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

doesn’t look convinced.
    â€˜Hello!’ says Petra, suddenly, looking past Olive. Olive looks round and sees Nell. ‘We’re all out and about this morning.’
    â€˜Almost lunch-time I’d call it,’ Nell grumbles, taking in Olive, and Kropotkin’s business, with one sharp glance. ‘Can’t stop now. Lots to do.’ And she hurries off, her hard heels clacking on the pavement.
    â€˜Old slag,’ Olive calls after her.
    â€˜Well, we must get on,’ Petra says. ‘A big bar? Cadbury’s?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Be seeing you then.’ Petra grabs Wolfe’s hand and hurries him away. Olive can hear his piping voice drifting back as Petra whips him round the corner: ‘Mum, what’s a slag?’ and she chuckles.
    At the corner, Olive tries to stop. She does not intend to go down the hill. It is too steep, the houses at the bottom impossibly far away, impossibly tiny. She stops and holds onto a fence post, but Kropotkin is determined to go down. He pulls and strains, panting and slavering as the collar bites into his neck. His eyes bulge. Olive is afraid that he will do himself a mischief but she can’t let him go, for he would be sure to get knocked down by a car, or lost, or stolen; yet if she doesn’t she’ll have to go with him down the impossible hill. It’s all right for some, she thinks, for Nell, only a few months younger, has gone briskly down and will be back later, bags full, balanced like a milkmaid. No, thinks Olive spitefully, not a milkmaid, more like a scarecrow with her scraggy frame. But there is no good thinking it, it is not true. Nell is immaculate. She has been all her life. Her neat grey curls cling to her head like sculptured stone, her coat is brushed, her shoes polished, her stockings smooth. Even the wrinkles on her face occur symmetrically. ‘No, I am the scarecrow,’ Olive mutters. She can see her reflection in window of a house. I am the scarecrow, fat and wispy in my cherry hat. She wants to cry out that it is not true, that she is beautiful. Beautiful , wild and rosy. She is not really a dumpy old bag with a trembling chin. Not really.
    And Kropotkin will not give it up. He tugs hard and in the end Olive’s fingers, numb from the strain, give way and he is off, a fat torpedo down the hill. He chases a tabby cat with a white streak down its back like a spine. Olive rubs one poor hand with the other. Her fingers are trembling with the fright and the strain. She will have to follow Potkins. It is no good. She cannot let him go. Whatever would Arthur say? ‘Oh Artie!’ she moans, ‘this is your fault. It is. You will go out and leave me. Selfish, you are. Selfish.’ And all around the windows of the houses glint at her blindly and no one has seen her predicament, no one helps or cares. ‘Potkins,’ she calls, and she begins to stumble down the hill. She holds onto her hat with one hand and grasps the wall with the other for support. She has not been down here for months, not for years, down here past the hydrangeas and the privet that grows in the narrow strip between the walls, with their stumps of iron palings, and the windows.
    Kropotkin had disappeared between the parked cars, and Olive hurries, almost running now, panting. Fear clutches at her, and her heart scrambles madly in her chest. Her face is wet, for she is crying.
    â€˜Potkins!’ she calls, louder, and then she sees him, darting between two parked cars and out into the road. She reaches forward and then she trips and falls with a great fat wallop onto the pavement. At once Potkins is back, he is upon her licking her cheek and enveloping her in clouds of his doggy breath.
    â€˜All right, missus? Come on, upsy-daisy,’ and she is hauled to her feet by two youths.
    â€˜Are you all right?’ they keep saying. She is humiliated. No, she is not all right. She is far from all right. Her knees burn and her