Free The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead

had brought from home, and the double bed which she now used alone, there was plenty of room for their play.
    Henny sat down at the dressing table to take off her hat. They clustered round the silver-littered table, picked up her rings.
    “What did you buy, Mother?” someone persisted.
    “Mother, can I have a nickel?”
    Henny said, fluffing out the half-gray curls round her face, “I asked my mother for fifty cents to see the elephant jump the fence. Shoo, get out! You wretched limpets never give me a minute to myself.”
    “Mother, can I have a nickel, please?”
    “Mother, what did you buy-uy?” chanted Henny’s baby, Tommy, a dark four-year-old boy with shining almond eyes and a skullcap of curls. Meanwhile he climbed on the dressing table and, after studying her reflection for a long time in the mirror, kissed it.
    “Look, Moth, Tommy kissed you in the glass!” They laughed at him, while he, much flattered, blushed and leaned over to kiss her, giving her a hearty smack-smack while he watched himself in the mirror.
    “Oh, you kissing bug! It’s unlucky for two to look in the same glass. Now get down and get out! Go and feed the darn animals and then come and wash your hands for dinner.”
    The flood receded, leaving Henny high and dry again. She sighed and got out the letter she had received that afternoon, reading it carefully.
    At the end she folded it again, said with a sneer, “And a greasy finger mark from his greasy hypocritical mauler right in the middle: the sight of his long pious cheeks like suet and her fat red face across the table from each other—”
    She looked at the letter thoughtfully for a while, turning it over, got out her fountain pen, and started a reply. But she tore her sheet of paper across, spat on the soiled letter, and, picking it up with a pair of curling tongs, burned it and her few scratchings in a little saucepan which had boiled dry on the radiator.
    The letter was from her eldest brother, Norman Collyer. It refused to lend her money and said, somewhere near the offensive finger mark,
    You should be able to manage. Your husband is making about $8,000 yearly and you always got lucky dips anyhow, being Father’s pet. I can only give you some good advice, which doubtless you will not follow, knowing you as I do. That is, draw in your horns, retrench somehow, don’t go running up accounts and don’t borrow from moneylenders. I’ve seen my own family half starving. What do you think I can make out of the job Father gives me?
    You must get out of your own messes. The trouble is you never had to pay for your mistakes before.
    Henny opened her windows to let the smoke out, and then began taking trinkets out of her silver jewel case and looking at them discontentedly. She threw open the double doors of her linen closet and rummaged amongst the sheets, pulling out first a library book and then two heavy silver soup ladles and six old silver teaspoons. She looked at them indifferently for a moment and then stuck them back in their hiding place.
    She let Louie give the children their dinner, and ate hers on a tray in her bedroom, distractedly figuring on a bit of envelope. When she brought her tray out to the kitchen, Louie was slopping dishes about in the sink. Henny cried,
    “Take your fat belly out of the sink! Look at your dress! Oh, my God! Now I’ve got to get you another one clean and dry for Monday. You’ll marry a drunkard when you grow up, always wet in front. Ernie, help Louie with the washing-up, and you others make yourselves scarce. And turn off the darn radio. It’s enough when Mr. Big-Me is at home blowing off steam.”
    They ran out cheerfully while Louie drooped her underlip and tied a towel round her waist. Henny sighed, picked up the cup of tea that Louie had just poured out for her, and went into her bedroom, next door to the kitchen. She called from there,
    “Ernie, bring me your pants and I’ll mend them.”
    “There’s time,” he shouted