High above the river wharves, the roof of the Lowbank Public Laundry was a forest of drying lines, timber vents, and heavy cedar angled slats designed to exhaust the steam from twelve communal washing coppers. Master Laundress Hesta stood braced against the center chimney stack, her woolen skirts pinned up around her calves with hemp cord and a pair of yellow semaphore flags gripped tightly in her calloused hands.
The wind blowing off the gorge was cold and gusty. It carried the sharp, bitter-salt bite of pipe lime and soda ash from the rinse troughs below. Fifty yards downriver, the great undershot waterwheel of the town grain mill was churning the brown floodwater into a frothing storm of yellow scum, its massive timber gears grinding with a relentless, thundering crash that shook the roof rafters and wiped out all human speech.
On the roof ridge beside Hesta sat an iron fire bowl filled with glowing charcoal embers. That kept a pot of boiled tea hot against the autumn chill. A basket of dry sourdough crust and salted herring sat covered with a damp tea towel under the lee of the brickwork.
Hesta pulled her pocket watch from her bodice, checking the engraved enamel dial. ‘Forty-five minutes on the mark,’ she muttered to herself, squinting through the blowing mist toward the basin levee half a mile away. ‘Halfway through the drill, and the water is running thick as pea soup.’
