Loving Amélie Read Online Free

bowl of plums and custard to history, or the
distinction between an isosceles and a scalene triangle. But he didn’t. All
these concepts were as new and confounding when he heard about them in the
classroom as when he had been introduced to them over potato cakes and the
smell of old tea on the woollen cosy in his mother’s kitchen.
    There was a question about
whether he might be dyslexic.
    “If our kid is dyslexic, then I
am too!” Peter shouted from the sitting room; when their parents had Chris’s
latest school report spread out on the kitchen table. He had heard people got
extra time for homework and exams if they had “learning difficulties”.
    “Don’t joke, Christopher. I
mean Peter,” replied his mum, distractedly. It wasn’t unusual for her to call
out ‘Peter! Chris! Roy!” when she wanted just one of them.
    Roy was shaking his head;
although Chris sensed by the gentle drumming of his fingers on the evening
paper - that was already folded expectantly onto the horseracing pages - that
his dad was not going to be overly concerned with words like “drift” and
“focus”.
    “What do you make of it, Chris?” said his mum,
making “it” the repository of all her younger son’s ambition and his family’s
inability to affect it either way.
    “I will try harder,” he
replied, confident that if he made these words sound like an answer rather than
another question (it usually worked with the teachers), he would be able to
slope off and watch Top of the Pops with Peter. And his dad exhaled relief through his
dentures, as though they should all be satisfied that this statement of vague
intent was enough.
    It was unlikely that Chris had
any significant impediments to his concentration or learning, although it was
never investigated further. He left school with a respectable handful of
O-Levels and CSEs – only one less than his brother – whom he
followed to Groundwell College to study catering. This was “a bit of a girl’s
choice”, according to Roy, who had been at the printing works all his life and
couldn’t recommend this to anyone, and so conceded that at least the boys would
never be out of work or hungry if they could cook.
    It was at this time that
Peter’s fortunes took a fateful turn. He was dating Cheryl Hinchcliff, a girl
from a local family that was generally disapproved of in the Skinner household,
as their mum knew Mrs Hinchcliff – a cleaner at the offices where she
herself worked as a filing clerk – and she judged her to be “a bad lot”.
The initial signs were too many absences from work, then she refused to chip in
for a present when Lesley from Accounts left to have her baby, and finally it
transpired that Mr Hinchcliff had been in prison for grievous bodily harm.
    “I don’t think she’s a nice
young lady,” their mum declared. It was bland, but brutal.
    Peter and Cheryl had gone to
the cinema, having had tea and a toasted sandwich with them that afternoon from
the new sandwich toaster; leaving the rest of the family to look at the crumbs
on their plates and take a view on their relationship. Chris mused that it was
like reading toast crumbs rather than tea leaves – which they didn’t have
as they used teabags – although he could only reflect what a fine pair of
breasts Cheryl had, straining superbly under a tight white blouse, and making
an alluring crevice to cradle the “C” of the necklace she wore on a silver
chain.
    “She seems nice enough,” ventured his father,
who was still a couple of years off being able to turn to his younger son and
share the sentiment that niceness wasn’t requisite in this particular match.
    Peter began frequenting the
local pubs and clubs, often with Cheryl’s brothers and assorted henchmen; and
Chris noticed from that time that almost every Sunday morning in their
household began with an egg and bacon scolding. His bedroom was above the
kitchen, and although he tried to bury his head from the details, he could
generally