Nothing is Forever Read Online Free PDF Page A

Henry popped the question from time to time but she had always used the excuse of looking after her brothers. She wondered whether the wait had been too long and the pot had gone off the boil.
    She told herself she wasn’t sure of his love, but that wasn’t true. The true reason, which she tried to deny, was not being here when her brothers needed her. That commitment to their welfare would always be there.
    The second reason was her doubts about her feelings toward Henry. Did she really love Henry, or was it just a habit, a convenient way of planning for a future in which she didn’t have to cope alone? She wasn’t even sure what love really meant. Her parents had argued all the time, some times violently, and they had frightened her as a small child with their fights. Yet they had stayed together and between their frequent disagreements, they seemed content. There had been occasions when their happiness and laughter had filled the house, but those moments were rare and the strongest memories were the bad times.
    More recently she had seen her four brothers fall in love and marry and those relationships had overridden memories of the fights between her parents to a certain extent. Any marriage was taking a chance, she was convinced of that. Even with the obvious happiness of her four brothers and their wives she knew it wasn’t the same for her and Henry. Perhaps they had waited too long.
    She cleaned and tidied the house and washed the bedding, and threw out the oddments of leftover food into a bin for next door’s chickens. The day ended, darkness came and, with it, the dread of the night alone in the large house for the first time in her life. It was with reluctance that she closed the door.
    She didn’t want to waste electricity by burning the light all night but couldn’t face the utter darkness. She lit a candle and set it in a dish beside her bed. It’s flickering light didn’t really help. A movement of the flame set her wondering whether there was a draught from an open door to account for it.
    Restless and a little afraid, she rose three times and went down the stairs carrying the candle as well as switching on the landing light. Each time, she checked every door and window but nothing had changed. At four she made a cup of cocoa and at five she gave up trying to sleep and made tea and toast, sitting on the old couch to eat it, an electric fire glowing in front of yesterday’s ashes.

    Jack had been in the area for a couple of months. He had escaped from his previous address just ahead of a police inquiry and with just enough cash to survive for a month. He had eked out his money by scrounging from other men sleeping rough and stealing when an opportunity arose. It was mostly food he took, but once he had found a purse temptingly easy to pick up and on two occasions an open window had enabled him to reach inside and take an ornament which he then sold when he was far enough away from where it had been taken. It was so easy. He laughed when he thought about it and his confidence grew.
    In 1954 people still left keys hanging down behind their letterboxes and on that day in March, he risked entering a house after seeing a woman and three children leaving it and getting on a bus. Entering a house was something he swore never to do again, but he had nowhere to sleep and he was very hungry. He watched the bus stop and the family of mother and three children get in and find seats. He waited for a few minutes then pulled the key on its chain through the letter box and let himself him.
    He went silently up the stairs and looked in drawers, carefully opening them and more carefully closing them again. With luck he wouldn’t leave evidence of his presence and anything missing would be presumed to be carelessness. A bank book was under some clothes and inside was a pound note and five shillings in coins. Pocketing the money he continued the search. Downstairs he went into what was obviously the best room with its