Read Online Snowstop by Alan Sillitoe - Free Book Online Page A

beer-swilling and womanizing when he had half the chance, and now there was the job of putting him out of the way because he could neither be looked after nor take care of himself. Brian was in Bournemouth, Ted was in Australia, Arthur was dead in a car smash, and Phil in Scotland was like the rest who wanted nothing to do with him. So he had to be boarded out, and wasn’t going to Bournemouth at all, but Bognor, though he wouldn’t know the difference once he was among the other geriatrics.
    It was hard to say when they would get there, with this little lot coming down. He didn’t relish getting stuck, because even though the old man might perish as quietly as a lamb, maybe he himself would go under as well, which wasn’t on the cards at all if he could help it. They would have to stop at the next civilized outpost, and set off again in the morning. ‘Are you cold, Father?’ He changed gear, hoping to get up the hill. ‘Cold, Dad?’ he shouted.
    â€˜All right, don’t break my ear-drum. I’m as warm as toast in here.’
    You would be. No sense, no feeling.
    â€˜Are you cold, Alfred?’
    The old bugger was normal again, which pressed on Alfred’s heart and made him fit to weep. ‘No, Father. I’m OK.’
    â€˜A bit o’ weather makes me feel young again. I courted your mother when it was like this. Kisses warmed us both. The smell of her coat with melted snow on the cloth, and flakes of it on her lovely fair hair. You can’t forget things such as that, not till the day after you’re dead, Alfred. Her lips were cold, but her heart was hot and rosy. She had breath like strawberry leaves.’
    â€˜You’ve had a long life, Father.’
    He touched his son’s hand on the steering wheel, held on warmly. ‘Not long enough, my old son. Anyway, I feel young still, don’t you worry.’
    He was relieved when the grip relaxed. I suppose everybody does, till they kick the bucket. Percy showed himself awake, to prove he hadn’t been asleep, or inattentive, or in any way wandering. ‘The cottages we lived in when we was young shared a pump, and I would take a bucket out at five in the morning to dip my head in before walking three miles to work. It livened me up no end.’
    Alfred felt close enough to follow his thoughts, knew the great effort made by his father, who in turn sensed that Alfred had understood, so he laid his head back into a rest he reckoned he deserved because of the willpower used. Nobody was going to think him senile if he could help it.
    Alfred saw lights, and the hotel sign. It wasn’t safe to go any further. He turned into the courtyard of a posh-looking hostelry called The White Cavalier Hotel, making his own tracks and parking between a car and a van. What the hell there was – or had been, or would ever be – to laugh about in this wide world he would never know, but lugging your semi-crackpot of a dad from one end of the country to the other, a man you had loved as much as yourself and even more – and hated even worse, at times – was no joke at all. Tears came while saying: ‘Come on, wake up, Father. We’re here, for a while, anyway.’

NINE
    â€˜Send a St Bernard dog if I fall down and sprain a kneecap.’ Eileen pantomimed a sluggish curving track towards the distant glimmer, nothing important in life except wanting to survive, a force buried deep enough to be undisturbed by any levity. ‘I would drink its brandy, then send it back for more while I had a little zizz.’
    â€˜You’d die,’ he shouted, finding her tone more acceptable when she was trying to be funny, ‘from hypothermia.’
    â€˜Who’s he when he’s at home? One of them Latin doctors?’ She clutched his hand. ‘If I died I might wake up and live. I’ve been waiting all my life for that.’
    What else she said the jealous wind took away. The cold went