Sunday morning and Jonesy and I are in church, and I can’t stop thinking about dinner. I saw the joint of beef that Cook was preparing when I loaded the big stove up with coal before church. I had to scrape out the rubble and ash of the previous batch and put in fresh coal, then light it, but it was hard to concentrate after I’d seen the beef.
Cook was rubbing it with lard and throwing salt and pepper over it. Beef is my favourite roast. We get the best gravy with it; it goes over everything. I just want to lick the plate clean.
In church, Jonesy tries so hard to be good, but she just can’t manage it. Jonesy is scared of God. It’s usually Jonesy who will try to make me laugh in the wrong situation, but in church it’s the other way round, it just all feels so silly. Sometimes she turns into someone with a broom handle up her bum, and it seems like she is trying really hard to behave and listen and that will be when I decide I want to make her laugh.
The minister holds up some bread and says, ‘The body of Christ!’ I rub my belly and let out a quiet, ‘Hhmmm, tasty.’ Then the minister holds up a goblet with wine in it and says, ‘The blood of Christ!’ and I say, ‘Hhhmmm.’
Jonesy squeezes her eyes shut as tight as possible to stop herself laughing. Eldrey and Shona look down the pew to see what’s going on. Jonesy is twitching, trying to control herself, and I’m holding my face still as an angel who would never dream of making a noise in church.
When we get out of church, Jonesy pushes me, smiling. ‘You’re a rotter, whit’d you do that for?’
‘I’m so hungry, Jonesy, I cannae stop thinking of dinner.’
We get back to the cottage and it smells wonderful. So often I miss eating with everyone in the week, so Sunday dinner is a real treat for me. All twenty-five of us and the Patersons sit at the big table in the kitchen. Cook puts the meat on the table, and there’s roast veg and roast potatoes and gravy and you can see the steam coming off it.
It’s Mr Paterson’s job to carve the meat, and it’s like we are a big normal family for one meal of the week, like all the other families around the country sitting down to their Sunday roast. He makes us bow our heads and says grace. I bow my head and close my eyes. Halfway through I open my right eye to see Jonesy with both eyes open, scanning the room. I shut my eye again in case she sees me, makes a face, and then I end up laughing and getting the belt.
Grace ends and Mr Paterson takes out the big carving knife and the metal thing he sharpens it on. Swish, swish he goes, five or six times. All I can think is, Get on with it and give us our food, but he draws it out like he knows we are craving. He then dishes up the meat, Mrs Paterson does the potatoes, Cook does the vegetables, and the plates all get passed down the table, and Cook hands out the jugs of gravy.
When we all have our plates, Mr Paterson gives us a nod and we start to eat. There is no talking as we are busy enjoying the best meal of our week. Even Jonesy shuts up for the five minutes it takes her to eat the meal.
God, I love Sunday dinner.