The Watchers on the Shore Read Online Free PDF

the grate and the Old Man and I sit and look at it without saying anything, the Old Lady going on with her mending until she finally gathers it all up and puts it in the basket.
    'I could do with a woman's work,'she says, 'but it never gets any less.'
    'It ought to do,'I say, 'with our Jim out of the way now.'
    'What do you think Jim does with his clothes,'she says, 'mends 'em and washes 'em himself? He sends 'em home to his mother. That's one thing she's useful for, anyway.'
    I know this note in the Old Lady's voice; she's got her back up with Jim over something.
    'What's up with Jim, then? Haven't you heard from him lately?'
    'Oh aye, we've heard. We don't see much of him these days, though.'
    'When was he over last?'
    'Three weeks since; and we had a postcard yesterday to say he won't be home this week-end. He's going home with a friend who lives in Cheshire.'
    'Well, he goes to university to meet people as well as study, you know. Mebbe he did come home every week-end at first, but you can't expect him to carry on like that.'
    'As long as he doesn't start to think his own home isn't good enough for him.'
    'Nay, you know our Jim's not that sort o'lad, Mother,'the Old Man chips in.
    'He wouldn't be the first lad to go away to university and end up having no room for his parents,'the Old Lady says. There's a couple of spots of colour on her cheeks and I can tell she's spent some time brooding about this and building it up.
    'You've been watching too many television plays,'I tell her. 'Jim's at Manchester, not Oxford or Cambridge. There'll be a lot of people there from ordinary homes like his. And they're all cutting their apron strings together.'
    'Aye, and a sorry state most of 'em 'ud be in if it wasn't for their mothers and fathers.'
    'Well Jim knows that, doesn't he? What do you want him to do, write you a letter every day saying how grateful he is?'
    'There's no need for that kind o'clever talk.'
    'I'm only trying to make you see that you can't hang on to him. You seem to want to send him off with one hand and hold him back with the other. That's just the way to make him resentful. He's got enough to think about without you being on at him. You'll have to face the facts, y'know. You've lost Jim. He's gone. You'll never have him at home like you had Chris and me. He's off early and he's seeing a lot and meeting people that I never did. I was in a drawing-office at sixteen and the next thing I know I'm married. I hope he sees a bit more of things than I did before he settles down.'
    'Well neither you nor our Christine seems to have done so badly out of it,'the Old Lady says.
    I say nothing to this. Chris, all right. Me? What does the Old Lady know about me? What has she ever known? Does my marriage to Ingrid look no different to her than Chris's and David's? I wonder how blind you can get.
    'Anyway,'she says, letting it drop, 'I'll put the kettle on for a cup of tea.'
    'Aye, and I shall have to be pushing off home.'
    'Aren't you stopping for your supper?'
    'I hadn't planned to. I don't know what time Ingrid'll be home.'
    'You say her mother's not so well?'
    'Apparently not. That's why Ingrid's gone over tonight.'
    'She doesn't seem to have been right on form since Ingrid's father died,'the Old Man says.
    'Well, are you stopping or aren't you?'the Old Lady wants to know.
    'I suppose I might as well. What have you got?'
    'Nowt so much, unless you feel like popping round to t'fish shop.'
    'I'll take pot luck. I don't want to be too late.'
    But it is cosy sitting in my old chair with my feet stuck out across the hearth in front of that big fire. It's nearly possible to imagine I'm still at home and a free man. Nearly.
    'Will some brown bread and butter and a piece of fruit cake suit you?'
    'Yes, fine.'
    The Old Lady goes out and leaves me and the Old Man rumina ting in front of the fire. My heels sink into the new listing rug on the hearth. It seems looking back to when I was a kid that we nearly always had a listing rug on