Page 17

"Animals smell God's protecting grace."
Ernest was in a cold sweat, his hands reeked of carbolic soap but Swansea was remarkably free of wild beasts. Smug Lizzy tried to convince him the poor earned God's grace through starvation.
When he began trading he found anaemic housewives were only too ready to kick saintly suffering off their domestic agenda. Ernest's cheap tea was a gift and if dirt came with cheapness it still brewed a treat. He failed to consider the politics of home; where
to bank his growing wealth? He was loath to lose sight of it but couldn't carry it about nor hide it in his den. The privy at the end of the garden, where so much covert business was transacted and where a man's privacy seemed sacred, was ideal. Finding a loose brick in an outside wall he excavated a cavity and began banking. He was sharper than most kids but Lizzy's vigilance was uncanny.
"Take sinners in blindness lest they turn to the Lord before their foul flesh is scourged."

Such homilies were delivered from the scullery range. Servicing her own needs Lizzy made the outside privy an anchorite retreat for composing fire-and-brimstone texts.
"My soul's eyes see the Lord but the eyes on my face tear off the evil veil of sinners."
Then she would search Ernest's face, trying to unsettle him but he didn't heed. Mother, fumbled for biblical sources.
"Book one of the Corinthians, daughter, chapter four, verses one to three."
"You've been took, mother, it's mine."
"Well the Lord will use it soon enough."
Shrubs and weeds concealed Ernest's furtive business until he paused once too often in the beam of Lizzy's tiger-eyes. Shapes and shadows were daylight encounters to her.
"Satan has ignored my God given vision."
Deep night had her spidery fingers exploring the crumbling wall until a brick yielded.
"Mother! Our mam. . . mam. . . Look! Look!"

The street was used to a nightly theatre of screams when gin and despair broke family solidarity, but Lizzy's howl alerted the dead.
"Mother, angel faces crowded the privy roof and a shining finger pointed the way."
"Holy Jesus guided you, daughter."
Lizzy's plump bossom was her only titillating feature. Her globes more out than in trickled sweat as she bent over the 'divil's gold'.
"Our Ern! - God's wrath. . . you're a crooked little thief."
Dragged to the kitchen the boy realised how brisk the last few weeks had been, now his wealth was summarised in counting-house order. Lizzy had diligently applied herself to the long kitchen table; it had a Pentecostal glow. Two conspicuous gold half-guineas (a tally that came by widow Murphy, an agreeable lady) gave the domestic altar a Gradgrind finality. Mother too had put thought into the occasion confirming its holy function with a rosary, the large family bible set between tall tallows. Their light tinted Lizzy's piggy eyes orange, an effect Ernest noted before his useless protest.
"Evil little thieves are not allowed to explain."
Not that explaining would have saved him from what took place.

They split like wild cats and came at him from opposite sides, scratching and slashing. Lizzy fondly recalled in later years how they 'beat young Ern to within an inch of his useless life'. For weeks he nursed the lashes that would: 'turn him from crooked ways into the path of God's righteousness'.
"Filthy, dishonest, thieving little tyke!"
Sunday came and his mam wept over father Damian's sermon:
"Suffer little children to come unto me".

This is a page from Milk and Honey by Gerald Moore, available for purchase from Lazarus Press.

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