The Yorkshire Pudding Club Read Free Page B

carpet in front of the television.
    ‘Dear God!’ belled Janey from the kitchen, she’d always imagined that at this age they would be mature and talking about the news and what charity Bob Geldof was collecting for these days. George chuckled and Janey thought, He’s got a lovely laugh. They had somehow fallen out of the habit of laughing together these days.
    ‘Didn’t I read somewhere that you lot were getting taken over?’ said George.
    ‘There’s been talk for a while,’ said Elizabeth, dismissing it. ‘Just the Job, the DIY chain, was supposedly interested in buying us out. Laurence loathes the bloke who owns it though and is standing firm. Not that I get to know much, being a mere pleb.’
    ‘Is it really that bad, working there?’
    ‘Worse. Well, the place is okay–it’s just her, Camp Commandant. As for him, I just can’t find the words. Hang on, I’ve just found some–he’s a tosspot.’
    ‘Aye, it’s tough working at the top,’ George teased, and smiled at her fondly. He loved Elizabeth like a sister, funny old thing that she was. In her he saw a vulnerability that a caring soul like him could not help but respond to, despite her frosty independent ways and her fruity language. He might have had plenty to say if Janey had been as free with her expletives, but with Elizabeth, it was just part and parcel. Not that anyone would think she had a mouth like a sewer to look at her, all little and slim with lovely, dark gypsy curls and startling grey eyes that his Janey had alwaysenvied, but in a nice way. She wouldn’t swap what she had for what her friend had in a million years, she’d assured him tenderly, even if Elizabeth could eat a double chicken korma and half a chocolate cake and not put an ounce of weight on.
    ‘Do you think there is something going on between those two at work then?’ asked George.
    ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Laurence is too smart for that. He’s got his eye on “higher things” and he needs to be squeaky clean, though it’s not for the want of trying on her part. Office politics! I tell you, Georgy boy, they’re worse than political politics!’
    ‘I can imagine,’ said George, nodding, although he had never really understood what could be so complicated and difficult about going into an office and sitting on your backside all day typing and answering the phone.
    ‘It just galls me how everyone thinks he’s some sort of hero when I know what a really horrible bloke he is. I mean today, right, we had these women in from the Blackberry Moor estate. Honestly, you would have thought they were meeting the Pope! One of them even had her autograph book. Prostrating themselves they were for a couple of boxes of Milk Tray and a Christmas turkey.’
    ‘Blackberry Moor? Where’s that? Sounds nice,’ said Janey.
    George sucked in a long whistley breath. ‘Nay, you must have heard of it, Janey love. It’s always on the news for drugs raids. The only time any of that lot will have seen a blackberry is if it’s been drawn on the backof an acid tab! It’s a massive council estate, pet–a right dump as well.’
    ‘But, give them credit,’ Elizabeth butted in, ‘a few people who live there have got together to get a bit of community spirit going. Laurence linked up with it for the free publicity, but you can tell he doesn’t give a toss. He’s too busy sending stupid emails to Julia about how fat and ugly people are, which is rich considering he’s one step away from being a werewolf and she’s got legs you could drive a bus through!’
    George stared at her in amazement. ‘Here, grind your teeth on these before you give yourself a jam-tart attack,’ he said, lifting his bowl of peanuts out to her. ‘I’ve never seen you in a stew before, Elizabeth.’
    ‘Yes, I know,’ said Elizabeth, refusing the nuts. If other people were noticing the change in her, it was not in her imagination then.
    ‘Eh, I’ve just thought,’ twinkled George.