New World in the Morning Read Online Free PDF Page A

flawless. I felt a longing to touch her skin; to brush the back of my fingers slowly up one cheek.
    â€œWell, thank you, yes, I’d enjoy that. I—oh, hell—I haven’t any money on me!” I’d given the last of my small change to Matt; had left my wallet in my jacket pocket when I’d swopped the jacket for a jumper.
    â€œI shall treat you,” she said. “Out of my winnings.”
    â€œAnd if we have time for any second round,” said Liz Dawlish, “I shall treat you, too. But I shall have to do it, unhappily, out of nothing but the simple goodness of my heart.”
    â€œAnd how about you, Susie? What’s yours going to be? A refreshing pint of five-star water?”
    Susie had been sitting on the pebbles throughout all this. Now, as Moira spoke to her, she cocked her head inquiringly as if desperately anxious to understand, and her long white tail swept rhythmically across the stones. She was being a model dog, perfectly behaved. Moira bent a second time to stroke her.
    â€œGood old Susie,” she said, as she straightened up. “I expected you to testify for Liz!” We began to mount towards the promenade, the shingle slipping noisily away beneath our feet.
    Here was my opportunity. For the retraction of a lighthearted act of derring-do which I’d performed because I’d wanted to see if I could get away with it—yes, and how it would have felt. My opportunity, after that spontaneous foray into a forbidden world (O brave new world: already having drinks bought for me, unilaterally, by two nice-looking and sophisticated women!) and into that heady kingdom of what might have been. A brief, ten-minute trespass.
    But far too brief. Impossible to leave so soon.
    So why not make it an hour? Playful rascal back to solid citizen by midnight. Contrite but forgiven. And understood. Reassured he hasn’t lost his dormant—maybe atrophied—attraction.
    â€œWhat’s this?” I said. “Susie, star witness for the Dawlish camp! Then can’t a single man who’s lonely be permitted to possess a dog?”
    â€œIt truly didn’t occur to me he couldn’t—not at first. But subconsciously, perhaps, I still think of dogs as belonging to families. Stupid of me. I’m sorry.”
    â€œActually she belongs to our neighbours,” I told her. “They’re rather elderly and sometimes I walk her for them.” Gilding both the lily and the golden boy. It all came to me so easily. No trace of guilt; not yet, in any case. Before, it had been fun. Now, it seemed addictive.
    â€œOur?” she repeated. “ Our neighbours?”
    That gave me pause. But she misread my hesitation, thought I hadn’t understood the question.
    â€œDo you still live at home, then? With your parents?”
    â€œOh, no, my parents are dead.” Gilding be blowed: when hoping to deceive you stick closely to the truth. “My mother died when I was a boy and my father…” I hadn’t realized I would mention this but suddenly discovered that I could. “Well, my father died just two days afterwards. From then on I was brought up by my gran.”
    But now I was faced with a choice: should I resurrect Granny and give my life a flavour of nobility and sacrifice—the grateful grandson honouring his debt—or should I tear away completely from the thought of apron strings (implicit, however uncritically, in the surprised tone of the question) and perhaps invent a commune: a way of living which, ideally, had always quite appealed to me…especially if located on some sundrenched, far-off island? And of course lodgers were another possibility—although slightly more mundane.
    â€œYour father died just two days afterwards?” The cynical Miss Sheffield was very clearly shaken.
    I kept my tone casual. “Well, they talk about people dying of a broken heart. And you never saw a husband who…” In fact I