The Year of the Ladybird Read Online Free PDF

backed-up, dipped
forward or even bucked to avoid their fate. After a lot of sweating, grunting, endless hilarity and reckless betting from the spectators we managed to get them all Under Starters Orders.
    From the off the women screamed, the donkeys brayed and Johnny’s whip lashed through the burning afternoon air. Instead of five yards, the poor beasts advanced two or three. Tony kept up
an excitable commentary but I doubted whether all the animals would complete the course. They seemed to know it all too well and every time they stopped they tried to munch the parched grass. One
of the ladies was in danger of falling, to the wicked merriment of the crowd. I stood aside, watching with a mixture of humour and disbelief, when I felt something tickling the little finger of my
left hand.
    A ladybird had alighted there.
    Bright red with black spots, a seven-spot variety as we called them as children. I don’t know why but of all the bugs in creation the ladybird is the only one that doesn’t make most
people want to shudder or to swat it. Maybe it’s because it’s known as the gardener’s friend. I don’t know. I lifted it towards the blue sky to look at it in relief. It was
like a bead, a jewel, a drop of blood on my tanned finger. I pursed my lips and was just about to blow it away when someone gently touched the back of my hand to stop me.
    It was Terri. Terri the cleaner, the mop-and-bucket singer, the wife of Vlad the Impaler. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You have to say the rhyme.
Ladybird, ladybird fly away home, Your
house is on fire and your children are gone.’
And then she blew gently on my finger and the ladybird took flight.
    ‘Flown,’ I said. ‘We say flown where I come from. Not gone.’
    ‘Well, you’re wrong where you come from.’
    ‘No, we’re not.’
    ‘Argumentative, aincha? Did you make a wish?’
    It was the first time I’d seen a smile on her lips. Her eyes swam at me; she made them squeeze slightly. I hadn’t made a wish at first, but I did now. ‘I heard you
singing.’
    She made a little snort. Not even a snort, just a little release of air beneath her nostrils, as if in dismissal.
    ‘You’re a great singer.’
    She narrowed her eyes at me again, as if to see if I was mocking her. There were very tiny trace wrinkles at the corners of those eyes, whether from laughing or crying too much, I didn’t
know. I had a sudden impulse and I couldn’t stop myself looking round, scanning the crowd of people laughing at the slow progress of this last race.
    ‘He’s not here. He’s gone into town.’
    ‘Who?’ I knew perfectly well who she meant.
    ‘My husband.’
    ‘Oh, I wasn’t,’ I lied.
    ‘No, you weren’t,’ she said. She blinked at me and I felt as though she could see right through me, and I felt stupid and young and naive beyond belief. Then she said,
‘Next time a ladybird lands on you, you’ll know what to say, won’t you?’
    She turned and went without looking back. And I thought, dumbly, is she talking about ladybirds?
    I was pulled out of my reveries by a sharp tug on my blazer.
    ‘Hey,’ said Nikki, and I knew she’d seen me talking to Terri. She gave me
the look.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Just hey,’ she said.

 
     
     
     
3
Of course one had heard speak of Dante
     
     
     
     
    That evening I met the top of the bill, but not before I was accosted on my way over to the Golden Wheel nightclub. It was some time after last orders had been called in the
bars. I knew that I should have phoned home to let the folks know things were okay but it was too late and it was as I was passing through the alley leading to the nightclub that a hand reached out
of the darkness and roughly grabbed my wrist, whisking me round the corner.
    I gasped. The hand released me and I was face to face with Colin the cleaner. He blinked at me, took a pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his neat short-sleeved shirt, opened the pack
and offered me one. The next bit is ridiculous