Read After Julius for Free Online Page A

on this, and he heard the
washing machine stop and taps being run.
    Oh dear oh dear, he thought. It was a bit hard on poor old Dot – he didn’t care a bugger what Alfred thought of it; it was Dottie he loved – his favourite sister – in
fact none of this would have happened if he hadn’t been so shocked at what Dot had got herself into. Alfred was a little security-loving pipsqueak with no more go in him than a waterlogged
ball in the cut. He swung his legs over the settee, and while waiting for his head to subside, looked gloomily round the room. Everything about it seemed terrible to him: the walls covered with
three kinds of fidgety wallpaper, the heavily varnished bilious walnut furniture, the art mirror with a wrought-iron frame, the paper flowers nasty, greedy overfed-looking roses in the green vase
shaped like a girl wearing a transparent dress which she held up in a festoon on one side, the chair covers made of something which looked like waitresses’ greasy hair-ribbons machined
together, the zigzag mottled buff tiles where there wasn’t a fireplace, and the semi-circular rug – a cubic design in pea-green, saxe and old gold – the telly, the wedding
pictures in chrome frames, the mags which were all Dot read now she was married and the collection of Disney china animals, the streaky carpet – modern again – as Dot had proudly
pointed out, black, yellow, red, grey, black, yellow, red, grey, black . . .
    ‘Whatever are you doing?’ She stood with the tray hitched against her stomach trying to glare at him. She had eyes as violently blue as cornflowers, but there was nothing dreamy
about them, he thought: either they were fairly snapping with merriment, or stormy with unshed tears of rage. The love-light in her eyes would be something, but trying to make the adjustment
was too much for him. One’s sister was known: whenever one could see that she was attractive, one wasn’t feeling that way. ‘I wouldn’t catch me breath with a hand on her breast – tickled her too often when she was a kid.’ Aloud, he said:
    ‘Dot, you’re a lovely girl. They don’t breed ’em like you in these concrete boxes. They need room for that sort of thing. Some air, and reality, and none of this sex tied
up with where’s-my-next-meal-coming-from and everything in cans and twin beds. There’s more of you than meets the eye – you’re not the least anybody can do
–’
    ‘The last thing that will go with you will be your talk. Jaw, jaw, jaw – your teeth will fall out, and your hair fall off and you won’t have a bladder you can call your own,
but will you talk!’
    The twin beds had made her angry: Alfred didn’t like the idea of sharing a bed. She had poured his tea and now she banged it down so that it slopped. He seized her tied-back hair, which
was rich and dark-brown and hung well below her ample waist. ‘Dottie, listen to me. Drink a cup of tea and let me explain.’
    ‘Wait then, while I get me a cup.’ Pride had forbidden her to bring two in the first place. While she was gone, he drank half his scalding cup and pulled on his trousers – he
had slept in his shirt. I must be tactful, he thought: I must exercise great tact. It had a shady, foreign sound: plain speaking was his forte, but you couldn’t go around knocking women about
– even your own sister.
    He waited while she poured him another cup and one for herself; he could hear three separate radios. When she had sat down on a hard chair at the table – this was the living-room –
rested her rosy face on one hand which was wrinkled and white from washing, and was looking elaborately unconcerned and in a different direction, he knew she was listening and ready.
    ‘About last night, Dot – I’m sorry, and that’s all I can say.’ He knew that she would disbelieve a graceful apology; it had to be wrenched from him for her to
accept it. So he added grudgingly: ‘I mean it.’
    She said stiffly: ‘You’d no call to go