Trick or Treat by Lesley Glaister Read Free Book Online Page A

doing. There’s a good day’s work there yet, but he knows in his bones that he ought to pack it in. He is not as strong as he was. There are pains in his knees that are worse in the cold and the wet. The first spots of rain flick the leaves. Best, anyway, to get back to Olive.

Three
    By the time Olive has managed to force her old tweed coat shut across her chest, comb her hair, apply a slash of scarlet lipstick to her mouth and perch the cherry hat upon her head, the sky is already darkening. Kropotkin sees the lead in her hand, and understanding its promise he leaps at her, so ecstatic that she swallows her fear. It is not a proper fear, it has no particular object, it is just a vague dread of what might be, could be, outside the walls.
    She fumbles to attach the lead to Potkins’s collar, lost in the curly hair on his neck. It is a fiddly thing, a metal thing that is hard against her fingers.
    â€˜Stay still Potkins!’ she says. Oh, it is so difficult to bend these days. ‘Artie,’ she calls, for what is she doing struggling like this when he is perfectly capable? And then she remembers. Artie is out on his allotment. Why is it so hard to remember?
    As soon as Kropotkin is attached he begins to pull. He pulls her down the passage and out onto the front path, and almost pulls her over. He pulls one way; she had thought to go the other.
    â€˜Potty! You bad boy!’ she gasps, but he strains his plump wagging body forward regardless and she gives in, stumbles after him. She cannot remember the last time she went out alone, without Arthur to lean upon. Together, they go up to the Lamb every Sunday dinner-time for a glass of stout while the dinner’s cooking, but it is months since she ventured out alone. It must be months. It might even be a year.
    Wrath Road is a flat road, but it is set in a network of hills and, to reach the shops or the park, a plunge down and then a long haul up is required, and Olive has simply given up trying. The hills tilt more steeply than they did in her youth when she strode up them regardless, or even did the climb on her bicycle, standing almost still on her pedals on the steepest bits, attracting the glances of passers-by: a beautiful girl, slim, black-haired and scarlet-cheeked. A healthy girl. She holds her chin up, remembering, and her jaw trembles – a new problem. She is impatient with her old bag of a body. Inside, when all is clear, she is the same. Through the middle there is a sliver of that same girl like the writing in a stick of seaside rock. Now Kropotkin ceases to pull and squats in the middle of the path, crapping. A passing man mutters something and looks askance at Olive. She gives him her most brazen look.
    When Kropotkin has finished he sniffs in the gutter eagerly, but there is nothing for him, just tufty grass growing in cracks and bits of old orange peel dropped by the dustmen.
    Petra comes along behind them with the little boy with the fierce name. He pauses to wipe his shoe on the kerb. ‘Hello,’ Petra says. ‘Taking the dog for a walk?’
    Olive frowns at her. She has never had time for small talk, not useless talk like that.
    â€˜Is that dog the one what barks at my bedtime?’ the boy asks.
    â€˜Wolfe!’ says Olive, triumphantly remembering the boy. There are kids everywhere these days, hard to remember, hard to tell them apart. Wolfe looks at her expectantly, but her eyes switch away.
    â€˜We’re popping down for some bread and things,’ Petra says. ‘Can we fetch you anything while we’re at it?’
    Olive considers. Chocolate would be nice, but she has no money. Never mind. Artie will pay when he gets back. ‘Chocolate,’ she says. ‘Milk chocolate, and Artie will put the money through your door.’
    Potkins snuffles up to Wolfe, who looks nervously at the dog. ‘He won’t hurt you,’ Olive says. ‘He’s friendly. He only wants to play.’ Wolfe