The Breadwinner: She has it all. But is she going to lose everything? by Tessa Barclay

Author:Tessa Barclay [Barclay, Tessa]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: family life fiction, family saga, contemporary literary fiction, women's popular fiction, women's romance fiction, contemporary romance, women's fiction
Publisher: Wyndham Books (Women's Fiction)
Published: 2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

When Margaret woke next morning it was to the sound of her early morning tea-cup being put by her bedside and the murmur of Jack’s voice as always: ‘Seven-thirty, Margaret.’

She sat up at once, for it had always been her way to start the day quickly, not wasting time lounging about dreary-eyed while the energy flow kick-started. But as she was taking her first sip, it came to her there was something different about this morning. Something in her life had changed.

Then she remembered. Everyone knew she was unemployed. There was no longer the slightest need to keep up the pretence of travelling up to London every day.

She lay back on her pillows. No hurry. She looked at the clothes laid out last night. She wouldn’t need them. Dark woollen suit, soft silk blouse in clover pink, Chelsea Cobbler shoes ‒ none of that would be necessary.

When Jack came out of the shower in his towelling robe, he stared to find her sitting up in bed reading A Gull on the Roof, her bedside book. ‘Shouldn’t you be on the move?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

‘What’s the matter? Not well?’

‘I’m fine.’ She laid the book on her knees and stretched luxuriously. ‘Yes, fine.’

He gave her something between a stare and a frown. ‘Then why aren’t you in the bathroom getting washed?’

‘Why should I?’ she asked. She felt almost frivolous.

‘Because you’re going to miss your train if you don’t get started.’

‘What train?’

‘The one that goes to London, bonehead. You remember it? It comes in at Ladhurst at nine-thirty and gets into London Bridge at ten-forty-five.’

‘It can go without me today,’ she said, and looked into her tea-cup. ‘Any more tea?’

Too much taken aback to speak for a moment, he eventually managed to say: ‘There’s a nearly full pot downstairs.’

‘Be an angel just this once and fetch me another cup, will you? I promise not to make a habit of it.’

‘Of what? Having two cups, or not catching the train?’

As he took the cup, she gave him a brilliant smile. ‘I’ve just realised, you see. I’m free. Free! I don’t have to keep up a facade any more. I don’t have to go struggling up to London and back every day. I don’t have to stooge about filling in time between seeing people, looking in job agency windows, reporting to government offices. I don’t have to sit at my club hiding behind the Financial Times.’ She flung out her arms in a theatrical gesture. ‘Free!’ she declaimed. ‘I can be as miserable as anybody else when I get a disappointment. I don’t need to smile and smile until my face hurts. I don’t have to pay the bill when I have coffee and cake with Lizzie Attins in Kardomah ‒ I don’t even have to bother about being just the same as usual to Lizzie Attins. God, the relief!’

The cup still in his hands, Jack sat down on the side of the bed. ‘Jesus, you’re right!’

‘ “If all the year were playing holiday”,’ she told him seriously, ‘ “to sport would be as tedious as to work”.

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