her mother and wondered how she was in the gaol, and kept worrying about Victor.
    She ran away from the Remand. She hitched her brown overall in at the waist with a piece of blind cord to make it look more like a dress and she threw her apron away. Years later she regretted wasting the good calico, but this was only when she embarked on her life of thrift where she wasted nothing.
    She stood at the side of the gravel track, the heat was unendurable, it was something she had not had time to get used to then. Dry grasses trembled and the voices of the crows made her surroundings desolate. Her father had longed for the country always: all through his years stoking at the steam laundry he had talked of the country. He remembered woodpigeons near a house where he worked when he was a boy, the gentle peaceful sound filled the morning. He talked of the fragrance of new-mown hay, but this country which he knew was very different from the place where Weekly was now.
    Sometimes her father and mother argued about the country, their voices rose and then, in the little pause that followed, Weekly’s father said, ‘We’d have a pig licence if we moved out.’
    â€˜What good’s a pig licence these days,’ her mother replied. ‘Yo’ couldn’t make a living out of pigs these days, they’re done all modern in big sheds now.’
    â€˜It’s wrong,’ her father said, ‘for pigs never to see the light of day,’ there was another pause. ‘There’s nothing so beautiful as the sun shining through a happy pig’s ears.’ And as there was no answer to this, the only sound in the kitchen was Aunt Heppie banging away with the iron.
    Weekly longed then to hear the sound of their voices, as she stood at the side of the track hoping some cart would come along and give her a lift. She cried a bit for the old kitchen and for the childhood which had gone for ever.
    â€˜Yor Dad’ll be here in a minute,’ her mother often said, ‘yo’ better look out!’ He was on shift in those days at the steam laundry and sometimes he made as if to take off his belt to give anyone who was around a taste of the strap. When Weekly heard his step in the entry she ran in and hid behind the mangle. Aunt Heppie too worked in the steam laundry and ironed at home. Every night she ironed white starched things, gophering with a special iron. The kitchen range was covered with different kinds of flatirons. Aunt Heppie held them up to the side of her face to see if the heat was right; sometimes she spat on one and her spit sizzled and flew off across the kitchen. Weekly longed to hear the steady bang bang of the iron as Aunt Heppie ironed, grim lipped, her face grey