The kitchen of Number 14 St. Jude’s Terrace in Harrowby smelled of warm malt vinegar, brown paper, and the sharp, camphoraceous vapor of wintergreen ointment.
Jo Saye stood at her cast-iron gas stove, stirring a small enamel saucepan of linseed meal and hot cider vinegar with a wooden spoon. Her knuckles, swollen and knobby from forty-five years of pushing heavy steel shears through woolen serge and heavy melton cloth, throbbed with the steady, dull ache that always arrived with the Lancashire autumn rains. On the table behind her, an unfinished tweed overcoat lay neatly folded over the back of an armchair, its basted sleeves pinned in place with rows of nickel-plated steel needles.
In the small parlor through the open doorway, her husband Martin lay on the horsehair sofa under a heavy patch-work quilt. His grey wool cardigan was buttoned to the chin. His right leg, stiff and swollen from the thigh to the ankle, was propped up on two hard feather bolsters. Every breath he took was short and guarded, his teeth gritting whenever the floorboards creaked.
“Is that the healing wrap, Jo?” Martin called out, his voice thin and raspy from the cold that had settled into his chest three days ago.
