The Midden Read Online Free PDF

Brenda's reply had stunned him too. 'I think it has something to do with his scrotum,

Daddy,' she said coyly. 'Of course I don't know what yet. Perhaps after the honeymoon I'll be in

a position to tell you.'
    But Colonel Bright had no longer wanted to hear anything more about his prospective

son-in-law. With a grunt of revulsion he had turned his heel, this time on Victor's shirt, and

had stumped out of the bedroom. From that moment on he had avoided his son-in-law as far as was

possible and had spoken to him only when forced to. And the family's attitude had never changed.

Nor, he realized now, had Brenda's. At the time he had succumbed almost at once to her charms and

the delicious moue she had made as she asked him if she hadn't been a clever little girliewhirl

to get rid of Daddy so quickly. Only later when they had been married and Brenda had decided

she'd had enough of sex herself and preferred counselling other people with sex problems did

Victor fully realize the truth of her remark that she needed someone disgusting to give her life

meaning. By 'meaning' she meant feeling morally superior. Not that Victor had cared. There had

been compensations in his role as the morally inferior. He had been left free to have a notorious

love life while Brenda had had the gratification of forgiving him. Victor found the forgiveness

galling but could hardly blame her for it. His real quarrel remained with the Bright family. And

now he was faced with the invasion of his house by his least favourite Bright, Timothy. To make

matters worse he was expecting his own nephew Henry, who had just returned from a trip to South

America and Australia.
    'What a damned nuisance,' he muttered and looked out of the window in desperation. He had

already tried phoning Timothy Bright's house in London but without a reply. As usual in his

dealings with the Brights there was nothing he could do to prevent the fellow from coming. In the

past he had worked out a set of tactics which had tended to keep them at bay by turning the

central heating off just before they arrived and contriving a number of electricity black-outs

when they were in the lavatory or bathroom. On the whole the system had been moderately

successful, although his own reputation had suffered even more as a result. With Timothy Bright

he would have to devise something more in the way of inconvenience. Victor Gould had no intention

of having his own nephew's visit ruined.
    In London Timothy Bright completed the arrangements for his trip to Spain. He had been to his

doctor for something to calm his nerves and had been drinking much more heavily than usual. It

was largely due to the fact that he was hardly ever entirely sober the drink and the

tranquillizers did tend to lessen his anxiety about piggy-chops that his plans coincided with the

realization that he had been hard done by in more ways than he had previously imagined. He felt

particularly bitter about his own family. In Timothy's opinion they ought to have helped him by

giving him money. Especially after all he had done for them in the City. Instead they didn't seem

to care what happened to him. They'd let him land up in debt to the Markinkus brothers and they'd

let the bank make him redundant. The Brights had always banked at Bimburg's, ever since the year

dot, and if anyone could have used their influence to see he was kept on, they could. It hardly

occurred to him that only their influence had got him the job in the first instance and had kept

him in it for so long. From this constant self-pity his thoughts turned weakly to

revenge.
    If the family refused to help him, why should he do anything for them? From that point it was

an easy slide to the idea of helping himself to what they owed him. It wouldn't be difficult.

Rotten old Auntie Boskie, who was ninety or something, had given him her power of attorney to

sell some shares when she was in hospital the