Bye Bye Love. Patricia Burns

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СКАЧАТЬ was a game they often played, the When I Am Rich game. Sometimes it was Scarlett who was going to become rich, by marrying a millionaire or being a beauty queen, sometimes it was Joan, who was going to win the football pools.

      ‘Wasn’t so long since you wanted a pony and a pink taffeta dress.’ Joan sighed. ‘Now it’s a big house with a swimming pool.’

      ‘Yes, well, I’m fourteen now,’ Scarlett reminded her.

      ‘Fourteen. Quite the young lady.’

      Joan held her daughter’s face between her hands and looked at her long and hard. Then she gave a nod and stood up.

      ‘Yes, quite grown up. Grown up enough to read Gone with the Wind. I’ll fetch it for you.’

      She bustled out of the door. Scarlett started to clear the table and pile the plates up by the sink. At last she was going to be allowed to read the story that had figured in her mother’s tales ever since she could remember. Since she had joined the adult section of the public library, her hand had often hovered over a copy of the novel. She had even picked it up, opened it, read the first page. There was nothing to stop her from borrowing and reading it, nothing except the amazing grip it held on her mother’s imagination. It had been held out to her as a huge treat, something to look forward to, something almost as good as marrying a film star or winning the football pools, except that the sensible part of her knew that she would probably never do either of those things, whereas one day she surely would get to read all about her namesake.

      ‘Here we are.’

      Her mother came back into the kitchen and sat down at the table, breathless, holding her side.

      ‘Oh, dear me. Those stairs. I swear they get steeper every day. There—here it is. I’ve read it so many times it’s a wonder the pages haven’t worn out.’

      Scarlett took the book and ran her hands reverentially over the cover. She looked at the spine. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. She opened it up and read the first line, the first paragraph, the first page. She was transported back ninety years or more to the front porch of a plantation house in Georgia. Such a strange world, so very different from her own.

      Her mother touched her shoulder.

      ‘Things to be done, pet.’

      ‘Mu-um—’ Scarlett protested. ‘You can’t give it to me, then tell me I can’t read it!’

      ‘Well, maybe I shouldn’t of, but we got to get going, love.’

      Joan had her hands in the sink. The first of many lots of washing up she would be doing today, what with all the glasses people would be using. Scarlett read one more paragraph, sighed dramatically and walked over to pick up the tea towel.

      By the time Victor sauntered down the stairs the morning’s chores were all done and Joan and Scarlett were glued to the wireless.

      ‘What’s all this, then?’ he asked, squeezing Joan’s shoulder, kissing Scarlett’s cheek. ‘Slacking on the job?’

      ‘Oh, it’s so wonderful,’ Joan breathed. ‘All the singing and that. He describes it so well. The people and the robes, all the colours. I just wish we had one of those televisions. It must be wonderful to watch it all going on.’

      ‘It’s what we do best, ain’t it?’ Victor said. ‘Us British. We do pomp and ceremony best in the world.’

      He pulled up a chair and lit a cigarette. Scarlett made her parents another cup of tea each and left them sitting contentedly, one either side of the big brown wireless, while she picked up the precious copy of Gone with the Wind and went to her room to change. Like everyone in the country who could possibly afford it, she had a new dress to wear for Coronation Day. It was blue cotton with white polka dots, with a tight bodice and a fashionably full skirt. She tied a long red, white and blue striped ribbon round her ponytail and then turned this way and that in front of the small mirror over the chest of drawers, trying to get a full length view of herself. What she could see pleased her. She put her hands to her slim waist and pushed it in still further, smiling at her reflection. She might not be a southern belle like Scarlett O’Hara, but today was a special day and she was going to enjoy it.

      CHAPTER TWO

      ‘TWO more pints o’ that there Coronation Ale, if you please, young missy!’

      ‘Coming up, sir!’

      An anomaly in the licensing laws allowed Scarlett, as the licensee’s child, to serve alcohol even though she was too young to drink it. She pulled the beer carefully into the jugs, as she had been taught. It was no use rushing a good pint.

      Beside her, her mother pushed a strand of hair back off her damp forehead.

      ‘Scarlett, love, when you’ve done that, can you run round and get the empties? We’re almost out of clean glasses.’

      ‘Righty-oh, Mum.’

      The Red Lion was jumping. There was a roar of happy voices from both bars and a pall of blue smoke hanging over everyone’s heads. Nobody could remember seeing so many people in since VE day. Crowds of men and quite a number of women were packed into the two bars and children were running around on the village green outside clutching bottles of pop and shrieking. Everyone was in an excellent mood, and of course there was only one topic of conversation.

      ‘…she looked so beautiful, sort of stately, like…’

      ‘…and the two little kiddies, they behaved so well, didn’t they?’

      ‘That Queen of Tonga, she’s a character, ain’t she? Sitting in the rain there, waving away to the crowds!’

      Scarlett squeezed her way between the cheerful customers. Those who had managed to get tables piled the empties up for her and handed them over.

      ‘There y’are girl, and here’s a few more. Can you manage? Oh, she’s a chip off the old block and no mistake. You going to be a landlady when you grow up, young Scarlett?’

      ‘Not on your nelly,’ Scarlett said to herself. She had other ideas for her future. An air hostess, maybe, or a lady detective, tracking down ruthless murderers, or more practically, a lady chauffeur, driving rich and famous people about in a swish car.

      She wriggled past her father’s little group of regulars on her way out to the kitchen. Even he was on the business side of the bar this evening. He was only attending to his cronies, but at least he was doing that and he was keeping them well topped up. They were on whisky chasers, Scarlett noticed.

      ‘Ah, here’s the prettiest little barmaid in all of Essex,’ one of them exclaimed as she tried to force her way through. ‘Aren’t you afraid some young fella-me-lad will come and whisk her away, Vic?’

      Her father smiled at her between the flushed faces.

      ‘Ah, she’s still Daddy’s girl, aren’t you, my pet?’ he said, lifting the flap in the bar to let her through.

      ‘That’s right,’ Scarlett agreed. Most of the boys she knew were gangling and spotty. Not like the heroes of books and films.

      There СКАЧАТЬ