Facing the World by Grace Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

though he were a strange animal.
    ‘Evenin’, Mrs,’ he said, amused by her behaviour and the peculiar headdress she wore. ‘Why are you wearing a net curtain on your head?’
    ‘Go away, you cheeky boy, and don’t sit on my wall like that.’
    ‘I wasn’t hurting it!’ he grumbled as he jumped down. He didn’t move far, just a few inches away from the wall, and she continued to shoo him away.
    She eventually went inside and Jimmy could hear her complaining to someone. Rick came out and walked towards him, but as Jimmy prepared to run he saw the man was smiling. ‘I was only watching the men,’ he protested.
    ‘Of course. I understand that. I used to love to watch workmen myself. And the milkman and the postman, and when the gas or water board dug a hole, well, that was something that made me mitch from school once or twice,’ Rick confided.
    Jimmy stared at him. His jaw dropped in surprise. ‘You aren’t mad at me?’
    ‘Don’t worry about Amy. She’s so busy at the moment, dealing with the workmen and arranging our wedding, she gets easily upset. She’ll be fine once we’re settled in.’ 
    ‘You hope!’ Jimmy said and hurried off. Perhaps Mum thought the same about my dad once, he thought sadly, as he headed for home.
    His father was sitting at the table when he got in, his newspaper spread over the plates and condiments and bread set out for dinner. Walter didn’t look up and Jimmy stood looking at him, trying to assess his mood. Walter wasn’t very prepossessing. Bald, thin and wearing only a sleeveless vest with braces holding up a baggy pair of trousers. He needed a shave, his eyes darted from side to side and his lips moved as he continued to read the newspaper, but he looked calm enough. ‘Want to see my painting, Dad?’ Jimmy asked, fingering the disc he had found at the mill as though it were a talisman.
    ‘What painting?’ His father’s eyes didn’t leave the paper.
    ‘I came second in a competition at school last week.’ He ran to his room and took it carefully off the wall and ran back down. ‘See?’ he said, as Walter still didn’t look up. ‘Dad?’
    Walter turned his head and glanced at the painting. ‘What’s it supposed to be?’
    ‘Sheep, in a field with the mill in the distance.’
    ‘Sheep? Funny sheep, boy. Big as cows they are. Better if they taught you something useful. Waste of time scribbling on paper if you ask me.’ He turned back to his newspaper and Jimmy returned the painting to his room. It didn’t go back on the wall: he stuffed it carelessly in a drawer.
    He went next door and asked Gwilym if he’d help him make a wooden car for Sadie.
    ‘Girls don’t want cars,’ Gwilym said. ‘What about a doll?’
    ‘’Course they do!’
    They made a simple shape and Gwilym carefully carved the wheels and the grille and Jimmy took it and played with Sadie for a while, then reluctantly, he went home. The only good thing about home was food, he decided.
     
    For a week it rained every day and the contents of Valmai’s shed were a gloomy sight. A gusting wind reduced the orderly piles into one confused scatter and Valmai began to wonder if the garden would ever return to normal. The rows of vegetables were lost to sight andthe sticks ready for the runner beans were leaning drunkenly. Eric came between showers and promised help once the rain stopped.
    Walter next door told them they were wasting their time even thinking about a new shed. He waved an arm towards the scattered oddments. ‘You’ll never have room for another shed. Where will you put that lot? For a start you’ll have to have a bonfire and burn the lot of it, then you’ll have a lot of clearing up, then you’ll need a proper cement base, and where are you going to mix concrete, and then—’
    ‘Come on, Walter, your tea’s ready,’ Netta shouted, with an expression of frustration on her sharp-featured face. ‘They’ve got everything in hand. There’s nothing Gwilym can’t do when he