A Daughter’s Disgrace. Kitty Neale
the shops, the offices, even the station itself. It wouldn’t be so bad to be behind the scenes somewhere, in a back room where she didn’t have to face the public. She had her reference from the factory and it said she was a reliable worker, but it did no good. Nobody was hiring, or that’s what they said as soon as they saw her. ‘Try again in a few weeks, love,’ said the woman in the ticket office. ‘You never know. Don’t give up.’
Easy for her to say, thought Alison. She had a warm office, friendly people to chat to and she probably had a loving family at home as well. Why did some people have all the luck? When she’d been younger she’d thought all families were like her own but now she knew differently. She wished her mother and Hazel would stop picking on her and yet she knew she was so awkward she probably deserved it all.
Rounding a corner she was dismayed to find two of the paperboys from the newsagent’s coming towards her. ‘Look, it’s horse face!’ shouted one, pulling his hand out of his pocket to point at her. A shower of coins fell onto the pavement.
‘Horse face, horse face!’ called his friend, pretending to gallop. ‘Imagine seeing that when you look in the mirror! Nay-y-y-y!’
‘Why aren’t you at school?’ demanded Alison, too fed up to ignore them. ‘What’s all that money? Have you been stealing from my mum’s shop? She’ll get the police on you if you do that.’ Even though Cora wouldn’t care about them teasing her daughter, she’d be down like a ton of bricks if any of them had been putting their hands in the till.
‘No we ain’t. We won the money in the penny arcade and don’t go telling your mum any different,’ said one boy menacingly as he shoved her against a wall, while the other one scooped up the coins.
Alison pushed him away and grimly turned for home. Her sleeve had ripped where the boy had gripped it but she already knew that she wouldn’t say anything – not because she was frightened, it was far from the worst thing that had happened to her, but because she was ashamed. Being pushed around by a boy half her size and half her age – she didn’t want anyone to know about it. All it had done was make a miserable day even worse. But the most worrying thing was, she couldn’t see how her life could ever get any better.
‘Good weekend, Nev?’ asked Nobby on Monday morning. ‘Were you out down the pub? Making the most of your final months being young, free and single?’
Neville rubbed his eyes. He didn’t want to admit it but working back-to-back shifts over the past couple of days had been more tiring than he’d thought. He’d had hardly any sleep and, worse still, he’d hardly seen Hazel. But it was going to be worth it, to give her the wedding she so badly wanted. ‘Did a spot of overtime,’ he said. ‘Saves me spendin’ the cash down the boozer.’
Nobby raised his eyebrows. He didn’t believe in working weekends. Nothing kept him from the pub on Friday and Saturday nights; that was the whole point of going to work – to have the money to sink a few pints with his mates. ‘Don’t you go wasting your youth,’ he told the younger man. ‘These are the best years of your life, these are. Plenty of time for overtime when you’re hitched.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Neville, keen to get away from Nobby, who he found annoying at the best of times, even when he wasn’t half-asleep on his feet. He turned to hang up his coat. ‘Right, back to me usual station.’ He dragged himself over to his bench.
Nobby pulled a face. Seemed as if young Neville wasn’t cut out to be the life and soul of the party after all. ‘Suit yourself,’ he muttered.
‘What’s up?’ asked Bill, unwinding his scarf in Chelsea colours.
Nobby shook his head. ‘Probably nothing,’ he said. ‘That Neville’s missed a weekend down the pub so he could do overtime. Funny way of enjoying yourself, ain’t it?’
‘That’ll be his bird,’ said Bill. ‘I bumped into her last week down the market and she said he was going to do more shifts. They’re saving up.’
‘Bloody hell, he don’t want to be dancing to her tune already.’ Nobby didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Time enough for all that, that’s what I told him.’
‘I take it you were down the Queen Vic as usual, then,’ said Bill, not wanting to start the week with Nobby in a bad temper. ‘I went to the game. Bloody freezing it was too.’
‘That’s why you want to spend your weekend in a nice warm pub,’ Nobby told him. ‘You take my advice next time and read about your game in the paper somewhere where you can sit by the fire and have a drop of beer.’
‘That’s called my own front room, mate,’ said Bill cheerfully. ‘But love my mum as I do, you can’t beat the terraces on a Saturday. We’ll agree to differ, shall we?’
Nobby pretended to agree. But he wasn’t happy.
Cora stood on the sawdust-covered floor of Fred Chapman’s butcher’s shop, nodding her head in approval. ‘You ain’t done bad for yourself even with all the upset of your mum passing away,’ she said. ‘You keep this place in good nick, I’ll say that much.’
Fred nodded as he wiped his hands on his butcher’s apron. He could tell it was tighter than ever but try as he might, his waistline kept on growing. Not like Cora. She was skinny as a rake, always had been. ‘Now you need feeding up a bit,’ he said. ‘How about a nice piece of brisket? Or some chuck steak?’
‘My girls would be thrilled,’ said Cora. Usually she would have offal or oxtail, and make it go further by cooking lots of pearl barley or potatoes with it. What a good job Fred had needed that pack of cigarettes when he did.
‘Look, you can have this bit and I’ll add the rest of the tray as well.’ Fred leant over the counter and began putting the bright red meat into a bag. ‘This was left over as a customer ordered it but never turned up. So you’d be doing me a favour.’ It was a lie but Cora didn’t need to know that. He could tell she wouldn’t want charity. ‘And how are the girls? They must be all grown up now.’
‘Linda’s married, living down in Kent, and got a three-year-old,’ said Cora, her face lighting up at the thought of her beloved June. ‘She’s done well for herself. Hazel’s just got engaged, nice enough boy but never going to set the world on fire. Still, he loves her and that counts for somethin’. As for Alison …’ She looked heavenwards. ‘May God forgive me, I don’t know what to do with that girl. She’s seventeen now. She’s not long got the push from the factory she was at and can’t get nothing else, just when we got the expense of the wedding to cope with. She don’t seem to have no get up and go. Just sits around moping.’
‘Really?’ Fred tried to think of the last time he’d seen Cora’s daughters. It would have been well before his mother had her final illness. Even so, he didn’t remember Alison being useless. He could tell from Cora’s expression that this was a sore point and didn’t want to get himself involved in something he’d regret; it wasn’t like him to make rash decisions. But the coincidence seemed too good to miss.
‘Really,’ Cora said bitterly. ‘Though I says it as shouldn’t, she’s got no vim at all. I can’t understand who she takes after. You know what Jack was like.’
‘I do,’ said Fred at once. ‘He was a good man, Cora, a man in a million. He was like a big brother to me and I know how tough it was for you when he was killed.’ He paused and made up his mind. Jack had stood up for him on many occasions when he was growing up; now was his chance to pay him back by helping his family. ‘I just found out my shop girl is leaving Battersea. Says her folks want to get away.’
‘Can’t blame them,’ said Cora instantly. ‘I’d do the same if I could.’
‘But it leaves me short,’ Fred went on. ‘I can’t run this place on