The Builders Read Free

true. Wasshe like poor Mrs White … who of course was not Mrs White at all. Her name was something totally different, but kind good Johnny White had gone out to work in a warehouse — a job he hated — just to keep her safe from harm.
    The hours passed very slowly until it was time to take up the story again with Derek. Nan had changed into her best dress with the lace collar.
    â€˜You look very nice,’ Derek said.
    He had brought her a bunch of roses and she blushed as she arranged them in a vase. Then they read on.
    When they got to the bit where dear Johnny had been feeling too sick to go to work but was refusing to see a doctor, Nan began to worry.
    â€˜I don’t like the sound of it,’ she said.
    â€˜Neither do I,’ replied Derek.
    They read on, about how his cancerwas terminal, how they knew she couldn’t live alone without him. With tears in her eyes Nan read about the plans for the trip to the lakes, and sending their financial details and will to a solicitor.
    They wanted their home at Number Twelve Chestnut Road to be sold and the proceeds given to a charity that looked after battered wives.
    It had taken some time to sort it out after they had disappeared, presumed drowned in the lakes. The law moves slowly so that was why the house was empty for so long.
    Nan and Derek sat as the light faded. They thought about the couple and their strange sad life.
    â€˜They must have loved each other very much,’ Nan said.
    â€˜I never loved liked that,’ Derek said.
    â€˜Neither did I,’ said Nan.

Chapter Four
    Nan told her children nothing at all about the discovery of Mrs White’s diary. She was afraid that they would dismiss it, say that the Whites were boring, mad old people.
    She told them nothing about Derek’s visits either. Young people were so cruel. They would laugh at her and say she was being silly dressing up, and polishing things so that she could give the builder next door his tea.
    But then they hadn’t read the everyday thoughts of the woman whohad lived a lonely frightened life until she had been rescued by her Johnny.
    A woman who had continued to hide in case a man might find her. A woman who had gone out in the lakes to die with her Johnny rather than face life alone without him.
    Jo, Bobby and Pat would never understand how comforting it was to sit and talk to Derek at the end of the day, and how much it had brightened up her life.
    Up to now Nan had not wanted to go anywhere, meet anyone, or try anything new. In the year since she had left work she had got out of the habit of going out. She stayed in Number Fourteen waiting there in case the children called in.
    Many days, of course, they did not visit but she never minded. They knew she would always be there so it was agood place for them to ‘kill time’, as Jo had put it the other night.
    Nan hated that phrase. Why would you want to kill time?You should spend it, enjoy it, savour it.
    She went to the art gallery so that she could tell Derek about the exhibition. She went to a theatre matinée. She took a bus tour around the city.
    She bought three brightly coloured T-shirts in a sale and wore them one by one under her black cardigan.
    â€˜You look nice,’ Derek had said when he saw the lemon or lilac or rose colours.
    â€˜You look a bit like mutton dressed as lamb Mother,’ Jo had said when she saw them. ‘Don’t you think at your age …?’
    Nan was hurt and annoyed.
    â€˜At my age I would like to be able todo a lot of things, like buy nice clothes in a proper shop instead of buying three T-shirts for the price of two at a street stall,’ she said sharply.
    Jo was surprised. Mother never spoke like this.
    â€˜You’re fine as you are Mother, you don’t like change.’ Jo tried to pat her down.
    â€˜I don’t think those very loud colours suit you, Mam,’ Bobby said, as he handed her his bag of laundry.
    â€˜You know