Johnny Swanson by Eleanor Updale Page B

He stopped talking. She still just stood and stared down at the table.
    It was laid for three. That was strange. They never had visitors. It was always just the two of them, if that. More often these days they each ate alone, because Winnie was out at work so much. Johnny looked around. There was no one else in the room.
    ‘Is someone coming to supper?’ he asked. Then he saw a chance to get back his mother’s favour – he unbuttoned his coat and took out the cake. ‘What a stroke of luck!’ he said. ‘Hutch gave me this as I was leaving the shop. He was throwing it out because – well, you can see. It’s got a bit squashed. No one would want to buy that now, would they?’ He knew he was talking too much – saying too many words too quickly to sound as casual and convincing as he wanted to. But at least the cake really was soggy and deformed after its journey home in the rain.
    Winnie still said nothing.
    Johnny felt he had to fill the gap. ‘Who’s coming, Mum? Who’s the extra place for?’
    ‘Can’t you guess?’ said Winnie, in a voice laced with a bitterness Johnny seldom heard.
    Johnny was stumped. How could he know who she’d invited to share their meal?
    Winnie’s voice had a note of sarcasm now. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult for you. After all, you know her better than I do.’
    ‘Who? I don’t know, Mum. Tell me. Don’t make me guess. I can’t think of anyone.’ His mind raced through the women they knew, but none of them ever came inside the house, let alone to tea. Could it be someone important? One of his teachers perhaps? Please, no. Not that. Mrs Slack? Or worse, Miss Dangerfield? Was Winnie trying to make peace with her?
    Winnie stood still, stern and smouldering. Then she snatched the cake from Johnny and slid it out of its wet paper bag straight onto the table. She picked up the bread knife and thrust it towards him so hard that for the first time in his life he thought she might really want to hurt him. ‘You cut it,’ she spat. ‘Does she like cake? How much does she want? You decide. You’re the one who knows all about her.’
    With a blow of physical horror, Johnny realized why his mother was so angry. A few days before, in the shop, Hutch had named the sensation that Johnny was experiencing now. They had been quietly unloading a delivery when Hutch had stopped dead and clapped his hand to his mouth. Johnny had wondered if he was ill, but Hutch explained that he wasn’t unwell, hehad just had a terrible ‘clong’. A ‘clong’, he said, was ‘a rush of cold sick to the heart’. It was what happened when everything was going well, and you suddenly realized that you should be somewhere else, or had let somebody down, or were about to be found out. For Hutch, that day, the clong came when he recalled a promise to provide refreshments for the Mayor and Mayoress as they paid an official visit to the Chamber of Commerce. The event had already started, and Hutch had done absolutely nothing about it. It had slipped from his mind completely. Until the clong.
    Now Johnny felt that same chilly, electric sickness. There was a metallic buzz in his joints, and his body seemed to be gearing up to run, though his feet were too heavy to move. He could feel his brain lurching to invent explanations, but failing to find even two coherent words. He wished he was still outside, with that wonderful expectation of how happy his mother would be to hear about the lights at the Langfords’, and to see the wonderful cake. But there was no chance of happiness now. Because before his mother spoke again, Johnny knew what she was going to say:
    ‘Go on, Johnny,’ she shouted, with a catch of hysteria in her voice. ‘Cut her a slice. Go on. Cut a nice slice of cake for your Auntie Ada!’

Chapter 17
THE ROW
    ‘H ow could you?’ cried Winnie. ‘What were you thinking of? How could you make me look so …’ She couldn’t find a word for the humiliation she had felt when she’d run into