September Song Read Online Free PDF Page A

dawdled across the playground towards the toilets. Apart from that, the place could have been deserted.
    I found myself dawdling, as the edge of Wanstead Flats came into sight and the prospect of meeting a very sick Daff came closer. I stopped to watch a couple of placid cows dropping some impressive pats on one of the football pitches. The players would be cursing the laws that still allowed grazing on common land. Not that the cows would care: the cricket season was over, so the chances of being struck a resounding blow by one of those nasty hard red balls had diminished to nothing.
    I checked the address, adjusted my tie and stepped up to Daff’s dark-blue front door, coughed nervously, seized the black lion’s-paw knocker and beat a little tattoo on the plate beneath.
    Les had said that Daphne’s older sister, Betty, was staying with her, so I was taken by surprise when Daphne herself opened the door, and I stood there in silence for a few seconds.
    â€˜Come on in, you silly bugger,’ Daphne said. ‘It’s not catching, as far as I know.’ She clocked the sad bunch of flowers – the last one there – I’d hurriedly picked out of the vendor’s bucket at Leyton tube station and smiled. ‘They for me?’ she said.
    I nodded, and she took them from me as we entered the little hallway.
    â€˜Betty,’ she called, ‘can you find another vase, love?’
    She pushed me into the front room and then disappeared with the flowers. I heard her coughing harshly in the back of the house.
    She hardly needed my few wilted blooms. The room looked like Kew Gardens at the height of summer. Six white roses in a crystal vase were flanked by yellow chrysanthemums on the mantelpiece, and there was a potted geranium on the window sill, still trailing red flowers.
    Daphne came in carrying an earthenware jug with my drooping dahlias and freesia thrust in it. She plonked it down on the sideboard, next to the small alabaster child with its arm wrapped around a large Alsatian dog, and then slumped wearily on to the sofa, pulling a shawl around her shoulders.
    â€˜Sit down, you great useless lump,’ she said.
    I perched myself on one of the hard, wooden chairs and coughed nervously. ‘How are you, Daff?’ I said.
    â€˜Apart from dying, you mean?’ she said. ‘Very tired, Tony. Very, very tired.’
    I cleared my throat again. ‘It’s a bit of a shock, Daff,’ I said. ‘Is there really nothing they can do?’
    She harrumphed. ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘Already spread. Liver. And brain, probably. They think. Still, they give me happy pills for the pain. At least I can stay at home for the moment.’
    â€˜I’m really sorry, Daff,’ I said.
    â€˜It’s all right,’ she said. ‘To tell you the truth, I never fancied growing old, anyway. Mind you, I did think I might have a few more years to get on Les’s wick.’
    â€˜He’s really upset,’ I said.
    â€˜Crocodile tears,’ she said. ‘He can’t wait for me to drop off me perch.’
    â€˜I don’t think that’s true,’ I said.
    She flapped her hand at me dismissively. ‘Enough about Les,’ she said. ‘I’ll be dropping off to sleep soon, so let’s talk about why you’re here.’
    â€˜Les said you wanted to ask me something,’ I said. ‘A favour.’
    She leaned forward, and I suddenly saw how thin and tired she’d become. I tried to think how long it had been since I’d seen her. It was only six or seven weeks.
    â€˜Yeah,’ she said, ‘and I want you to promise that you won’t breathe a word of this to Les.’
    â€˜I’ll try,’ I said, ‘but you know he’s going to ask.’
    â€˜Yes he is, and he can be very persuasive. So I want your promise.’
    â€˜Sure,’ I said. ‘I promise.’
    â€˜And make sure you keep