Unforgettable Read Free

a penny that he never had dirtyfingernails. The mouthpiece of the long brass tube of the saxophone was between his pursed lips, and those sensitive fingers caressed it.
    By the time the others came back, Dolly was as red-faced as Jim, both from the dancing and, no doubt, by the things Jim was whispering in her ear. Gracie never set herself up to be Dolly’s saviour, but somebody had to save her from herself, she sometimes told her laughingly, and got the usual reply:
    Oh stuff. You only live once, but sometimes you sound as old as my old granny instead of nineteen, same as me
.
    â€˜Jim don’t live far from us, Gracie,’ Dolly said now. ‘He delivers coal to the mews around the corner, so it’s a wonder we ain’t seen him and Billy before.’
    â€˜We probably have, but we wouldn’t recognize them all covered in coal dust,’ Gracie said before she had time to think.
    â€˜Hah! Told you she fancied herself as a bit of a toff, didn’t I?’ Jim said, the smile not quite hiding the gleam in his eyes that said he wasn’t too keen on this hoity-toity friend of Dolly’s. She might look like the bee’s knees, but thank God he’d got the one who was good for a laugh, and Billy would have to make the best of it. After tonight he’d neverneed to see her again, but that didn’t go for Dolly.
    This one he’d definitely like to see again, and from the way she’d pressed her cupcakes up against him when they were dancing, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be averse to a bit of slap and tickle.
    â€˜Come on, Billy, I’ll teach you this one,’ Gracie said, deciding that he was probably never going to ask her to dance again, so she might as well take the initiative, even if it wasn’t the done thing. Besides, she preferred to get well away from Jim, who was decidedly whiffy now, and it wasn’t just what some called poncy aftershave, either.
    Billy led her out on to the floor, and by some miracle of manoeuvring she kept him well away from her feet for most of the time. The thought of her lovely cream shoes being all scuff-marked from his size ten clodhoppers was too much to bear. He was doing his best though, and she encouraged him with a smile as they moved around the dance-hall.
    â€˜You’re wonderful,’ he said at last, even more red-faced.
    â€˜Why, thank you, Billy,’ Gracie said, sorry for her earlier ungraciousness about him now. ‘I’m not really wonderful though.’
    â€˜You are. Nobody showed me how to dance before.’
    She smothered a small sigh. ‘We’ll have another one later then, if you like,’ she said, thinking that this wasn’t exactly fulfilling her hopes for this evening. Especially as she glimpsed Dolly and Jim laughing at them as Billy held her carefully away from him so that he could watch her feet and match their movements.
    She might have known they were going to be stuck with them. From the moment Dolly’s eyes had lit up at the sight of Jim making his way towards her, Gracie knew they were done for. Nobody else was going to break into the foursome and ask her to dance now. And if Dolly thought she had found her love-match in the oafish Jim, she certainly hadn’t done so with his mate. But he didn’t want to dance very often, so they sat it out while the others got on with it.
    It hardly put her in a very good frame of mind, and halfway through the evening the band left the stage, off for a breather, and Dolly and Jim were dancing to gramophone records. Gracie closed her eyes briefly, preferring to listen to the music rather than to Billy’s awkward attempts to chat. His offering to buy her another glass of lemonade in this interval had been the highlight of the evening so far, and she sent him off gladly.
    â€˜May I have the pleasure of this dance, miss?’ a voice said, close by.
    She felt a rush of guilty relief, knowing it wasn’t Billy’s