A Kind Man by Susan Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

their grief would have simply added to it, been noted but after that absorbed into the misery of everyone’s daily hardship.
    It was easier at 6 The Cottages and Tommy was still in work. Jeannie’s death had made no difference to any of that. Eve went through the spring and summer tending the garden and walking across the track to the peak and then up to St Paul-Alone, carrying flowers or a branch of fresh blossom and greenery to the grave. She could stand or kneel beside it half the day and never want to leave.
    Tommy did not come with her. He said nothing but she knew that the sight of the grave and later, of Jeannie Eliza’s name on the headstone was unbearable to him.
    Eve did not bother to look at her own face closely in the glass when she brushed and put up her hair, but she knew instinctively that it had changed, that Jeannie’s death was written there and had aged her.
    Sometimes, going into a room or up the stairs, she had the sense that the child was there, pattering behind her but she never glanced over her shoulder. There was no need.

10
     
    IT WOULD have been no wonder if one or other of them had fallen ill that winter, for grief takes its toll, but Eve was well, though the days were tunnels to be trudged through, one leading to the next without respite or purpose.
    But one morning, catching Tommy’s face as he turned, she saw that there was something wrong, though she could not then have said what it was or how she knew. Something. That was all.
    She waited. He worked steadily, walking or cycling to the town and back, helped her with the jobs as always, though he left in the dark and came home in it, so there was nothing to be done outside. But the fact that he sat across the table or in the armchair opposite her meant that she could watch him more closely and see the small changes. His face was thinner,the bones became prominent as blades through his flesh. His clothes hung more loosely. He pulled his belt in one then another then another notch. But he still ate well, worked, slept, as usual.
    Eve said nothing. Watched.
    They did not talk about Jeannie Eliza because there was no need, she was with them, between them, all about them, and their love did not change or their grief lessen, though it might have dropped out of sight.
    Christmas. ‘Let us just not have a Christmas,’ Eve said, for the memories were burned into her and there seemed nothing to celebrate. But Tommy said they should never ignore the day, that it would be selfish, and how would it help for them to pretend? So they killed a chicken and Eve made a small pudding and Tommy fetched a tree. On the previous year they had taken gifts and a large Christmas cake to Miriam and this year, he said, they must do the same. The boys should not be made to suffer. Gradually, then, they worked their way through the preparations and her heart lightened as she baked and wrapped and tried to think only of Miriam’s sons. But that was not possible.
    ‘Tommy looks poorly,’ Miriam said, ‘he looks a bad colour.’
    The boys were thundering about, so much bigger now, taking up so much more room and air in the house, like clumsy animals. Arthur George had a thick livid scar on his forehead where he had fallen against the table edge and had to be stitched.
    They ate tea, bread and butter and biscuits and some of the cake, though Tommy refused. They had their own, he said, the boys would need all this one.
    He was good with them, better than their own father, who sat about all day in misery, having neither work nor interest, and could not bestir himself to take them out or play any game. They pulled Tommy out into the street for football, but Eve saw that he tired and was quickly out of breath and as he came back into the house, saw too that his flesh had a sallow tinge and his eyes were darkly circled. She said nothing until Christmas Day was over and they were inside all the next day because of the high wind and sleet. It was bitterly cold. She had been