Road to Berry Edge, The by Elizabeth Gill Read Free Book Online Page A

he’ll be all right?’
    â€˜I don’t think you did him any permanent damage. Of course he’d had a few drinks, otherwise he would have been more of a problem. Pity it couldn’t have been outside on a nice sunny day with the whole town watching. You have to show them.’
    â€˜I don’t want to have to show them, at least not that way. He was my friend.’
    â€˜Hell, Rob, you don’t have any friends here except me.’
    â€˜I’m glad you’re here.’
    â€˜I knew you would be.’
    They walked slowly down the bank to the house and into the kitchen. Nancy clicked her tongue in the manner of one well versed in Berry Edge ways and said, ‘Fighting? Well, really, Mr Berkeley. You haven’t been back two minutes.’
    She sat Rob down and bathed his face and knuckles.
    â€˜Who did this?’
    â€˜Your brother-in-law.’
    â€˜What, Michael?’ Nancy stopped, stared. ‘He’s bigger than you.’
    â€˜I noticed,’ Rob said, backing from her fingers.
    â€˜Keep still. Drinking, was he?’
    â€˜Yes, thank God. I didn’t know about your husband, Nancy, I’m sorry.’
    â€˜You’ll be the only one then. He was a … he was the worst man I ever met and it was his own fault, he was drunk at work. They kept sending him home. Something was bound to happen. Where did you go for a drink?’
    â€˜The Station Hotel.’
    â€˜You should know better,’ Nancy said. ‘You can’t go drinking in there. Did you win?’
    â€˜You’re very interested about this, aren’t you, Nancy?’ Rob said.
    â€˜Where can we go drinking?’ Harry asked her.
    â€˜Nowhere here. You’ll have to go to Durham.’
    â€˜Should you be here at this time of night?’ Rob asked.
    â€˜You don’t live in?’ Harry asked.
    â€˜Me, sir? I’ve got two bairns.’
    â€˜Are you all the help there is?’ Rob said. ‘We’ll have to do something about that so that you can go home to your children at a proper time.’
    â€˜Shall I walk you?’ Harry offered.
    â€˜I’m safe on the streets here, it’s my home,’ Nancy said.
    Nancy bandaged Rob’s hands and after that she went. Mrs Berkeley stayed upstairs with her husband. Rob and Harry sat by the fire.
    â€˜How does your father seem?’
    â€˜He’s dying.’
    Harry looked into the fire for a little while and then he said, ‘You gave me the impression that the works here was little more than a smithy, but it seems to me quite a big affair?’
    â€˜It is.’
    â€˜Then why do your parents live like this?’
    â€˜I don’t think they have any money.’
    â€˜But they must have made money out of it, Rob. We live lavishly compared to this.’
    â€˜They’re modest people, unlike your parents.’
    â€˜Why be modest when you can live well?’
    â€˜They live among the people who work for them. Perhaps it was just tact in the beginning. Now I think it’s necessity.’
    â€˜What did you hope to achieve by coming back?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜Your mother didn’t even kiss you, after ten years. Ida kisses me every time I go out the door or come back.’
    â€˜You didn’t kill your brother.’
    â€˜I don’t think you’re going to better that one here, Robbo.’
    â€˜I don’t think so either,’ Rob said.

Five
    Michael pushed aside all offers of help as he left the Station Hotel. His whole body ached, his face especially, but it was his heart that bothered him most. He could feel his hate for the Berkeleys stir and light. How could Rob come back now after all this time, and looking like a dog’s dinner, all neat and talking like a southerner, as though he had never belonged here?
    He thought back to that night ten years ago when Rob had left, several weeks after the death of his brother, when all