The Likes of Us by Stan Barstow Read Free Book Online

reinforced with rubber across the toes. Everything, in fact, that Crawley had was better than ours. Until he brought the watch.
    He flashed it on his wrist with arrogant pride, making a great show of looking at the time. His eldest brother had brought it from abroad. He’d even smuggled it through the customs especially for him. Oh, yes, said Crawley, it had a sweep secondhand and luminous figures, and wasn’t it absolutely the finest watch we had ever seen? But I was thinking of my grandfather’s watch: my watch now. There had never been a watch to compare with that. With heart-thumping excitement I found myself cutting in on Crawley’s self-satisfied eulogy.
    â€˜I’ve seen a better watch than that.’
    â€˜Gerraway!’
    â€˜Yes I have,’ I insisted. ‘It was my grandfather’s. He left it to me when he died.’
    â€˜Well show us it,’ Crawley said.
    â€˜I haven’t got it here.’
    â€˜You haven’t got it at all,’ Crawley said. ‘You can’t show us it to prove it.’
    I could have knocked the sneer from his hateful face in rage that he could doubt the worth of the watch for which my grandfather had worked fifty years.
    â€˜I’ll bring it this afternoon,’ I said; ‘then you’ll see!’
    The hand of friendship was extended tentatively in my direction several times that morning. I should not be alone in my pleasure at seeing Crawley taken down a peg. As the clock moved with maddening slowness to half-past twelve I thought with grim glee of how in one move I would settle Crawley’s boasting and assert myself with my fellows. On the bus going home, however, I began to wonder how on earth I was going to persuade my mother to let me take the watch out of doors. But I had forgotten that day was Monday, washing day, when my mother put my grandfather’s watch in a drawer, away from the steam. I had only to wait for her to step outside for a moment and I could slip the watch into my pocket. She would not miss it before I came home for tea. And if she did, it would be too late.
    I was too eager and excited to wait for the return bus and after dinner I got my bike out of the shed. My mother watched me from the kitchen doorway and I could imagine her keen eyes piercing the cloth of my blazer to where the watch rested guiltily in my pocket.
    â€˜Are you going on your bike, then, Will?’
    I said, ‘Yes, Mother,’ and, feeling uncomfortable under that direct gaze, began to wheel the bike across the yard.
    â€˜I thought you said it needed mending or something before you rode it again...?’
    â€˜It’s only a little thing,’ I told her. ‘It’ll be all right.’
    I waved good-bye and pedalled out into the street while she watched me, a little doubtfully, I thought. Once out of sight of the house I put all my strength on the pedals and rode like the wind. My grandfather’s house was in one of the older parts of the town and my way led through a maze of steep cobbled streets between long rows of houses. I kept up my speed, excitement coursing through me as I thought of the watch and revelled in my hatred of Crawley. Then from an entry between two terraces of houses a mongrel puppy darted into the street. I pulled at my back brake. The cable snapped with a click – that was what I had intended to fix. I jammed on the front brake with the puppy cowering foolishly in my path. The bike jarred to a standstill, the back end swinging as though catapulted over the pivot of the stationary front wheel, and I went over the handlebars.
    A man picked me up out of the gutter. ‘All right, lad?’
    I nodded uncertainly. I seemed unhurt. I rubbed my knees and the side on which I had fallen. I felt the outline of the watch. Sick apprehension overcame me, but I waited till I was round the next corner before dismounting again and putting a trembling hand into my pocket. Then I looked down at what