Read As Time Goes By for Free Online

here,’ she told the man, flushing when he put his foot inside the door before she could close it, wrapping his huge meaty hand round the door edge.
    By the time she reached the back parlour her hands were trembling so much she could hardly count out the money from her purse. Not that she needed to count it. After all, she knew to the penny just how many extra hours she had to work every week to pay for the pitifully small sum of money Ronnie had originally borrowed when they had first got married.
    She had known nothing about this loan until before the end of Ronnie’s last leave. He had been on edge and distant with her, alternating between moody silences and outbursts of angry temper the whole time. Then when she had begged him to tell her what was wrong it had all come pouring out. Tears had filled his eyes as he had admitted how he had borrowed money from a moneylender just before their wedding, primarily to pay off some betting debts he had run up. He had, he said, got in with a crowd of other young soldiers who all wanted to have a good time. The moneylender had persuaded him to borrow a bit extra to help out with the wedding expenses, and to pay for the honeymoon. Everything had been all right at first, he had told her, until he had increased the loan when Tommy had been born, and now he hadfallen behind with the payments and Mr Wade’s debt collectors were pressing him to make good the deficit.
    It gave Sally a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach just thinking about that afternoon even now. At first she had been disbelieving. Ronnie was a serving soldier, earning as much as any other man, and she certainly wasn’t an extravagant housewife – far from it; she budgeted carefully and was proud of herself for doing so. Now Ronnie had revealed to her a side of his life she had never dreamed existed: betting, borrowing money and getting into debt. These weren’t things that belonged to the kind of life she had believed they had had; the decent respectable safe kind of life that had made her feel so secure and which had deepened her love for Ronnie for being the good provider she had believed he was. Then suddenly she had felt as though a trap door had opened beneath her feet, plunging her into a frightening place. As the reality of what Ronnie was saying to her had sunk in, her shock had given way to anger against him for being so irresponsible. That in turn had given way to compassionate pity when she had seen how sorry and ashamed he was. They were a married couple sharing the good and the bad times together, she had told him firmly as she held him as tightly and protectively as though he were their young son’s age. Somehow they would find a way to pay off the money that was owing.
    That had been when she had first started working at the Grafton.

    But somehow the loan just never seemed to get repaid, and then Ronnie had admitted to her that he had got involved with a betting syndicate during his leave and that he had had to increase their loan to cover his share of its losses. They had had a horrible verbal fight, which had ended up with Ronnie clinging to her and begging her to forgive him whilst promising that it wouldn’t happen again. What could she do? He was a soldier about to be sent on overseas duties – how could she let him go without giving him the comfort of her love and her trust, no matter what her inner fears? And so she had hugged him back and held him tightly and told him that he mustn’t worry. She had even managed to laugh and say lightly that what with the extra work the Government wanted women to take on for the war effort, she would have the debt repaid by the time he was next home on leave. He had been so grateful for her understanding and so lovingly tender and filled with regret that she had told herself that she had done the right thing. But then when he had gone she had discovered that the amount he had borrowed was far more than he had told her, and she had been filled with angry