Read Online Nest of Sorrows by Ruth Hamilton - Free Book Online Page B

So you’ll be living in a garret next news, all candles and boiled spuds.’
    ‘No. We’ll do OK.’ She turned as if to leave the room, but he waved his stick at her and she stopped in her tracks, back towards him. ‘I hope you’re not threatening me, Dad.’
    He shook his head sadly. That he could love her so much, that he could fail to tell her how much. He brought the cane down on to the table, noticing how she didn’t even flinch at the crash it made. ‘Katherine! Study art at Newcastle or wherever. Study fine art – you can always teach it if you want to.’
    ‘No. Mike and I have it all planned out. I’m going to teach juniors and he’s doing seniors. We shall get married as soon as we leave college.’ The catch in her voice was caused by the need to explain to him, to tell him that she loved Mike, that she loved her father too, that there was no need for all this animosity. But things had gone too far for that. And things hadn’t been right from the start, had they?
    ‘Katherine, why do you have to throw yourself away? Judith hasn’t got a boyfriend – she lives for her studies.’
    She faced him now. ‘Good for Judith. It’s all working out wrong for you, isn’t it? You thought I’d be your nearly-son and Judith would get married and give you those male grandchildren you’re setting so much store by. Well, Judith can’t get a man. She might look like an angel, but she’s a cold fish. You spoiled her. You made her take and take until she didn’t know how to give. As for me, well, I started off as a disappointment, so I might as well carry on in the same vein. I’m not going to be a spinster just for you, just so you can say, “Look, I made a woman into a man”. And don’t wave your stick at me, I’m eighteen now and I can do as I please.’
    ‘You cheeky young bugger, you!’
    ‘And shouldn’t you be down the betting shop? They’ll be shutting the doors without your custom.’
    ‘Enough! Is it any wonder I’ve taken to the horses? With you coming in like a bloody rainbow and your mother going through one of her “silence is golden” phases? Look at you! Just look at the state of yourself! What the hell have you been up to at all?’
    ‘I’ve been painting ducks.’
    He nodded sagely. ‘I hope the park keeper never caught you.’
    ‘Pictures of ducks. Not the actual birds.’
    ‘Oh, I thought they’d happen struggled and covered you in something or other. And what’s me-lad-o been up to while you’ve been painting ducks?’
    ‘Trees. He’s been experimenting with greens.’
    ‘Very nice. I hope it stays fine for you.’
    She sucked in her cheeks, then exhaled loudly. ‘Have you finished? May I go to my room now and get ready for the dance?’
    ‘What dance is that?’
    ‘The Thornleigh and Mount leavers. They’ve booked the Palais for the fifth and sixth years.’
    ‘What about the paint? Are you going covered in that?’
    ‘No. I’m going to the slipper baths, if you’ll excuse me. I agree, I need a good scrub.’
    They looked at one another without speaking for several seconds, then she went upstairs to fetch her bath bundle. The man was impossible, he really was! And he looked so . . . so ill. No wonder, she thought as she slipped towels and soap into her brown paper carrier. He drank enough for ten men, gambled away the change. Poor Mam.
    Downstairs, Peter Murray pulled on his coat and walked out of the house, leaning heavily on his stick as he made for the betting shop. With a bit of luck, he could catch a bet for tonight’s dogs, and to hell with Katherine and her cavorting. But oh God! If only he could say . . . if only he could find the words. What words? I love you? Would she believe him after all this time? Could she be made to realize that he’d loved her since the day of the rope and the lamp-post? Aye, to hell with her. Her and all bloody women.
    At the baths, Katherine paid her pennies, refused the bar of coarse soap and the rough towel that