Passing On Read Online Free

what he was: an absent-minded well-intentioned school teacher approaching fifty.

TWO
    During the ensuing days Helen felt as though her mother were continuously present in the house as a large black hole. There was a hole in Dorothy’s bedroom, in the bed where she was not, on which, now, the blankets were neatly folded and the cover spread. There were various other holes, where she stood at the kitchen table preparing one of those unappetising stews, or shouting instructions from the landing or inspecting a caller at the front door. There were perambulant holes in which she creaked down the stairs or came in through the front door.
    Almost, Helen stood aside to let her pass or manoeuvred around her large black airy bulk as she occupied the scullery or the narrow passage by the back stairs. It was weeks before Helen could walk straight through her, or open her bedroom door without bracing herself for the confrontation.
    Louise telephoned, almost daily. ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘Of course I’m all right.’
    ‘And Edward?’
    ‘Edward’s all right too,’ said Helen, rather crossly. ‘Why shouldn’t we be?’
    ‘After all this time. You’re so used to her. I mean, I can’t quite take it in myself yet. It’s a shock.’
    No it isn’t,’ said Helen. ‘We all knew she was going to die.’
    ‘Yes, but we didn’t properly believe it. One doesn’t. She didn’t, certainly, which I suppose was just as well. ‘Oh gosh . . — Louise’s voice trailed away — ‘I still can’t . .
    Dorothy, who had seldom had a day’s illness in her eighty years, had disputed the diagnosis. She had contradicted it flatly.
    ‘The stupid man says I’ve got something foul,’ she announced. ‘I told him not to be so silly.’ As the disease progressed she blamed
    the consultant for ineffective or faulty treatment, baying at him across his desk in the hospital or railing over the telephone. When eventually it reduced her to bed, and at last to a glaring silence, the specialist came into his own, able to commend her fighting spirit. ‘Your mother never gave in,’ he told Helen and Edward, portentously. ‘One can tell the truth to someone like that and know that it will inspire strength rather than despair.’ Helen hadn’t had the heart to say that her mother had never for one moment believed him. Her dead face had worn, it seemed, an expression of outrage and incredulity.
    ‘You should have a holiday,’ said Louise. ‘Go off somewhere.
    Look, we’ve this friend who’s got a cottage in the Lake District . .
    ‘No thanks. I’m too busy. I’m getting back to the library as soon as I’ve got the house sorted out.’
    During the long weeks of her mother’s illness Helen had had to take leave from the library. She looked forward, now, to a return to those brisk impersonal days. First, though, there were chores. The paraphernalia of nursing had to be disposed of, bills attended to, those things done which had not been done. She saw that the drooping gutter at the front of the house was now quite unsupported, and that there was yet another slate off the roof. Ron Paget had been asked to come and had not. Foolish to have imagined that one request would suffice. With the back of the Morris Minor piled up with the things for the Red Cross — the commode, the back supports — she stopped off at the yard, Spotting Paget loading one of his lorries.
    ‘Mr Paget!’
    He came across. They were old sparring partners. He was almost pleased to see her, she saw — gingered up at the thought of a little contest. Over the years there had been plenty: questions of noise and dirt from the yard, the dominant continuous issue of the Britches, Ron’s need to keep in with Greystones offset against Greystones’ frequent need for minor repairs and services.
    We have grown middle-aged together, thought Helen. Except that Ron has also grown richer and richer, and shed his dull old Wife and got a glossier younger one, and progressed from a