Free Her Victory by Alan Sillitoe

George, so that she woke with tears on remembering that part of her life. What she had lived could not be taken away, but anguish did not diminish on seeing the first light of another day straining at the window, which could only be pushed back by switching on the light and glancing in the mirror as she passed to brush her teeth at the sink. Change was a poison that had to run its course before healing could begin. But knowing such a thing did not make life easier to bear. Her inability to profit from self-knowledge created a further layer of torment.
    She could reflect any person in her mirror, but it was another matter when it came to who was allowed into her dreams. The walls of rooms and corridors glowed with pale intimidating light. Such dreams caused her mind to labour all night long among frightening combinations of people she had known, permutations lacking any logic or reason. The underworld dogs of the past were set on her by George and his family now that they were no longer able to get at her above ground. They came through doorways, or sprang in mayhem from the waves of the sea or the muddy banks of rivers. With changing faces they pursued her towards disaster, so that she woke having bitten hard enough on her finger for blood to show. At breakfast it was impossible to reorganize every move of her night’s dreams.
    If George had been unfortunate in meeting her, he had been even more unlucky with the family he had been born into. Perhaps such was the common burden of the self-made man, because having something to fight against gave inordinate resource and strength. It was impossible to get away from his family, but he never ceased trying, while making it obvious that his effort was as much for Pam’s sake as for his own, though she guessed that the process must have started long before meeting her.
    They had broken with his brothers on many occasions, and though George felt safer and more at peace she knew that he also regretted the poorer spiritual surroundings in which he found himself. He had sharpened his ambition, and learned that the value of what you strove for was only equalled by the payment you made. Having taught him, she now had to learn the same hard lessons for herself.
    George’s family despised his endeavours to become better off, gave their opinion that to say he’d been born would be putting it mildly. Hatched was more like it, for a money-grubbing weasel like him. You couldn’t deny their humour, as they clacked with laughter behind his back. When George first set up the workshop his three brothers got sacked from their jobs and expected him to set them on, to pay them more than his best men yet allow them to boss it over the others and walk around in clean overalls all day doing nothing, as if that was their right, on the cynical assumption that blood was thicker than water.
    George, knowing them better than she did, was more afraid of them. They were a woebegone lot, he complained, always glued to the telly or a pint of ale, a rough bunch who knew nothing more than how to live from hand to mouth.
    After one severance of contact they made telephone calls while George was at work.
    â€˜Pam?’
    â€˜Who’s that?’
    â€˜Harry.’
    â€˜Oh, yes.’
    â€˜I’m ringing to ask if you’ll lend us ten quid. We ain’t got a cent between us.’
    â€˜I haven’t got it. We’ve nothing to spare.’
    He waited for her to say something else, but she held back, though it was hard to do so.’
    â€˜Mean bleeder!’ he said at last.
    â€˜What do you want?’
    â€˜Can we come up and watch a film on your colour telly?’
    â€˜No. We’re busy.’
    â€˜We shan’t bother you.’
    Pause.
    What next? she wondered.
    â€˜You set him against us. Our George was all right till he married you.’
    â€˜You’re off your head. Stop phoning.’
    â€˜Why don’t you help us, then?’
    â€˜We have