A SONG IN THE MORNING by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online Page A

sorry."
    "I did not give up. I carried on, trying to be a mother to you, trying to get the shame out of my system. Has it ever crossed your mind what it's like to live in a small community, a village, when you're marked down as the woman whose husband walked out. I did not give up, I was building our new life. I managed to shut Jeez out for two years, close him down. Two years, and then I couldn't stand the ignorance any longer. The solicitor had gone cold on me. I did it myself. One weekend I left you with a neighbour and I took the train to Chippenham, then a taxi to the address that had been on the colonel's letter. It was my last throw . . . " She stared once more into her glass.
    "Was he there?"
    "Entertaining, for lunch, guests on the patio, smart cars in the drive, uniformed drivers. They all looked at me very puzzled till the colonel came and took me inside to his study where the dogs were. He was obviously embarrassed. I suppose it wasn't easy for him . . . He said that your father had been some sort of clerk up in London in a government office, that his trips away had been couriering documents or working on low-level audits. He said Jeez was a deep, close man, without friends, but the opinion was that he'd just become restless, things too quiet for him, that he'd just upped and away. His advice was that I should try to put your father out of my mind and start again. He asked after you, and I can still see his sad smile when I showed him your photograph. I think he was trying to be kind to me
    . . . His wife brought me some sandwiches for the journey home. When the colonel brought me out of the house all his guests stopped eating, they were all staring at me. The colonel told one of the drivers to take me to the station. The next week I went to the solicitor and filed for divorce, desertion. That's when I gave up."
    "Did he love you?"

    "I thought so," she said simply.
    "Can you believe he'd go along with murder and bombing, or be associated with black South African terrorists?"
    "No."
    Jack reached into his pocket, took out his wallet. He laid the newspaper photograph in front of his mother.
    "Who's that?"
    "That's Jeez today," he said. "That's my father."

    * • *
Jack was annoyed, stamping about the field, time wasted.
    And this after he had broken off milking his mother's memories to get there punctually.
    A small crowd waited on the blaster. There was the farmer who was selling the field, there were three from the development company which was buying the field. There were the JCB drivers, and the oxyacetaline cutting team, and the lorry men. There was a deputation from the housing estate three hundred yards from the pillbox rabbiting on to anyone who would listen about how all their windows would be broken.
    The blaster was working quietly with his spade, filling sandbags.
    Jack knew the blaster was slow. He knew also that the blaster was good, and he knew there was no use at all in offering to get anyone to help him. It was the blaster's way that he did his own work, himself, because as he'd often told Jack that way there wasn't any other bugger to get things wrong.
    D & C used George Hawkins as often as he was available.
    He was their regular. They put up with the wizened little man's cussedness because the job was always done as it should have been, but every time they had him they cursed the old sod and asked themselves why they went on using him and always had the same answer. George would retire the day after they found another blaster who could do the job better.

    A young man from the development company walked brusquely to them. His shoes were caked in mud. He had ripped his raincoat on barbed wire. He had come for an arguument. Didn't they know they were running late? George Hawkins ignored him and Jack tried to shut him up with a sharp glance. Time was money, you know - George Hawkins spat to the ground and went on with his w o r k .
    "In fact your running late is causing us considerable