The Widower's Son by Sillitoe Alan;

Author:Sillitoe, Alan; [Sillitoe, Alan;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

The lighter than paper tea cups were glazed with flowers, and with bees and ladybirds so accurately real he wanted to nudge them away with a finger before drinking. He was afraid to pick up his cup for fear of breaking it. Even the vast hotel at Bad Oeynhausen hadn’t sported crocks like these.

He smiled at the idea of handing out such Minton cups laden with steaming char to the gun crews, heard the tinkle as one dropped from Oxton’s nerveless fingers and hit the traversing lever. In fact it was he who, drinking brandy from the finest Bohemian glass after dinner in the Konigshof, bit too hard on the goblet because his lip flesh was dead from the liquor that had gone before. More liquid was dribbling down his chin than he’d ever let go of, and Watkins caught the tumbling glass bits, and passed a field dressing.

So at his mother-in-law’s tea table when he drank too carefully she wanted to know in her sharp-eyed way what he was laughing at. It was impossible to tell her, even though the brigadier must have seen worse and might therefore be amused. And Georgina certainly would. It was better to be straightforward, though it was plain that he laughed from time to time without intending to. ‘I was hoping I wouldn’t be so clumsy as to break one of your marvellous cups.’

It seemed a normal gesture that whatever you admired in their house was generously given to you, which put a brake on his systems of praise. She presented them with the whole set six months later, a kindness they couldn’t take full advantage of because the house they rented from two maiden ladies who’d gone to New Zealand for five years, was furnished in such full and chintzy style, that they had to store their own plate and linen in the spare garage at the brigadier’s, where it was to stay in crates and trunks till they found the dreamhouse they planned to buy when they could afford it.

They lived meanwhile in their twenty guinea a month billet that stood away from the main road in its own small weeded-up garden. The traffic bothered Georgina, so they took over the back bedroom, even though the front one was bigger and had a more opulent fireplace. He was surprised she could be churned up by such a noise, though did his best to make life smooth, which wasn’t difficult because she was the person he cared most for. If he could he’d switch his heart to the other side of his body to accommodate her wishes, which at his age might not distort the appearance of his face too much.

A clergyman uncle gave her seven hundred pounds and William turned down her offer to tip it into the expenses of running their lives. He refused out of generosity and pride, which are different sides of the same coin, for he knew later he should have accepted. She sensed straight away

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