THE BONDAGE OF LOVE by Yelena Kopylova Read Free Book Online

she had used only her tongue, but he wouldn't put it past her. On this thought he wondered what she did here besides fencing, and he said, "Do you only fence, I mean ... ?"
    "No, I don't only fence. I do jujitsu."
    "No!"
    "Yes." The word was drawn out and her voice was quiet and she was smiling.
    Then she added, "So ... you ... look ... out."
    "I will. Thank you for warning me." Then he added, "Do you think Katie will take to it?"
    "Well, it's up to her, on how she feels. I took to it because I wanted not only to protect myself, but also to get at those who got at me for no reason whatever. Oh, you wouldn't understand." She shook her head.
    And when he said, "No, I don't suppose I would, not yet anyway," she became silent, the while looking at him, and then she rubbed her finger round her painted lips before she asked, "What... what kind of a house have you got?
    Is it a big 'un?"
    "Yes, biggish."
    "Has it got a garden?"
    "Yes, a very big garden."
    Her neck seemed to stretch out now from her beaded collar as she said, "And, I suppose, you've got a swimming pool, and everything that goes with it?"
    He didn't answer her, but when she said, "Well?" he said quietly, "Would it matter to you if we had, because it doesn't matter to me, or anybody else in the house. And we have a games' room, too, with all kinds of gymnastic
    appliances. In a small way, of course. Not like here, but it's very handy.
    It's only a pity that I've never felt that way inclined. I'm not athletic at all. I play a little cricket, and I have to play rugger, as everybody else does, at school."
    "Which school d'you go to?" The question was quiet.
    He seemed reluctant to say it, but he had to, "Dame Allan's in Newcastle."
    She turned away from him now and, taking a coat from a peg, she handed it to him, saying, "I have five brothers. I used to have six, but John went to Australia. He could have gone to a good school, but me da wouldn't let him.
    Even when his teacher came and explained that he was very good with maths and science and he could do better, because he had a head on him. But me da wouldn't hear of it because he was the eldest then, and there were eight of us below him; he said he had to go to work and help to bring the others up."
    She now turned her head away as she ended, "He said it was his duty to help to bring us all up." Her voice now sounding as if she were talking to herself bitterly, she said, "Folks must get some fun in some way out of having you in the first place, but what do they do? They expect the result to pay for it all their lives." She turned and looked at him again.
    "Parents ruin people's lives, you know. They do. I have proof of it.
    We all have proof of it in our bolt-hole, the Browns next door. There were three sisters to begin with; there are only two now because Janet died last year. Annie is the elder, she's in her sixties, and then there's Bella, and they both could have been married, I understand, if it hadn't been for a death-bed promise they gave their mother to see to their father. And he lived until he was nearly ninety, next door.
    But as rowdy as our lot are, we've become a family. I'm positive they love it when we're having a bust-up and when my da is on the rampage, because then they know we'll all swarm in there. And they bed us down, and have done over the years. And, you know, me ma's reasoning is funny, because she says they had to give their mam the death-bed promise about looking after their dad for the simple reason it was all written, God cuts the pattern and then He fits it in in pieces, and if they had married they would have gone away and there would have been no Browns for us to go round to, especially when we were younger and . and me da was running riot with the poker. Yet it was funny, he never came into the Misses Browns's, and when he met them in the street he would always touch his cap to them. Very funny. And yet not funny, because in the house he would say the most terrible things about them,