Father of the Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

conductor had come—or more accurately, of course, gone—but that mightn’t be for ages. He wasn’t hungry, in fact to eat would be an effort, yet he didn’t feel that after would be any easier than before . And by then, too, people would be more a ware of him. Besides, he had to try to take his mind off things.
    For this reason also, while he was getting through the first half of a sandwich, and beginning, against all expectation, to realize it was doing him good, he opened his ring binder; studied the printed sheet that lay immediately inside. It was the Advanced Level paper in History, 1399-1714, set for the previous summer. As a painstaking method of revision Roger was slowly working his way through it; he himself would be sitting the examination next year. It was even possible some of the same questions could resurface.
    He’d already passed his ‘A’ level in Literature and his ‘A’ level in Geography. When History was added to these, his way would then be clear to go to university, like Abby and Oscar. For a long time now Roger had been half-regretting his decision to leave school at sixteen. He’d been stupid and obstinate—yes, his mother had been angry with him then as well; it had been only his dad who had backed him up—but he had never had much of an academic bent, nor been all that keen on mixing with his peers, and it had somehow seemed more important to begin to earn a living, help out at home, get an early start. Degrees no longer appeared a certain passport to an interesting career.
    But he had stayed with the bank for only three-and-a-half years. He had never expected breathtaking adventure—no. Yet nor had he been prepared for the sheer, corrosive boredom of it.
    By contrast, he had really enjoyed the umbrella shop. Despite the daily dusting and other small elements of drudgery, he had felt liberated. And because the business was still family-owned he had felt, too, an appreciated and individual part of it.
    For shop work, moreover, it was outstandingly well-paid. He had been looked after and he had done his best to be of value. He had believed he had a future there.
    And now—this! If the business had been doing well, Mr Cavendish had said, he’d somehow have found the three-and-a-half thousand pounds…with no one but the firm’s accountant being aware of it. Yet the last two summers had been unusually dry, the rates were about to be increased, if the increase were dramatic the shop might even have to close. And Roger hadn’t saved the wherewithal out of his wages; was amazed he hadn’t so much as thought about it. Also, he couldn’t work out where all his money had gone. Of course, there was what he paid his mother, plus a few pounds a week to Scottish Widows—a friend of Uncle Nathan’s had fixed him up in that—and there was a standing order to Oxfam, too, for he had followed Abby’s example; from the age of eleven or twelve she had always given to charities. But otherwise…well, it had just gone. He had spent it on bits and pieces round the house: some curtains, a carpet, a wardrobe: and on taking weekly driving lessons in the hope that he’d become the first member of his family to drive. But he’d already taken his test three times and although he was good (his instructor told him he was near-perfect, apart from his tendency to be overcautious) he kept on failing in confidence whenever the examiner got in. He had parked in front of somebody’s driveway, had mounted the kerb whilst reversing, had even, incredibly, messed up a hill-start. Crazy things like that.
    Yet when faced with only a written exam he was fine; and he was glad that he now had these ‘A’ levels to concentrate on—in some ways it was almost lucky he hadn’t taken them at school—if simply to show there were things he could actually succeed at. University still didn’t appeal to him but he’d suddenly needed to prove, even long before the driving tests, that if he didn’t go there it was simply