The Party Line Read Online Free PDF Page A

She’d accepted it not because it was true — it could never be true — but because her parents needed to believe it. They had just one child now and they needed to know she was a good person.
    Jack kept his opinions to himself while families grieved. But nottoo much later Joy had heard him talking down the telephone line to who knows who, quietly putting things straight.
    The law was on the farmer’s side, when it came to collisions between stock and motorists. It was never the animal’s fault, always the motorist’s. Even when the motorist was fifteen and breaking no law except teenage rebellion.
    ‘I could have gone the Walkers, you know. I could have gone them the value of the beast,’ Joy heard him say.
     
    Joy threw bottles of cleaning products into the back of the laundry cupboard and slammed the door. She sat, frumpy, on the end of her bed.
    The little bottle of 4711 was on her dresser, in the centre of a crocheted white doily that, on close inspection, was clogged with dust. Neville had given her the perfume for Christmas — the last one before he died. Joy picked up the bottle and unscrewed the cap. She closed her eyes and held the open bottle under her nose, drawing a deep breath, remembering the rich, heady scent of Gabrielle Baxter.
    A virtuous life would be conducted by the wearer of 4711. Joy put her finger over the top of the bottle and tipped it. She dabbed the scent behind her left ear, then her right.

Nickie Walker
    Nickie did the dishes without being asked.
    ‘She’s a good girl,’ Eugene said to Joy, who was making sandwiches for Nickie’s lunch the next day. He gave Joy a shoulder rub as he walked past her towards the sitting room. ‘Isn’t she?’
    Joy went hmm .
    Nickie waited until Eugene was out of earshot. ‘If I ask you something, will you promise not to say no straight away?’
    ‘Maybe,’ Joy said.
    ‘Mum. Yes or no?’
    ‘For heaven’s sake, Nickie. What’s the question?’
    ‘Can I get my ears pierced?’
    ‘Of course not.’ Joy didn’t even look up.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘You know why. It’s not a thing nice girls do.’
    ‘Gabrielle Baxter has pierced ears.’
    Joy put the knife down. ‘Gabrielle Baxter is …’
    Joy had that look, the one that meant she was going to talk about people less fortunate than themselves in Africa and China. ‘You know about Gabrielle Baxter’s mother, Nickie,’ she said.
    ‘Yes. She’s dead. So what? She’s got these cross earrings that her mother gave her, little silver ones, and a necklace that matches them …’
    ‘Just when a girl needs a mother the most … poor thing.’
    Nickie didn’t understand. There was Gabrielle Baxter with earrings being called a poor thing, so she wasn’t a tart. This meant there was a new category of people who could have their ears pierced — girls whose mothers had just died.
    ‘They’re crosses.’
    ‘Pardon me?’
    ‘Gabrielle Baxter’s earrings. I told you. They’re little silver crosses.’
    ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
    ‘Crosses mean she believes in God. So how can someone whobelieves in God be a tart?’ Nickie pushed on. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘You’re not getting your ears pierced. End of story,’ Joy said.
     
    Religious instruction happened on the last Friday of the month. The Catholics had it in the Big Room and the Anglicans, Presbyterians and Methodists all went to the Little Room.
    There was another small group of kids — the heathens, Joy called them, though Mr Burgess referred to them as Miscellaneous. They didn’t believe in anything, or if they did it was one of those weird religions like the God Squad who came to people’s houses and pretended to chat about the weather before getting around to the point, which was always Hell and Damnation. Anyway, those kids went to the staff room with books from the library and they had to wash and dry the teachers’ dishes. They came back saying they’d sneaked the teachers’ biscuits, which, if