The Legacy by Lynda La Plante Read Free Book Online Page A

weaving, and began to sing. He had a clear, high tenor, and stood with legs apart, eyes closed, while his beautiful voice soared.
    Mike pushed open the bar door and stood framed in the doorway, looked first at his brother then his father. His boots were so highly polished you could see your face in them. He swung his haversack down and Dicken lurched into his arms.
    ‘Mike, is it you, lad? Mike … Da, will you look who’s back, an’ all togged out in his fine uniform.’
    Hugh fell off his stool and climbed up, gripping the edge of the bar for support.
    ‘A drink, get a drink for my lad, the soldier boy.’
    Mike could smell Hugh’s breath - he reeked and his clothes were stained and filthy. He shook his head and looked at Dicken.
    ‘Mun, he’s drunk out of his mind.’
    Mike soon discovered that since his Ma’s death their father had rarely been sober.
    Evelyne checked the stew and left the pan half on the stove. She knew they would be late again. She had hoped to go and see Doris, but she had not had even a minute to herself for weeks. Lizzie-Ann was no help in the house; if there was work to do she swooned.
    ‘Oh God, I can’t, Evie, not in my condition. A woman in my condition should not lift nothing heavy, I don’t want to have a baby like little Davey, now do I?’
    While poor Evelyne washed and scrubbed, Lizzie-Ann sat with her feet up. It was true she made Evelyne laugh, especially when she put flour over her face and blacked her eyelids and lips like Theda Bara. She could do endless movie-star impersonations.
    ‘You know, soon as I’ve had this baby, I’m going to London,’ she would say.
    The lodger, a coloured gentleman, fascinated Lizzie-Ann. She would ask him to turn his palms over and then shriek with delight at the pinkness of them. Josh Walker was a kind-hearted man whose family lived in Leeds, like many coloureds who had arrived in the village. There was hardly a house left in the village without a lodger of some kind, Italian, Indian, black … well, there was one house. Doris Evans kept her four rooms to herself. The war, everyone said, was taking their men and replacing them with outsiders.
    That night Dicken and Mike carried their Da home between them. Evelyne was so happy to see her brother that she forgot about going to see Doris. Somehow she made the stew go round, pushed her worries away. Tomorrow was another day and she’d manage to get a little meat from the butcher.
    ‘Evie, want to walk awhile with me?’
    Mike smiled, slipping their mother’s old shawl around his sister’s shoulders.
    ‘I’ll be gone by morning, going to France. I’ll write to you, and send you pretty things … oh, Evie, Evie, come here.’
    She went into his arms and held him tight. She loved him so, she thought her heart would break.
    ‘Dicken’s coming with me. Now shush, it has to be, they lost their jobs at the mine, this way he’ll be able to send money home, and me too … but what of you? You’re so thin, and I swear you look older, older than you should …’ Mike could not say how he really felt, how sad he was to see his sister so gaunt, so pale. It was obvious to him that she was working herself into an early grave.
    ‘It’ll be for the best, Evie. With me and Dicken gone it should ease the burden on you. You have a lad? Someone that’s courting you?’
    She hung her head as she walked alongside him, flushing bright red. ‘Be off with you, Mike, there’s no boy interested in me, an’ I’m too young yet even to be looking.’
    Mike pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head.
    ‘You are special, Evie. Tell you what I’ll do, I’ll bring a handsome soldier home for you on my next leave.’
    The two boys were dressed and ready. Evelyne slipped into the kitchen, afraid they would go without saying goodbye. Dicken ruffled her hair, but he was close to tears. ‘Take care of Da for us, we’ll be back.’
    Mike smiled and blew her a kiss, as hand-in-hand with Dicken she walked them