September (1990) by Pilcher Rosamunde

Author:Pilcher, Rosamunde [Rosamunde, Pilcher,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-12-19T00:41:39.203000+00:00

Chapter 6

Monday the Twelfth

Monday was one of Edie's mornings for helping Virginia at Balnaid, and Virginia was grateful for this arrangement. She had never relished Mondays, with the weekend over and Edmund gone from her once more, dressed in his city suit, and leaving the house at eight o'clock in order to get into Edinburgh and his office before the worst of the rush-hour traffic. His departure left an emptiness, a flatness, a sense of anticlimax, and it was always something of an effort to get down to day-to-day living again and cope with all the tedious demands of simply keeping the house going. But hearing the bang of the back door as Edie let herself in always made everything, instantly, a bit more bearable. To know that Edie was there. There was someone to talk to, someone to laugh with, someone to dust the library arid vacuum the dog hairs off the hall carpet. The clatter from the kitchen was comforting. Edie, dealing with the breakfast dishes, loading the washing-machine with a weekend's worth of dirty clothes, and talking to the dogs.

"Now don't you get under my feet, or you'll get your tail trodden on."

Virginia, in her bedroom, changed the sheets on their big double bed, her regular Monday-morning chore. Henry had gone shopping. His mother had given him five pounds, and he had set off to the village, to visit Mrs. Ishak, and buy the allotted amount of sweets, chocolates, and biscuits that he was permitted to take to Templehall in his tuck-box, and which were meant to last him for a full term. He had never before been given so much money to spend on sweets, and the novelty of this, for the moment, had diverted his attention from the fact that tomorrow he was leaving home for the first time. Eight years old and going away. Not for ever, it was true. But Virginia knew that when she saw him again, he would already be a different Henry because he would have seen things and done things and learned things totally dissociated from his mother's life. Tomorrow, he was going. The first day of ten years of regular separation from his parents and his home. The beginning of his growing up. Up and away from her.

She folded pillowcases. They had only another twenty-four hours. All through the weekend she had resolutely put his inevitable departure out of her mind; pretended to herself that Tuesday was never going to happen. Henry, she guessed, had done the same, and her heart bled for his innocence. Last night, saying good night to him, she had steeled herself for a dam-burst of tears and lamentations. The weekend's over. Our last weekend. I don't want to go to school I don't want to leave you. But Henry had simply told her that he'd quite liked playing with Hamish, he'd hung by one leg from Hamish's trapeze; and then, worn out by the day's activity, had fallen almost instantly asleep.

She spread crisp, ironed sheets.

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