The Husband's Story Read Online Free PDF

listening.
    â€˜Give us another kiss,’ he asked.
    Beryl shook her head. She had already heard the click made by the spring-catch on the door as Stan closed the mat cupboard, and she wasn’t moving.
    â€˜You stay where you are,’ she said. ‘Sit still and behave yourself.’
    Brandy, Stan reflected,
is
a good after-dinner drink. Not just centrally-heating and agreeable. There’s a secret of some kind inside it; something of the feel of a fine sunset, or a loving hand left resting lightly in your own. Stan had allowed Cliff to fill his glass again up to the criss-cross pattern on the side, even though Beryl had only just begun to sip hers, pecking at it warily, like a bird.
    After his day at the office, Stan suddenly found himself feeling better. Much better. He had even forgotten about the Appointments Board. This was the way life ought to be, he kept telling himself; the way he would have liked it to go on being forever. With the knife-edge crease of his newly cleaned cavalry-twill showing over his crossed legs, Stanley Pitts was beaming.
    â€˜Well, mustn’t forget what we came for, must we?’
    Cliff had thrust himself up from the breathing Swedish upholstery, and was rubbing his hands together like an auctioneer about to open the proceedings in a saleroom.
    â€˜Just you pass that air bag over, young man. Nothing in it for you, I’m afraid. Only for the girls.’
    The first thing that Cliff pulled out was a big, transparent pochette of sugared almonds. Bigger than big, in fact. As he held it out in front of her, Beryl thought that it was the biggest pochette of sugared almonds that she had ever seen; a pound of them, at least; even, remembering how much sugared almonds weigh, possibly two pounds. And all tied-up round the top with an expensive-looking satin ribbon, finished off in a rosette with a gold label, bearing the maker’s name,
Fleurette
, in the centre. Just like Cliff, Beryl was thinking: whatever he did was always on the grand scale.
    â€˜For little Marleen,’ Cliff said. ‘In case she wakes up in the night. Good for her teeth.’
    At the sight of so many sugared almonds, Stan felt even happier still. He knew that Marleen liked sugared almonds, and he was pleased for her sake. But he felt quite sure that she would like the chunky, raw-hide satchel even better, and that pleased him too. What pleased him most of all, however, was thinking about Beryl. She needed little peaks of excitement in her life. It would mean a lot to her, having a private, unexpected birthday just when she had been sitting down to an ordinary Friday evening like every other one.
    Cliff seemed to be happy, too. He winked across at Stan.
    â€˜Would you believe it?’ he asked, reaching down into the air bag. ‘Silly me, I’ve left it behind. No, must have been stolen. Lot of sticky fingers at the airport these days. Serve in Customs and grow rich, that’s what I say.’ He broke off suddenly. ‘There it is,’ he announced. ‘Just where I hid it. Underneath the cocaine. Knew I’d put it somewhere safe.’
    This time the parcel was flat and soft and yielding. There was no name of a shop on the outside; but there wouldn’t be, Beryl reflected, because Cliff would have bought it through the trade, naturally. Cliff had trade connections everywhere.
    And, when she opened the layers of plain paper inside, she could not restrain a little gasp. Just couldn’t help gasping because it was so beautiful. It was a white silk headscarf with an enormous scarlet peony embroidered in the middle. The scarf was enormous, too; just the way it naturally would be if Cliff had chosen it. And pure silk; the sort of silk that sends tingles up your fingertips as soon as you touch it.
    Beryl didn’t waste a moment. The mirror over the mantelpiece was only an ordinary mirror, oval, picture-sized and with a magnolia-coloured glass frame to it. But it was quite