The Wedding Group Read Online Free PDF

landlord said, out of the side of his mouth, as he stooped over the Father to wipe an ash-tray. He stood close by while Father Daughtry fumbled hurriedly with his buttons.
    David said good night and went out. It had been a tedious end to the evening. His mother had escaped it. But she was alone all day, and he ought to take her out, somewhere more exciting. He would do a bit of shouting at her when he got back. ‘You don’t get out much, Mother, do you?’ Smiling to himself, he went home up the lane. It was dark now.
    When he reached home, he went to Midge’s room, as he always did, to say good night.
    She was sitting up in bed, in a lace wrap, reading, and looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
    ‘Who was in the boozer, darling?’
    He made it sound as dull as it had been, would have made it worse if he could. He was innocent of the workings of his own mind, and did not go into his motive for always belittling what he did without her, exaggerating the rain on holidays, the weariness of journeys, the tastelessness of food – everything that might make her glad to have stayed at home.
    He told her about the deaf old party, and shouting back through the door ‘Good night, mother,’ went off to bed.
    She was smiling, looking down at her book without reading. After a while, she closed it. She got up and took off her makeup and creamed her face carefully. Then she pinned up her hair and, when all this was done, she went to bed. She slept soon and peacefully, from a deep sense of security.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    On the evening before Nell went down with him to the country, David visited his father. He felt guilty for not going to see him more often than he did, and tried to convince himself that the blame was on the other side, for it was his father who had defaulted and left them all in the lurch – not financially in the lurch, it was true; but his going had changed their lives, none the less. They – he and his brothers – had been in their teens, and had suddenly found themselves with their mother on their hands, instead of the other way round.
    Archie Little had not left Midge for another woman. He had just left her. ‘So
rude
!’ she always said, seeing the funny side. ‘I can’t help seeing the funny side of it.’ But the colour in her cheeks was from anger, not amusement. She had been badly shaken up at the time, incredulous, furious. Although spared jealousy, she was not spared something which seemed worse – the bare truth that he simply could not abide her any more, and had found a way of letting the world know it. He had expected his love to last, and it had lasted hardly any time at all, and he was not able to live with his disappointment. Discovering that he could not bear to live with her any longer, he had gone backwhere he had come from – to his Aunt Sylvie’s home. He was twelve years older than Midge, and his marriage had made him seem more.
    Her contempt had been corroding – especially as it came at a time when in the course of nature things were going wrong with him. He was losing his hair, and his joints were stiffening. The final crisis was having to have his teeth out: he was distressed by the idea of it, and felt that he was ageing fast. He wished that his wife need not know. During that time, she had been tirelessly cruel – had been sarcastic, had served food difficult for him to eat, had asked him never to leave the false teeth anywhere where she might catch a glimpse of them, as they gave her the horrors, she explained. She implied that he gave her the horrors, too.
    He had seen her trying to make a fool of him before his sons, with his fuddy-duddy ways, his not being able to keep up to the minute or know the latest thing. He became very tired, trying to hide little aches and pains which beset him.
    One day, he did not come home from his office. He telephoned from his club to give the reason. He was never coming home again, he said. Midge would not believe it. She became