"A Pool In The Desert" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

As the years passed, however, the dreams changed again. She left school at
sixteen because her parents said they could spare her no longer, with her mother
ill and Ruth and Jeff still so little and her father and Dane (who had left
school two years before) working extra hours in the shop because the specialists
her mother needed were expensive. When Mrs. Halford and Mr. Jonah came to visit
them at home (repeated efforts to persuade her parents to come into the school
for a meeting having failed), and begged them to reconsider, and said that she
was sure of a scholarship, that her education would be no burden to them, her
mother only wept and said in her trembling invalid voice that she was a good
girl and they needed her at home, and her father only stared, until at last they
went away, the tea and biscuits she had made in honour of so rare an event as
visitors in the parlour untouched. Her father finally told her: УSee them out to
their car, Hetta, and then come direct back. SupperТs to be on time, mind.Ф
The three of them were quiet as they went down the stairs and through the hall
that ran alongside the shop. The partition was made of cheap ply, for customers
never saw it, which made the hall ugly and unfriendly, in spite of the old
family photos Hetta had hung on the walls. The shop-door opened nearly on the
curb, for the shop had eaten up all of what had been the front garden. At the
last minute Mrs. Halford took HettaТs hand and said, УIf thereТs anything I can
doЧthis year, next year, any time. Ring me.Ф
Hetta nodded, said good-bye politely, and then turned round to go back to the
house and get supper and see what Ruth and Jeff were doing. Her father had
already rejoined Dane in the shop; her mother had gone to bed, taking the plate
of biscuits with her.
Ruth had been told by their father to stay out of the way, it was none of her
concern, but she was waiting for Hetta in the kitchen. УWhat happened?Ф she
said.
УNothing,Ф said Hetta. УHave you done your homework?Ф
УYes,Ф said Ruth. УAll but the reading. DТyou want to listen while you cook?Ф
УYes,Ф said Hetta. УThat would be nice.Ф
That night Hetta dreamed of a sandstorm. She was alone in darkness, the wind
roaring all round her, the sand up to her ankles, her knees, her waist, filling
her eyes, her nose, her mouth. Friendly sand. She snuggled down into it as if it
were a blanket; as it filled her ears she could no longer hear the wind, nor
anything else. When the alarm went off at dawn, she felt as stiff as if she had
been buried in sand all night, and her eyes were so sticky, she had to wash her
face before she could open them properly.

It had been a relief to quit school, because she was tired all the time. There
was more than she could get done even after there was no schoolwork to distract
her; but without the schoolwork she found that her mind went to sleep while her
body went on with her chores, and for a while that seemed easier. Sometimes
months passed without her ever thinking about what she was doing, or not doing,
or about Mrs. Halford, or about how she might have used that scholarship if she
had got it, if her parents had let her accept it, which they wouldnТt have.
Months passed while her days were bound round with cooking and housekeeping and
keeping the shop accounts, looking through cookery books for recipes when her
mother thought that this or that might tempt her appetite, sweeping the passage
from the shop twice a day because of the sawdust, teaching Ruth and Jeff to play
checkers and fold paper airplanes. When she had first started keeping the