Read Online Second Chance by Sian James - Free Book Online Page A

this paragon of understanding give you?’ Auntie Jane snapped at her, clearly resentful of the way she’d been relegated to second – or third – place in my mother’s life.
    â€˜She gives me my dinners, Jane, and something for Katie’s tea every day.’
    â€˜And what about money?’
    â€˜And three pounds ten a week in money.’
    â€˜Three pounds ten a week! Great Heavens, she’s cheating you, girl. You should be getting at least five pounds. Nobody gets three pounds ten a week nowadays. Ten shillings a day is starvation wages.’
    â€˜But she’s only supposed to be there for two hours in the morning,’ I said. ‘The rest of the time, she’s just keeping her company. It’s what she chooses to do. She’s happy with Mrs Bevan. She doesn’t like it here on her own when I’m in school.’
    â€˜But she’s got work to do in her own home. You should be cleaning this place, Miriam, and washing and ironing for yourself and Katie, instead of leaving it for me.’
    â€˜Yes, I should,’ my mother said. ‘And I will from now on.’
    She started to cry then, but it wasn’t the wild crying we were used to – wild, bitter sobbing like a child that’s lost its mother – but a resigned, hopeless crying; tears, but no sound at all; much more pitiful. She sat upright on a hard kitchen chair and seemed to be dissolving into water. I was too frightened to move.
    Auntie Jane got up and put her arms round her. ‘Don’t take no notice of me, Miri. Nobody knows better than me what you’ve been through.’
    The silent crying went on and on. I thought it would never end.
    â€˜It was the electric they drove through my head in that place, Jane, that’s what did for me. Who gave them the right to do that? Nobody should have the right to do that to anyone. It took something away from me, Jane, something I needed. I’ve never been to Dr Mathias since, because he sent me to that terrible place, didn’t he? I only had words in my head after, instead of sentences, sometimes only pictures. Like being in the babies’ class. Only words and pictures. And no sense.’
    It made you shiver, the way she said, no sense .
    We went on sitting at the table for a long time, Auntie Jane still holding my mother and crooning to her.
    I could hear the clock ticking, a tractor ploughing on the ’Steddfa, seagulls calling, a crow in the distance. I wanted to go outside. I wanted to be a child, outside looking for conkers, playing with other children, but I knew I couldn’t. At nine, I was already old.
    Â 
    Afternoon gave way to evening. I made myself an omelette but failed to eat it. I found a tin of cat food and turned it out onto an enamel plate, but Arthur wasn’t hungry either. I’d already half-filled a pan with nice dry earth for him and when he cried to go out I carried him over to it, but though he sniffed at it, he wouldn’t use it.
    Almost eight o’clock. Paul didn’t seem to be in any hurry to ring, so I left him another message on the answerphone: ‘My mother died on Sunday evening. Please ring as soon as you can. I need to talk to you.’ My mother was dead, had died suddenly with no sort of warning. I badly needed some sympathy and some comfort. I considered ringing the Reverend Lewis Owen. I considered ringing the Samaritans. Why didn’t Paul ring? And why didn’t that bloody cat stop that bloody racket and use the dirt tray?
    A knock on the front door. I sniffed, ran my fingers through my hair and, ready to welcome whoever it was, hurried to open it.
    â€˜I’m your cousin Rhydian, Kate, and this my wife, Grace. We were so sorry to hear about Auntie Miriam.’ He had a soft, lazy voice and down-sloping dark eyes like Auntie Jane’s.
    I thanked them for coming, begged them to come in, put them to sit side by side on the sofa where I could look at them.