September Starlings Read Online Free Page A

grinds her gears up Derby Street’s slope, seems to be in a temper since I changed my mind about the motorway. This is the old route to Liverpool – St Helen’s Road, Atherton, Leigh, Lowton, East Lancs Road. When this long stretch was laid, families used to come and picnic on the verge. Watching the great road coming to life was easily as much fun as sitting in a picture house.
    We take so much for granted, refuse to take the world seriously. Wars on TV, real wars with real victims. And we fail to notice because our senses have been dulled by over-indulgence in passive pleasures. I have just been cured of a disease that would have seen me off ten years ago, yet I sing no songs, fly no flags. Somewhere inside, I’m relieved to be alive, yet I feel nothing except the worry about my husband, my Ben. Perhaps I’m like the rest, then, all Barclaycard and Big Macs, no effort, no gratitude, no wonderment. Oh no, I tell myself firmly. If Ben could be cured, I’d be dancing on air to celebrate a double reprieve.
    I am in Merseyside now, driving past Kirkby with its tower blocks filled with displaced persons who used to have a real life in a wonderful city. Again, we didn’t scream our displeasure when Liverpool lost its soul.
    Anyway, I’m all right, Jack, should be happy, relieved, shouldn’t be thinking all these morbid thoughts. Was the fear my prop? Did my illness sustain me, allow me to be justifiably self-centred?
    Now, I have to face it all. I have a fresh start with a mended body and a healed mind. Not many people geta second chance, an extra stab at life. A lot to think about now. There’s Mother, Ben, my children, the activity I laughingly call my career. Time has been given back to me. And time is the most precious gift of all.
    I must use it and use it well.

Chapter Two
    I am forced to sleep alone these nights, and I miss his arms, his breath in my hair, even the snoring I once recorded for him on a thirty-minute cassette, a din that might have registered high on the Richter scale. He laughed, of course. Laughed, stroked his chin thoughtfully, chased me round the kitchen and, armed with a wooden spoon engraved with the legend A SOUVENIR OF SKEGNESS, threatened me with GBH. I love him so much. If I love him so much, then why can’t I bestir myself on his behalf, why don’t I keep him with me and …? Yes, Dr Ashby, I heard you all right. Even now, your dulcet tones echo in my lughole. ‘The treatment has taken a lot out of you, Mrs Starling. An all-clear doesn’t mean you can pick up a broom and start sweeping the world’s problems into a neat pile.’ Bloody doctors. They carry on as if every last one of them is an emissary from God.
    Benjamin Starling is here in this house, so I must not let the bubble of self-centred guilt rise up. I must go and see to his breakfast, paint on a smile, be happy. Yes, I’ll do all that in a minute.
    We had our honeymoon in Skegness, bundled the children into the car, deposited them at Anne’s house, then went off to find a boarding house on the other side of the Pennines. It took a while to pick out the right place. People must have thought us weird, because we pressed our noses against a dozen windows before we found what we wanted. She stood in the hallway of the Shoreside Haven, wrap-around pinnie, arms folded, a turbaned scarf failing to hide the curlers. Mrs Hyatt was her name. Shewas terrifying, of a breed that had begun to die out in Blackpool.
    Ben was courteous, as always. He wanted a double room for six nights, plus full board with HP Sauce, the Daily Mirror and a gingham tablecloth. She didn’t do papers. ‘I don’t do papers,’ the dinosaur said.
    ‘This isn’t the Park Lane,’ I advised him gently.
    ‘Then I shall manage without my newspaper,’ he said gravely.
    His humour was infectious, virulent. The bed did not squeak, so he loosened a few springs, tested the tone until he achieved what he chose to identify as middle C. According to him, ‘Air On