That'll Be the Day (2007) Read Free Page A

sake of her pride she’d pretended to agree, saying that of course she’d only been teasing and wished him every happiness in his coming marriage, but her heart had been utterly broken. It had taken weeks before she could even bear to look at another man.
    The experience had left her even more wary of commitment. She still dreamed of meeting a man she was willing to give her all to, someone she could trust implicitly and wish to be with for the rest of her life, but beneath the dream lay a growing panic that he might not even exist.
    On the other hand, she certainly had no wish to repeat her mother’s mistake of rushing into marriage with the wrong man and spending the rest of her life regretting it.
    Terry was talking about the band now, promising there was a supper included, doing his utmost to persuade her to go to the dance. Lynda found herself giggling over his intensity. He really was keen, poor boy. What if Mam did sometimes accuse her of seeking attention? Where was the harm in that? There was nothing Lynda loved more than to bask in masculine admiration.
    It was true that she could also be moody and difficult, and feel quite vulnerable and emotionally insecure at times. Lynda was aware that most of her boy friends, and she’d had several, saw her as an enigma. One minute she would be all over them, openly affectionate, perhaps too much so; the next cool and distant, or casually off-hand.  
    Perhaps, like her mother, she really didn’t care for men at all. Yet unlike Betty, just as a moth is attracted to flame, Lynda simply couldn’t resist them.
    ‘Bit gullible, that’s me. Indecisive and flirtatious,’ she would laughingly explain. ‘A typical Libra.’
    The true cause of the confusing signals she sent out was far more prosaic. As a child, until the moment he’d walked away, Lynda had believed Ewan to be a loving father. She remembered him bringing her presents; a rag doll one of his comrades had made, a pretty brooch which she still had to this day. She would excitedly pull them out of his kitbag and he would swing her up high in his arms and tell her she was his most precious gift of all.
    And then one day he simply stopped coming and she never saw him again. There were no more presents, no letters, not even a card on her birthday.
    If her own father could so easily turn away and reject her, suddenly stop loving her with such callous heartlessness, it must be because she wasn’t a nice person. If even he couldn’t find her loveable, what hope was there of any other man doing so?
    A shiver of fear ran down her spine at the prospect of turning into a sour old spinster like Annie Higginson, whose only excitement in life was a game of bridge every Thursday at the mission hall. But then why should she when she was still so young and full of life? She simply hadn’t found the right man yet and until that glorious day arrived there were plenty of others to be enjoyed, lots of fun and sex and excitement to be had, so long as she held on to her private vow not to fully engage her heart until it was safe to do so.
    With this in mind Lynda again considered Terry Hall’s dark good looks and his fit young body, telling herself there was no harm in being cautious where men were concerned, none at all. Although it didn’t do to be over-cautious. Six years difference in their ages was nothing, surely? The poor boy looked so downcast by her refusal and she didn’t have anything else planned for this evening.
    ‘Okay, why not? Pick me up at seven,’ she said, and almost laughed out loud as she watched his eyes widen with surprise and joy.  
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yes, really. But leave your tricycle at home, love. I prefer real men who can afford to provide a taxi, not little boys.’
    She knew this was an unkind, insensitive remark to make even before she saw the colour in his cheeks deepen with fresh embarrassment, but something inside always compelled her to damage a relationship right from the start.
    ‘I’ve