Prisoner's Base Read Online Free Page B

two omelettes, Mavis mastered her dreadful feelings sufficiently to squeeze with alacrity into the appropriate place at the little table in the window—a manoeuvre made the more ungainly by the bunchy, floor-length woollen dressing-gown which she clutched around her with an anxious hand. Margaret glared at the garment balefully. Though it was no possible concern of hers, Margaret loathed the way Mavis always seemed to be wearing her dressing-gown—either she had got up late, or was going to bed early, or had just had a bath, or was going to wash her hair—some such untimely nonsense or other, that trailed restlessness and squalor through everybody’s day like a child with a tin can on a piece of string. And it seemed worse than ever just now, with the glory of the summer’s day billowing in softly through the open kitchen window. That this first real hot sunshine of the year should be forced to spend its glory on illuminating that thick brown garment, dusty and bulky, breathing winter at you—it seemed a desecration, an insult to the blue arc of the sky. Why couldn’t the girl get up and get dressed inthe morning, like anybody else? Hang it all, Margaret reflected crudely, she must once have smarted herself up enough to get herself a man: why couldn’t she do it again? Even the prospect of another Eddie walking this earth seemed at this moment preferable to that dressing-gown.
    “Isn’t it a wonderful day!” prattled Mavis, nervously helping herself to salt; and somehow this innocuous attempt at conversation, harmless to the point of idiocy, roused Margaret’s hostility still further. This woman, who by her garments had so cut herself off from summer, had no right to know that the day was wonderful, certainly not to speak of it. By looking like that, Margaret felt, she had forfeited her right to wonderful days. “I thought,” continued Mavis, “that after lunch I might wash my hair and dry it out in the sun. It’s quite warm enough for that, wouldn’t you think?”
    For a second Margaret felt quite sick. ‘You’re not using my sun to dry your beastly hair!’ she nearly exclaimed; but checked herself in time, picturing the scene that would ensue when Mavis described it all to Claudia afterwards. As she would, of course; Mavis was always running with tales to Claudia, and certainly wouldn’t miss this chance of telling Claudia how nasty Margaret had been to her at lunch; how she couldn’t think what she had done to deserve it, and what did Claudia think that she, Mavis, had done amiss? And her eyes would be bright, and her dressing-gown clutched round her tighter than ever in her exultation, as she waited excitedly for Claudia to assure her that she, Mavis, had of course done nothing wrong whatever; it was just Margaret’s old-fashioned prejudice and rigidity; they would just have to be patient about it, and humour the poor old thing as best they could; but it was difficult, of course it was … on and on they would go, about how difficult it was, and how splendidly Claudia was coping with it all; the inter-generation rivalries, all these conflicting personalities under the same roof … Claudia’s voice would be concerned, self-deprecating … Mavis’ would be chirrupping praise and encouragement … Margaret would hear it through the floorboards, chirrup-mumble, chirrup-mumble, chirrup-mumble —a weary price to pay for the satisfaction of a few sharp words. Margaret forced a smile on to her face. She would be polite; she would be pleasant; but she would not have Mavis drying her hair out there in the garden, nor in the field either.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” she began, with feigned concern. “It looks bright, but May can be a very tricky month, you know.” The golden day would forgive her for this treachery, she was sure. The wallflowers under the window seemed to be laughing softly with her at Mavis’ expense; the buttercups beyond the low brick wall joined in the conspiracy with silent glee, for