A Kind of Loving Read Online Free

keep any party going, Uncle George is. He specializes in the kind of game where you're blindfolded and made to make a fool of yourself in front of everybody else. A laugh every ten seconds with Uncle George and no hard feelings at a pin stuck in your behind or a lemon-cheese tart smeared across your face, because it's all good clean family fun. When everybody gets tired of this and they're all worn out from laughing till they cry, Uncle George shows what a versatile lad he is by getting on the piano and playing for carol singing. They have the Old Man getting bis trombone out now and he plays 'Just a Song at Twilight' and his favourite - 'Bless this House'. Just as he hits the high note near the end of this the light bulb bursts all over the place. I've heard of a singer smashing a wine glass but never a trombone player breaking a light bulb. There's a good bit of larking about and squawking in the dark while I strike a match and get a spare out of the cupboard.
    Round about half past eight, though, the party begins to break up because some of them have a way to travel and there's a lot of looking for coats and hats and handshaking and kissing and wishing compliments of the season; and then by nine there's only us and Uncle William and Auntie Edna, who're staying the night, left among the wreckage; In a minute or two young Jim beetles off to bed.
    'Looks as though we've had a football match,' the Old Lady says, looking round. The chairs are all out of place and there's still a few about that don't belong to us. There's cushions on the floor and empty glasses and full ashtrays on everything. The fire's nearly out because we've kept ourselves warm the last couple of hours, and the air's thick with tobacco smoke. I bend down to pick a glass up before somebody kicks it over and find a cigarette burn in the corner of the carpet. I keep quiet about it, though, thinking tomorrow's early enough for the Old Lady to know about it.
    'Somebody's gone without her gloves,' the Old Lady says. 'I wonder whose they are.
    'I think they're Millie's,' Aunt Edna says. 'Let me look ... Yes, they are. I remember admiring them outside the church.'
    'I'll drop her a line about 'em after the holidays.' The Old Lady wanders about the room picking cushions up and punching them into shape. 'Just look at these cushion covers: clean on today and there's lemon-cheese an' all sorts on 'em.' She laughs. 'Eeh, but he's a card, isn't he, George? A real tyke. One of the best of husbands, though. Elsie's never had a minute's bother with him all the twenty year they've been married. He never had a steady job before he knew her, y'know. He took bets for a bookie in town at one time. Allus his name in the paper, being fined. Me father nearly kicked him off the step the first time he came to call for her. "Get yoursel' a decent job afore you come courtin' a daughter o' mine," he said. An' George did. He went to Fletcher's mill an' got set on. He's never been out o' work since. A foreman he is now, at some engineering shop Keighley way...
    'Could you do with a cup o' tea?' she says.
    ' Not just now,' Auntie Edna says.' You sit yourself down and have a minute. You've been at it all day.'
    The Old Lady sits down and folds her hands in her lap. 'It's been like a real tonic to have 'em all here together, laughin' an havin' fun, just like old times. When you have a party like that you wonder how anybody can fall out with anybody.'
    'It's the way of the world,' Uncle William says. 'It's allus been like that an' it allus will be. As long as you can get together now an' again an' forget it all.'
    'Only Agnes had to spoil it by going offlike that...'
    'I think I offended-her,' the Old Man says.' She thought I wa' gettin' at her.'
    'An' so you were, Arthur,' Uncle William says. 'Who else but daft silly women like her?'
    'I've given over bothering about Agnes,' the Old Lady says. 'You can't do right for doing wrong with her. I've sucked up to her for years, telling meself it wa'