Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle

Pearl agreed, about to leave the kitchen when her employer spoke again. ‘You did well for your first day. Keep it up.’

Pearl smiled, unused to praise, and was still smiling as she returned to the dining room.

‘Blimey, Dolly, what’s come over you?’ Gertie asked.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘If I’m not mistaken, you actually praised the new waitress.’

‘Yeah, well, this one’s a bit different. She shows me some respect, which is more than I could say for Rita.’

‘Things ’ave certainly changed since the war,’ Mo said as she came over to take a cup from the tray. ‘Kids ain’t got any respect nowadays. My Emma came down this morning dressed in something she called Capri pants. They looked daft, if you ask me, and I told her they were too short, but she just laughed. She said it’s the Brigitte Bardot look. I ask you, who’s Brigitte Bardot? She’s got herself a bleedin’ record player too, a Dansette, and it cost twelve quid. Now all I hear day and night is flaming rock-and-roll music.’

‘Twelve quid! Where did she get that sort of money?’

‘She got it off the club, and I just hope she keeps up the payments. Gawd, I wish her father was still alive. He’d ’ave sorted her out.’

‘Yeah,’ Gertie agreed. ‘And as for that Brigitte Bardot, she’s a French actress, and from what I’ve heard she’s a right sexy piece.’

‘It’s disgusting, that’s what it is,’ Dolly said. ‘The way young girls flaunt themselves nowadays they’re just asking for trouble. Still, as I said, Pearl seems different, and she doesn’t wear make-up plastered all over her face.’

‘She seems a nice enough kid,’ Gertie agreed.

‘Right,’ Dolly said, putting her cup back on the tray, ‘let’s get finished up. I don’t know about you two, but I’m fair worn out.’

The back door opened and Kevin appeared, his look furtive as he clutched a bag behind his back.

‘Hello, love. What have you been up to today?’

‘Not now, Mum,’ he said, hurrying through the kitchen without stopping.

Dolly frowned, wondering what was wrong with the boy. She went back to her tasks, rushing to get them finished so she could go upstairs to their flat. Kevin looked upset, and she wanted to know why.

As she walked along the market, Pearl’s eyes were peeled for Derek Lewis. When he saw her approaching him he quickly finished a sale, moving to the front of his stall.

‘Are you feeling better now?’

‘I’m fine and wanted to thank you for helping me.’

‘Leave it out. It’s the first time I’ve had a girl swooning at me feet and it won’t do me reputation any harm.’

‘Here, Derek, got yourself a bit of stuff, ’ave you?’ a voice called from the next stall. ‘Hang on, ain’t that the little mouse from the café? Well, at least you’ll only ’ave to leave her out a bit of cheese.’

Derek laughed, shouting back to the stallholder, ‘Shut up, Frank! You’re just jealous.’

‘Not me, mate. I like a bit of meat to get hold of, and you’ve seen the size of my wife.’

‘Yeah, nobody could miss Lucy when she’s in full sail.’

‘You cheeky bugger,’ Frank Hanwell called, but then had to serve a customer. ‘What’s that, missus? Of course me lettuce is fresh. Hand-picked from Covent Garden this morning.’

Derek chuckled and then turned his attention back to Pearl. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when you passed out. What brought it on?’

‘Oh, nothing really. It’s just that I hadn’t eaten.’

She saw Derek frown, his soft voice at odds with his build as he said, ‘Are you all right for money, love?’

‘Yes, I’m fine, but I must go now. Thank you again for your help.’

As Pearl walked away she kept her head low, but as she passed Frank’s stall he started to sing again. ‘“Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been? I’ve been up to London to visit the Queen. Pussycat, Pussycat, what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair.”’

She picked up her pace, and with the raucous voices of the other traders calling their wares, she didn’t see or hear Derek Lewis approaching Frank Hanwell, his fists clenched threateningly.

When Pearl walked into her bedsit she sighed with appreciation. The room was small, with just a built-in cupboard and chest of drawers, but to her it was heaven, a place of her own.

In one corner there was a curtained-off area, behind which was a sink and a single gas ring. In a tiny cupboard there were a few pieces of crockery, a small saucepan and a frying pan.

After kicking off her shoes, Pearl went to the tiny kitchen, placing the kettle on the gas ring. She wasn’t hungry after that wonderful meal in the café and was counting her blessings, especially as she was down to her last tin of soup.

Who’d have thought she’d get a job with a meal thrown in? She turned on the gas tap, frowning when she realised she’d have to feed the meter. Her precious few tips were just enough to cover the shilling needed, so feeding the coin into the slot, she hoped there would be more tips forthcoming in the morning.

There were used tea leaves in her small strainer and, carefully pouring boiling water over them, she frowned at the weak brew. Still, things were looking up and soon she’d be able to get a bit of shopping. Not only that, now that she was earning again her dream of taking art classes felt a little bit closer.

After drinking the tea, Pearl had a strip wash, carefully hung up her one and only decent dress, then threw on an old pair of pyjamas. Sitting cross-legged on her bed, she picked up her sketch pad and pencil.

Everything had looked dire that morning, and she had been in despair when she’d seen the advert for a waitress. Her elfin face lit up with a smile and she began to draw a face from memory. Dolly Dolby slowly emerged on the page, but when the sketch was finished Pearl flung it aside, wishing she could afford paint and brushes.

Painting was all Pearl lived for, and never a day went by when she didn’t try to create something. With no money for paint she would sketch, burying herself in the task of perfecting whatever she was drawing. In the orphanage it had been her refuge, a way of blanking out all that went on around her.

She was constantly picked on by the other children, all laughing at her because she was never chosen for fostering or adoption. From the day she had been found on the steps until the day she left, the only home Pearl had known was the grey and forbidding orphanage, her bed one among twenty that lined the dormitory. She had plucked up courage once to ask why she couldn’t be put forward for a foster home, only to be told by grim-faced Miss Unsworth that she wasn’t suitable. When she dared to ask why, she had received a slap, Miss Unsworth telling her that she should count herself lucky that she had a home in the orphanage.

The face of Derek Lewis swam into her mind so, taking up her pad again, Pearl began to sketch. In the orphanage, picked on and helpless against the teasing, she had quickly realised that she needed someone to look out for her – someone to hide behind. She had chosen an older girl, one who, like her, was a loner, and it had worked.

Of course, eventually the girl went into foster care, and Pearl was left alone again. It was the first time she’d faced such a traumatic parting, but Pearl had leaned another hard lesson. To survive she couldn’t get attached to anyone. If she hardened her heart, she couldn’t get hurt.

From then on, through the years, she found other girls to hide behind, girls who would stand up for her, but though they didn’t know it, her feelings remained detached.

As Derek’s pug-nosed face took shape on her sketch pad, Pearl smiled. He had already offered her some sort of protection, volunteering to make sure that the other costermongers laid off the teasing. Of course she had protested, but a warm feeling now spread through her body. Yes, Derek Lewis was someone she could hide behind, and it would be a good idea to make him a friend.

Chapter Four (#ulink_ce830d10-0bd2-5651-99d7-f51cc3ae136d)

As he cashed up the till, Bernard Dolby’s mouth was set in a scowl, his thoughts on his son instead of the task at hand. Kevin had walked through the dining room earlier, going upstairs without a word. The lazy git should get another job, but after leaving the engineering factory three months ago, wasting years of training, he wasn’t making much of an effort to find other employment.

The young tyke had avoided National Service by becoming an apprentice, deferring his call-up until he was twenty-one. Then he’d avoided it again by failing the medical, much to Dolly’s delight. Asthma. Huh, in Bernie’s opinion a bit of physical training would have sorted that out, turning Kevin into a man instead of a mummy’s boy.

Dolly wouldn’t hear a word against her precious son and had mollycoddled him from childhood. He’s your son too, a small voice said at the back of Bernie’s mind, and once again he scowled. Yes, Kevin was his son, but other than his conception, he’d had no hand in the boy’s upbringing since Kevin was a toddler. If he so much as raised his voice to Kevin, Dolly went mad.

Bernie hunched his shoulders. It was his own fault, he knew that, but for a quiet life he always gave in to Dolly. His wife had a temper, one that he feared, and he’d felt the lash of her hand from almost the first day of their marriage.