The Flame of Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

grind its way through the floor. When that’s over I can start living again.’
    â€˜What do you think you’re doing now?’
    â€˜Since you ask, I’m multiplying. When Dad thought this house would be big enough for the community he reckoned without me. I’ll have at least a litter.’
    Shameless and fetching, he thought, base and lecherous when she’s not too heavy to walk. The sway gives her away when her belly’s up, and the predatory shoulder-slope when she’s empty and ready. ‘Father’s a great Christian. He’ll feed any number of mouths.’
    â€˜He’s a mean old rattlebag,’ she cried.
    â€˜Not so loud. He’ll hear you.’
    â€˜Are you frightened of him, as well? Everybody is. I must be the only one who isn’t. I tell him twenty times a day how mean he is. His brain’s pickled in vinegar and his heart’s clogged with salt. I can understand how he can sleep at night, but I don’t see how he can wake up in the morning.’
    â€˜He’s brittle with good living,’ he said. ‘A well-charged magneto who lords it over us with all the authority of unexplainable drive and power – and the fact that his hands are on the cash.’
    She clutched her stomach. ‘That’s the third bloody time.’
    â€˜What is?’
    â€˜I don’t know. That’s what woke me in the first place.’ She straightened, and smiled. ‘We’d all like to see the back of him. Give us a fag.’
    â€˜I haven’t got any.’
    â€˜You’re even meaner than he is.’ She took a packet from her padded and flowered dressing gown. ‘If he popped off one day to the South Seas who’d take his place?’
    He lit a cigarette. ‘Who knows?’
    â€˜As long as it’s not you. I’d rather die.’
    â€˜I thought you were too generous to think that far ahead.’
    She groaned. ‘Either I’ve eaten too much, or my appendix has burst.’
    â€˜Take a pill.’
    â€˜I’ll need at least forty to get a few winks before daylight.’
    He couldn’t resist speaking his favourite interior thought, having often noticed that deciding not to say something was merely the first stage to letting it out. ‘I’d be such joy to see the last of father that there’s no point in thinking about what would happen afterwards. You’d never do anything if you considered the consequences.’
    â€˜You certainly don’t think about getting pregnant when you’re humping around on a bed with a man,’ she said.
    An owl sang its nightsong over the caravans, such a cool rhythmical warbling that they couldn’t but listen. She bent down, then straightened and turned her pale full face as if to see where the moon had gone. ‘If this keeps on I’ll have a miscarriage.’
    â€˜It’ll get out so easily you won’t know it’s happened,’ he said lightly.
    â€˜I tried to get rid of it when I knew I was preggers. But nothing bloody worked.’
    â€˜Some loathsome member of this community could have given you an address, I expect.’
    There was a movement on the higher ground of lawns and fruit trees at the back of the house. Whoever it was had been only a few yards from their conversation, hidden in the thin alleyway dividing the caravans. Cuthbert felt a chill, knowing himself to be a coward, otherwise he wouldn’t make so many plans.
    â€˜I heard you,’ Handley shouted, coming down the steps. ‘Your pair of plotting nightbirds.’
    Cuthbert backed away, smiling so that his father might believe his remarks had been merely a joke, crossed by one of defiant friendliness in case Handley hadn’t really heard and was only bluffing – which he often was.
    Mandy clutched her belly, and Cuthbert was proud of her quick though dramatic response in trying to divert her father’s wrath. ‘It’s getting