A Girl Can Dream

Joy laughed. ‘Come on,’ she urged. ‘You can’t leave yet anyway ’cos it’s pouring.’

Joy was right, Meg realised, for outside the rain was coming down in sheets. ‘Just a cup of tea then,’ she conceded.

But Joy wasn’t content for Meg to sit there with just a cup of tea and she ordered egg on toast for the three of them, followed by doughnuts. What impressed Billy most was the fact that she got tea for him too, which he often didn’t get at home, and she didn’t mind that he put three spoonfuls of sugar in it. Although he saw Meg frown at him, he took no heed of that, knowing that she was unlikely to tell him off in front of her friend.

After they had finished Meg fed Ruth, and still they talked on. Billy swung his legs and listened while he licked the sugar off his fingers. Joy felt immeasurably sorry for Meg, who, though her little brother was sweet and the baby delightful, wouldn’t be able to have any sort of life for many years.

Meanwhile Joy was enjoying her new-found freedom and the money she earned each week. Some she had to pay to her mother, but what she had left was enough to buy clothes in the Bull Ring, or C & A Modes for better-quality clothes. She also went to the pictures once a week and had started taking dancing lessons with friends she had been to school with. She had been drawn to make friends with Meg from the day she had taken her up for her interview in Lewis’s and now she felt she would like to help her in some way.

‘How about if we meet up here every Friday?’ she suggested.

Meg shook her head. ‘I have to be back by lunchtime. The children come home for dinner, you see. Today they are seeing to themselves,’ she added, ‘because I had to buy Ruth some new clothes.’

‘How old is your eldest brother?’

‘Terry’s twelve.’

‘So say you left soup or something?’ Joy persisted. ‘He’s old enough to dish it up and get them all back to school on time.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Meg said. ‘My dad might not like it.’

‘What difference would it make to him?’

‘None, I suppose,’ Meg said. ‘It’s just I’ve got out of the habit of thinking about myself.’

‘Then start again,’ Joy said. ‘God blimey, Meg, you’re a long time dead.’

Meg’s laugh startled the drowsy baby a little and Joy said, ‘Why don’t you put it to your dad? I’m sure he will see no harm in it. Anyway,’ she said, getting to her feet, ‘must be away or I’ll be getting my cards, but I’ll be here next week about the same time if you can make it.’

‘I’ll try,’ Meg promised, and she sat enviously watching her friend returning to work while she held Ruth against her shoulder, rubbing her back in case she had wind.

SIX (#ub82fe912-7441-5b58-9895-cb557561cea0)

Meg might never have got round to mentioning her meeting Joy if it hadn’t been for Billy telling them that evening about meeting a kind lady.

‘And who is this kind lady?’ Charlie asked.

Billy shrugged and said, ‘Dunno, but she bought us egg on toast and doughnuts and her name is Joy and she don’t half talk a lot.’

They all laughed and Terry put in, ‘Surprised you noticed that, Billy. Bit like pot calling kettle.’ for everyone knew Billy was a chatterbox.

Charlie, though, was more interested in who the ‘kind lady’ was. He knew because of what she had taken on that Meg had few friends now, and certainly not one who would treat her and her young brother to egg on toast and doughnuts.

‘Billy’s right,’ she told her father. ‘Her name is Joy, Joy Tranter. She’s the girl from Lewis’s that took me up to the interview the day Mom fell in the yard.’

‘Fancy her remembering you all this time.’

Meg nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I mean only saw her for a short time and yet we sort of hit it off. I thought we might have become friends if I’d worked there.’

Charlie heard the wistfulness in Meg’s voice and felt guilty that she had no friends her own age. ‘Haven’t you seen her since?’

‘Just once before today,’ Meg said. ‘She goes to the Bull Ring often on a Friday because it’s her pay day and she has a mooch around the shops and treats herself to a snack in the Market Hall café, but normally I have to be home for the children at twelve so I leave before her dinner hour.’

‘So what happened today?’

‘I had to buy some winter clothes for Ruth today, remember?’ Meg said. ‘The children sorted themselves out.’

‘And it did them no harm, I would say,’ Charlie said. He looked from one child to the other. ‘Did it?’

‘No, Dad,’ they chorused.

‘So can you do that every Friday so Meg has a chance to meet her friend?’

They all nodded solemnly, and Meg was touched by her father’s consideration and the children falling in with his plan so readily. ‘I didn’t think you would be so keen on me going every week.’

‘Why on earth not?’ Charlie said. ‘God, Meg it’s not much to ask.’

‘And I am not helpless,’ Terry said. ‘I am twelve, you know, not two.’

‘I could leave you some soup or something just to heat up.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘Well, I’ll leave the details up to you,’ Charlie said. ‘But in the meantime, Meg, while it was very nice of your friend to treat you today, I shouldn’t think she earns that much so she wouldn’t want to do it every week.’

‘I shouldn’t want her to do it either,’ Meg said.

‘No, I will give you separate money for yourself.’

‘How?’ Meg asked. She knew how finely the finances were balanced.

‘Never you mind how,’ Charlie said, knowing he would have to cut back on the ciggies and beer to give Meg an extra five bob a week, but he thought there was nothing to be gained by telling her this.

Christmas grew nearer. Although it was only six months since their mother died Meg wanted to make Christmas Day a special one for Jenny, Sally and Billy, who still believed in Santa Claus.

Her aunt Rosie could see her point and suggested Meg talk to her father lest he be upset, so she mentioned it to him as they sat over a cup of tea one evening. He was quiet when she had finished and she feared she had offended him.

‘Do you think me awful, Dad?

‘For what exactly?’

‘You know, planning to celebrate Christmas and all with Mom dead less than six months?’

Charlie thought for a little while and then he said, ‘No, Meg I don’t think you’re awful. You knew your mother almost as well as I did and she wouldn’t have wanted us to mourn for ever.’

Meg nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Or for the young ones to miss out because she isn’t here anymore. She loved everything about Christmas,’ Charlie said, and a smile tugged at his mouth as he recalled his wife’s excitement in past years as the season approached.