Free New and Collected Stories by Alan; Sillitoe Page A

mouth. Like a gentle tide washing in under the moon, a line of water flowing inwards and covering the sand, a feeling of acute loneliness took hold of him, an agony that would not let him weep. The two girls sat before him wholly engrossed in themselves, still debating whether they should buy a cake, or whether they should ride home on a bus.
    â€˜But it’ll be cold,’ reasoned the elder, ‘walking home.’
    â€˜No it won’t,’ the other said, but with no conviction in her words. The sound of their voices told him how lonely he was, each word feeding him with so much more loneliness that he felt utterly unhappy and empty.
    Time went slowly: the minute-hand of the clock seemed as if it were nailed immovably at one angle. The two girls looked at each other and did not notice him: he withdrew into himself and felt the emptiness of the world and wondered how he would spend all the days that seemed to stretch vacantly, like goods on a broken-down conveyor belt, before him. He tried to remember things that had happened and felt panic when he discovered a thirty-year vacuum. All he could see behind was a grey mist and all he could see before him was the same unpredictable fog that would hide nothing. He wanted to walk out of the café and find some activity so that he would henceforth be able to mark off the passage of his empty days, but he had no will to move. He heard someone crying so shook himself free of such thoughts and saw the younger girl with hands to her eyes, weeping. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked tenderly, leaning across the table.
    The elder girl replied for her, saying sternly:
    â€˜Nothing. She’s acting daft.’
    â€˜But she must be crying for some reason. What is it?’ Ernest persisted, quietly and soothingly, bending closer still towards her. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’ Then he remembered something. He drew it like a live thread from a mixture of reality and dream, hanging on to vague words that floated back into his mind. The girls’ conversation came to him through an intricate process of recollection. ‘I’ll get you something to eat,’ he ventured. ‘Can I?’
    She unscrewed clenched fingers from her eyes and looked up, while the elder girl glared at him resentfully and said: ‘We don’t want anything. We’re going now.’
    â€˜No, don’t go,’ he cried. ‘You just sit down and see what I’m going to get for you.’ He stood up and walked to the counter, leaving them whispering to each other.
    He came back with a plate of pastries and two cups of tea, which he set before the girls, who looked on in silence. The younger was smiling now. Her round eager eyes were fascinated, yet followed each movement of his hands with some apprehension. Though still hostile the elder girl was gradually subdued by the confidently working actions of his hands, by caressing words and the kindness that showed in his face. He was wholly absorbed in doing good and, at the same time, fighting the feeling of loneliness that he still remembered, but only as a nightmare is remembered.
    The two children fell under his spell, began to eat cakes and sip the tea. They glanced at each other, and then at Ernest as he sat before them smoking a cigarette. The café was still almost empty, and the few people eating were so absorbed in themselves, or were in so much of a hurry to eat their food and get out that they took little notice of the small company in the corner. Now that the atmosphere between himself and the two girls had grown more friendly Ernest began to talk to them. ‘Do you go to school?’ he asked.
    The elder girl automatically assumed control and answered his questions. ‘Yes, but today we had to come down town on an errand for our mam.’
    â€˜Does your mother go out to work, then?’
    â€˜Yes,’ she informed him. ‘All day.’
    Ernest was encouraged. ‘And does