Child of the North. Piers Dudgeon

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      Here are Aunt Biddy and little Queenie returning the ladies’ laundry in a well-plotted trip that takes in a number of characters in the vicinity of their home, before finally arriving at the Misses Carruthers:

       The front door was open into the passage. It was always open. Miss Tilly and Fancy Carruthers loved nothing more than to have visitors. They were always welcome, any time of the day or evening. ‘Go and tap on the parlour door, Queenie. Tell ‘em we’ve fetched their washing.’

       Queenie skipped along the passage, making the very same bet with herself that she had made on every single occasion: that the two old ladies would both be abed and wearing frilly green caps.

      Sure enough, on command of the thin piping voice which urged them to ‘come in’, the same peculiar scene awaited. The tiny parlour reeked of snuff and something suspiciously like George Kenney [Queenie’s dad] when he’d been boozing. The big bed which reached right up to Queenie’s shoulders nigh filled the room. The top and bottom of it were like the bars of a jail, and each tall corner was conspicuously marked by huge shiny brass balls, which distorted Queenie’s face whenever she looked into them. It would stretch wide and misshapen, then it would squeeze into itself like a concertina, shaping Queenie’s mouth into a long narrow ‘O’, which quickly vanished into her sucked-in cheeks.

       There was real carpet on the floor, and big soft flowery armchairs which could swallow a body whole. Plants reached out from everywhere – from the tiny sideboard, the whatnot, the slipper-box, and even from the shelves on the wall.