Read Online The Flyer by Stuart Harrison - Free Book Online Page B

left the village. He had given up the rented cottage and the forge, and sold most of the contents. The only things he kept were some of his mother’s books and a framed photograph of his parents taken on the day they were married.
    He took the train from Brixworth to Northampton, and though he had to be careful with the little money he had, he decided to take a room for the night at the Station Hotel. When he was told the price of a single room was five shillings he almost changed his mind, but it was getting late and he doubted he’d find anywhere much cheaper. That evening he went out to a café for his supper, and later went back to his room and read from the Odyssey. As he turned the well-thumbed pages to follow Odysseus’s trials he thought of Mister Watson, and wondered where he was now. When he felt his eyes drooping he turned off the gas and got into bed. For a long time he lay awake in the dark, wondering where his life would take him.
    In the morning, William bought a newspaper and looked in the advertisements for lodgings. He found a place offering clean rooms in a respectable house for thirty shillings, with breakfast and supper included if required. He was alarmed that he couldn’t find anything cheaper, but he supposed if he managed to get a job quickly he wouldn’t have to eat into too much of his limited capital. After paying for his hotel room he had just over eight pounds left. It seemed like a very small amount.
    He left his trunk at the hotel and took a cab to the address given in the paper. The house turned out to be an ordinary looking brick villa in a terraced row. When he knocked at the door it was answered by a maid, who showed him into a living room. A few minutes later the woman who owned the house appeared. She was middle aged and thin, with dark hair pulled severely back from her face.
    ‘Good morning,’ William said. ‘I’ve come about a room.’
    She looked him up and down quite openly, but seemed uncertain of him, perhaps because of his age.
    ‘I usually only let my rooms by the week. I prefer my guests to be long term lodgers really, you see,’ she informed him.  
    ‘I’m afraid I can’t really say how long I’ll be staying, but I’m happy to pay for a week in advance.’
    His offer to pay, coupled with his general manner and appearance seemed to persuade her. ‘Well, I have got one room that’s available. I’ll show you where it is and then you can decide.’
    She led the way up the stairs to a room on the top floor, and stood aside to let him see it properly. It was small, furnished with a narrow bed and chest of drawers. A window looked out over the roofs of the houses across the road, and a single bad watercolour hung on one wall. William found it depressing.
    ‘Your advertisement said your rooms are thirty shillings a week, is that right?’ He wondered if such a small room might be let for a cheaper rate.
    ‘I provide breakfast and clean sheets once a week for that price,’ she replied firmly.
    ‘Alright, I’ll take it,’ he decided, thinking that it wouldn’t be for long anyway.
    ‘If you’d like supper it’s an extra ten shillings a week, which I think you’ll find is very reasonable,’ she told him. ‘If you don’t want it every evening it’s two shillings casual rate, but you have to tell me in the morning.’
    William took out his wallet and counted out a week in advance. ‘I might make my own arrangements about supper, if that’s alright,’ he said. ‘Though I’ll take it tonight.’
    The woman took his money and put it away in a pocket of her dress, and as they went back down the stairs she told him her name was Mrs Hall. ‘There’s a bathroom downstairs on the next floor. You’ll meet my other gentlemen this evening when they come back from their work.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    He sent the cab back to the hotel for his trunk, and when it arrived the driver helped him carry it up the stairs. Mrs Hall apologised that there was nobody else to