Collected Short Stories by Michael McLaverty

Author:Michael McLaverty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstaff Press Ltd
Published: 2012-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

When Sunday morning came her determination not to meet Frank had wavered, and throughout the day she was afraid to face the question whether or not she should go for the walk with him. If she stopped for a minute and put the question to herself she felt she’d give in to his arrangement, but rather than come to a decision she plunged herself into her work and tried to put him from her mind. She let the boys go up to the Park to gather chestnuts. After all if the worst came to the worst and she did go it’d be better if her boys were tired so that they’d settle down to sleep before she went out.

In the early evening when they had come back from their walk, hungry and tired, each had three glossy chestnuts which they held out to show her, and as she prepared their tea she watched them boring a hole in the chestnuts with a nail and threading a string though the hole. They began to play: Tom held his chestnut dangling from the end of a string and John whacked at it with his chestnut, and time and again they had to call to her to settle a dispute. But when they had taken their tea and were ready for bed she took the chestnuts from them and put them on the mantelpiece where they would take no harm until morning. Then she dressed and got ready to go out to meet Frank.

She went up to their room and was pleased to see the moon shining through the bare window: ‘Go asleep,’ she said, ‘I’ll not be long till I’m back.’

‘Tell us a story,’ John pleaded, ‘and it will make us sleepy.’

‘I’ll tell you one tomorrow night if you’re good. If there’s any knocks at the door don’t open it, do you hear?’

‘Are we going to get the dog?’ John said.

‘Yes.’

‘When’s granda coming home?’ Tom added.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will he be home for Christmas?’

‘We’ll see … Go asleep now.’ And as she bent over to kiss them they smelt the warm thick perfume from her clothes.

They heard the front door close and her quick footsteps down the street. No neighbour had seen her, but once out of the street her steps lagged and she stopped under the light from a streetlamp and looked in her handbag to see if the key was safe. ‘I’m not doing right,’ she said to herself. ‘It’s not right to leave them by themselves.’ She hesitated for a minute and then walked ahead. Frank shouldn’t have asked her to do the like of this. Wasn’t the comfort of the house and a fire better at this time of the year than rambling about the cold country roads. And what with his talk about the moon you’d think he was just a lad into long trousers. She should have laughed him out of that notion. Why must she be always playing a part and giving ear to his silly talk.

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