Read Online Fire by Deborah Challinor - Free Book Online Page B

bag just in case. But would they go in? Only her flats would fit in her handbag, and they wouldn’t match the rest of her outfit.
    She threw her blankets off, sat up and exclaimed, ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
    Almost immediately there was a tap on her bedroom door. It was her mother.
    ‘Can’t sleep?’ Colleen asked.
    She had on her slippers and her old chenille dressing gown, which had once been a deep apricot colour and was now so faded it was almost white, and her hair was pulled back in a plait that hung down past her shoulders. She wasn’t a particularly vain woman, but she was proud of her hair, which was still thick and lustrous and not yet showing any signs of grey. Sid, thinking he was being complimentary, had once said that grey would never show anyway in all that lovely deep gold, but Colleen had been out of sorts for days, insisting that if she did have grey hairs they would be visible, so obviously she didn’t have any. Sid had kept his mouth shut about her hair after that.
    ‘No,’ Allie said. ‘Can’t you either?’
    ‘Had to go to the lav.’ Colleen sat down on Allie’s bed. ‘Why can’t you sleep?’
    Allie shrugged. ‘Don’t know, really.’
    ‘It’s that boy you’re going out with tomorrow night, isn’t it?’
    After a moment, Allie said, ‘Yes.’
    Colleen waited for a minute. ‘Well, what about him?’
    Allie made a face. ‘I can’t decide what to wear.’
    ‘Is that all? Really?’
    ‘I don’t know. Yes, I think so.’
    Colleen pulled at a loose thread on her dressing gown. ‘If it’s about what your father said last night, I wouldn’t be too worried about it. You know what he can be like.’
    When Allie had told her parents that she was going tothe pictures with a Maori boy, Colleen had said ‘That’s nice, love’, and Sid had said ‘Well, make sure he pays, keep an eye on your purse and don’t stop off at the pub or you’ll never get him out’, then laughed his head off. Colleen had had a go at him and said that was a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, and Sid had said it was just a joke, and everyone knew the Maoris liked a drink and had a very communal view of money and property. Colleen had said she’d never heard anything so derogatory in her life and Sid had said what was ‘derogatory’ when it was at home and retreated behind his paper, not quite sure what he’d done wrong.
    ‘No, it wasn’t that,’ Allie replied. She was used to her father being tactless and saying the wrong thing. ‘It’s just that, well, I think I quite like him and I just want to get it right tomorrow night, that’s all.’
    ‘Look, love,’ Colleen said, ‘he’s asked you out, not your wardrobe. Go out and have a good time. It doesn’t matter what you wear and it doesn’t matter if he’s a Maori or from Mars, as long as you enjoy yourself. All right?’
    Her mother always had such a knack for putting things in perspective. Feeling a lot better, Allie went back to bed, and this time she fell asleep straight away.

Chapter Four
    Wednesday, 16 December 1953
    A llie spent half the day with butterflies in her stomach at the thought of going out with Sonny, and the other half berating herself for feeling like a silly schoolgirl. Fortunately, she was kept extremely busy, getting garments ready for the fashion show Dunbar & Jones was presenting the next night, as well as attending to an apparently endless stream of customers.
    She did, however, see Sonny at lunchtime in the cafeteria. He stopped at her table and said ‘Still on for tonight?’, which made Allie go bright red and robbed her of the ability to say anything sensible, so she only nodded while Irene, Louise and Daisy looked on with gleeful interest.
    During afternoon tea she ducked down to the cosmetics department on the ground floor where Bev, the Helena Rubenstein girl, was arranging a pile of Apple Blossom perfume and talc gift packs on the counter.
    ‘Hi, Allie. What can I do you for?’
    ‘Hi, Bev. I’m