Read Online A Tree on Fire by Alan Sillitoe - Free Book Online

weak,’ she cried, ‘bone weak. Your whole life’s been built up on weakness. You can’t pit your will against the ordinary hard life of the everyday world.’
    His hands pressed onto the heavy kitchen table. ‘That’s what you always wanted, me going out to work every morning and bringing money in on Friday night, a nice steady husband with a nice steady job, an aspirin-wife and crispin-haired kids, a bungalow and little car. I’ve long suspected this.’
    â€˜It’s not true. I mean weak in a better way than that. The way I mean is just not in your consciousness. You don’t know. You’re of poor material. You never could understand, because you’re idle, unreliable, a liar …’
    He reached her with clenched fist, brought it at her, then emptied the sink of dishes, a demon scattering all the confetti of Sheffield and the Potteries at wall and window. ‘Go on,’ she cried. ‘What else can you do? This is the end, though, the end, I tell you.’
    He spun like a windmill. Chairs shook and toppled, the table flew, drawers skimmed and blocked off the door. Deafness and blindness, the awful force of his own movements crushed him, caught him up so that he couldn’t stop. ‘I’ll never forgive you,’ she wept. ‘Never, Never.’
    â€˜You’ve got absolutely what you wanted at last,’ he said, sitting on the floor. ‘Are you satisfied?’
    â€˜We’re done,’ she said, in tears. ‘Finished.’
    â€˜Finished,’ he said. ‘That’s it, then.’
    â€˜I can’t take this again.’
    â€˜You won’t have to. All your so-called love isn’t worth it. Nobody’s going to possess me in that way.’
    â€˜Nobody wants to, if only you could understand. You’d better go then. Let’s get it over with.’
    â€˜I’m not leaving like a bloody lodger.’
    â€˜Neither am I,’ she said. ‘It’s my house, remember. You got it in my name. You were too weak to get it for yourself. “I won’t be a property-owner,” you said. So I’m not going.’
    â€˜Neither am I, I won’t be thrown out.’
    â€˜It’s my house,’ she exulted.
    â€˜Get the police then, you turncoat bourgeoise slut. You’d stoop to anything.’
    From a sitting position his long thin body ricocheted across the room and caught her uplifted wrist. ‘Let go, or you’ll break it.’
    She put the plate in the sink. ‘I’ll never give in,’ she said. ‘Not even if you crawl.’
    The idea of it made him laugh, brought a spark of humour into his black day. ‘That’s what you’ve wanted all your life, but there’s less chance of it now than there ever was, and there was none then.’ He drew back, in danger being so close, though not of blows flying. He refused all temptation to inspect his aching cut, or touch the congealing blood.
    â€˜I want nothing from you,’ she said, holding a hand over one eye. ‘If I’d ever wanted anything we wouldn’t have been together two minutes.’
    â€˜But you’ve had plenty. I’m the sort of person who doesn’t even know when he is giving.’
    Her voice was quieter, more even in tone. ‘Not knowing when you give is the same as not giving.’
    â€˜You can wrap those bloody semantic floorcloths around your aphoristic neck.’ He couldn’t hold back, in for the kill when he didn’t want to kill, didn’t need to, and when there was nothing to kill. She stayed quiet, knowing it had to stop, her own impetus gone. Choler sharpened his face, staring for a reply that never came.
    The door opened, pushed the table a few inches into the room, and when he snapped around Mandy stood by the pot dresser – the only furniture still upright, apart from her parents. ‘You two been arguing again?’
    He was angered by her