For Many a Long Day Read Online Free

surrounding fields and lanes.
    Close to the hall, against every convenient bush, tree and gatepost, bicycles were propped up. Released from the shafts of their traps, a few ponies tethered along the boundary hedge munched away quietly. At the entrance to the weed-grown and neglected field surrounding the hall itself, two motors were parked one behind the other almost blocking the narrow country lane.
    Ellie had never been on a motor-bike before and she’d caught her breath as the warm evening air raced past. It felt as chill as a winter gale, whippedher hair backwards and forwards across her face, gusted and swirled round her bare legs and plucked at the full skirt of her pretty, floral-patterned summer dress as George speeded along the twisty lanes through Ballybrannan, round the foot of Cannon Hill and on to Mullanisilla.
    She’d clung tightly to his tweed jacket for warmth as well as safety, but when they came to a standstill and she climbed stiffly off the pillion and stepped on to the stony path leading away from the field-gate, she found she was shivering uncontrollably. As soon as she got her feet on the ground George left her and strode off, pushing, not his brother’s borrowed bike, but his own new bike, his one thought the need to find a safe parking place.
    Well at least it will be warm inside, she thought to herself, as she watched him go. She dabbed her dripping nose, ran her fingers through her tangled hair and shivered fiercely.
Well, you live and learn
, she said to herself, hearing her father’s voice. She smiled ruefully, wrapped her arms round herself, covered up the expanse of goose-pimpled skin exposed by her scooped neckline and rubbed her arms vigorously to see if she could generate a little warmth in them while she waited.
    Minutes passed. When George still failed to appear, she moved a little further in the direction he’d taken and found him eyeing a drainpipe at the side of the building. She watched as he tooka chain from his pocket, attached one end to the drainpipe and fed the other through the spokes of the motorcycle before attaching a small padlock. He turned a key in the lock, tested it several times, then put the key carefully back in his top pocket. He stared all around him to see if there was any hazard he might have overlooked. Satisfied at last that no harm could come to his new possession he glanced towards her.
    ‘That should be all right now,’ he said, a bright smile on his face. ‘Don’t want anyone pinching MY new bike.’
    He took a final look over his shoulder as she came up to him, dropped an arm round her, marched her up to the door of the hall and produced his two half crowns for the pair of men guarding it, so large they almost filled the entrance.
    When they moved marginally apart to allow them to pass between them, she followed him as he elbowed his way towards the crowded dance floor, an indeterminate area between a deep line of girls on one side and a less deep line of men on the other. Here couples were entwined, if not actually able to dance. He turned to her, put his arms round her and used his superior height and weight to propel them round the floor.
    The band stopped. The applause was enthusiastic.
    ‘Big crowd,’ he said.
    ‘Yes,’ she agreed, fishing in her pocket for herhanky and dabbing her nose, now dripping even more vigorously than it had outside.
    She was warming up now, for the atmosphere was like a warm blanket, but was much less pleasant. From somewhere nearby, there was an overpowering smell of cheap perfume and sweat. All around her, men with shiny foreheads were mopping their brows and girls with light dresses had patches of damp under each arm.
    The floor was so packed, there was little opportunity for George to demonstrate his dancing skills. As the band grew more enthusiastic, encouraged no doubt by a crate of beer parked in the tiny kitchen behind their raised platform, Ellie gave up the attempt to make conversation and find out what