The Watchers on the Shore Read Online Free PDF Page B

the go, the frame propped up with one end on the table and the other on a cupboard or a chest of drawers; my mother sitting up to it, right hand on top holding the skewer, left hand underneath taking the lists as she prodded them through. It was possible to buy material for lists but it was unheard of in our house; it kind of defeated the object. We always collected the family's old clothes for cutting up, plus what a neighbour or friends might be throwing out. The lists would be nearly always drab navy-blue or dark brown and occasionally we might have the brighter colour of a woman's costume to liven the mixture up. I wonder how many listing rugs my mother and father have run through in their married life. They look pretty shabby when they get trodden down but there's nothing to beat them for comfort when they're new.
    'A pity,'the Old Man says, talking about Mr Rothwell;''a fine young-looking feller like that cut off in his prime. How old did Ingrid say he was?'
    'Forty-eight.'
    'Aye.'The Old Man nods. 'Forty-eight. No age at all. Aye... I rather liked Mr Rothwell.'
    'Yeh, so did I.'
    'Worth three or four of Ingrid's mother, I allus thought.'
    'Me too.'
    The Old Man and I sit and think about Ingrid's father, dead eighteen months ago of lung cancer and I remember how he talked to me in that pub cafe in Bread Street after I'd left Ingrid, and made it possible for me to see her again. I've thought many a time since, going back over that conversation, how clever he was that day; how he got to grips with the situation, saying just what needed saying at just the right time. He and Chris; they never talked to each other about it but they did it between them while all the others were washing their hands of it: Mrs Rothwell glad, I think, that I'd finally shown myself to be an ill-mannered pig, not good enough for her daughter (as she'd always thought), and the Old Lady saying she didn't want to see me till I was back with Ingrid again.
    So we got back together and decided to give it a try.
    'How do you get on with her these days, Victor?'the Old Man says.
    'Who, Ingrid's mother?'
    'Aye.'
    'Oh, well enough. We have a sort of armed truce. We don't see much of each other really, and we're polite and civil when we do meet. I don't know what she says about me when I'm not there and she doesn't know what I say about her.'
    'Ingrid'll get both sides of it, I reckon?'
    'I suppose she does.'
    He grins. 'It's a common enough situation, I suppose.'
    'I suppose it is.'
    My mother comes in from the kitchen with the supper and she and the Old Man start telling me they're thinking of flitting. This place is too big for them now we're all away and there's only Jim to put up when he comes home. They bought it before the war, a solid, roomy family house, at the price ruling then, which is about a quarter of what it's worth now. The mortgage has been paid off for some time and the Old Man reckons he can sell for seventeen- or eighteen-hundred and buy a four-roomed terrace house for about nine; which will give him knocking on for a thousand to put in the bank: a nice tidy sum to add to his savings and pension when he retires, which won't be long now. It sounds to me like a first-rate plan, and I say so.
    'Aye,'the Old Man says, 'your mother had her work cut out talking me into buying this place when things were unsettled and you could rent a house any day of the week. But it's turned out for the best. Money's dropped in value but property's gone up.'He nods. 'We had a bit o'luck.'
    It's a satisfied little nod from a chap who's come through all right. A chap who's worked hard all his life, when the work was there to be done, in foul and dangerous conditions, and brought three kids up and seen them go out into the world with better chances than he ever had. I reckon he has a right to be content.

    Ingrid's already back when I get home, and not in a very good mood. She hasn't been in long from the look of it: her coat's over the back of the settee and the