Her Victory Read Online Free Page A

her effort to get rid of it was helped by the sight of the attendant who had come to collect her cup, his smile as grand as ever. He saw the reflection of her bruised face as the train went through a cutting, and was aware of her anguish. I bumped into something. Didn’t see it coming. Too bloody feeble. My husband clocked me one, she would say. That wouldn’t do, either. Maybe it would be best to say, with tears in her eyes: When my boy friend asked me to go away with him and I said no, he hit me. That might be better, though it was no bloody business of his or anybody else’s.
    â€˜Looks as if we’re going to have good weather in London.’
    He didn’t wait for her response. He would go home to his wife and children, and they would be happy to see him. She was sure he had photographs in his wallet, and after five minutes conversation with any stranger would flip them out like credit cards and give a long explanation about each one.
    For the last few years she had played a secret game. Walking along the street, even though George might be with her, she would wonder what it would be like if it was ordained that she had to live the rest of her life with the next man who came by. What if she were washed up on a desert island with him, for example, the two of them strangers to each other? A personable young man approached, and she could imagine it with pleasure. On other occasions he would by no means be promising, so she would cheat: Well, let’s see what the next looks like. Or she would settle for the best out of three. She could easily imagine herself attuned to the ordinary youth or man who hove in sight, whether he was alone or with another woman. She passed, never to see him again. Or she would fall in love with a face that went by and vanished forever. That was as near as she had been to unfaithfulness, though according to the Bible it was just as bad. George had never been able to catch her at it. But then, how could he?
    The train felt like home, and she dreaded having to get off at the end of the journey. Walking the corridor she saw the man sitting alone in the next compartment who had spat so violently on leaving Nottingham. Maybe the trip south seemed as long as ten thousand miles to him also. Even though they were only passing St Albans he already had his smart hat, gloves and overcoat on. His luggage was down from the rack, as if he couldn’t wait to leap out as soon as the wheels had stopped at the London platform. Neither could she.

4
    In his mirror George saw the face of the man in the car behind talking as if he had a passenger by his side, which he had not. The driver appeared to be about forty-five years of age, haggard, unshaven, yet fleshy-faced and as vain as a monkey. He didn’t like what he was saying, as if unused to uncertainties in a life which had so far been well regulated. He was telling of something over and over again which had not only affected his life in a fundamental manner during the last twenty-four hours, but had changed that of his non-existent passenger as well.
    George thought maybe the man had started from Inverness and was driving to London, and that his talk would last all day, but having just got rid of one yammerer he wasn’t prepared to take on another, no matter who he was or what he was saying. He could hear every word, because he himself was that man, and wasn’t on his way to London from Inverness, either. In any case, what would he be doing coming so far west? I’m not on the road yet, he thought, laughing to see whether the man in the car behind also laughed. He did. I’m on my way to work, and not even she can stop me doing a thing like that.
    His boots slipped on the clutch, feathered the brakes, and nearly made him hit a bus that stopped at the traffic lights. The man behind swore. George always wore a pair of boots for work, and made sure’ they were polished, what’s more. They’ll keep me fit and, at a