Read Online We Five by Mark Dunn - Free Book Online Page A

Sainsbury’s.”
    â€œI just had my own cuppa; don’t go to any trouble. I’m perfectly content sitting here gabbling with you and playing Nosey Parker to all the passersby in the street. I love this block, Jane, I do. Bustling, yes, but still rather quaint. It reminds me of Mrs. Gaskell’s Cranford. And this shop—I remember when we were girls—do you remember how tidy your father kept it?”
    Jane nodded and smiled. “Not a shilling in the till, but you’d think he was Mr. Selfridge himself, the pride he took in this place.”
    â€œDo you recall how he used to scold us for playing hide-and-seek behind all the old wardrobes and chest-of-drawers?”
    Jane nodded. “Those were happy days. Even happier when Mum was alive. Now, you said something was the matter and you must tell me what it is.”
    Ruth nodded. She allowed her gaze to lose its focus as she composed her thoughts. “There are several men— young men I see in the early morning once, sometimes twice a week, when I’m waiting for the four of you at the kiosk. They go into the pub across the street—almost always at the same time.”
    â€œCor! What public house opens so early in the morning?”
    â€œOnes like the Fatted Pig that serve men who work through the night. Like those I mean to tell you about. They’re part-time fire watchers with the A.F.S. and theirs is the midnight shift. I overhear some of their talk on the way to the pub. Their full-time daylight job is delivering coal for Mr. Matthews. I suppose you know about Mr. Matthews.”
    â€œYou mean the fact that he only hires conchies?”
    Ruth nodded. “After losing both of his sons at Dunkirk. Naturally, a father would be consumed with anger over his family being so cruelly singled out. And he’s very bitter, frightfully angry. But rather than direct his anger at the ones really responsible for taking his boys from him, he’s decided, instead, to abhor war in the abstract— all war , including the very one we’re in the midst of fighting. And become a violent pacifist. I say violent because he fired all the men who’d been delivering coal for him who refused to join him in taking a stand against the war. He wanted them to sign statements of conscientious objection. Those who wouldn’t, he sacked.”
    â€œHow does this concern you ?”
    â€œThose five lads who go to the pub together—they look to be our age, maybe a little older. They are each of them proud conchies—happy to go to Mr. Matthews and present themselves as replacements. And they seem to have taken an interest in the five of us . They watch us from the pub windows as we wait together for the factory bus.”
    â€œThere’s no crime in that, Ruth.”
    â€œOf course not. Nor is there crime in whatever scheme they’re devising to put themselves in our way.”
    Jane laughed. It was not a laugh of derision but only one of disbelief. “How do you know they are—as you put it—set to put themselves in our way?”
    â€œI’ll tell you. Mr. Andrews, the Scotsman who opens the pub so early in the morning—not only for these lads but for the other night workers who are known to pay a premium for their cockcrow pints—he came out to speak to me one morning last week, before your arrival. He said he’d overheard the five talking amongst themselves about their interest in the five of us. One of them said it was kismet the numbers should come out even and that we should all be in the same vicinity two or three mornings a week, and they were planning to divide us up amongst them, as if it were all some kind of game, to see who could get the farthest.”
    â€œThe farthest. Now what exactly does that mean? I should hope it doesn’t mean what you think it means, Ruth. I fancy it’s about winning our favour—winning our hearts .”
    â€œJane Higgins, you cannot