The Green Years by A. J. Cronin

Author:A. J. Cronin [Cronin, A. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Two

Still restless and excited, I ran downstairs. I was free until eight o’clock in the evening, when I had a special and unbreakable engagement. I thought of calming myself by going to the bioscope matinee, but I had not a farthing in my pocket, or rather in Murdoch’s pocket, for I had reached the size when I could wear his old suits, cast off long ago and faithfully preserved amidst camphor in the attic “kist.”

I went into the scullery where Mama was damping clothes at the boiler and laying them on the ironing board, her hair and eyes more faded now, face thinner and more tiredly lined, yet still gentle, and enduring. I stood gazing at her with tremendous meaning, almost with a catch in my breath.

“You wait, Mama,” I said softly. “Yes, just wait.”

She gave me her queer, frowning smile.

“Wait for what?” she asked, after she had tested the hot iron near her cheek.

“Well,” I said, lamely, yet with intensity. “One of these days I’ll be able to do something for you … something big.”

“Will you do something for me now? Something small. Take a note over to Kate’s?”

“Oh, of course, Mama.”

I often carried missives for Mama, and so saved the postage stamp, across the town to Kate, at Barloan Toll, or to Murdoch, who was now solidly established with Mr. Dalrymple at the Nursery, doing extremely well and, to his evident satisfaction, emancipated from Lomond View. These letters were a part of Mama, communications of the spirit, containing news, messages, exhortations, even requests—sent out, in patient persistence, in her unflagging effort to hold the family together.

I waited till her iron was cold. Then she entered the kitchen and brought back a sealed envelope.

“Here you are then. I wish I could send a batch of pancakes with you. But …” She removed the lid from the earthenware crock and peered into it in a troubled fashion. “I seem to be out of flour. Give them my love, though.”

I went out and along Drumbuck Road, crossed the Common and turned left, skirting the great black shape of the Boilerworks—partly stilled by the impending holiday, yet still glowing in its depths, still alive and menacing.

Kate’s house was one of the small new cottages built on a round green knoll near the old Toll-gate, on the western outskirts of the town. And as I came up the hill I suddenly discerned Kate as she came along a level side-street, pushing the perambulator before her. It was a fine navy-blue perambulator and Kate loved to push it. She walked miles with it every week, I am sure, through the town, the shops, round the Knoxhill Park, pausing, proudly to stoop and straighten the navy-blue cover with the white N embroidered on the corner.

I stopped to watch, smiling in sympathy, as she came along, quite unaware of me, her figure a little stouter now, bending over as she walked, smiling, clicking her tongue, her eyes intent upon the baby.

“Hello, Kate,” I murmured shyly, when she had almost passed me.

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