Judgment Day Read Free Page B

next year, when Tracy's just turned six, October would be best, well after the summer holidays and before Christmas, so I'd be up and about in good time for the shopping. Three'sa nice number—two girls and a little boy—touch wood, cross fingers. She dried the dishes and took her diary from the kitchen shelf. We ought to start it in January, in that case. The diary for this year showed January of next as a series of black lines, one for each week. In the second was penciled “Car for 6,000 mile service” and in the third, “Holiday bookings. Dad's birthday.” Sue took a ball-point, hesitated, made a cryptic red asterisk in the first week. The christening on Boxing Day, she thought, nice, when the parents are here, and I'll have a new winter coat, one of those full-backed ones, in a light tweed. And the girls in little matching dresses.
    She went to the window and saw Martin Bryan outside on the pavement. Lurking behind the low brick wall, his head surfacing above it every now and then. Playing something. Not watching telly like any other child would be at this point in the day. A sad sort of kid really, but what could you expect, parents like that? Sue frowned to herself and shook her head, thinking of Shirley Bryan—such a slut, and forever on the borrow—out of this, out of that, can I scrounge half a loaf, a cup of sugar, forgot to go to the shops. Mucky house. Keith Bryan fiddling his expenses without a doubt, all those jazzy clothes, the two of them off out to the roadhouse on Saturday nights and Martin left alone in the house as like as not, maybe one shouldn't be turning a blind eye, but what could you do?
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    Count ten and then look over the wall again. If it's all clear, sprint up the path. Head down in case they fire from the window. Eight, nine, ten. They're looking. Down again. Keep crouched, they may shoot, they may…
    I'm cold, Martin thought. He had no jersey on. He didn't know where the sweater was, couldn't be bothered to look for it. He didn't know where Mum was, either. She'd left bread and peanut butter for tea on the kitchen table and a note saying back later. Probably she'd gone to the pictures in Spelbury. The telly wouldn't work again, she'd forgotten to get the man to come. That meant they'd go out tonight to the pub. They couldn't sit in if there was no telly.
    He peeked over the wall again. She'd seen him now, Mrs. Coggan, she was frowning at him and shaking her head. He'd better go. It was raining, anyway. He'd have liked to watch their telly, it would be “Extraordinary”; but that would mean asking, and he couldn't.
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    Keith Bryan, phoning home to say he'd be late (bit of a hassle over an order gone astray, have to stay on and do some paper work}, let it ring ten times and thought, well, blow that, she can't say I didn't try. He felt a bit let down—the story all lined up and then no one to say it to. He put on his jacket and went down the stairs two at a time and into the car park.
    He felt better, with the Capri round him, driving into the heavy traffic on the bypass, nosing at the taillights of some silly bugger in an old Morris who thought he could cope with the fast lane. That was more like it; that was how to sort out the sheep from the goats. The headlights swept the dark road; John Travolta snarled away about love on Radio One; he'd have liked to go on like this for hours, not just the five mingy miles to the Green Man. The Green Man where Mrs. Comstock of Barrow and Co.,Debbie Comstock, her with the blond hair and throaty voice, would be waiting to have a talk over a drink about that joint marketing project. Very nice too. He began to sing along with John Travolta. For a few minutes you could forget the boundaries: the eight thousand a year and fringe benefits; the three-bedroom twenty-six thousand five hundred detached with double garage. Shirley. Himself. You were up, up and away. Ten feet tall. A man could breathe.
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    The Parochial Church