What They Do in the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page A

mother. There wasn’t any, as far as she could see, even allowing for all the make-up. But she’d lay money Lallie could take off her mum a treat, clever little love.

 
    S ATURDAY NIGHT, AFTER a good Saturday. Swimming, chips, comics, Christina, and now Lallie. Tapping down the stairs in a blue-sequinned catsuit, pausing to gurn and exclaim ‘Shut that door!’ before reverting to herself and scuttling rhythmically to the bottom of the stairs for her I-gotta-be-me finale. A cola-bottle chew, dissolved to a sliver of flavour, sits on my tongue. The next part of the show will be Lallie and Marmaduke.
    Mum opens the door to the lounge, bringing in the Saturday steak-and-chips smell with her.
    ‘Darling …’
    I frown in irritation. Canned laughter accompanies the discovery of Marmaduke, in a frilled apron over his butler’s uniform, dusting Lallie’s stamp collection with a huge feather duster, stamp by stamp.
    ‘I wondered if you wanted to come to work with me next week after school?’
    The formality of the suggestion would strike me as odd if I wasn’t intent on Lallie, who has sprung out of nowhere, telling Marmaduke to use a bit of elbow grease on the Penny Black, then grabbing the feather duster and doing a quick Ken Dodd. ‘How tickled I am,’ she splutters at him.
    ‘Only I thought it would be nice for you,’ Mum continues.
    ‘I’m watching this,’ I tell her, exasperated.
    ‘Don’t you be like that when I’m trying to talk to you, young lady.’
    Now I’ve missed the next joke, and catch only the laughter. But I know better than to spark Mum’s irritation. She wouldn’tthink twice about turning off the telly altogether, and has even taken a few steps towards the set, as though this is already in her mind.
    ‘Sorry,’ I say, hoping that this might be enough to get her out of the room again. But she sits next to me and cuddles up, with the delicious smells of the hair salon and the even-more-delicious cooked fat of her tea on top of that.
    ‘It’s OK, I know it’s your favourite.’
    I feel a bit embarrassed. It’s not the same, watching Lallie with Mum there, even though it’s a particularly good show this week, with plenty of Marmaduke bits. He has to cook Lallie a special meal because she’s invited a boy round, called Algernon Smithington-Smythe, who wears a monocle and talks with an extremely posh accent. Marmaduke keeps getting everything wrong and ends up head first in a large meringue. My dad comes in at the end, saying ‘Load of rubbish,’ which he always says, and pretending that he’s going to turn over because he thinks the programme’s finished, which is also traditional. Mum then says what she always says, when Lallie’s doing a song from
The Sound of Music
, being Julie Andrews.
    ‘Not what you could call a pretty child, is she? Terrible nose.’
    ‘Talented, though,’ says Dad, and Mum’s ‘mmmmn’ of uncertain agreement suggests talent is no compensation for a lack of looks. I’m fairly sure that I’m prettier than Lallie. My nose is quite small.
    Mum clears off to do the pots, later than usual. She doesn’t reappear for the police programme I’m allowed to watch before bed. After that’s over, I’m supposed to be sent upstairs, but a film starts without Dad saying anything. Once I realize he’s forgotten about me, I don’t dare speak or move in case it reminds him that I’m still up, particularly as the plastic stuff the settee’s made of squeaks a lot when you shift on it.
    The hands on the clock above the gas fire creep steadily towards ten. Still no sign of Mum, still no order to go to bed. It’s a kind oftorture, because although I’m very interested in the film, and know that it’s far too grown-up for me to be watching, there are a number of things I don’t understand. I’m dying to ask Dad to explain the plot for me, but can’t risk drawing attention to myself. A man and a lady in a dark, scary old house are looking for someone who’s