The Doll’s House Read Online Free PDF Page B

a cup of coffee, Hermann. I was too tired to make myself lunch.’
    â€˜You mustn’t miss meals,’ he said anxiously. ‘You know it’s bad for you.’
    â€˜Bring me some biscuits then,’ she said. ‘And don’t forget to make that call!’
    She drank the coffee and ate the sweet chocolate biscuits. He’d gone into the hall to telephone. She wouldn’t hear anything.
    He came back and said, ‘I’m going out for a while. I’m meeting someone. I’ll be back in good time to make your supper. So don’t you worry. I’ll tell you if there’s good news when I come home.’
    She reached out a hand and squeezed his affectionately. She smiled up at him.
    â€˜You’re a good boy, Hermann,’ she said. ‘It’s about time you had some luck.’
    Peggy Oakham looked at him across the kitchen table. He’d been at home for nearly three weeks and she didn’t know how much longer she could stand it. She’d set the cereal, orange juice and toast on the table and he’d opened the morning paper. She’d kept busy, and managed to slip away and see her friend a few times, but it was nerve-racking, having Harry at home all day. He did nothing so far as she knew but read, watch television and make phone calls. He hadn’t mentioned getting a job.
    She buttered toast for herself and thought how miserable she felt. Ten years of misery. He wasn’t deliberately cruel; he just treated her as if she was the worst mistake he’d ever made. They’d nothing in common, she realized that now, but when they first met he’d seemed such a sexy man, with a nice voice and lovely manners.
    She’d had a lot of boyfriends. Working in a restaurant made it easy to meet men. She let Oakham pick her up and take her out. It wasn’t long before she went to bed with him. She was a romantic girl who always bracketed sex with being in love, even when it was short-lived. He was different. He dressed differently to most of the men she knew. He had a job in a Ministry, she wasn’t too sure what he did, but it was important and he had to travel abroad a lot. They married very quietly in a register office. She’d been disappointed about that, she’d imagined a white wedding with bridesmaids and a white Rolls to take her to the church, but he’d been married before and he didn’t want that sort of thing. She finished her toast. His paper rustled as he turned a page.
    It was the first wife that started the trouble. She was jealous because he wouldn’t talk about her. He kept her private, and it made Peggy feel angry and left out. It wasn’t her fault she’d died. He wouldn’t talk about that either. If he still minded, then he couldn’t love her , she reasoned. She had begun to nag, to pick at the subject like a sore.
    And then one day they had a row and she went too far. Oakham had started to shake her. He shook her till she screamed.
    And then he said, ‘You ever say anything like that about Judith again and I’ll break your bloody neck.’
    He’d never been violent again. He’d just stopped sleeping with her and put the barriers up. So she’d looked round for comfort. She needed it. She couldn’t live in that vacuum. She was a warm person, a human being, not like him.
    And over the years she got careless. If he knew he didn’t mind. He didn’t care enough to mind, and that hurt too. I hate him, Peggy thought. I really do.
    She said, ‘Are you going out today?’
    He went on reading the paper for a moment and then looked at her over the top.
    â€˜Yes. I’ll be away for a day or two. You won’t mind that, will you? Give you time to play some bridge.’
    She had a sympathetic girlfriend who covered for her when she was seeing the current boyfriend. She’d say, ‘I’ll be round at Madge’s, she wants me to make up a four.’ Once, when