Read Online Stay as Sweet as You Are by Joan Jonker - Free Book Online Page B

take her to town on her birthday so she can choose one she likes. After that we can go back to normal, but you’ll be responsible for buying her clothes and making sure she always looks decent. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll dock the money again and see to her meself.’ He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. ‘Have yer anything else to say? If yer have, get it off yer chest now.’
    ‘No, we’ll see how it works out. I’ll do my bit.’
    ‘Right! I’m off to bed then, ’cos right now I could sleep on a clothes line. If I’m not awake, give me a call about five o’clock.’
    Ruby heard him climbing the stairs and pulled a face. What a miserable man she was married to. He had no life inhim at all. All he thought about was work, bed, his tummy and his beloved daughter. Not like the men her mates were married to. They liked nothing better than taking their wives to the pub a few nights a week and having a laugh and a sing-song.
    She threw the cigarette stub into the hearth, and after telling herself she didn’t have much to do and all day to do it in, she decided another smoke wouldn’t do no harm. And as she watched a smoke ring drift towards the ceiling, she asked herself what she’d ever seen in Bob Mellor. Oh, he was tall, dark and handsome, all right, but he wasn’t exciting. And that’s what she wanted, some excitement in her life.

Chapter Four
    ‘Hey, Aggie!’ Irene Pollard saw her neighbour walking up the street ahead of her and hurried to catch up. ‘What’s the big rush, sunshine? Have yer got a heavy date?’
    ‘Yer could say that, queen.’ Aggie’s smile was wide, showing that this wasn’t a day for her gums to be on display. ‘The postman brought a letter from Titch this morning and his ship’s docking some time today.’
    Irene linked her arm and squeezed. ‘That’s what yer call good news, eh?’ Tommy McBride was Aggie’s son, the only family she had. And she idolised him. ‘It’s been a long trip this time, hasn’t it?’
    ‘Four months. I’ve been expecting a letter every day, ’cos I knew he was due any time. But he’s still caught me on the hop, with a pantry as bare as Mother Hubbard’s. So I’m off to the shops to stock up, ’cos yer know what an appetite he’s got. He eats me out of house and home when he’s here, but it’s a pleasure to see the way he tucks into anything yer put before him.’ Aggie’s chuckle was hearty. ‘He used to lick his bleedin’ plate clean when he was a youngster, but I had to put a stop to that when he was twenty-one ’cos it didn’t look right somehow.’
    ‘Yer can tell he likes his food, Aggie, he’s a giant of a man. That’s why I can’t understand how he got the nickname Titch! There’s nothing small about him.’
    ‘The kids called him that when he started school because he was very small and skinny. He didn’t start growing untilhe was about twelve, and so help me, Irene, I thought he’d never stop. But everyone knew him as Titch, and the name stuck. The only time I call him Tommy is when I’m telling him off.’
    Irene chortled. ‘Yer can’t tell a forty-year-old man off, Aggie, that’s daft.’
    ‘That’s what he gets told off for, queen, being daft. He might be forty, but he’s never grown up in the head. He’s always playing tricks on me, and if he wasn’t so big I’d box his ears for him.’ When Aggie laughed, her top set of teeth became loose and she stuck her thumb in her mouth to push them back into place. ‘Last time he was home he hid me purse on me. I didn’t know he’d hidden it, like, and I searched high and low for the bleedin’ thing. I didn’t let on to him in case he said I was careless, but after looking everywhere, I was getting frantic. It was only when the club woman knocked he took it out of his pocket and handed it to me, looking all innocent, as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “Is this what ye’re looking for, Ma?” he asked. I could have brained him, I