Matty Doolin by Catherine Cookson Read Free Book Online Page A

lead. Slowly now he descended the stairs as the woman went on, ‘Foisting him off onto a pair of bairns! Well, you can take him to Seahouses with you. When I get a dog for them it won’t be an old blind one like this, with a howl like a banshee. Here, take him, and goodnight to you.’
    Nelson was now bounding round Matty’s knees, and Mrs Doolin, who hadn’t had a chance to open her mouth, stood helplessly with the door in her hand. Then, closing it slowly and still looking a bit dazed, she said, ‘Well that’s settled that. You’ll take him down to the PDSA tomorrow mornin’. You’ve tried and you’ve failed, so that’s all there is to it. Put him in the shed. Go on.’
    When he led Nelson through the kitchen his father just gazed at him and the dog, and for once made no comment. And as he went out into the backyard his mother, seeming to have regained her wits, cried, ‘What’s this about Seahouses? What did she mean?’
    When Matty put Nelson in the shed he bent his head down and the dog licked him furiously. But when Matty closed the door on him Nelson lamented this fresh separation in the only way he knew how. He howled.
    ‘Nice thing, isn’t it? Nice thing,’ his mother greeted him when he entered the kitchen. ‘The neighbourhood raised at this time of night. Well, you know what you’ve got to do. Go on up.’ She nodded her head towards the stairs. ‘And remember, you’ll have to face up to worse than this afore you die.’
    The following morning Matty, in a last desperate effort to keep Nelson, reasoned that if he made himself scarce straight after breakfast and stayed out all day his mother couldn’t do much about it, for she herself would never take the dog to the PDSA, nor, he imagined, would his father.
    So after he returned from his paper round, and after a silent meal, he went into the scullery, picked up his coat and slipped away.
    Matty did not go and call for either Joe or Willie, for he knew that today he would be very bad company and would probably only snap at his pals, so he decided to go down to the sands. Later, he would buy himself some fish and chips for his dinner, after which he would spend the afternoon in the pictures. That would take care of most of the day.
    Besides the half-crown his father left for him every Friday night on the mantelpiece, he had in his pocket his wages from his paper round. These he generally handed over to his mother immediately after breakfast, when she would give him back five shillings; the rest she put away for him, for, as she said, he would need it on a ‘rainy day’. Matty considered, metaphorically speaking, he’d had lots of rainy days, but his mother had never been induced to break into his little hoard, not even when he had pleaded with her. Well, anyway, seven and sixpence of the money in his pocket was his, and this would see him through . . .
    Matty kept strictly to his plan. He went to the sands, had fish and chips, then on to the pictures. When he came out of the pictures at half past four he told himself that if he took his time walking home he should get in just after five.
    Whilst on his way home, he hoped his dad wouldn’t grab at him for this always made him want to hit out; and he hoped Nelson hadn’t howled too much; but mostly he hoped that his mother wasn’t wild. Altogether he felt highly nervous, and not a little fearful.
    Brinkburn Street was usually quiet at the weekend. There was less coming and going; people hadn’t to go to work. On a Saturday afternoon some of the women went shopping and took the children with them, and the men, those who liked cricket, went to the match. Others sat indoors looking at the telly; anyway, Saturday afternoon and Sunday brought a change to the street, but now, as Matty went past the bottom of the street on his way to the back lane he was brought to an abrupt halt, for there, up at the top end, near where he lived, stood small groups of adults, surrounded by a large number of children,