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Reading the Books...
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Welcome to ‘Reading the Books’. Scroll down to read some fascinating excerpts from several of our books.
LIFE IS A BETTLE
By Paul Mason
with Allan David,
material gathered by Stuart Jacobs and Amy Abrams Graber.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES: Paul Mason will be known to practically everyone in the whole world; if his isn’t a household name, his work certainly is: He produced Ironside, Perry Mason, Sabrina the Teen Age Witch, Mac Millan and Wife. He was senior vice president, later president, of Viacom Productions; currently he is President of Barstu Productions. His most recent effort is Hachiko: A Dog’s Story, with Richard Gere and Joan Allen. He has written numerous screen plays, and a book: PRODUCING FOR HOLLYWOOD, and has served time as an actor. He did The Amityville Horror, Day of the Dead, Nickel and Dime, Committed, I, Madman – and the list goes on – four pages on Yahoo.
ABOUT THE BOOK: There is one piece of Paul Mason’s work that is not generally known: LIFE IS A BETTLE, a family effort that celebrates the life of Paul Mason’s mother, Esther Simon Bloomberg, and dedicated to his father, Abe, circulated only amongst the family and Esther’s close friends. But Paul has been persuaded that this is a story that needs to be heard beyond the family, a universal story that has its own individuality, its own uniqueness, about a woman who made a better country, a better world. She had a lot to give, and she gave it freely. Her philosophy was, “Life is a bettle (as she pronounced it). You gotta be a soldier.” Esther was a general, and never stopped fighting for what she knew had to be done, like for example, The City of Hope, created, by the garment workers, for those who fell ill and needed medical attention. Originally almost wholly a Jewish effort, in an immigrant community, in due course it embraced even newer immigrants still, few of whom were Jewish. A City of Hope fund-raising Bazaar was a memorable event, one in which employers contributed the fabric, and the garment workers contributed their time.
Paul’s father was a baker. For a time they had a shop. According to the family, the most remarkable things emerged from there, including apple slices, and jelly donuts, into which one of Paul’s sisters used to insert the jelly. Abe was a fisherman, and Paul became one too, companions who went forth together, in pursuit of the prizes sometimes bestowed upon the persistent who fished Lake Michigan, perch, not big, but delicious to eat. In due course, Paul moved on, to the pursuit of bigger fish still, Blue Marlin in the South Pacific.
MATERIAL FROM THE BOOK:
Being useful was very important to Ma. She worked for many charities. The We Will Aid and the Northwest Home for the Aged are two that I remember, but the City of Hope was her favorite.
On collection days she would stand on the corner of Lawrence and Kimball, collection can in hand, and stop people going to and from work. You did not pass her easily without dropping a coin in the box.
I can clearly see the faces of many of those wonderful women who had so little themselves, but somehow managed to find the time to help those less fortunate.
Here is an excerpt from this remarkable story, as told by Paul’s sister:
Before she used to spend the winters in Florida, she used to go to Hot Springs in Arkansas.
We could not convince her to fly. She said, “If you fly you have to get off the plane at Little Rock and then get on a bus. So it’s better to go on the bus in the first place.” It was a nineteen-hour ride to Hot Springs.
One time, Allan and I went to pick her up on her return. We expected an exhausted old lady after such a grueling nineteen-hour bus ride. But there she was, practically jumping off the bus. She turned around to a large, six-foot guy with a huge Stetson and said, “So long, Tex.”
The Texan smiled and replied, “So long, Esthah.”
Allan and I looked at each other in utter disbelief at the weird scene.
I later found out they stayed at the same hotel and he thought Ma was lucky for him. Every time he spoke with her before going to the track, he won. So she sold him four raffle books for twenty dollars for the City of Hope.
Here is another
I got my first steady job in Hollywood and was to be paid $750 a week (a great deal of money at the time). When I told Ma, she said, "They pay you $750 a week, every week?"
I said, "Yeah, guaranteed, fifty-two weeks a year." She was very impressed. It was hard for her to believe because Pa never made more than five thousand a year in the best of years.
A few months after I started the job I got into a fight with one of the producers and quit.
First I called my sister Mickey and told her, 'I can't work with these guys, they're a bunch of crazies. It's just no fun." She agreed with my decision, saying, "You were doing almost as well free-lancing and if you were that miserable, you were right to quit.”
I decided to call Ma and tell her of my decision.I told Ma I wasn't happy with the job and that I quit.She said, "You didn't quit. They must have fired you. Go back and apologize."
I told her that I wasn't going to apologize and that I'm leaving the job.
Her reply. "You couldn't have quit. NOBODY quits a job for $750 a week."
I repeated my lament. "Ma, I wasn't happy and I quit. The job is just no fun."
She said, “Who says you’re supposed to be happy. Remember, YOU DON’T GO TO FUN IN THE MORNING…THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT WORK!
I called up my boss Sid Sheinberg and told him the story. It became very famous all over Hollywood! Whenever a writer or director or star would come in to complain, Sid would say, "Let me tell you what Paul's mother says about work."
Everybody at the studio keeps repeating "You don’t go to fun in the morning…that’s why they call it work.”
Another excerpt:
Ma had a rich father, but he was amongst the cheapest men alive.He refused to spend it or lend it.Then came the Great Depression,and he lost everything.So he went to my mother and said,"Esther, I've lost all my money.What should I do?" "Listen," she said, "When you had it, you never spent it. Pretend you still got it."
Another excerpt:
One day Leo and I picked up Ma and brought her to our house. We just purchased the new Shelley Berman record and thought Ma would get a big kick out of it. Berman did a routine of calling his father on the telephone and informing him that he wanted to be an actor. Ma listened carefully while watching us laughing ourselves silly. After awhile, she turned to us and said quite seriously. "This is funny? A son talking like that to his father?"
Another excerpt:
When my Grandma Simon died, my mother was past seventy herself. So when she started to cry, I was surprised. I had never seen my mother cry, so I started to console her. "Ma, Grandma lived to be ninety-five. That's pretty good." "Listen," she said, "remember, when they die, you're an orphan."
ON SINAI'S LOFTY MOUNTAIN
by Sidney Du Broff
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES: Sidney Du Broff, American-born, London-based, is the author of numerous works, of both fiction and non-fiction, as well as hundreds of articles and stories, published in twenty-three countries. He is listed in Who's Who in the World, Contemporary Authors, Men of Achievement, Author's and Writer's Who's Who, and Who is Where. He is second-prize winner in the Golden Hedgehog International Competition for Humor and Satire. Sidney Du Broff has reported extensively on events in Europe and the Middle East, and his work is required reading at university level.
ABOUT THE BOOK: This is a work of fiction, but a true story about a spy, Jonathan Pollard, employed by U. S. Naval Intelligence. He discovered that vital information had been deliberately withheld from Israel, despite an agreement to the contrary, but which Pollard supplied. For him, the implications were unmistakably clear: As far as the United States is concerned, Israel is expendable.
Sandy Spaulding, a lawyer, is dedicated to providing help for Jonathan (who was caught by US Authorities, and sentenced to life imprisonment, his wife, Anne, to five years as an accessory). Sandy, though not born Jewish, nevertheless considers herself to be Jewish, until her husband Mark asks her to convert officially, which she refuses to do. She also refuses her son David's request for her conversion, without which he cannot have the Bar Mitzvah he intensely desires. Devoted to her husband and son, she probes deeply into her own conscience, her own culture and her own fears, wondering the extent to which these stand in the way of her making that final and decisive step.
MATERIAL FROM THE BOOK:
Mark Spaulding sits at a table in Dario's with several others, near the door, in the process of finishing lunch.Dario's is a small, intimate restaurant where Washington insiders gather to exchange thoughts, some ideas, some information, some relevant gossip.
Mark is a lawyer, a partner in the Washington-based think tank, the United States Center for World Study. He is more than six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders, an imposing man in his early forties, as much inclined to listen as to speak.
Ruggedly good-looking, people cannot help but take notice of him, though he is not particularly aware of his exceptional looks. His eyes are brown, his hair, cut short - but not too short - is auburn. His face is clean shaven, open and inquisitive. There is an air of quiet confidence about him. His physical power is obvious, too, which he appears - not consciously - to try to minimize, concerned that it might be intimidating.
The door bursts open at Dario's. George Warton explodes into the restaurant, seething with anger and indignation, a newspaper in his hand. A man in his forties, biggish, going to fat, hair cropped short; Mark knows him as someone fairly high up in the Defense Department, whom he does not particularly like, rather overbearing like those frequently encountered at Defense.
Wharton stops in front of Mark's table. He holds up the paper, which has obviously just appeared, in both of his trembling hands. The headline screams: ALAN BRADY CAUGHT SPYING FOR ISRAEL.
In a voice filled with rage, Warton says, "He's that rotten little Jew bastard over at Naval Intelligence. All those rotten Jews are traitors. They'll sell out to Israel every day of the week. Too bad Hitler didn't get them all."
Only by chance has Warton stopped at Mark's table. Now Mark stands up, and confronts Warton, towering over him. Warton looks surprised, and annoyed, that someone is about to interfere with his important disclosures.
Mark takes a slow and deliberate step toward Warton. With the same deliberation, he gathers up Warton by the shirt front with his left hand, and smashes him hard in the face with his right hand, the sound of fist against flesh audible throughout most of the restaurant.
The diners gasp in stunned silence as Warton falls against the not-yet-cleared table opposite. Most of those present who are witness to the entire scenario feel immense satisfaction; those not in sympathy find it expedient to stay silent, and seated.
Warton remains immobile on the table, blood spurting from an obviously broken nose. He looks up at Mark, who is standing over him, with a mixture of terror and hatred, too frightened to move, too frightened to offer a defense. "I'll get you," Warton says. "I'll get you if it's the last thing I ever do."
Mark is in no mood to be threatened. He jerks Warton from the table, and holds him up with both hands. He looks hard into Warton's eyes, and says "Get me! Get me now, you son of a bitch!"
Now is not the time. Warton remains limp, like a rag doll, held up only by Mark's powerful hands. Warton makes no reply, aware that his immediate future is highly dubious.
Mark flings him down hard against the table. The table collapses. The dishes fall on him. The gravy stains his suit, and his white shirt, now turned red with his own blood.
Dario, having observed the whole scene, rushes over to Mark. "Are you all right, Mr. Spaulding?" he asks, concern in his voice.
"I'm fine, Dario, just fine."
Dario turns to Warton, still on the floor. "Get out of my restaurant," he screams at him. "Get out of my restaurant and don't ever come back, you scum of the earth." He signals for his waiters, who are standing nearby. "Get this man out of here. Throw him in the gutter."
Before they can comply two men appear from the back of the restaurant, perhaps colleagues whom Warton had come here to meet, if their close-cropped heads are any clue. "We'll deal with him," one of them says.
Distastefully they lean down to retrieve Warton, who moves his elbows slightly so that the two men can get him to his feet, half carrying him, half dragging him out of the door.
Most of the diners break into spontaneous applause. "Good for you," some of them call. "Well done."
Mark reddens. He feels suddenly embarrassed. He returns to his chair and sips his coffee, and rubs his bruised hand.
This is Washington D.C. - District of Columbia - the capital of the United States of America, where the laws are made, essentially a small town, where news travels fast. In a very short time most people in Washington will have heard about the incident at Dario's. Before the day is out, it will also be common knowledge in the bedroom suburbs around Washington. Cell phones have their uses.
Some endorsements and comments about ON SINAI'S LOFTY MOUNTAIN
RABBI JACQUELINE TABICK, former Chairman, Council of Reform and Liberal Rabbis: "I found it very interesting - It certainly will alert readers to Jonathan Pollard's problem, but in some ways what I found even more interesting was the way in which you described the challenges, tensions, and possibilities within inter-faith marriages. It was a book that I very much wanted to read to the end."
PETER HASLER Institute of Historical Research, London University: "My word, what a tour de force, what a blend of history and creative imagination, I little knew that you had this time bomb waiting for me. Nothing detracts from this enthralling book, which illuminates so much of the troubled history of the Middle East. I look forward to ON GALILEE'S SACRED HILL."
RT HON SIR GEORGE YOUNG, Bt, MP, former Conservative Minister of Transport, outstanding Parliamentarian and Cabinet Minister: "As your Member of Parliament, I got an insight into some of the issues raised in the book, and the ingredients should certainly make a most readable work."
RABBI PINNI DUNNER, Former Director, Jewish Spectrum Radio, Rabbi of the Sacchi Synagogue: "This book seems to have everything in it - memories of Vietnam - Echoes of the Holocaust - Drama from the establishment of the State of Israel - Intermarriage, even. Immigration - and much more."
COLLETTE AVITAL, former Deputy Director General of the European Desk in the Foreign Ministry, Israel: former Consul General of Israel in New York: "I was impressed by the objectivity of the writer. Mr Du Broff's efforts on behalf of the Pollards, as well as his well-earned reputation as an author, ensure that readers will enjoy this excellent novel."
LAPSED CATHOLIC OF POLISH EXTRACTION (name withheld to protect the guilty): "Now I understand why everybody hates the Jews."
SHARON GARFINKEL, in THE JEWISH CHRONICLE: "On Sinai's Lofty Mountain paces from America to Israel, evoking many of the more controversial aspects of modern Jewish identity, among them Zionism, conversion and responses to anti-Semitism.
"The treatment of Israeli history has an authentic ring and testifies to painstaking research by Du Broff whose marriage of fact and fiction is handled soundly."
ANGELA WINNER, Essex housewife, mother of three: "The part that I enjoyed the most was at the Bar Mitzvah, at the Wailing Wall. I thought it was so true to life it brought tears to my eyes - it was very touching. I just found the whole book absolutely fantastic."
From the Office of ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: "On behalf of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, thank you for your letter and the book ON SINAI'S LOFTY MOUNTAIN by Sidney Du Broff. Considering Mr Du Broff's deep involvement and his renown as an author, this novel is no doubt well worth reading. Warmest regards from Jerusalem."
LADY VALERIE COCKS, former Director, Labour Friends of Israel: "This is not a book that any Zionist can just read and then criticize. One dives into this book and swims in it, sinks, flounders, and finishes in one piece, if one is lucky."`
ON GALILEE’S SACRED HILL
by Sidney Du Broff
ABOUT THE BOOK: David Spaulding, son of the powerful, wealthy and socially conscious Spaulding family, in the sequel to the very-well received, On Sinai’s Lofty Mountain, is reporting behind-the-scenes events from Israel, when he encounters, again, Jihan Husseini, a beautiful and prominent Israeli-Arab girl who is deeply in love with him. Shashona, a left-wing kibbutz girl, is herself in love with David, though she would never admit it out loud, and perhaps not even to herself. Her family, and his, have a long history in which together they struggled to create the State of Israel.
Ultimately David comes to realize that he is in love with Jihan, and after some initial opposition from his family, marries her. Eventually they have a daughter. But Jihan’s brothers, objecting to her life-style, kill her. David takes his revenge, is badly wounded in the process, and is about to be finished off by Jihan’s father, who orders his wife to bring his shotgun; she complies, but turns it on her husband, and saves David.
Shashona would like to make a life with David, and be a mother to his daughter, but is thwarted by David’s continuing love for his dead wife. With the passage of time, and after an Arab-planted bomb kills Shashona’s parents and others on the kibbutz, David and Shashona come together. They are delighted by her ensuing pregnancy, which is suddenly terminated by an Arab-suicide-bomber.
MATERIAL FROM THE BOOK:
David phones his father on the secure line.
"Dad, would you have our people check my car. There may be something on it, or under it, or maybe it's just a hoax.""Dad, would you have our people check my car. There may be something on it, or under it, or maybe it's just a hoax.""Dad, would you have our people check my car. There may be something on it, or under it, or maybe it's just a hoax.""Dad, would you have our people check my car. There may be something on it, or under it, or maybe it's just a hoax."
"I'll take care of it immediately," Mark says.
The car is in the underground parking lot of David's apartment building. There is a bomb under it. Turn on the ignition and it goes bang. They must have bribed the building supervisor to let them in. The underground parking lot was assumed to be safe, secured by closed circuit television cameras.
The bomb is diffused.
It doesn't get into the papers.
"Any idea who did it?" Mark asks.
"A pretty good idea."
David wonders if Jihan could have been involved.
She knew about it. But she'd warned him. He owes her for that. He owes her his life. That's a lot to be indebted for.A few days later Jihan appears in David's office.
"Thanks," he tells her.
"My pleasure."
"I owe you."
“I’m here to collect.”
“Name your price.”
“A kiss.”
David hadn’t expected this. In his own begrudging way he kind of likes the girl. If she is the enemy, she is the enemy who preserved his life. What is the extent of his obligation? If a fireman saves your life, you don’t have to kiss him for it.
But he is in her debt.
"I'd sooner pay money."
He is trifling with her. She knows it. "How much?" she asks.
"A million."
She thinks a moment, as if considering it.
Then she says, "I'd sooner have the kiss. Would you really pay a million dollars to avoid kissing me? That isn't very good for a girl's ego."
In reply, David bends down and kisses her gently on the cheek.
"That was nice, David. But it isn't even part payment."
David sighs audibly, as if resigned to this terrible ordeal He bends down and kisses her lightly on the lips.
"Even better, David. That was worth — perhaps a quarter of a million."
"Ill pay the difference."
"Pick me up in your arms and hold me close. Kiss me on the lips - for a long time, until I can't breathe - like they do it in those novels."
"I don't read 'those novels'."
"You should. They're filled with love. All men should read them."
She holds out her arms and closes her eyes.
What do you do when the girl who saved your life asks you to kiss her?
He picks her up in his arms, as if she were two feathers, her feet now far off the ground. He holds her close. He realizes that he is finding this not too distasteful, but he does not want to admit, even to himself, that he is enjoying it. He touches his lips to hers, at first very gently.
He feels her arms around him, holding him tightly. Their lips press more closely, and they hold together - for a period of time that defies measure.
Then he puts her down. She is in something of a daze. When at last she can speak she says "That was worth a million. Thank you, David. Your debt is paid in full."
She turns and leaves.
David too is in something of a daze. He collapses into his chair. This was the enemy he just kissed. Could you separate the two — the kissing and the enemy? No, not objectively speaking; they were one and the same.
CROSS US
CROSS US AND YOU’RE DEAD
A biography
by Sidney Du Broff
ABOUT THE BOOK: ‘Cross Us – and You’re Dead’.
That’s our family motto, at least according to Cousin George. I thought it was ‘In Our Stride’. I like that better. We take it all in our stride – all of life. I’ve got it wrong, though. Cousin George is right. It sounds good –- Cross us and you’re dead -- but, you know, it isn’t, especially when we do it to each other.
So come along on this biography, an episodic journey that takes you to Russia – to and from, actually. And that hell-hole that is New York. To Chicago, where my mother was in jail – for union activities. Come with us, into exile, with a stop-over in Israel, not a place for a permanent stay, and see London, England; you wouldn’t think anyone would want to do exile here. You would be wrong, a lot of people have, including Karl Marx. He’s buried here. He’s got a big impressive monument, in a Catholic cemetery. What are you doing there, Karl? You’re as Jewish as the Chief Rabbi. We’ll stop by anyway, and put some flowers at the base of his monument, even though he got it all wrong. We’ll take you all over Eastern Europe, during Communist days. It was great. I shot a wild boar in Bulgaria, and one in Russia, too. I almost shot one in East Germany, but they ran off before I could get a shot. But after I said the East Germans were pursuing their Nazi past, I was denounced and banned, forever.
Hear our tales, here and there: the Iraqi Scuds hitting the ground with a dull thud, around us in Tel Aviv, shared in her hospital room, with Anne Pollard, divorced wife of convicted spy for Israel, Jonathan Pollard. Dinner with Mom’s strike-breaking family. Our Indian family, and why everyone needs one.
MATERIAL FROM THE BOOK:
My parents met. They had a lot in common. They wanted to make the revolution. The armed revolution against the American Government. They had the lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest on their side. Or maybe the lumberjacks had my parents on their side. It never really came off, though, even if shots were fired in anger. My mother even denied ever having been a Wobbly. She was lying. I knew she was lying.
And Uncle Nate was a revolutionary, too. Not the same kind as my mother. He wanted to make one in Russia – a social democratic one – just Jews, Jewish workers: the Bund. Say it all in Yiddish. They didn’t like the communists, and the communists didn’t like them. Only Nate wasn’t in Russia. He was in America. He didn’t feel a need to join my mother in her revolution. It was permeated with goys. And the other Revolution – he was too late for that one – even though George Washington, in appreciation of Chaim Solomon’s efforts in financing the Revolution, put a menorah and a Star of David on dollar bills. (It’s still there; have a look at the eagle.)
My uncle had a gun until his mother dropped it down the outhouse during a police raid, then sent my uncle off to America, which she thought was a better place than Siberia. But she never made it across herself, because she promised to stay and wait for her son to return when the revolution began. It began without him, and swallowed her up in the civil war that followed.
How about this, my father as investment guru: Uncle Nate came to my father with some money in his hand and told my father to invest it, since my father made it apparent that he knew all about the stock market. My father duly complied, and, in a little while, lost my uncle’s money. All of it. He didn’t tell my uncle, of course, for obvious reasons, merely showed him the stock market listing in the paper, which Nate couldn’t read anyway, and explained that it was a good solid stock, even though it wasn’t paying any dividends. The years passed. Nate was ready to build his dream cottage in the Dunes of Indiana. He ordered my father to sell his stock for whatever he could get. Nate needed the money. Now.
My father went out and borrowed some money from his friendly loan shark, who was always paid back on time, even if my father didn’t have the money, by the simple expedient of borrowing money from a second loan shark to pay back the first. (Later we heard of nations doing this, but nowhere did I ever hear of my father getting any credit for this great economic feat.) My father explained to me what an honourable man he was. But even at age eleven I could see some flaws in my father’s methods. Many years later, in the house in the Dunes of Indiana, that my father had in part financed, my uncle revealed his financial encounter with my father, probably out of malice, about which he thought I knew nothing, complaining that the amount was so small. (Nobody ever told me how much was involved.)
“I know about your money, Nate. There wasn’t any. He lost it.”
Nate, filled with indignation, and shaking an agitated arm at me, demanded, “You know this!” obviously not wanting to believe me.
“Since I was eleven,” I said.
FINDEM/FEELEM
By Geraldine Falconhurst
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES: For obvious reasons Ms Falconhurst does not wish to discuss her personal life further.
ABOUT THE BOOK: Christine is unfazed by what others might term incest. Her son belongs to her, now and for always, and she has no intention of giving him to some other woman, ever. She explains this to him, though he is only in his eighth month of life, and relates the circumstances of her existence prior to his birth, in a first person narrative
In her early life, Christine is abused by her father, whom her mother stabs with a kitchen knife. Her subsequent male encounters are basically unsatisfactory, and even her marriage, in church, is a disaster; her husband-to-be, on his stag night, dead drunk, is provided with a dress, and left on a park bench, is picked up by the police, allowed to sober up in a cell, continues to suffer from a hang-over on their honeymoon.
Christine, as a single mother, her son for her lover, finds life entirely satisfactory, until her son, grown up, becomes involved with another woman, now pregnant, whom he brings home. Christine, hoping to win her son back through jealousy, invites a boy-friend back as a live-in-lover. With the passage of time, the live-in-lover becomes fond of the son’s girl and her daughter, ensconce to parts unknown, to make a life together.
Christine is delighted, the son resigned.
MATERIAL FROM THE BOOK:
My wedding guest-list consisted of Sharon and her Mum. The night before the wedding, I spent with them. That was my hen night.
Peter had a different sort. His mates got him drunk. When he was so drunk he didn’t know what was happening, they pulled off his clothes, and put him in a dress. Then they dragged him over to Haven Green, the little park just to the north of Ealing Broadway tube, and laid him down on a bench. His really good mate, Mike, phoned the police and said there was a woman sleeping on a bench at Haven Green. It wasn’t a cold night, but it wasn’t a warm one, either. Maybe they thought the drink would keep him from getting hypothermia.
The police found him, and they put him in a cell over at the station on the Uxbridge Road. He didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know where he was. And the police didn’t know either. And they had no quick way of finding out. He had no identification on him. His friends had seen to that.
When he finally woke up the next day, he was really hung over. He mumbled something about getting married, and what day was this, and fell back asleep. Mike phoned the police station, and filled them in on the details. They thought it was pretty funny. They weren’t even going to press charges.
Mike came and got him. He took Peter home and got him dressed. Peter lay across the bed, groaning, while Mike pulled his trousers on. They were late getting to the church. The minister, who was never very happy with us from the start, was even less happy now. Was he afraid that maybe his church was going to become a sanctuary for the godless lower order of social outcasts?
For sure Peter could never have stood up on his own. Mike held him up on one side, and another mate on the other. Peter may have had some idea of what was happening, but was too hung over to participate. If he heard what the minister said, he probably didn’t understand a word of it. Is such a marriage really legal? Is this what I was going to have to put up with? It was just a one-off, I decided. He’d have to give up smoking, and there wasn’t going to be any more drinking, except maybe for a glass of wine now and then if we went out somewhere to dinner.
At the wedding “feast” it was just sandwiches and help-yourself, at their council flat, since I refused to pay for a proper wedding dinner for Peter’s lot. Mike made a big play for Sharon. But she cut him dead. He couldn’t even get her pregnant. He wasn’t of any use to her. She was already pregnant. Ashton P Jones was Dad. That cost her a hundred quid. It wasn’t direct payment; it was, supposedly, for his Youth Club.