Read Online Porky by Deborah Moggach - Free Book Online Page A

Dad told me about this before? He couldn’t know where it was, or he would have dug it up by now. How could he sit there, when those men would surely be coming back? They knew. They would find it first, unless I hurried.
    I found a trowel in the veranda and went round the back. Our yard was cracked, but none of the gaps were big enough to insert my trowel. Anyway, where would I go from there? Even with a spade, I couldn’t lever up our yard, I didn’t have the strength. Around our bungalow the earth was hard and dusty, all scratched by the hens. They gathered behind me, to watch. I stabbed at the ground; it hadn’t rained for weeks, it was like iron. The handle was wobbly because a screw was missing. I jabbed and stabbed: why was nothing ever mended in our house? If only I could dig properly, Dad could buy himself a new trowel, a new anything. He could build himself a pub in the yard instead of leaving us alone.
    The possibilities made me dizzy. I didn’t really want anything for myself, nothing big, but that afternoon – probably because for the first time I could do something to remedy it – that afternoon I realized how money might make my parents happier. The words sprang up: we are poor. It wasn’t my Mum going on about it, but me realizing it for myself.
    I made no progress. The ground was just chipped, here and there. I was useless. I didn’t like to try the grass out the front because Dad was there.
    I went indoors. Thinking back now, I’m not sure I knew what I was seeking. Gold coins? I was too old to believe in hidden treasure. But I was still young enough to believe in miracles: that something could be found that would make my parents happier . . . That I could do it if I tried.
    Everywhere the floor creaked. I knew there were holes under the carpet because we’d all learned how to avoid them – a stride was necessary, for instance, outside the bathroom door, and there was a subsiding area of carpet behind the telly. When my Mum went on about them, Dad said he only had one pair of hands.
    I started in the kitchen because the lino was loose. Lifting it, I saw the floorboards all broken. Dusty gaps showed what must have been earth but it looked even less promising than outside. I felt foolish, kneeling there with my trowel.
    Just then I heard a car outside. Mum was back from work; Oonagh’s husband had given her a lift. By the time she’d come indoors I’d put back the lino and also hidden, in the fridge, Dad’s plate of Spam and tomatoes that I’d made for his lunch, and that he hadn’t seen. I hid the trowel in the cupboard. Her footstep made me feel infantile. I jerked shut the cupboard door, which was warped.
    It was late that night when the shouting started. I was in bed but I woke up at the noise. I couldn’t hear the TV, which alarmed me; Mum must have switched it off. I knew then that it must be bad, so I went under the blankets and put Kanga’s arm in my mouth.
    â€˜Keep your voice down!’ shouted my Dad.
    â€˜Let her hear. Let her know what sort of a man she has for a father.’
    My bedclothes muffled the voices but they were all too recognizable. My teeth dug into Kanga.
    â€˜What a spineless nobody he is . . . What a good-for-nothing slob.’
    â€˜Say that again, Coral. I’m waiting . . . Go on.’
    â€˜No need, is there?’
    â€˜Oh yes?’
    â€˜We both know it, don’t we?’
    â€˜Look –’
    â€˜I’m wondering what they were saying, when they dumped you here . . . When they’d opened their door and let you roll out –’
    â€˜I told you, we got along fine. Real matey, we were –’
    â€˜Don’t tell me! Can’t I imagine it? I don’t want to, mind you, but –’
    â€˜We’re not selling this place!’
    I stiffened.
    â€˜Don’t care what they offer,’ he said. ‘Don’t give a