A Better World than This Read Online Free Page B

yes, or no, and that would have been that . No recriminations. Nothing. ‘Ta-ra then,’ as they said up here.
    Daisy spoke to him with the candour of a child. No guile, no flirtatious manner. All at once he thought of her coming into this dark hole of a place, early in the mornings, shovelling coal into that black firebox. Every day since she was fourteen, she had said. And seeing the lamp-light silvering the drizzle. …
    ‘I’ll be back in London by the weekend.’ He shook her gently. ‘Wake up, Daisy, love. Stop making something out of nothing. You’ll have forgotten me in less than a month.’
    She ignored him. What kind of talk was that, anyroad? Forget him? She had managed to forget that he had a wife, hadn’t she? From that first mention of her she had blotted her out completely. She didn’t want to know what she looked like or what her name was, and she certainly wasn’t going to let go of this dream. Not yet … oh no, not yet.
    Sam got to his feet, pulling her with him. Cupping her face in his hands he kissed her mouth, his fingers absent-minded in her hair as he tried to think of a way of letting her go, of saying goodbye without making her cry. But the sweetness of the kiss caught him unawares, and he strained her to him, feeling the stirrings of desire.
    If he had been a lesser man, he told himself, putting her resolutely from him; if she had been a different sort of girl – the pompous phrases inside his head caught him unawares. He would lie down with her on the pile of sacks and make love to her. And she would let him. Her thinking had gone beyond reason; with a girl like Daisy it was all or nothing. And if he made love to her she would be committed, and a commitment was the last indulgence he could afford.
    ‘I’m married,’ he told her cruelly. ‘Why look at me like that? I can’t give you anything. I can’t make you happy. Why have you gone all serious on me?’
    ‘I’m not going to cry,’ Daisy said.
    ‘Well of course you’re not going to bloody well cry!’ Sam’s exasperation spilled out into his voice. ‘Look, I can’t face that harridan coming looking for you and finding us in here together. And she will once she realizes you’re not in the house. And God knows why, but I can’t say goodbye to you like this, because tears or no tears you’re upset.’
    ‘Stop shouting at me.’
    ‘Tomorrow then. Down the town.’ Sam began to button his raincoat. ‘Outside Woolworth’s. I suppose you’ve got a Woolworth’s?’
    ‘Not far from the Boulevard.’
    ‘The Boulevard?’
    ‘Where the trams and buses start off from.’
    ‘At half-past seven. We’ll go to the pictures again.’
    ‘I’ll wait till you come.’
    Moving quietly, Daisy opened the bakehouse door and walked across the yard to the back gate. Lifting the sneck she opened it just wide enough for Sam to slip through.
    The rain had stopped. Thin clouds veiled a drifting moon. When Sam got to the top of the street he turned round to look down over the town. Twinkling lights were spiked with the tall outlines of mill chimneys, and the air was so sharp and clean he fancied he could taste the tang of the sea.
    What on earth had made him suggest seeing her again? His life was complex enough, without any further complications. He walked on, ashamed of his weakness. But so help him, it was a long time since a woman had looked at him like that. With her soul in her eyes. As if he were God. And yet … and yet, Daisy was no mealy-mouthed nothing. She had guts; must have plenty to get up each morning before dawn, stoking that great gaping hole with coal, then working with the men, one of them, an equal he suspected. Integrity – she had that, too. Living with that mother who had had the sweetness soured from her soul a long time ago, he guessed. And that other one, Edna, with the spite-filled laugh and the anchor clipping her non-existent bosoms together.
    Daisy Bell had done something for him he wouldn’t have believed