Rumours and Red Roses Read Free Page B

I mean to say, you can’t do a lot when you’re that old so she does right to play safe. She’s got herself a navy blue and white spotted suit from a mail-order catalogue, I believe. But I’m not sixty yet. I’m younger than Cilla Black and would you look at her. She wears short tight skirts and high heels too. And she has that lovely red tint to her hair.’
    Shelley’s hair was, at that time, honey blonde but as she was forever switching and changing both the colour and the style as was the way with hairdressers, you could never be sure from one year to the next.
    It was the last time she would make any effort, Shelley said, when they eventually started talking again because she couldn’t keep up the not talking for very long. If Becky got engaged again – and chance would be a fine thing because she wasn’t getting any younger and was proving to be too picky for words – then Becky would have to do the organizing of the wedding herself. A do like that didn’t organize itself and the worry had nearly sent her mental. There was the cake and the flowers and the photographs, the little gifts for the guests, not to mention the invitations and the announcement in the paper. A millionand one things. The presents had started to arrive and that had been a hassle and a half returning them to their rightful senders. And she had had to deal with the bridesmaids and their disappointment. Shelley hadn’t known where to put herself at the club where she had paid the deposit and arranged the fish and chip supper. She had been looking forward to starting the ball rolling in the karaoke stakes with Shirley Bassey’s ‘Big Spender’.
    Saved by the bell then.

TWO
    B ECKY LEFT SCHOOL at the first opportunity, which had caused grief to some of her teachers who had her down as a likely candidate for taking up a college course and doing something with her life. Doing something for them seemed to mean getting a qualification that would give her the chance to escape this town, this big northern sprawl of a town, her town, and move to somewhere nicer and cleaner. If they hated it so much, why didn’t they move then? That was what she thought but she wouldn’t dream of saying it, not to a teacher.
    The last year had been horrible, of course, following the accident, with five members of her class short, and when she had gone back to school after her stint in hospital she had been overwhelmed at the kindness shown to her. Her leg had mended well but even now, sometimes , it ached and, whenever it did, she was reminded of why it ached.
    She could draw beautifully, producing a passable sketch with just a few deft touches of the pencil, and was the sort of pupil her art teacher dreamed about, one of those rarities, somebody with natural talent. There were much mutterings of ‘wasted opportunities’ and ‘throwing chances away’ but Becky had made her mind up and wasn’t for changing it. After the accident, a tiny bit of feistiness had attached itself to her and this was her way of showing it.
    Her mum had been called in by the headmaster for a ‘chat’ but for once in her life she had supported her daughter’s decision. Becky had almost wanted her not to, to be on the side of the teachers, to tell her she had to stay on and that was that, no arguments. She had, after all, only needed a little push. She had a feeling that if her dad had been alive that’s what he would have done but he wasn’t around and although shehalf wanted to go on to the sixth form and then art college, she was pulled in the other direction too.
    She wanted to get a job, any job, just so she had independence and some money to call her own. Also, although she would never admit as much, she knew her mum was struggling with just her hairdresser’s wage coming in – no great shakes – and, although it was never said, she really needed Becky to get off her backside and help out.
    She had had a variety of jobs since leaving school, mainly in shops, and just