The year of the virgins Read Online Free PDF Page B

it was quite warm and there wasn't a breath of wind. Everyone said you would think it had been ordered.
    The marquee had been erected on the lawn beyond the drive. A number of men were going quietly about their business unloading tables and chairs from a lorry; from a van outside the main door, a woman and a man were carrying baskets of flowers into the house, and another was taking armfuls of blooms towards the marquee; and on the drive, men were stringing rows of electric bulbs between the larches. There was no fuss, and everything appeared orderly, as it did within the house.
    It was half-past nine. Winifred had breakfasted in bed; Daniel had been up for some time; Joe and Don had just left the dining room, both dressed in light pullovers and grey flannels. They were crossing the hall towards the stairs when Maggie came down and, confronting them from the bottom step, she said, 'He's in a tizzy, he won't get up. You'd better go and see what you can do.'

    'Well, if you haven't succeeded in rousing him, there's little chance for us.'
    Maggie looked at Joe as she said, 'We don't want any ructions today, do we? Cajole, invite, or threaten, but get him out of that bed.'
    Don, passing her now to go up the stairs, said, 'I would have thought it was the best place for him, seeing he's not allowed to come to the service. Anyway, he'd have been all right; he can hold himself if he likes.'
    Maggie said nothing but stepped down into the hall and walked away. And Joe, taking the stairs two at a time, was quickly abreast of Don and said in an undertone, 'You know as well as I do, Don, what excitement does to him. And there's nobody would like him there more than I would.'
    'He never gets a treat of any kind.'
    'Oh, you know that isn't right. Look what Maggie does for him. And I take him out at least once a week.'
    'I didn't mean that kind of a treat. This, well . . . well, I would have thought today was special and she could have stretched a point, even taking the risk of anything happening.'
    As they mounted the next flight of stairs in a single file Joe, looking at the back of this younger man whom he couldn't have loved more had he been his own kin by birth, thought ruefully, he said, she, not Mam, or Mother as she more often demanded as her title. It was as well he was going, for although as yet there had been no open rift between them, he had long seen one opening. And although he had his own feelings concerning the woman whom he addressed as Mam, he had no wish to see her broken openly by the desertion of the one being she loved. And not only loved; there was another name for such a feeling;

    but there was not a word in his vocabulary that would fit the need she had for her offspring.
    'What's all this? What's all this?' Don was the first to reach the bed where Stephen was curled up in a position such as a child might have taken, his knees almost up to his chin, his arms folded across his face. 'Now look here, you, Steve. Are you out to spoil my day?'
    The long arms and legs seemed to move simultaneously and the body lifted itself up against the wooden back of the bed, and the lips trembled as they muttered, 'No, Don, no. But I want to come to the wedding. Don't I, Joe? Can I, Don? Oh, can I?'
    Sitting down on the side of the bed, Don now said quietly, T want you to come. We all want you to come, but you know what happened at the rehearsal, now don't you? And anyway, the wedding will be over like that.' He snapped his fingers. 'Then you'll see Annette in her pretty dress, and the first thing she'll do when she comes into the house will be to cry out, "Where's Steve? Where's Steve?" She always does, doesn't she?'
    'I... I wouldn't misbehave, honest, Don. Look, I haven't in the night. Look!' And with a quick movement he thrust the bedclothes back. 'It's all dry.'
    Joe had turned away from the bed and now stood as though looking out of the window. It made his heart ache to see this big man reduced to a child. But no, not reduced,