Read Online The Likes of Us by Stan Barstow - Free Book Online Page B

drew some comfort from the fact that this at least, with Scurridge’s miner’s allocation, was one thing of which they were never short. This job done, she switched on the battery-fed wireless set and stretched out her feet in their torn canvas shoes to the blaze.
    They were broadcasting a programme of old-time dance music: the Lancers, the Barn Dance, the Veleta. You are my honey-honey-suckle, I am the bee… Both she and Scurridge had loved old-time dancing a long time, a long long time ago: and, scorning the modern fox-trots, how often they had danced so in the first years of marriage while some kind friend looked to the baby, Eva! Oh, those wonderful early days: that brief era of glorious freedom, with the narrow restrictions of her father’s house behind her and the mad decline of Scurridge in the unknown future! Oh! Those times... There seemed to be a conspiracy afoot tonight, set on making her remember, and she sat there while the radio played, letting the old tunes wash the long-submerged memories onto the shores of her mind; and later on she took a candle and went up into the cold, barn-like bedroom and climbing on a chair, rummaged in a cupboard over the built-in wardrobe and eventually unearthed a photograph album. Rubbing the mildewed cover on her overall, she took the album down to her chair by the fire. It was years since she had looked into the album and slowly now she turned the pages and went back across the years to her youth.
    Â 
    She was asleep when the knock came at the back door to startle her into sudden wakefulness, and consciousness that the gaslight had failed and the room was lit only by the flicker of the big fire in the grate. She thought for a bemused moment that she had imagined the sound, and then it was repeated more insistently this time, and she got up and after picking up and placing on the table the photograph album which had slid from her knee while she dozed, went into the passage.
    She stood a few feet from the door and called out, ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ It was a lonely house and, though she was not normally nervous, being awakened so abruptly had disturbed her a little.
    â€˜It’s me,’ a woman’s voice answered; ‘Eva.’
    â€˜Oh!’ Mrs Scurridge stepped forward and unbolted the door and swung it open. ‘Come in, love, come in. I wasn’t expecting you tonight. You must be near frozen through.’
    â€˜Just a minute,’ her daughter said. ‘I’ll just give Eric a shout.’ She walked to the corner of the house and called out. A man’s voice answered her and then there was the coughing splutter of a motor-cycle engine, from the road at the front of the house.
    â€˜I thought you mustn’t be in when I couldn’t see a light,’ Eva said when she came back. She kicked the snow off her boots against the step before coming into the passage. ‘What’re you doing sitting in the dark? Don’t tell me you haven’t a penny for the gas now.’
    â€˜It went out while I was having a little nap.’ They went along the stone-flagged passage and into the fire-lit kitchen. ‘I’ll just find me purse and see if I’ve any coppers.’
    â€˜No, here.’ Eva took out her own purse. ‘I’ve a shilling here: that’ll last longer.’
    â€˜Well, I’ve got some coppers…’ her mother began. But Eva had already crossed the room and her heels were clacking on the steps to the cellar. Mrs Scurridge put a twist of paper into the fire and when she heard the shilling fall in the meter, lit the gas-mantle.
    â€˜Isn’t Eric comin’ in then?’ she asked as Eva returned.
    â€˜He’s got a football club meeting in Cressley,’ Eva said, ‘He’s callin’ back for me. He might pop in for a minute then.’
    Her mother watched her as she took off her headscarf and gingerly fingered her newly permed mouse-brown