Landlocked Read Online Free PDF Page A

warm, confiding. Maisie stood in her pink satin petticoat, her strong white legs planted firmly, and frowned into a mirror, while she wet her eyebrows with a forefinger. The nurse came in and said: ‘Can I go home now, missus?’ ‘Yes, you go home, nursie.’ ‘I’ll do Miss Rita’s washing in the morning.’ ‘Yes, that’s fine.’ ‘Good night, Miss Maisie.’ ‘Good night, nursie.’ The girl nodded at Martha, with a quick unconscious smile of love for the sleeping child, and went out.
    ‘She’s a good girl,’ said Maisie. ‘She’s got two kids of her own, she leaves them with her mom in the Location. I tell her she’s lucky to have her mom near her, I wish I did.’ Shefrowned, stretching her mouth to take lipstick. ‘Her husband, or so she calls him, has gone to the mines in Jo’burg, well, I tell her she’s lucky to be rid of him, men are more trouble than they are worth.’
    Now she put on a cocktail dress, suitable for her calling as a barmaid. It was a bright blue crêpe, tight over the big hips, pleated and folded marvellously over the breasts, showing large areas of solid white neck and white shoulder. She put on diamanté ear-rings, a diamanté brooch. She inspected herself, then used thumb and forefinger to crimp her pale hair into waves around her face. Martha thought: I wonder what Andrew would say if he could see Maisie now, and this apparently communicated itself to Maisie, for she turned from the mirror, smiling unpleasantly, to say, ‘If Andrew could see me, he’d have a fit. Well, that’s his funeral, isn’t it?’ She now came over to Martha, lifted the baby, and slid her under the covers of the little bed. Off went the light. The room, dimmed, seemed larger. Except for the child’s bed, it was exactly the same as the bedroom in the flat where Maisie had lived with Andrew. The same plump blue shining quilt, the same trinkets and pictures. A girl’s bedroom. But no photographs—not a sign of them: Binkie and Maisie’s three husbands were not here.
    ‘Have you heard from Andrew yet?’
    ‘Yes, strangely enough. He said would I come to England to live. But I can’t see myself. Of course you want to go to England and I can see that it takes all sorts.’
    She now sat near Martha on the bed, offered her a cigarette, lit one herself, and said: ‘Everything’s nuts. When the war was bad, well, we used to think, the war will be over soon, and so will our troubles. But it just goes on. Well, they say it’s going to be over soon but why should it? I mean, they had a war for a hundred years once, didn’t they? But Athen says it will be over soon.’
    ‘Have you seen Athen?’
    Maisie’s face changed to an expression Martha had seen there before, when Athen was mentioned. A new look—resentment. ‘He came in to see me last week. Well, he’s too good for this world, I can tell you that!’ Then she sighed,lost her bitterness and said: ‘Yes, it’s a fact, he’s not long for this world.’ At Martha’s look she nodded and insisted: ‘Yes, it’s true when they say the good people go first. Look at my two first husbands, they’re dead, aren’t they?’ ‘And Andrew’s bad just because he’s still alive?’ said Martha, smiling.
    At this Maisie jumped up and said: ‘We’ll wake Rita if we natter in here.’ She pushed open the window and instantly the room reeked from the spilt beer on the pavement just below. She shut the window again, saying: ‘Well, lucky it’ll be winter soon, I can have the windows shut. Sometimes I can’t stand the smell, and then the men from the bar start fighting and being sick so I can’t sleep sometimes.’
    She went into the other room and Martha followed.
    ‘I’m late for the bar,’ said Maisie, and sat down calmly, to smoke. ‘Athen says he wants to see you, Matty.’
    ‘Well, I’m always happy to see him.’
    ‘Yes, he’s one of the people…’ Again resentment, a sighing, puzzled resentment. ‘All the same, Matty. He said I