Movie Shoes Read Free

and then you might come back perfectly well.”
    Though Bee did not mean her voice to sound pleading, it was pleading on the last line. She could not help remembering John a year ago, when he had been well. He was not always easy-tempered because he was a writer and got angry with himself and everybody else when he could not write well, but he had been gay and excited about things, rushing into the room after a good day’s work to tell her about it. Since the accident, all that was gone. It was not his fault that a child had darted across the road to pick up a ball and had been killed. At the inquest John had been entirely exonerated; he had been driving slowly and carefully; it was the child, who had never been taught to cross a road properly, who was to blame. But that had made no difference to John, he had become ill from thinking about the dead child, so ill that he had what the doctor called a nervous breakdown, and when that got better, he had lost faith in himself and decided he could never write again. The only thing which did him good was sunlight. Sometimes when the sun shone, he would settle down at his typewriter and work away for an hour or two; then in would go the sun, and he would slide back to his gloomy mood, saying, “It’s no good, Bee, I’m finished as a writer.” Bee knew that was not true, but she also knew that if he did not get well soon, she would have to say, “Well, what are you going to do instead? There’s this house to run; there are Rachel, Jane, and Tim needing breakfast, dinner, lunch, and tea, as well as new clothes, and we’ve been living on our savings since January, and they’re nearly finished.” Thinking of these things, she laid her face against John’s shoulder. “Just write to her, darling. Tell her what the doctor says. Write a nice long letter by airmail, and see what happens. After all, if she invites you and you don’t want to go, you can always refuse the invitation; there’s no harm done.”
    John shivered. He was so tired and ill that even sitting down to write a letter made him feel worse, but he hated to refuse Bee anything. He gave her a lopsided sort of smile.
    “All right, I’ll write to her if it’ll please you, but I don’t think she’ll invite me, and if she does, I won’t go. I’m not leaving you and the children.”
    Bee went to the writing table; she laid out a piece of airmail paper.
    “You write it now. I’ll ask Peaseblossom not to take off her coat. I’d like that letter to catch the six o’clock post.”

2
    The Important Wednesday

    Wednesday started like an ordinary day. Rachel, as usual, flew out of the house five minutes before she need have started because she was so fond of her dancing school that she could not bear to waste time eating breakfast when she could be on her way to it. Jane and Tim went to the same school and every day had the same sort of argument before they started. This Wednesday was no exception. Bee said, “Hurry up, darlings, and finish eating. You’ve only five minutes before you start.”
    Jane immediately helped herself to another piece of bread and slowly spread jam on it. “Yes, hurry up, Tim. I always have to wait for you.”
    Tim had been just about to finish his milk, but at that insult he put down his cup. “That’s the most monstrous lie. Yesterday Peaseblossom and Chewing-gum and I were standing at the gate waiting for you so long that we didn’t get to school until prayers were over. That’s why you and I got unpunctuality marks.”
    Jane stuck her chin in the air. “That was just once, and only because Mom made me change my socks for so small a hole that nobody but Mom would have seen it; but almost every day I’m made late by you looking for your music and-“
    Dad had seemed to be reading the paper. Now he looked up. His voice sounded as if it could very easily turn from a talking voice to an angry one.
    “Shut up, kids. Scram.”
    Peaseblossom took Jane and Tim to school. It was not