The Loner Read Online Free PDF Page A

time. I’m too old and tired to take it any more. It’ll be the death of me.’
    ‘But you can’t send her away!’ The boy panicked. ‘Where will she go?’
    ‘Back to the streets where she belongs.’
    ‘That’s fine.’ Rita struggled to stand. Holding on to the back of the chair, she told them both, ‘I’m a proud woman, and I don’t stay where I’m not wanted. Help me, Davie. I know where we can go, me and you. We don’t need this hovel. We can do better, you and me!’
    ‘Not you, Davie!’ Just as Don had pleaded with Davie, so now did the old man. ‘She’s not worth it. Let her go and find her own sort. You stay here.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Please, Davie, don’t go with her. Stay here, with me.’ Truth was, at this moment in time, he needed the boy more than ever.
    But the boy’s answer was the same as before. ‘I can’t leave her, she’s my mam. We’ll take care of each other.’
    ‘So, you mean to desert me as well, do you?’
    ‘I have to look after her.’
    ‘No, Davie!’ Somehow, he had to stop the boy from going. ‘You’re not listening to what I’m saying. Your father tried to warn you, and now I’m begging you… don’t go with her . She’ll take you down the road to ruin. Stay herewith me… please.’
    The boy was steadfast. ‘No, Grandad. She needs me.’
    ‘What? And you don’t think I need you?’
    The boy shook his head. ‘Not as much as Mam does.’
    ‘Right!’ Desperation heightened to anger. ‘Go on then! If that’s what you want, you can bugger off the pair of you, out of my house and out of my life. And I pray to God I never see either of you again!’
    For a long, shocked moment, the boy looked him in the eye, not wanting to believe what he’d just heard.
    ‘Come on, sweetheart.’ Rita stubbed out her cigarette and tugged at his sleeve. ‘We don’t need him. We don’t need anybody. You and me, we’ll be fine on our own.’
    The old man lingered a moment longer, silently pleading with Davie to see sense and change his mind. But he knew how loyal the boy was, and he had seen how his father leaving had made him all the more protective of his mother. And he realised he had lost to her, yet again.
    Without a word, he went upstairs, where he sat on the edge of his bed, saddened at what his own daughter had become, and worried about Davie: there was no telling where Rita might take him. God only knew where it would all end.
    A few minutes later, Davie came upstairs to collect a few things. He paused at the old man’s door. ‘I’m sorry, Grandad,’ he said.
    But there was no forgiveness in the old man’s heart, only fear for the boy, and hatred for his daughter. ‘Go away,’ he grunted.
    ‘I don’t want to leave like this.’
    For a fleeting moment, the old man almost relented; for the boy’s sake, perhaps he should give her another chance. But how many chances would she need before she saw what she was doing to herself and others? No! The mixture of old and new anger was still burning, and he deliberately turned away, his heart like a lead weight inside him.
    After a while he heard the boy move away, heard his footsteps dragging down the stairs – and it was all he could do not to go after him and catch him in his arms and tell him they would have a home here for as long as they wanted.
    But he had been through it all so many times with her, just as he had with her mother, and each time she sank deeper into the swamp. Then there was the gossip and the sly looks in the street. You couldn’t go on like it, and she wouldn’t change her ways. Why couldn’t Davie see her for what she was?
    The slam of the front door shattered his thoughts. Slowly and heavily, he went downstairs to the front room and looked out of the window. As he watched them go down the street, his daughter limping – from the drink, he assumed – he could hardly see them for the tears scalding his eyes. ‘Look at you,’ he murmured. ‘A mere scrap of a lad, and yet you