Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday Read Online Free PDF

Book: Mothering Sunday Read Online Free PDF
Author: Graham Swift
dispensation, beyond
that ‘must’. The rest of the day? One portion of it couldn’t (could it?) last for ever. One fragment of a life cannot be the all of it.
    She didn’t stir, but she might have, inwardly, altered. As if she might have had her clothes invisibly on again, might even be turning back into a maid.
    But nor did he stir, as if in his stillness countering—belying—what he’d just said. He didn’t have to keep his appointment, did he? Who said so? He didn’t have to
do a damn thing he didn’t want to, did he? He might simply lie here and ignore it.
    And ‘her’—not ‘Emma’. It was like some dismissal shared between them. And ‘I have to’.
    His cigarette was almost finished.
    He didn’t move, nor did she, as if in fact he hadn’t just spoken. Yet equally as if the slightest movement on her part, let alone a sound, a word, might have been to acknowledge that
he’d said it and so commit him to its consequences.
    It was not her place, after all, with her ghostly maid’s clothes back on again, to speak, suggest or do more than wait. Years of training had conditioned her. They are creatures of mood
and whim. They might be nice to you one moment, but then—And if they snapped or barked, you must jump. Or rather take it in your stride, carry on, not seethe. Yes sir, yes madam. And
always—it was half the trick—be ready for it.
    Then it came to her that the whole thing might be turned the other way round. This upside-down day. She was lying here with him in his room, like his wife, and he was brazenly consulting with
her as to whether he should go and see his troublesome mistress. Some couples, some of their kind, might actually do this. And wasn’t it in fact, at heart, like that? He wasn’t yet
married. To either of them. She and Emma Hobday were equals.
    He did not speak, as if enough silence after his remark, for all its apparent call for punctuality, might cancel everything. And he was perfectly capable of such contempt for nicety. Of having
it both ways. He hadn’t been dishonest, had he? He just hadn’t acted accordingly. It was his way: he misbehaved, but he didn’t lie about it.
    And he’d taken Ethel and Iris nobly to the station.
    And she wasn’t going to say, like some remarkably forbearing wife, ‘Then you’d better go, hadn’t you?’ Was he really asking her to?
    His lengthening silence might have given her an increasing power—or compliance. But the moment was passing when he might have said, ‘But I think we have the whole day, Jay,
don’t you?’ Putting his hand where the ashtray had been. Or a little lower.
    It must happen. He would go to her and have his lunch with her and even perhaps, somehow or other, later today, have his entitled way with her. If that is how it was between them. He might even
bring her back here to do so. To this very room. She hadn’t asked him when his ‘shower’ were expected to return. He was in charge of that contingency. They would hardly yet have
sat down to lunch in Henley.
    And now, with his own lunch plans suddenly hovering in the air, but with their clothes still strewn together over the armchair, their moment already was passing. He didn’t have that much
time.
    Moment? It was too mean a word. Hour? Day? Gift? But it was slipping away, as the day had already slipped away from the peak of noon. He must have looked at the little clock, or at his silver
pocket watch, on the dressing table when he got up to fetch the cigarettes.
    And there was the unalterable truth that it might never have happened at all. And, yes, she should be grateful, eternally grateful. ‘I wanted to give them a proper goodbye.’ She
might have been touring Berkshire on a bicycle.
    And he might, by the same connivance, have brought ‘her’ here anyway. His telephone call might have been to the Hobday residence. ‘She’ might have had to speak into the
telephone just as slyly and pretendingly. Did they communicate in such ways? Then
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