Page 7 of Mine before Dawn
Asha nodded, as though she’d expected nothing else. “Thank you,” she murmured.
She didn’t linger.
But that seemed to set the precedent for the rest of the day.
At the grocer, she waited until a lull between customers.
“Please,” she said, her voice steady. “I am looking for work.”
The man behind the counter barely looked at her. His eyes flicked once to her face, then to the boy, then away.
“No vacancies,” he said shortly.
“I can clean,” she added. “I can—”
“Not needed,” he cut in, already turning to the next customer, “Hello, Walter, how are ya…”
At the first hotel, she did not make it past the threshold.
“We’re full,” the woman at the desk said. She looked bored when Asha asked about the job.
After a long moment while she looked her up and down, she said, “We are not hiring at the moment.”
At the seamstress, she was at least allowed to speak.
The older woman inside listened, her hands moving over a length of cloth. For a moment, something like consideration flickered in her eyes.
Then she shook her head.
“I’ve no work to give at the moment,” she said, not unkindly.
“Please,” the younger woman said quietly.
“I’m sorry. But come back in a week. The girl who used to work is getting married. Let me see what you can do.”
The door closed softly, but still closed. But there was a flicker of hope.
Shop after shop.
Door after door.
Sometimes she was refused before she spoke. Sometimes she was heard and dismissed. Once, a man simply looked at her and then turned his back with a “Come later” thrown over his shoulder.
By midday, her fingers had gone numb from the cold.
The boy walked beside her more slowly now, his steps beginning to drag. He did not complain. Every so often, he glanced up at her, searching her face for something—direction, perhaps, or reassurance.
She stopped long enough to crouch and pull him into a quick hug before taking his hand and moving on.
The next door brought the same answer. And the one after that.
Some refusals came wrapped in apologies. Others were blunt enough to sting. But by the time the light began to fade and the cold crept back into the streets, the answer remained unchanged.
By evening, it seemed there were no doors left in Wakefield that she had not already knocked on.
It was time to return to the pub.
Chapter 4
