Angel of Brooklyn by Janette Jenkins Page A

wearing trousers?’
    ‘I’ll wear anything,’ said Beatrice, ‘if it’s right for the job.’
    On Sunday Beatrice sat in her usual pew, watching the women as they arrived, their best shoes tapping, their hands fluttering over their musty prayer books. Soldiers in uniform sat at the back, their smiles fixed, their eyes like a flat stretch of water, while their women held tightly onto their sleeves.
    ‘Beatrice?’
    ‘Ada?’
    ‘Have you heard from Jonathan?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Jim says he’s been promoted. What is he now, a sergeant?’
    ‘Beats me, he didn’t say.’
    ‘Why didn’t he say?’
    ‘He didn’t have the time.’
    ‘He has stripes?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘A medal?’
    ‘There was no mention of a medal.’
    ‘So what did he do for his stripes?’
    ‘Ada, I’m sorry, I really don’t know.’
    ‘It’s probably the way he talks,’ said Ada, moving away. ‘That’s what it’ll be. He’ll have done nothing more than talk nice. Those bigwigs in the army must think he’s one of them.’
    The Reverend Peter McNally looked his sombre, war-weary self. He’d been praying extra hard, visiting war widows at all hours of the day and night, and dreaming about Iris, who never went to church and was a sinner. He looked at the congregation with heavy bloodshot eyes. The whisky was medicinal – Dr Burke had told him there was nothing better for insomnia – and so he’d hidden a peppermint inside his cheek as he talked about peace and bravery, and John the Baptist walking through the wilderness. He read a few psalms. Someone yawned. Heads turned. Then the choir stood up, the boy on the end pulling at his surplice, his stomach rumbling for the mutton stew his mother had waiting on the stove, as the reverend read out the names of the valiant missing, presumed dead, while the choir sang ‘Abide With Me’, and all the handkerchiefs came out.
    Outside, the soldiers were shown off, and then quickly pulled away. Beatrice shook the reverend’s limp hand, saying nothing. Lizzie was smiling because Tom had written.
    ‘And he drew a funny little picture for Martha. It’s her birthday tomorrow. We’re having a tea party, nothing fancy of course, we couldn’t be doing that, not now, but you will come, won’t you?’
    ‘I’d love to come,’ Beatrice smiled.
    At the bent lilac bush, snowdrops were tucked around the headstone.
Thomas Crane. Four Months. In God’s Great Hands. Elizabeth Ann Crane. Twenty-Eight Years. Martin Francis Crane. Sixty Years. Reunited
. The grass was thinning. There was a mossy-looking urn and a few cracked pebbles.
    Beatrice walked home slowly. A rabbit ran out in front of her, stopping to wipe its thin grey face, before diving into the hedge. She remembered the rabbit’s foot she kept inside her handbag. Her toes were rubbing inside her boots. She thought about the emerald on her finger, bought for a Mrs Crane before her. She looked at the sky. The sun was a flat brittle coin. The breeze like ice. Had the snow started melting in the trenches?
    ‘You’ll have to show them who’s the boss,’ said Ginny, handing Beatrice a bucket of slops. ‘They’ll trample all over you, if you let them.’
    The pigs were huge, pushing against her legs, knocking her hard into the wall.
    ‘I’ll get used to it,’ she said, catching her breath and rubbing the back of her head.
    ‘Best time to clean them out is whilst they’re eating,’ said Ginny, handing her a shovel. ‘They don’t notice anything when they’ve got their snouts stuck into their grub.’
    The smell turned her stomach, until she really didn’t smell it any more . After the pigs, she went into the carrot shed. There were hundreds of them.
    ‘Hose them down,’ said Ginny. ‘There’s a pile of sacks in the corner. They all want filling up.’
    By lunchtime she was almost in tears. Her hands were numb. It was like the muddy carrots were laughing at her. She’d spent an hour and a half washing and bagging them up, and the