Bye Bye Love Read Free

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
     
     
    ‘T WO 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,