Days Read Online Free PDF

predictably, repeated his claim that he couldn’t under any circumstances take a weekday off, to which Linda, her patience wearing thin, retorted that in that case she was going to go on her own. Much as she wanted Gordon to come with her on her first trip to Days, she simply could not wait until next Saturday.
    That did the trick, as she had known it would. No way was Gordon going to let her loose in Days on her own with their card. He sighed and suggested a compromise: this coming Thursday.
    And so Thursday it was, and Linda, magnanimous in victory, took her husband by the hand and, giving her best approximation of a knowing, lascivious grin, led him upstairs to the bedroom and there bestowed on him the Special Treat usually reserved for his birthday and Christmas Eve. And though the deed, as always, left a bad taste in her mouth (both figuratively and literally), it was worthwhile. When she returned from having rinsed out with mouthwash in the bathroom, Gordon was looking less defeated, more contented, as he lay flat out and naked on the bed.
    And now, as she sits in the kitchen sipping her tea on this Thursday morning which she thought would never arrive, Linda feels like a child on Christmas Day. In about an hour she is going to call her scheduled two blue rinses and a demi-perm and tell them that Gordon has a virulent ’flu and that she feels she ought to stay home and look after him. Then she is going to call the bank and tell the manager the same story: Gordon will not be coming in today, the ’flu, probably that twenty-four-hour strain that has been doing the rounds, he should be fine by tomorrow if he stays home today and gets some rest. She would ask Gordon to make the call himself, but he is the world’s worst liar and would only make a hash of it, umming and ahhing and interspersing his sentences with feeble, unconvincing coughs. Besides, coming from the concerned wife, the lie will possibly sound more authentic.
    Gordon hasn’t taken a day off sick in as long as Linda can remember, not even when he has genuinely been feeling under the weather. These days no job is safe, and even if, like Gordon, you work as a loan adviser at a small local branch of a large national bank – money-lending being one of the few growth industries left in these days of high unemployment and low income – missing a day can still mean the difference between employment and the dole queue. Not only that, but for the past few weeks Gordon has quietly been trying to curry the manager’s favour. The assistant manager is leaving soon to take over the running of another branch, and Linda has her eyes firmly set on the vacated post for her husband. He, however, instead of simply going up to the manager and demanding the promotion (which he fully deserves), has adopted the tactic of working hard and waiting and hoping. No matter how many times Linda has told him that nothing comes to those who wait and hope, that at the very least he should be dropping hints, but that preferably he should just come right out with it and ask , he has so far failed to pluck up the courage to do anything so forceful and positive. He would much rather believe that his diligence will be noted and duly rewarded. The poor, deluded innocent.
    The Days catalogue is lying opposite Linda on the kitchen table. She heaves it towards her, marvelling yet again at the size of it. It needs to be this large, since it purports to list, and in many instances depict, every single item available at Days.
    Every single item? Linda, in spite of herself, finds the claim hard to swallow. Days is supposed to be able to sell you anything you can possibly want, anything in the entire world. That is the store’s motto, which can be found on the cover of the catalogue beneath the name of the store and its famous logo, in small type: “If it can be sold, it will be bought, and if it can be bought, it will be sold.” That is the principle on which Septimus Day founded the store all