Love on the Dole Read Online Free PDF

they were constantly being plagued by some problem. As they were. How to get a shilling, and, when obtained, how to make it do the work of two. Though it was not so much a problem as a whole-time occupation to which no salary was attached, not to mention the sideline of risking life to give children birth and being responsible for their upbringing afterwards.
    Simple natures all, prey to romantic notions whose potent toxin was become part of the fabric of their brains.
    As virgins they had cherished a solitary dream, the expectation of the climax of their wedding day. Wedding day, when, clad in the appropriate - afterwards utterly useless - finery, they appeared for a glorious moment the cynosure of a crowd of envious females.
    For a moment only. It passed to add its little quantity to all their yesterdays.
    The finery was discarded for less conspicuous apparel which devoured their identity; they became one of a multitude of insignificant women by a mere change of costume, and the only pleasure that remained was a vicarious living-over again of their magic moment in watching, from the back of a crowded church doorway, the scene enacted by later generations. And the satisfaction, if satisfaction there was, in knowing that the scornful tag ‘left on the sheif, could never be attached to them.
    Patronage of Price and Jones, and all that it signified and implied was an aspect of marriage unanticipated in their dreams.
    Harry gazed at the women as a soon-to-be-released prisoner might stare at the stones of his prison cell, fixedly, slowly revolving memories of his long incarceration, half doubtful of freedom, rather afraid of it They were the same familiar faces he had seen week after week for years, until they had become as institutions; the same actresses in the same grim play. Week after week, for years. New faces from time to time; young girls, pregnant, wedding rings on their fingers, sometimes squalling babies in their arms; they were rather shy at first; but they became less and less shy, more and more married as weeks went by.
    Next Friday or Saturday (he wouldn’t be here then!) they would hand over their wages to Mr Price in return for whatever they had pawned today. And next Monday they would pawn again whatever they had pawned today, paying Mr Price interest on interest until they were so deep in the mire of debts that not only did Mr Price own their and their family’s clothes, but, also, the family income as well. They could not have both at the same time. If they had the family income in their purses then Mr Price had the family raiment and bedding; if they had the family raiment and bedding then Mr Price had the family income. This morning Mr Price had the family income: the women were come to redeem the moneys with the family raiment so that they might pay off their tick account for food which stood against their names in the books of Mr Hulkington, the street corner provision merchant. So it would continue, week after week, a tale, told by an idiot, never to be concluded, until the characters had no further use for pawning or redeeming anything else in this perplexing world.
    Harry, staring at them all, said, to himself: ‘Well, Ah’m glad t’ be leavin’ all this,’ repeating, with immense relief: ‘Eeee, glad t’ be gooin’. Phoo, not half!’
    Confused clamour resounded in the room; all conversing simultaneously. Harry reached out the box of pins used by Mr Price to secure the identification tickets to the pledges; long, stout pins, instruments of death in Harry’s hands, when, wanting better occupation, he impaled the starving stupefied vermin crawling out of the pledged bundles of clothing.
    By this time the counter resembled a cheap-jack’s stall in the market; boots, shoes, clogs, girls’ cheap, gaudy dance frocks, men’s Sunday suits, mixed bundles of bedding, table linen and underclothing done up in cotton print wrappers.
    Mrs Dorbell, who had crushed in first, a beshawled