Read Online A Distant Dream by Pamela Evans - Free Book Online Page B

disappointed in you,’ said Flo shakily when he visited the Pavilion to tell May’s parents what had happened. ‘In fact, I really am very shocked indeed.’
    ‘I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else and it’ll be all round the neighbourhood soon,’ he said, feeling embarrassed and guilty as hell.
    ‘Does May know?’
    He nodded. ‘I’ve written to her about it.’
    ‘She’ll be, er . . . surprised at the very least,’ said Flo. ‘I always hoped that you and May might one day . . .’
    ‘It isn’t going to happen now, is it,’ said Dick quickly, waving a tea towel at a wasp that was hovering near the toffee apples on the counter. ‘You’ve been and gone and done it now, boy. Pleasure usually comes at a price.’
    ‘Dick,’ said Flo in a tone of admonition. ‘Don’t be so crude.’
    ‘All I said was—’
    ‘I know what you said and I want no more of that sort of talk, if you please,’ she instructed.
    ‘Look, these things sometimes happen,’ Dick pointed out. ‘Nature is a very powerful force.’
    ‘You wouldn’t be saying that if it was your daughter who is in trouble,’ said Flo.
    He gave his wife a close look and George could almost feel his pain. ‘I’d rather our daughter was in that sort of trouble than the sort she is in; seriously ill and shut away from her family and friends,’ said Dick.
    George saw his words hit home as Flo’s expression saddened and her eyes filled with tears.
    ‘When you look at it like that,’ she said thickly, ‘I suppose it does put it into perspective.’
    ‘Anyway,’ began George quickly, hoping to ease the tension, ‘now that you know what a degenerate I am, am I banned from the Pavilion?’
    Dick looked at his wife in that way people have when they are very close. George had seen it in his own parents. Then he said, ‘Don’t be so daft, lad.’ He thought George would pay for his misdemeanour many times over in marrying so young and having a wife and child to support when he was just a lad himself. ‘What you get up to is none of our business.’
    George looked at Flo with a raised eyebrow.
    ‘Of course you’re not banned,’ she confirmed. ‘What sort of snobs do you think we are?’
    ‘It takes two to make a baby,’ added Dick.
    ‘Shush,’ said Flo as a customer approached the counter.
    ‘In that case, can I have a toffee apple and a
Daily Mirror
please,’ said George.
    ‘You big kid,’ said Dick, handing him a toffee apple.
    ‘Autumn wouldn’t be the same without one of your specials, Mrs Stubbs.’
    ‘Mr Stubbs made these as it happens,’ Flo told him.
    George nodded approvingly towards the older man, then went to a table on the veranda with the newspaper and the fruity confection. He was glad to have made his peace with the Stubbses. They meant a lot him.
    As he sat there in the sunshine, the smoky chill of autumn in the air, he felt as though May was everywhere here, in the breeze that rustled through the trees and in every creak and squeak of the swings in the playground. Even before the Pavilion had opened, they had spent a lot of their time here as children. Happy days.
    But all that was well and truly over, and he felt overwhelmed by adulthood. Oh well, enough of nostalgia; onwards and upwards, he said to himself. Glancing through the newspaper, he noticed a face that was becoming increasingly familiar. It was a picture of Adolf Hitler at some demonstration or other in Berlin. That bloke was always in the papers lately spouting his politics, thought George casually, turning to the sports page.
    It took May quite a while to get over the shock of George’s news, but as soon as she felt able she decided it was time she snapped out of it. She wrote to both George and Betty individually wishing them well. Then she immersed herself in life at Ashburn. Some days she felt reasonably well; others she was tired and listless.
    With perseverance she did improve a little at the art class. While knowing that she would