Birthday Read Online Free PDF Page A

uselessness, snaking out at her face. He wouldn’t do it before a guest, but was easy to imagine in the quiet and seemingly endless afternoons when they were alone. He sensed something and wished he hadn’t, wanted to go, sorry he had come, such scenes of domestic knockabout familiar from childhood when the old man battered his mother and the rest of the family out of despair at being unemployed, or at not being able to read or write.
    â€˜The only break I get these days,’ George went on, ‘is a fortnight every year at Ingoldmells. Still, it gets me away from this place.’
    â€˜My brother Arthur and his wife go fishing near Skegness,’ Brian said. ‘I stay with them overnight when they hire a caravan.’
    â€˜He fishes in the sea?’
    Brian laughed, for no reason except that it was about time somebody did. ‘No, it’s a mile inland, at a big pond in the middle of a field. But it’s good sport.’ He had bought Arthur The Compleat Angler and he had read it more than once. ‘The caravan’s parked by the water, so they stagger out in their dressing gowns for an hour’s fishing before breakfast. They chuck everything back, naturally.’ He didn’t want to dwell too long on such a pastime with a man who wasn’t able to take part in it, though maybe he could if someone pushed him to the water’s edge. ‘If Jenny gave you a rod and some bait you could try your luck. You’d probably catch buckets.’
    George laughed, for the first time. ‘Not on your life. She might push me in.’
    â€˜Don’t talk so daft,’ Jenny said.
    â€˜Well, I’m not serious, am I? When I was a kid’ – he smiled, as if he might still be one, and have life to live over again – ‘I went after tiddlers, scooped ’em up in a jam jar with a bit of string around the neck. It wasn’t easy, but I always got some. We lived in Basford Crossing, and the Leen was our favourite stream. There were eight of us kids in the family, and when we went out as a tribe nobody could harm us. We often stayed by the water all day, rain or shine. Mam would wrap us up sandwiches in greaseproof paper, and fill bottles of cold tea left over from breakfast. There was always something interesting to look at, as long as the stream kept running, and it always did. Never stopped, did it? Well, it couldn’t, could it?’ The idea of the stream ceasing to flow seemed to alarm him. ‘It could no more stop than the Trent could stop. Or any river, come to that, though the Leen’s only a piddling little brook.’ He smiled again. ‘It was cold, though, if you fell in, and I did a time or two. It’s a wonder one of us didn’t drown, but kids had charmed lives in those days.’
    Old times meant more to him than anybody else, but they were important to everybody the older or more physically difficult life became. With Arthur and Derek he often made fun of them, because if you didn’t the reality of so-called halcyon days didn’t bear thinking about, and there was too much happening in the present to have their weight as well on your back. Even so, it would be cruel to scoff at such times in front of George, who dropped a host of sugars into his tea: ‘Jenny tells me you’ve done very well for yourself in London.’
    â€˜You could say I’ve made a living.’ George’s tone implied that he must have done so out of trickery and skiving. ‘But I like to come up and see my brothers, who are always glad to see me. In any case, I’m still fond of the old place.’
    â€˜Why did you leave it, then?’
    â€˜I lived here till I was eighteen, then thought I’d take off.’ Enough of the apologetic tone for having made use of his legs. ‘We called at the White Horse for a pint or two last night.’
    â€˜Sometimes we get in the car,’ Jenny said, ‘and go for a drink,