The Runaway Read Online Free PDF

look at her sometimes and I get a tight feeling in me guts. It’s as if she’s the kid and I’m the grown-up.’
    She shook her head in wonderment and laughed again.
    ‘It’s mad, ain’t it? Then, in the next breath, I see her waddle down the street and I hate her with all my heart. Yet if someone says anything about her, I want to kill them. Even though I know what they’re saying is true.’
    Eamonn watched her as she began to peel the potatoes, cigarette dangling from her lip, her eyes screwed up against the smoke.
    ‘I can leave school next year - I can’t wait to earn me own money,’ he told her. ‘I’m going in the docks. I’ve got the size and the savvy, as me old man would say.’
    ‘You’ll do all right there, they earn a good wedge. I wish I could get a proper job.’ Cathy pointed the potato knife at his chest. ‘One day, right, I’ll have everything that everyone else has - and more. Loads more. Because this ain’t gonna be my life, Eamonn, and I intend to make that statement a fact.’
    Before he could answer, the front door opened and Betty’s voice was heard throughout the flat.
    ‘Merry Christmas!’ The fight with Madge already forgotten, she bowled in with an armful of presents. ‘Something smells handsome! I wish you’d come and live with me, Cath. I’d pay you to do all this, straight up.’
    Cathy smiled, showing small white teeth. ‘I know you would, Auntie Bet, but me mum’s put a block on it.’
    Betty followed her back into the kitchen. ‘Here, Eamonn, you big git, take these presents. How is she?’
    Cathy shrugged as she put the potatoes into a dish for roasting. ‘Pissed, as usual. He ain’t come home again. You know the scenario, Auntie Bet. Why should Christmas be any different? As me mum will say later, it’s only a day like any other.’
    Betty took off her beaver lamb coat and folded it carefully over the back of a kitchen chair. ‘It’s serious this time, love.’
    Both Eamonn and Cathy looked at her.
    ‘Who is it then?’ Cathy asked.
    ‘It’s Junie Blacklock, her that was widowed. No disrespect, Eamonn, but you know your father as well as any of us. Junie’s insurance was a tidy sum, plus she’s an Irish like him. She ain’t got chick nor child and she’s a looker, I’ll give her that. Kept herself nice always, even during the war. She’ll never see forty again, but that’s neither here nor there, is it? I got the SP from old Mother Wacker, and you know her - if it’s not true she won’t mouth a word of it. According to her, Eamonn’s moving in with Junie, so that means you’ll be moving in and all, boy, because where he goes, you go.’
    Cathy closed her eyes and shook her head in consternation. ‘The rotten bastard! The least he could do was wait until after the holidays. This’ll finish Mum now. Apart from me, he’s all she’s ever had.’
    Eamonn put the kettle on and said, ‘Still, look on the bright side. At least I won’t be far from you. That’s something, I suppose.’
    Betty bit on her thumbnail nervously. ‘I’ll have to tell Madge. I mean, at the end of the day she is me best mate. She’d rather hear it from me than someone else, and if Mother Wacker knows about it, then the whole world and his dog will know by the morning. Mouthy old bat she is.’
    Cathy turned off the oven.
    ‘What you doing? I’m starving,’ Eamonn protested.
    Cathy looked into his eyes and said sadly, ‘There’ll be no dinner here today. She’ll go garrity when she finds out. There’ll be ambulances arriving and no prizes for guessing who the occupant will be, eh? Go on, Auntie Bet, tell her. Before someone else does, and not as kindly.’
    Five minutes later Cathy heard the high keening coming from the front room and an answering cry rose inside her. For all Madge Connor’s faults, she was Cathy’s mother and the girl loved her.
    More, perhaps, than she deserved.
     
    Junie Blacklock was a small woman, with a handspan waist and good teeth. She