Prisoner's Base Read Online Free Page A

fortnight ago, picking his nose to the last, he had gone. For the first few days after his departure Mavis had been in a most pitiable state, both depressed and garrulous, getting up even later than usual and wandering about the house in a dressing-gown and offering to help with things. This was a little bit touching until you discovered that the only things she wanted to help at were the things you liked doing yourself—the things, indeed, that everyone likes doing. She liked peeling rhubarb if someone would bring her basin, knife, and a comfortable chair out on the sunny brick area outside the back door; she liked feeding the chickens if you had their food all ready for her to take straight out, and if it was a bright sunny afternoon and not too muddy underfoot . She liked doing the shopping, too, when it was fine; and when it rained she liked to settle down by the dining-room fire, with the wireless on, and mend not very big holes in Derek’s woollen socks. She didn’t like the big holes; nor putting in zips, nor sewing buckles on sandals; give her too much of that sort of thing and she would begin crying about Eddie’s emotional blocks again, and everything started all over again, right from the beginning.
    Claudia was marvellous with Mavis; Margaret had to admit that. She listened endlessly, sympathised, and unobtrusively provided Mavis with pleasant, easy tasks which would enable her to feel useful without ever dirtying her hands or even getting dressed properly. She listened by the hour to all Mavis’ platitudinous worries about her son—mostly, Margaret suspected, culled from magazine articles; and she tirelessly assured Mavis that this particular school couldn’t, not possibly, destroy his ego, certainly not in just one term. Margaret used to feel very inadequate in comparison, just sitting there playing patience and hoping that it could.
    Not that Eddie was all that much worse than other little boys of nine, she supposed. Since it wasn’t the fashion to teach them manners nowadays, it was only natural that they should be ill-mannered. And probably he didn’t like living here any more than she liked having him, so why expect him to look as if he did? She probably wouldn’t have disliked him nearly so much, Margaret reflected, if only she was ever allowed to find fault with him; but this was utterly taboo for a very special reason. You couldn’t say anything uncomplimentary about him, even in private with Claudia, since he was illegitimate; and this, in Claudia’s eyes, seemed to render him immune from criticism, a sort of sacred figure, to be handled gingerly and with awe. Something of the same aura, of course, clung around Mavis herself. Her status as an unmarried mother ensured that Claudia would continue to endure indefinitely her slummockyways, her foolish, stereotyped talk, and, above all, her unending presence. Though of course it was Margaret who suffered most from this, for she was the one who was at home all day. Look at this lunch, for instance, that she’d been landed with yet again, just when she had been planning a peaceful afternoon in the sun. It wasn’t the cooking of it so much—Margaret didn’t particularly grudge doing that for the creature—it was having to eat it with her that was so awful, and not being able to read. Margaret loved to read over meals, and here was this wretched woman taking this harmless pleasure away from her, day after day, without a word of apology or recompense. If she’d stolen ten shillings out of your handbag every day at one o’clock you could have had her put in prison, reflected Margaret sourly; and yet you had to stand by, helpless, while she stole, one by one, far more than ten shillings worth of happy hours of solitude.

CHAPTER II
    “O H , BUT YOU shouldn’t have, Mrs Newman! Oh, how very kind of you! But you mustn’t go to all this trouble just for me, really you mustn’t. Oh, I feel dreadful about it!”
    Fixing her eyes on the larger of the