The door closed behind him and he realized the head had not followed him in.
Then he began to understand that this had nothing to do with his breaking detention and going swimming, and losing his clothing, and being found half naked.
He had a dreadful feeling it was much worse than that.
"Mother, what is it?" he said. "Why have you come?"
"Oh, Hugh," she sobbed, "your father's dead."
Section 3
SATURDAY WAS THE BEST DAY OF THE WEEK for Maisie Robinson. On Saturday Papa got paid. Tonight there would be meat for supper, and new bread.
She sat on the front doorstep with her brother, Danny, waiting for Papa to come home from work. Danny was thirteen, two years older than Maisie, and she thought he was wonderful, even though he was not always kind to her.
The house was one of a row of damp, airless dwellings in the dockland neighborhood of a small town on the northeast coast of England. It belonged to Mrs. MacNeil, a widow. She lived in the front room downstairs. The Robinsons lived in the back room and another family lived upstairs. When it was time for Papa to arrive home, Mrs. MacNeil would be out on the doorstep, waiting to collect the rent.
Maisie was hungry. Yesterday Maisie had begged some broken bones from the butcher and Papa had bought a turnip and made a stew, and that was the last meal she had had. But today was Saturday!
She tried not to think about supper, for it made the pain in her stomach worse. To take her mind off food she said to Danny: "Papa swore this morning."
"What did he say?"
"He said Mrs. MacNeil is a paskudniak."
Danny giggled. The word meant shitbag. Both children spoke English fluently after a year in the new country, but they remembered their Yiddish.
Their name was not really Robinson, it was Rabinowicz. Mrs. MacNeil had hated them ever since she discovered they were Jews. She had never met a Jew before and when she rented them the room she thought they were French. There were no other Jews in this town. The Robinsons had never intended to come here: they had paid for passage to a place called Manchester, where there were lots of Jews, and the ship's captain had told them this was Manchester, but he had cheated them. When they discovered they were in the wrong place, Papa said they would save up enough money to move to Manchester; but then Mama had fallen ill. She was still ill, and they were still here.
