Number Fourteen, by Gwen Atherley

An original novel extract set in the twentieth century.

Mr Ashworth had lodged in our back bedroom for six years, and in all that time I never once saw him without a collar. On Sunday mornings he carried his shoes down to the scullery on a folded newspaper, set them side by side on the draining board and polished them as if they were the last two shoes in Salford. He used three brushes, each kept in its own paper bag, and he hummed hymns under his breath without ever reaching the end of one.

‘A man is judged from the ground up, Arthur,’ he told me, holding a toecap to the window so the light slid across it. ‘Remember that.’

My mother said he was a clerk at the gas board and that he paid his rent a week early, every week, in an envelope with her name written in copperplate. He ate his breakfast in silence, folding his bread into exact halves, and he thanked her for each cup of tea as though she had handed him a gift.

Once, when my father lost his job at the docks, I found a ten shilling note tucked under the sugar bowl. Nobody mentioned it. That Sunday Mr Ashworth polished his shoes for longer than usual, and when I sat beside him on the scullery step he passed me the smallest brush without a word.

What impressions does the writer create of Mr Ashworth?

You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.