Read Online Playing Around by Gilda O'Neill - Free Book Online Page A

every word. ‘And do your very best to squeeze her friend in as well, will you? As a favour to Terry.’
    That showed the old bag.
    Unaware that Angie was at that very moment about to be shampooed, conditioned and set about with scissors by an expert in stylish shaping and cutting, Sarah Pearson was fretting about her family. Despite being in her fifties, she, Sarah, prided herself in keeping up a smart, clean appearance, and could only wonder about how her daughter and granddaughter lived.
    They were both lovely, of course, but the last time Sarah had seen Violet, she was painting herself like a cheap tart and wearing skirts that showed most of what she had, and as for young Angie, she didn’t seem interested in how she looked at all. It was such a shame. She could have really made something of herself.
    Deep down, Sarah knew why Angie was the way she was: her thoughtless, self-regarding daughter, Violet, had knocked all the confidence out of the poor little love. She kept her as little more than a skivvy, so that she didn’t have to soil her own lazy hands either doing stuff indoors or, God forbid, going out and finding a job somewhere.
    Sarah just hoped that Vi hadn’t conned Angie out of the ten pounds she’d given her for her birthday. She was such a soft touch. It made Sarah weep.
    To take her mind off things, Sarah was popping along to see her friend Doris Barker for a chat. She only lived a few flats away, just along the balcony, but Sarah only saw her once or twice a week. Unlike many of the women in Lancaster Buildings, Sarah Pearson liked to keep herself to herself. She was friendly, of course, but she was a proud woman and liked her privacy, just as she liked to keep herself looking nice.
    She rapped on the door, as she called through the letterbox. ‘Only me, Doris.’
    Going into Doris Barker’s flat was like entering a department store. Apart from the kitchen, which was kept ‘clean’ for unexpected visitors, it was crammed with everything from lacy underwear to overcoats, all the things from the West End that she fenced for the group of hoisters – shoplifters – who lived on and around the estate.
    Doris’s was a profitable business, which she spoke of as if it were some kind of community service; her view being that it provided gainful employment for local women, who would otherwise not be able to care for their broods of kids, who, regardless of their mothers’ circumstances, still needed new shoes and bigger-sized jackets for school.
    Apart from her almost tangerine, dyed hair, which was teased and lacquered into a bouf of high, swirling curls, Doris was a plainly presented, middle-aged woman who opted for rather matronly Crimplene frocks in shades of muted blue or beige to cover her ample sideboard of a figure. She thought that her subdued wardrobe afforded her some sort of invisibility, the protection of anonymity, but she might just as well have dressed in pink lurex tops, leopardskin capri pants and matching stilettoes. Everyone in the area knew about Doris’s entrepreneurial activities.
    Not only did most of the neighbourhood do business with her – if they weren’t selling, they were buying – but most of the older members of the local police force had, over the years, happily accepted ‘gifts’ for their wives and children from her. Their justification being that while the business was kept at a domestic level in Doris Barker’s flat in Lancaster Buildings, then it was all OK. It wasn’t as if she was involved in the rapidly escalating drugs business that was now taking a hold outside the once almost exclusively West End market, and that was the talk of police stations throughout the country. And, anyway, most of them had relatives, aunties, mothers even, who were as good as employed by the old girl.
    The door was opened by a thin, pasty-faced woman in her sixties. ‘Morning,’ she said, letting Sarah into the hall. ‘She’s through in the kitchen.’
    Doris was sitting at a