Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

for the Silver because a Silver was what they had set their hearts on and, more to the point, an Aluminium was common, in both senses of the word.)
    And was it worth it? Of course it was! Anything was worth the moment she and Gordon sat down together, tore away the parcel’s plain brown wrapping, and took out a Days catalogue and a slim envelope.
    The catalogue was vast, as thick as three telephone directories, with the edges of its onionskin-thin pages colour-coded in six rainbow bands, one for each of the six shop floors still in service, Red to Indigo.
    Gordon straight away began leafing through it. Linda, meanwhile, carefully slit open the envelope with a kitchen knife, delved in, and extracted a Days Silver.
    A Days Silver with their names on it in embossed capitals.
    The ecstasy she felt then as she held the card in her hands, angling it from side to side and watching the light flash across its surface and across the ridges of the letters that spelled out GORDON & LINDA TRIVETT – oh yes, any amount of hardship was worth that .
    She proposed that they visit the gigastore the very next day, but Gordon pointed out that until they had signed and returned the disclaimer form enclosed with the card and had received acknowledgement of its receipt from the store, they were still not permitted to pass through the doors of Days.
    He read out the form aloud, mumbling as he skated over paragraph of dense legal jargon, which he promised to look at more closely later. Basically the form seemed to be saying that Days could not and would not accept liability for anything that might happen to the Trivetts while they were on the premises, and that should the Trivetts break any of the rules mentioned “heretofore and herein” they would not be in a position to seek indemnity or reimbursement from the store.
    Linda listened patiently but none too attentively, and as soon as Gordon finished reading, signed her name next to his on the dotted line at the bottom of the form with a thrilled, quivering hand.
    The next morning she posted off the form, along with the passport-sized photographs of herself and Gordon required for security purposes. The acknowledgement slip came back two days later.
    That was last Saturday morning, and the moment the acknowledgement slip arrived, Linda suggested to Gordon that they visit the store right then. If they left immediately, they could be there by opening time. Gordon said he wasn’t ready. He complained of a headache. He had, he said, had a hard week. And besides, he had heard stories about Days on a Saturday. Stories about packed floors and wrestling crowds, scuffles and riots and even deaths.
    Linda replied that she had heard stories like that about Days on every day of the week, and had chosen to discount them as rumours, or at any rate exaggerations of the truth spread by people without Days accounts who are all too ready to condemn what they cannot have. But she had to admit that Gordon did look a little haggard, so she gave him the benefit of the doubt and proposed that they go to Days on Monday instead. Gordon pointed out that he couldn’t afford to take a day off work, not if they were to maintain the level of income necessary to keep the use of the card, so therefore if they went, it would have to be on a Saturday or not at all. Linda replied that Saturdays were her busiest – and therefore most lucrative – hairdressing days, and that if he took a day off sick he got paid, whereas she did not. And anyway, had he not just objected to visiting Days on a Saturday on the grounds that it would be too dangerous? He couldn’t have it both ways. Either they risked the Saturday crowds or they went on a weekday.
    It occurred to her then, although she did not comment on it, that Gordon seemed to be making up excuses not to go at all. Surely he wasn’t getting cold feet? After all this time and effort?
    So she suggested Tuesday. She could, she thought, just about hold out till Tuesday.
    Gordon,