The Corner House by Ruth Hamilton

Author:Ruth Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446487310
Publisher: Transworld

TEN

Teddy Betteridge stared gloomily into his pint of ale. He was fed up to the back teeth, wisdoms included. It was all right for his two companions. They weren’t married and stuck with a couple of kids. And the kids were a bloody picnic compared to the flaming wife. Bugger Elsie, he cursed inwardly. He took a swig, then slammed the glass down.

‘How’s your dad?’ asked Roy Chorlton. He had resigned himself to spending Saturday nights in the company of these two cretins. With his pale skin, bulbous eyes and thinning hair, Roy was not popular with members of either sex. Nobody gave a tuppenny damn about him. Ged and Teddy tolerated him because he bought his share of drinks and, anyway, they had got used to his appearance over the years.

‘Still as daft as a brush,’ Teddy replied. ‘He was a strait-jacket job up to last Tuesday, thought he had a plague of giant red ants crawling all over him. That’s what drink’s done to him, I suppose.’ He downed half a pint in one swallow.

Ged Hardman shook his head gravely. ‘You want to watch yourself,’ he advised Betteridge. ‘Or you’ll be joining him in the next padded cell.’

Teddy bridled slightly. Who the hell did Ged Hardman think he was? ‘I know what I’m doing,’ he replied smartly, swallowing a remark about clever folk who picked their spots and ended up full of holes. He knew what he was doing, all right. He was drinking himself into oblivion so that he wouldn’t notice his pathetic little life. What did he have? A load of responsibility, that was all. An ironmongery stall, a wife who looked like a brewer’s nag, and two kids with voices loud enough to strip paint off the doors.

Ged, who was easily as unhappy as Teddy, drummed his fingertips on the table. His legendary mother, Lily Hardman, was a demanding, selfish harridan. Although she still doted on her son, Lily kept him dangling, made him wait for every few bob, rendered him childlike and dependent. ‘I feel like …’ Ged’s words trailed away.

‘Like what?’ asked Roy.

‘Like hell.’

Roy understood. Roy had a theory, an idea that he had entertained for some years. Having come to suspect the existence of God, the man both feared and accepted the concept of retribution. His soul was tortured, mostly during the hours of darkness, because dreams were beyond his control, while wakefulness was scarcely bearable. Almost every night, he saw her, heard her whimpering, felt her soft flesh beneath his hands. He swallowed painfully. ‘We’re probably getting what we deserve.’

Ged Hardman threw up his hands. ‘Don’t start all that again, Roy,’ he warned. ‘Or I’ll take you outside and change your appearance.’

Roy shrugged. ‘Please yourself,’ he invited.

Teddy Betteridge looked from one to the other. ‘You can shut up and all,’ he advised Ged Hardman. Glaring at Roy, he lowered his tone. ‘If you want to carry on being some kind of a martyr, bugger off and do it somewhere else.’

Roy raised a shoulder.

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