Night Over Water - Ken Follett [171]
Father spoke for the first time. “She can’t work in a factory, and that’s that.”
Margaret said: “I’ll be working in the sales office, not the factory. And it’s in Boston.”
“That settles it, then,” Mother said. “You’ll be living in Stamford, not Boston.”
“No, Mother, I won’t. I’ll be living in Boston.”
Mother opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, realizing at last that she was confronted with something she could not easily dismiss. She was silent for a moment; then she said: “What are you telling us?”
“Just that I’m going to leave you and go to Boston, and live in lodgings and go to work.”
“Oh, this is too stupid.”
Margaret flared: “Don’t be so dismissive.” Mother flinched at her angry tone, and Margaret immediately regretted it. She said more quietly: “I’m only doing what most girls of my age do.”
“Girls of your age, perhaps, but not girls of your class.”
“Why should that make a difference?”
“Because there’s no point in your working at a silly job for five dollars a week and living in an apartment that costs your father a hundred dollars a month.”
“I don’t want Father to pay for my apartment.”
“Then where will you live?”
“I’ve told you, in lodgings.”
“In squalor! But what is the point?”
“I shall save money until I’ve got enough for a ticket home. Then I’ll go back and join the A.T.S.”
Father spoke again. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Margaret was stung. “What don’t I know, Father?”
Mother, trying to interrupt, said: “No, don’t—”
Margaret overrode her. “I know I shall have to run errands and make coffee and answer the phone in the office. I know I shall live in a single room with a gas ring, and share the bathroom with other lodgers. I know I shan’t like being poor—but I shall love being free.”
“You don’t know anything,” he said scornfully. “Free? You? You’ll be like a pet rabbit released in a kennel. I’ll tell you what you don’t know, my girl: you don’t know that you’ve been pampered and spoiled all your life. You’ve never even been to school—”
The injustice of that brought tears to her eyes and provoked her into a rejoinder. “I wanted to go to school,” she protested. “You wouldn’t let me!”
He ignored the interruption. “You’ve had your clothes washed and your food prepared. You’ve been chauffeured everywhere you ever wanted to go. You’ve had children brought to the house to play with you. And you’ve never given a thought to how all of it was provided—”
“But I have!”
“And now you want to live on your own! You don’t know the price of a loaf of bread, do you?”
“I’ll soon find out—”
“You don’t know how to wash your own underwear. You’ve never ridden on a bus. You’ve never slept in a house alone. You don’t know how to set an alarm clock, bait a mousetrap, wash dishes, boil an egg—could you boil an egg? Do you know how?”
“Whose fault is it if I don’t?” Margaret said tearfully.
He pressed on remorselessly, his face a mask of contempt and anger. “What use will you be in an office? You can’t make the tea—you don’t know how! You’ve never seen a filing cabinet. You’ve never had to stay in one place from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon. You’ll get bored and wander off. You won’t last a week.”
He was giving expression to Margaret’s own secret worries, and that was why she was getting so upset. In her heart she was terrified that he might be right: she would be hopeless at living alone; she would get fired from her job. His mercilessly derisive voice, confidently predicting that her worst fears would come true, was destroying her dream like the sea washing away a sand castle. She cried openly, tears streaming down her face.
She heard Harry say: “This is too much—”
“Let him go on,” she said. This was one battle Harry could not fight for her: it was between her and Father.
Red in the face, wagging his finger, speaking more and more loudly, Father raved on. “Boston isn’t like Oxenford village, you know. People don’t help one another there. You’ll fall ill and get poisoned by half-breed doctors. You’ll be robbed by Jew landlords and raped by street niggers. And