Injury Time Read Free Page B

for Edward’s sake, but she didn’t want to strive for success. All her life she had found that when she went to a great deal of trouble, the results were never satisfactory; her greatest triumphs had been accidental.
    A man in a bowler hat, strolling backwards and forwards in front of the bank, took a rolled-up newspaper from under his arm, and pausing in his stride proceeded to tap the hood of the perambulator.
    Alma was in the middle of a story concerning her son Victor, who only the day before had behaved badly in a car. ‘He told me to throw it away,’ she was explaining. ‘He said the smoke irritated his throat. So I did. Not at once, I grant you – after a few quick puffs. I know it’s not fair to give the young cancer. We’d been for an Indian meal. I opened the window and threw it out and he told me to shut the window. He jostled me. Then he called me a toe-rag.’
    A thin woman in a mackintosh came out of the doorway of the National Westminster and stood for a moment looking at the traffic. The bowler-hatted man dropped his newspaper on to the hood of the pram and walked briskly away.
    ‘Look at that,’ said Binny, pointing. She watched him disappear into the entrance of the tube station.
    ‘Don’t be fickle, darling,’ reproved Alma. ‘You be content with your lovely Teddy.’ She was keen on Edward and he liked her, though he was not over fond of being called Ted.
    The woman in the mackintosh descended the steps of the bank awkwardly, as though afraid she might lose her balance. Using her stomach to propel the pram, she picked up the rolled newspaper and tipped it over the edge of the storm shield.
    ‘Poor little thing,’ cried Binny, aloud. It was unthinkable that any mother should shove a dirty newspaper on to the pillow of a sleeping child. The world was menacing and full of alarms. ‘I can’t stand it,’ she told Alma. ‘It’s disgusting and frightening.’
    ‘What is?’ asked Alma, gazing in bewilderment at the plastic table top and the sauce bottle in the shape of a tomato, a crust like blood rimming the imitation stalk.
    ‘Anywhere you can possibly go,’ said Binny. ‘It’s waiting round the corner. Faces with scabs . . . hit-and-run drivers . . .’
    Though most of her life she had rushed headlong into danger and excitement, she had travelled first-class, so to speak, with a carriage attendant within call. The world was less predictable now. The guard was on strike and the communication cord had been ripped from the roof. It wasn’t the same. In her day dreams, usually accompanied by a panic-stricken Edward, she was always being blown up in aeroplanes or going down in ships.
    ‘There, there,’ soothed Alma, taking Binny’s hand and patting it. ‘It’s probably the change that’s upsetting you, darling.’ And indeed Binny’s normally pale cheeks flamed a deep and fierce red.
    ‘I can’t help noticing details,’ said Binny. ‘Little clues and suchlike. I’d like to switch over, but I can’t.’
    Alma looked at her.
    ‘I keep thinking I’m watching television,’ Binny said. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much difference.’ She stared mesmerised out of the window.
    Alma asked for the bill and said she’d phone in the morning to see if Binny felt more settled. Better still, she could call round this evening for a little chat.
    ‘No,’ said Binny. ‘I shall go to bed early.’ At this lie her face flushed more than ever. ‘But I doubt if it will do any good. I don’t know how you can be so blind. The whole world’s changed. It’s not my little change that’s making the difference.’ Seeing that Alma appeared unconvinced she added, ‘I don’t suppose you called your mother a toe-rag.’
    Alma agreed she hadn’t, but then in their day the word had been unknown. ‘Old cow,’ she admitted. ‘Or flipping swine. I got my face slapped.’ She touched her cheek at the memory.
    ‘I said bugger once,’ recalled Binny. ‘I said it to a chair in Mother’s