Chapter 10 The Laundry Basket
"Shelagh, do not carry the laundry basket, it is much too heavy. Let me take it, "Patrick said.
Tim caught the sight of them from the door ajar and saw his Dad give Mum a kiss at hand. She smiled at him sweetly and caressed his cheek. They were becoming worse, he sighed, resignedly. They should become more detached, more adult. In truth, their simple relationship made him feel secure. 'They should not be doing mushy stuff when I am around," he grumbled.
Tim was feeling very superior on the topic of family dynamics as he had been reading Young & Wilmot's new study called Family and Kinship in East London. What's more, he had just finished Lady Chatterley's Lover – a copy secretly circulated at school – much better than that leaflet of sexual education snatched from the Family Clinic. He congratulated himself on being well-prepared for the great game of life. He started whistling, and leafed a new comic magazine absent-mindedly… and then it hit him. The laundry basket. Milk. Sardines. Tim's head started spinning. He made a furtive trip to his Dad's surgery and ransacked a pile of Lancets to read again articles about tuberculosis.