There’s Always Tomorrow Read Free Page A

for Mrs Smith and Mrs Prior to come first thing in the morning.’
    Mariah Fitzgerald’s jaw dropped slightly. ‘Well,’ she flustered, as she strove to recover her composure, ‘the cutlery needs sorting out.’
    ‘That’s right, Madam,’ Dottie agreed. ‘And I’ve arranged that Mrs Prior will bring her little niece Elsie to do that. She’ll polish everything for ten bob.’
    Mariah Fitzgerald went a brilliant pink. The napkin she was holding fluttered down onto the table. She looked around helplessly. So did Dottie. She should have come sooner. Right now, she was wishing with all her heart that she hadn’t bothered to wait for Reg when Billy Prior had knocked on the door. Now she’d have to collect up all that cutlery, take all the plates back to the kitchen and tidy up at least forty napkins before she could go back home. She might even have to iron some of them again.
    Their eyes met.
    ‘Yes, well …’ said Mariah, patting her hair at the back. ‘I have to be up very early in the morning. The hairdresser is coming at nine thirty.’
    Dottie didn’t move.
    ‘So … so I’ll leave you to it, Dottie.’ Mariah said, mustering what little dignity she could find. ‘As usual, you seem to have everything under control.’
    Dottie watched her as she crossed the lawn and sighed. It would be at least another hour before she had everything back to the way it was before.
     
     
    Reg was all set to spend the evening in the corner of the Jolly Farmer with his pint of bitter. Usually there were plenty of people still willing to buy a pint for an old soldier, but tonight the bar was almost empty. He didn’t mind. It had been a long day – Marney and the station master had had him running from pillar to post.
    Marney’s chest was bad again. Too much smoking, everyone said, but Reg reckoned it was something to do with the POW camp he had been in. Germany somewhere. You could pick up some weird germs in those places. Marney probably lived week in week out on the verge of starvation as well, and that couldn’t have helped. Reg might not have been in a palace himself, but his ‘rest of the war’ was nowhere near as bad as Marney’s. Even if it were the ciggies that made his cough, who could blame the poor old bugger? He probably only smoked them to forget something.
    As Reg stared deeply into his pint, Oggie Wilson drifted back into his mind. He’d never forgotten poor old Oggie, and when he heard what had happened to him, he’d felt as sick as a pig. Reg never spoke of his own experiences of course. Better to let sleeping dogs, and all that, but when he’d married Dot in ’42, he knew he’d fallen on his feet. A nice little place right near the sea, two women at his beck and call – what could be better? Dottie had stuck by him all through the war and it was only the thought of coming home to her that kept him sane while he had been stuck in that bloody prison. He’d finally come back in ’48. She’d given him quite a homecoming too. Some of his mates had come back from POW camp to find their missus had given up on them. Jim Pearce’s wife had presumed him dead and when he came home he found her shacked up with somebody else. A fine how-d’you-do that was, and the woman had no shame. Reg knew what he’d have done if he’d found any woman of his cheating on him. Not Jim. He’d cleared off and she was still living next door, bold as brass.
    Dottie wasn’t like that. Dottie had waited and she’d been faithful. Reg took a long swing of his beer. Nah, Dottie would never do anything bad. She was perfect. Too bloody perfect, that was her trouble. Taking her on the doorstep would have added a bit of spice to life. Why did she have to go and mention the old trout? Bloody Bessie with her silly hats and passion for cowboy films, she ruined everything. Even the thought of her made his stomach turn.
    He’d had the shock of his life when Aunt Bessie had died and he’d never felt the same since. It had done for