Read Online The Watchers on the Shore by Stan Barstow - Free Book Online

her husband, or me just really looking and noticing a few more years on her, I don't know.
    'Your mother seems a bit better,'I say to Ingrid when we're walking home.
    'It's like she says, she's better some days than others.'
    (No, she said she was worse some days than others.)
    'Can't anybody find out what's wrong with her?'
    'She's going for an X-ray next week. Then p'raps they'll find out. You know what she thinks it is, don't you?'
    I grunt. 'They might find out it's something they can cure without a lot of trouble.'
    'Yes, but she's scared. She doesn't say a lot about it, but I can tell. And this other thing doesn't help.'
    'What's that?'
    'The idea that I might go away and leave her.'
    'Have you been talking about it?'
    'Of course we've been talking about it. I had to tell her where you'd gone today. And besides, she's a right to know, hasn't she?'
    'Whatever happened you wouldn't have to move for a bit. Not until I'd settled in and could look for a house.'
    'But it's all upsetting. People don't know where they are. I don't know why you had to start all this just now.'
    'Look, I didn't know old Mr Van Huyten was going to snuff it, did I? And Conroy's job's going now, not in six months' time.'
    'There'll be other jobs.'
    'Mebbe not with good money and prospects like this one, and among friends.'
    'You sound as if you liked what you saw.'
    'I liked what I saw,'I admit.
    'Did you tell them you'd go?'
    'No, I said I'd think about it.'
    'When do they want to know?'
    'I said I'd write within the week.'
    'That's no time at all.'
    'I wouldn't have to go next week. If I said yes they'd mebbe give me a month to clear things up at the shop.'
    'It's still quick, all in a rush. We've never even talked about wanting to move away from here before.'
    'It's the way things happen. As far as I knew I was settled at the shop. Now I've got to do something else. Make a decision that Could change our lives.'
    'I like my life well enough as it is.'
    'It's all right for you. You'll give up working sometime and stop at home. I've got a lifetime of it in front of me. I just want to make a proper start, that's all.'
    She says nothing, pulling her collar up closer round her neck as we walk along. There's frost sparkling on the pavements in tiny flashes of crystal. They say we're in for a hard winter.
    When we're in the flat Ingrid asks me if I want some supper.
    'I'm not bothered. The fire's gone out and it's too late to get another one going.'
    'When did you eat last?'
    'I had a sandwich about six.'
    'You ought to have something, then. You must be famished.'
    'Oh, I'm past it now. I'm not bothered.'
    'Why didn't you have a meal on the train?'
    'What, at that price? I'll have a cup of cocoa and drink it while I'm getting undressed.'
    'I suppose I should have had your supper waiting when you came home.'
    'I'm not complaining.'
    She makes the cocoa and I drink it in the bedroom, draining the last of it just before I click off the light and slide down under the bedclothes. Ingrid's quiet now, lying with her back to me. I move in close, fitting myself into the shape of her body, and put my arm over the front of her. She mutters something I don't catch.
    'What?'
    'I said, it's the wrong time.'
    'Well I know it is. Oh Christ!'
    I roll over on to my back and look up into the darkness. In a minute she speaks again.
    'I've been hoping all day you'd come back and say it was no good.'
    'I can't say that.'
    'It still doesn't mean you're forced to take it.'
    'No ... I'm not forced to. But somehow I feel I've got to. It's a ... it's a sort of challenge, somehow.'
    She's quiet for a minute.
    'Do you want to get away from me? Is that it?'
    'What? Don't be daft.'
    'I should have to stay here on my own.'
    'But only for a while, till I get something fixed up.'
    All at once I begin to see further than her mother's illness, to what might be the real thing that's bothering her. She's not sure of me; whether I want her or not.
    'Is that what you're really bothered