Saturday's Child by Ruth Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

out of number 5 for the last time. Both men heard the door slamming shut in her wake.
    Frank eyed his father. ‘You’ll have to shape now,’ he said, ‘no Mam to be running after you all the while.’
    ‘I’m a cripple – in case you hadn’t noticed.’
    ‘I noticed,’ said Frank. ‘At least it slowed you down a bit. And who saved you, eh? Who got the horse’s head and calmed it down? Who risked getting a gobful of hoof? John
Higgins did.’
    ‘Well, he needn’t have bothered.’
    Frank inclined his head in agreement. ‘That’s what we thought and all. He should have left you, should have let the horse dance on you. But no. My Rachel’s dad saved your life.
A bloody Catholic came to your rescue.’
    Ernest said no more.
    When his son had left, he reached for his other stick, crashed to the floor and stayed there for a good half hour. He would get no tea, no supper. The fire would die down. His breathing became
unsteady as he wondered how he was going to manage. For the first time in years, Ernest Barnes was truly afraid.
    Slowly, he made his way through the panic attack. He had never been alone. He had gone from childhood home to this house, had not spent a single night in a place without other people. Of course,
he could have managed had he not been disabled. Couldn’t he? Could he?
    It occurred to him then that he had seldom made a cup of tea, that he had never made toast, let alone a full meal with spuds and gravy. He had no idea about cleaning, polishing, ironing. The
house would deteriorate until it became like Nellie Hulme’s, an indoor rag-and-bone yard filled with grime and filthy clothes.
    Self-pity took up residence in his mind. He did not deserve this, because he had worked hard all his life until that damned horse had bolted. Ernest Barnes had never sent his wife out to work,
not until he had become too disabled to provide for her. She had taken up a few hours’ cleaning, but their main income had come from interest on his savings and on the compensation paid out
by the brewery. Who would do his shopping now? Who would make sure that he had the basics – bread, milk, butter, sugar?
    Anger moved in then, red-hot and fed by bitterness. It fuelled him sufficiently to stand up, his hands shaking as he held on to the table. This was all the fault of them across the road, that
teeming, senseless family whose members succeeded in being happy even on bread and scrape. Eight ragged girls, and his son was about to marry one, was training to be a Catholic. Oh, the shame of it
– he would never live this down.
    With difficulty, he retrieved his walking sticks. Normally, she would have fetched them, would have helped him up, all the time wishing him dead. That quiet, docile woman had been a traitor, an
invisible knife poised and ready to plunge into his flesh. ‘I’ve prayed for you to die,’ she had said. And now, by depriving him of her help, she had condemned him to total
uselessness.
    He stumbled to the front door, opened it. The house opposite was quiet for a Saturday evening; well, he would disturb their peace soon enough. Stepping cautiously, Ernest Barnes crossed the
narrow street, cursing under his breath each time his sticks made poor purchase on damp cobbles.
    When he achieved his goal, the door was already open.
    ‘So you’ve been told,’ said John Higgins.
    ‘You know I have,’ came the terse reply.
    ‘I got wind of you being told while I was up on the road,’ said John, ‘so I’ve been half expecting to see you.’
    Ernest’s leg felt as if it were on fire.
    ‘Will you come in and sit?’ asked John.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then the mountain must be fetched.’ John Higgins disappeared, only to return moments later with a chair. He placed it on the pavement, then stepped back into the doorway, a sentry
set there to guard his castle.
    Ernest sat. ‘Are you telling me you knew nowt about my son and your girl?’
    ‘No, I am saying no such thing,’ replied John, his voice