Suds, by Brenda Okonedo

An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.

Mrs Szymanska had looked after the Coin-Op on Wellington Road since it opened in 1961, and she treated the eight machines as if they were her own unruly children. She arrived at seven each morning with a flask of strong tea and a canvas bag of pegs, though nobody had pegged anything in the launderette for years. Her chair stood by the window, where she could watch the bus stop and the door at the same time. Customers who left their washing too long came back to find it folded on the bench in neat squares, every shirt pressed with a crease as sharp as a knife. She never charged for this and never mentioned it. If anyone forced a coin into the slot the wrong way, she was across the floor in three steps, slapping the side of the machine until it shuddered and began to turn. She had come to England from Kraków after the war, and she still counted the change under her breath in Polish. On Fridays she brought a cake for the students from the flats above the chip shop, because, she said, nobody else was feeding them properly.

List five things you learn about Mrs Szymanska in this extract.