Unbecoming by Jenny Downham Read Free Book Online Page A

safe.’
    Mary closes her eyes because she wants Pat to go away. Shewants the whole house to go away, in fact. The street can go too if it wants. And the town and all of the people. She knows what Pat means by ‘safe’ and she doesn’t want it. ‘Safe’ means spending her life doing nothing but going to school and then, when school’s done, doing nothing but typing and shorthand lessons, just so she can work in an office and stay living at home. Then it means finding a nice man to marry and having his babies and doing his washing and ironing and scrubbing his steps and polishing his banisters. Mary shivers at the horror of it. ‘You know,’ she says, opening her eyes. ‘As soon as I get my school certificate, I’m off to London.’
    Pat actually laughs. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
    â€˜I’m being perfectly serious.’
    â€˜You’re not going anywhere. When you finish school, you’ll be fifteen and still a child and you’ll do what Dad tells you. What on earth do you want to go to London for? Most of it’s bombed out.’
    â€˜I want to get into acting. All the top producers are in London.’
    â€˜Is that why you’ve been copying silly accents from the wireless? You plan to be a movie star?’ Pat’s still chuckling as she scoops her cigarettes from the counter. Her fingers are yellow. Dad told her about it yesterday, said she shouldn’t serve food like that because it put him off, made her go to the bathroom and scrape at her skin with a pumice stone.
    â€˜I was in the school play. The teacher said I had perfect diction.’
    â€˜You think that counts? Don’t be silly. Everything’s just a fad with you. You like the thrill of saying ridiculous things out loud and seeing the shock on people’s faces.’ Pat inhaled deeply and blew the smoke right at Mary. ‘You’ll grow out of it one day, I expect.’
    Mary’s belly churns with something deep and furious. ‘Stop it, Pat. Stop taking all my possibilities away. Why do you always make everything sound so dreary?’
    â€˜I’m going to ignore that comment, Mary Todd.’ Pat brings the cigarette to her lips and takes a long pull. All the skin around her mouth wrinkles like a drawstring on a purse. ‘Now, how about you stop being such a drama queen and get on with polishing those shoes?’
    Â 
    Two days later, Dad comes back from work with a length of silk – dark as thunder and shot through with emerald green. As he flutters it from the paper, it’s as if he’s smuggled an exotic bird home and set it free in the dining room.
    â€˜For you,’ he says as he settles it on Mary’s lap.
    Mary strokes the material in awe. ‘Where did you get it?’
    â€˜Never you mind.’
    No one has silk any more. Not new at least and never so much of it. ‘It must’ve cost a fortune!’
    â€˜Don’t you worry about that.’
    Pat comes in from the kitchen, teapot in hand. She stops, openmouthed, by Mary’s chair and stares at the material draped across her sister’s knees. ‘Whatever’s that?’
    â€˜It’s for me,’ Mary says. She can’t believe it. She looks up at her father, amazed. ‘Was it more than five pounds?’
    He taps his nose. ‘Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’
    Pat sets the teapot on the table. ‘We’ve still to pay this month’s bills.’ Her voice has a brittle edge to it and Mary feels an increasingly familiar stab of guilt. Dad’s apologies are becoming more extravagant. He bought her a pair of kid gloves only last week and a box of hankies the week before – hand-embroidered and all the way from China. Mary loved the surprise and exotica of them, but Pat thought them ‘wasteful’, dragging Mary into the hallway to tell her that if she’d only stop being so wilful