A Kind Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

good at that. Don’t you dare. What do you know?’
    Eve looked down at the soft spot on the top of the baby’s head, the pale membrane stretched across like the skin on top of an egg.
    ‘Oh, her. You’ve got her so you think you know it all.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘You’ll learn, you and that mother’s boy Tommy.’
    Perhaps she should have felt anger and shouted at Miriam, sent her packing, defended Tommy for his being a kind man and quiet. But what good would that have done? She felt Miriam’s own rage, and the hurt and jealousy coming from her like hot breath, and knew that enough had been said and that she herself must simply absorb it all and not strike back.
    The chink of dishes came from the kitchen below. Tommy would be clearing away and washing up, John Bullard sitting back. The boys’ shouts came from far across the field.
    The baby had gone to sleep, her mouth letting the nipple droop.
    ‘Would you like to hold her now?’
    Miriam turned away. ‘Why would I want to do that? I’ve had plenty of it and more to come.’
    But from the doorway she said, ‘She’s very bonny, Eve.’
    They left soon after, the boys wailing in protest. Miriam did not come back upstairs.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Tommy said, taking her teacup away. He touched his daughter’s soft hair wonderingly with the back of his finger as he passed.
    Eve did not tell him. Miriam would do nothing, it had been a sudden despairing moment, but she surely would not do anything. Yet she had barely said one pleasant word, not admired the baby, nor given her sister a word of praise, which seemed to Eve a sad, bitter thing.

8
     
    LATER THAT year they started laying off men, first in the coach and next in the brickworks and after that the closures spread to the mills. A dozen went, then fifty, then half. John Bullard was one of the early ones to go and by then he and Miriam had four boys and no money coming in. Vera Gooch had a little set by and helped them. Tommy, whose wages were still good, called in and left a shilling every time in the teacup on the sideboard, not wanting to be discovered or to put them to shame. The whole town seemed to be sliding into a pit of despair, though people tried to put on brave faces and talk one another round, the women at their doors, the men on the street corners or, if they had a few pence, in the public houses and their own clubs. It was no worse here than in most places.
    ‘When is it coming to us?’ Eve asked. Jeannie Eliza was pulling herself along the rug to try and reach the little stray cat which had come in one night from a hailstorm and never left. ‘We can’t always be in luck.’
    Though the printworks had plenty on still and Tommy even did extra hours because he was one of the most skilled men, he knew how the machines ran and could save a fortune because in his hands they never broke down.
    But he only told her not to fret and picked up the baby to take her out and show her the rabbit before he locked it up. He carried her as often as he could, she was up and in his arms the moment he got in unless she was asleep, and when she was fretful, which was rarely enough, he got out the fiddle and played her a soft tune, or spoke to her, old rhymes and tales he remembered from his own childhood, and she watched him out of dark blue eyes.
    That was a dreadful winter, with the granite-grey church setting up trestle tables in the porch and serving soup and bread and cheese and having long queues, the Baptist chapel giving out shoes and warm scarves to families with children. No one could think ahead to Christmas.
    John Bullard was goaded by Miriam into joining the line of men looking for work and after a fewweeks, and to everyone’s disbelief, he found it. He had stayed at school a year longer than most and he was presentable and spoke well, and he drove a car. He was employed on the smallest retaining wage, the rest being commission, to travel four or five counties selling light fittings, shades and lamps and