Lizzie's Secret

Lizzie's Secret Read Free

Book: Lizzie's Secret Read Free
Author: Rosie Clarke
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grins, greasy caps pulled over their heads; Jews with orthodox ringlets, beards, long black coats and black hats; men with dark complexions, turbans and traditional long gowns, their feet bare of socks and wearing string sandals; women in headscarves tied in a knot, showing just a glimpse of hair, and aprons that crossed over at the front, on their break from the jam factory just down the road.
    On one side of the road there was a pawn shop with the sign of the three balls over its door and a few tarnished articles on show; most of the stock was inside, tucked away in the safe, waiting for its owners to reclaim it when they had the money. Next to it was one of the Greenspan trading grocery stores and then a hardware shop and a pub with its sign in black and gold lettering and a picture of a king’s head, adjoining it; a tobacconist store with penknives, cigarette cases and signs, and a rack of pipes in its window made up the row of shops. Further on was a Jewish synagogue and next to that a building with the name of a clothing manufacturer over its dirty windows, which were blocked out with grubby blinds. Beth told Lizzie it was a sweatshop and the seamstresses who worked there were made to do impossibly long hours.
    â€˜They’re all foreign women and I don’t think any of them speak English,’ Beth told her. ‘Come on, we’d better hurry now or Mum will get worried.’
    *
    â€˜So what happened?’ Aunt Jane attacked as soon as Lizzie entered the kitchen. ‘I suppose it was a waste of time. Don’t imagine your uncle and I are going to let you sit around doing nothing all day…’
    â€˜I got the job as an apprentice and I’m going to learn everything.’ Lizzie’s head rose in defiance. ‘My wage is twenty-five bob for the first six months and then it goes up another ten shillings…’
    â€˜How are you going to manage on that?’ her aunt demanded. ‘I’ll still want my pound a week and that leaves you with hardly enough to get to work…’
    â€˜Lizzie has done the right thing,’ Uncle Jack spoke up for her. ‘I’ve always said that she’s wasted in that canteen – and it isn’t her fault she missed all that schooling, Jane. She’ll give you a pound a week same as usual, but until she’s earning more I’ll give her ten bob for herself.’
    â€˜Whose money is that coming out of? Don’t think you can cut my money. I work all hours to keep this family decent – and I…’
    â€˜It’s all right, Jane,’ he said quietly. ‘Lizzie’s pocket money will come from mine. I’ll share it with her.’
    â€˜Uncle Jack,’ Lizzie protested, ‘you can’t give me your beer money. You work hard all week, you deserve something…’ her eyes stung with tears, because he was always trying to help her, to protect her from Aunt Jane’s caustic tongue.
    â€˜If he’s fool enough to give it to you, it won’t hurt him to stay home one night a week…’ Aunt Jane’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘So if you got the job where have you been all this time?’
    â€˜I met a nice girl at Oliver’s workshops. She’s got a job in the office and I had lunch at her home and met her mum.’
    Lizzie wished she knew more about her own mother, but she had only a tiny silver cross and chain to remember her by. Lizzie sometimes felt upset that almost nothing of her parents’ had been kept for her, but then most of her past was shrouded in a hazy mist since her accident.
    Sometimes strange pictures flashed into her head and she seemed to recall a nurse bending over her… and a room with bars on the windows. All she really remembered was the doctor at the sanatorium telling her that she was Lizzie Larch and she could go home to her aunt and uncle as soon as she was well enough.
    She’d left school at sixteen, and gone to work

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