Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection

‘Just as well then, because Helen’s a different kettle of fish altogether. I doubt if you could even move in her circles.’

‘Oh, I see … a rich bitch, is she?’

Smugly, Carson nodded. ‘Rich, handsome, and needing to be satisfied on a regular basis, if you understand my meaning?’

Coming across the room he threatened to manhandle Roy out of the door. ‘I’ve told you, I need to get washed and changed. Sometimes she gets here too early and catches me in the rough. I don’t like that. I have my pride like any man.’

‘All right, keep your shirt on. I’m leaving, I’m leaving.’

As he went he told Carson from a safe distance, ‘Enjoy yourselves, and don’t worry about me. I’ll call round tomorrow and you can give me a full account.’

‘Sod off!’ Carson gave him a final shove out the door. ‘Get and find your own entertainment,’ he suggested with a sly little chuckle.

As Roy crossed the street he was almost run down by a cab in a hurry. ‘Watch where you’re going!’ Roy yelled as the taxi passed by. ‘You nearly ’ad my bloody feet off then!’

When the taxi slowed down, Roy considered tackling the driver for his carelessness. Instead his curiosity was aroused when the taxi came to a halt outside Carson’s place.

The woman who stepped out of it was exactly as Carson had described: well-dressed and well-built in all the right places, she was more than a cut above the rest.

But there was something else about her that intrigued him, yet for the life of him, he couldn’t think what it was.

He watched her walk up the path, and he saw her knock on the door, and now, as she seemed to sense him there, she turned and smiled at him.

It was then that he realised who she was, and he could hardly believe it.

‘My God!’ Excitement coursed through him. ‘It’s Luke Hammond’s sister-in-law!’

He had seen her twice; once when she came to bring Hammond some documents from the house, and once when she came to collect her sister, Sylvia, who had come looking for her husband and thrown a tantrum when he was out on business.

He continued to watch her. Even before she had turned back towards the door, Carson was there to usher her inside.

Still reeling from the shock, Roy hurried away. ‘It’s just as well Carson doesn’t know who she is,’ he decided. This rich bitch really was roughing it.

He gave a whistle. ‘I wonder what Arnold Stratton would say if he knew Carson was mixing with a Hammond?’

As he walked on, shock soon turned to amusement. ‘Luke Hammond’s sister-in-law, roughing it with a man like Carson!’ He rolled his eyes. ‘By! It’s a turn-up for the books, and no mistake!’

Unable to contain himself, he made his way straight to Jack’s place. The small house in Penny Street was furnished better than he himself could afford, a step up from his own humble abode.

‘I thought I’d seen the last of you till tomorrow.’ Jack was just beginning to settle down for an hour of music on the wireless, before getting an early night. ‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked, inviting him inside.

‘Ain’t you got nothing stronger?’

‘No.’

‘Coffee then. I can’t abide tea … especially not when you make it. I put up with enough dish-water at the factory,’ he grumbled, ‘I don’t see why I should put up with it in my own free time.’

‘That’s where we differ, you and me,’ Jack informed him.

‘Is that so?’ Always at home in Jack’s place, Roy sat himself down. ‘And how d’you mek that out?’

Turning to answer, Jack paused at the kitchen door, ‘Because you tend to see your time at the factory as being forced on you, in order to earn a living.’

‘Too bloody right I do!’

Understanding Roy’s point of view, Jack admitted, ‘There was a time early on, when I felt like you … hated getting up in the morning and seeing it as precious time wasted, but now I see it in a different way.’

Roy had always known there was more to Jack than met the eye, so he wasn’t surprised to learn he had a plan. ‘So, what changed?’ he wanted to know. ‘How d’you see it now?’

Jack answered in simple terms, ‘I used to see it as me working for somebody else and making them well-off. Now though, I look on it as all good experience … it’s learning time, in preparation for my own business. The more I learn, the better I’ll be, and the better I am, the quicker I’ll get somebody to believe in me … say a bank manager, or a backer who’ll take a risk on me.’

Roy nodded in agreement. ‘By! If I had the money,’ he declared boldly, ‘I’d back you myself.’

‘Honest? Would you?’ Knowing Roy’s wicked sense of humour, Jack never knew when to believe what he said. ‘Or are you just having me on?’

‘Am I heck as like!’ Roy was genuinely indignant. ‘Any fool can see you’ll have your own business one day, it’s just a matter o’ time.’ He gave a knowing wink. ‘I dare say once you get your own premises, you’ll be away with the best. And what’s more, I’ll be right there … your right-hand man, looking out for you all the way. Ain’t that what best friends are for?’

Jack laughed. ‘Looking out for yourself, you mean,’ he chided, before adding in a serious voice, ‘It’s allus been my dream, to get my own premises. And when I do, I promise you hand on heart, you will be alongside me, and we’ll look out for each other. How does that suit you?’

‘Suits me just fine.’ Roy was thrilled. ‘I’ll be the first in my rotten family, to be a foreman.’

‘Hey, don’t get carried away! I never said you’d be foreman.’

‘You’ll not be able to refuse,’ Roy was confident. ‘I’d work my socks off and learn the trade inside out. You’d be proud of me so you would. What! I’d be the best foreman you ever had.’

‘All right then,’ Jack laughed at his brashness, ‘I’ll think about it.’

While Jack made the coffee, Roy made himself comfortable. ‘D’you want to know a secret?’ he asked tantalisingly.

Jack popped his head round the kitchen door. ‘What have you been up to now?’

‘I’ve not been up to nowt! It’s just that I know summat you don’t.’

Jack returned to making the coffee. ‘What’s that then?’

‘I’ve just been round to see Don.’

‘So?’ Returning with the coffee, Jack declared, ‘There’s nothing mysterious about going to Don’s place,’ he said. ‘You visit him most weeks that I know of.’

Lounging in the chair, Roy took a leisurely sip of his coffee. ‘I just thought you might be interested in what I’ve just seen.’

‘Now, why would that be?’ Settling into his armchair, one long leg dangling over the side of the chair and the other stretched out to the hearth, Jack waited for an answer.

Roy placed his cup in the hearth and leaned forward, his eyes aglow as he imparted his newly discovered secret. ‘He’s got a new woman friend.’

Jack stopped him right there. ‘Aw, look, I’ve no interest in the man’s love-life, for God’s sake. Why would I want to know a thing like that, eh?’

Undeterred, Roy continued, ‘She told him her name was Helen, only her name isn’t. It’s Georgina.’