Between Friends by Audrey Howard Read Free Book Online Page B

and the house, in this month of January, was empty and silent. He had done his chores and there was no reason for her to hold him back.
    At the door he turned, looking back to the table, bathed in the golden glow from the lamp which stood in its centre. The light fell on the bent heads of Meg and Tom as they pored over the books they were reading. They sat companionably side by side on the bench, shoulders almost touching, oblivious it seemed, to anything, to anyone, even himself and a strange and elusive sensation fluttered in his chest. It touched him briefly but even before he could grasp it or even realise its existence, it was gone. He stamped his feet impatiently and his young, eager manliness carried him half way up the area steps but, surprising himself he found himself retracing his steps to the kitchen door he had just slammed urgently behind him.
    They all four lifted their heads enquiringly to look at him, Mrs Whitley , Emm, Tom and Meg and he was himself quite amazed to hear his own voice speak.
    ‘Why don’t you come with me to the gym, Tom?’ it said, his mouth seeming to form the words of its own accord. ‘A bit of boxing would put some muscle on you.’
    ‘You what …?’ Tom was clearly bewildered. Though they were as close as brothers with a long record of friendship stretching right through their childhood they were in no way alike in their interests and it was the first time Martin had ever suggested that Tom accompany him to the sporting club.
    ‘You heard! Come and do a bit of sparring with me. It’ll build you up, put some muscle on you like I said.’
    ‘What do I want more muscle on me for?’ Tom asked laughingly. ‘I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve got, thanks.’
    ‘Come off it! You’re like a long drink of water! I can nearly see through you! All skin and bone and nothing to hold it together. A couple of months working out in the gym’ll build you up …’
    ‘You mean if I came with you and bashed hell out of some poor sod …’
    ‘You watch your mouth, Tom Fraser,’ Mrs Whitley tutted angrily.
    ‘… I could look like you?’ Tom finished.
    ‘What’s wrong with that? It’s exercise that does it.’ Martin flexed a muscle in his arm, glancing at Meg but she merely lowered her eyes to her book, losing interest in his and Tom’s argument and he scowled, still young enough to feel the insult of her girlish disdain in his own manly pursuits. Nevertheless he persisted, quite perplexed by his own sudden determination to have Tom go with him.
    ‘Come on. It’d do you good, a bit of exercise …’
    But Mrs Whitley had had enough of Martin standing there with the back door wide open letting all the lovely warm air out ‘Never mind a bit of exercise, Martin Hunter. If Tom wants a bit of exercise, or you an’ all for that matter, you can run round to the “Fiddlers” and fetch me a jug of stout.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘Is that enough exercise for you because if it isn’t I’ll soon find you some. Now shut that door and be off with you before I change me mind!’
    Half way along Duke Street, his puzzled mind still deliberating on what on earth had possessed him to invite Tom to come with him to the sporting club when he knew perfectly well Tom disliked any kind of violent exertion unless he was watching it, he found his footsteps had turned him in a direction which would take him
away
from the club. Though he had been filled with the need to work off his frustration – at what? his baffled mind asked – he knew he was making, not for the boxing ring where he could fulfill that need but to somewhere else. To somewhere he went whenever he could find the time and the opportunity and the
privacy
he seemed to need for it. He had told no-one about it, not even those who were closer to him than the family he had never known and he had asked himself why frequently, for in all things but this he and Meg and Tom had shared their hopes and fears, their triumphs and