Holiday by Stanley Middleton Read Free Book Online Page B

moved beyond the houses, past a corn field, by a copse where he slipped away. When he returned she’d not waited as he’d expected, a few yards on but a hundred yards along the road seemed to be marching hard. Taken aback, he began to run, calling her name. She turned, and then herself ran, comically, knees together, but determined to make ground. Uncertain, he did not catch her up quickly, but trailed deliberately ten yards behind her. A short way up a hill, she stopped, swung round to face him.
    ‘Caught you.’ He put his hands to her shoulders.
    Though her hair held tidy, he would have described her face as dishevelled. It was as if each small part had shifted out of place, lost its order, the sense of wholeness. Perhaps the defect was in his sight, his own shock. Her eyes had lengthened, cat-wise, and her mouth trembled after words.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
    He put his arm through hers, she allowed it, and led her to a gate at the side of the road. Throwing his plastic mac on the grass verge, he made her sit down. She complied, again, wordlessly. He gawked over the gate, the field, to a line of trees, a house with breeze-block outbuildings, a distant hedged lane. When he turned to her, she sat quite composed, legs together, head on one side, twirling a large daisy between thumb and forefinger.
    ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes.’ Her voice crackled on the syllable, but she fished a mirror from her handbag.
    ‘What’s the trouble, Meg?’
    ‘Oh, shut up.’
    Now she spoke steadily enough, but more quietly than was sensible, as though to herself. He leaned back, his elbows on the top bar of the gate, not taking his eyes from her, observing her back to sanity. They remained thus for five minutes. It seemed desperately longer, sheltered in the high hawthorn, interrupted by the frequent rush of cars both ways along the road.
    When finally she looked at him, he smiled, put his arms round her and lifted her so that they stood now precariously, his face against the coolness of hers, his hands gently on her back. She hung heavy on him.
    They set off again, shambling, she brushing with closed fingers at the hair above her right eye. He neglected her for a little before he asked,
    ‘What’s wrong, Meg?’
    Not a word.
    ‘What is it?’ A hand to her back. She began to cry, so that he took her arm as they stood under an oak tree in the hedge. ‘Tell uncle about it.’
    She gulped, like an inept child at a swimming bath.
    ‘I’ve broken it off with Malcolm.’
    ‘I see. Isn’t that what you wanted?’
    ‘It’s not fair to him.’ Indignation consorted curiously with tears.
    ‘You don’t want to talk about it?’ he ventured.
    ‘I don’t mind.’ Voice unblurred. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket. Thank God it was clean, unfolded from the ironing. She mopped her face. ‘I told you. I wrote him a letter. And I saw him last night.’
    ‘You agreed to meet him?’
    ‘He asked me. And he came to the flat. The others were out. It wasn’t too bad. I told him I wanted to break it off.’ She bent to pick up a twig, which she snapped without theatrical effect. ‘He asked me why and I said I’d met somebody else. He wanted to know who it was, and I told him. He seemed to have forgotten about you at the Playhouse, or so he claimed. I don’t believe that. Do you?’
    Fisher shook his head. Eyes dry, much at ease, she spoke as if she were recalling something from long enough back.
    ‘Then he asked, “How do you know this time it’s for good and all?” and I told him I didn’t. “You’ll be throwing him over in six months?” I said it was possible. And he just sat down, as if he was taking a tutorial or something, rubbing his face. And then he pointed to me and said, “Well if you’re sure.” I said, “Sure of what, Malcolm?” and he shrugged. “Sure you love this Edwin or whatever his name is.”’
    ‘What did you . . .?’
    ‘I just told him that I was certain I didn’t