Chapters (52)
- Cover
- Margaret Dickinson
- Dedication page
- Contents
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Part Two
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Sow the Seed
- Note
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Copyright page
She watched the serious expression on his face lighten as he smiled. ‘Yes, Corporal Hilton. It’s an order.’
‘Yes, sir!’
Twenty-Nine
‘Shut up, Kate, do,’ Mavis hissed.
As if from a great distance, Kate heard them arguing over her head as she felt herself being dragged along between them, her stumbling feet seeming to have a will of their own.
‘Silly cow’ll get us on a fizzer,’ Isobel muttered, forgetting her lady-like manner for once. ‘Whatever did you let her drink so much for?’
‘Don’t blame me, you were there too. Or were you too busy chatting up Ron?’ Mavis countered.
‘We should have known – we should have watched her.’
‘He doesn’t love me,’ Kate wailed. ‘He’s gone and married . . .’
‘Has he got married then?’ Isobel hissed at Mavis above Kate’s lolling head.
‘Yes – today. He rang up again last night to try to get her to go to the wedding. I ask you! Must be a heartless bastard!’
‘No – no,’ Kate’s head came up. ‘You’ve got it wrong, Mave. He does love me, really. He can’t marry me, so he’s got to marry Rosie. But I didn’t want him to get married. ‘Specially not – not Rosie!’
‘What is she on about?’ Isobel asked.
‘Search me,’ Mavis said. ‘Got this Rosie up the stick by the sound of it.’
‘No – no! I – will explain it all,’ Kate enunciated carefully. ‘Because you’re my – my friends now. But you weren’t always my friend, were you, Isobel? You – were – very unkind to me at sh-chool, Is-o-bel.’ Kate wagged her forefinger in the air at no one in particular seeing as both her arms were being held tightly by the girls on either side of her. ‘You used to – call – me Sicky . . . ‘
As if the memory again prompted the action, she felt the bile rise in her throat. ‘I’m gonner be sick!’ was all she could mumble before the quantities of beer she had consumed came spewing up into the road.
‘Seems I wasn’t far wrong either,’ Isobel said brutally, but she put her hand on Kate’s forehead and held back her long hair while she heaved and retched on to the grass verge.
‘Where’s her cap?’ Isobel asked.
‘In my pocket,’ Mavis said grimly. ‘Oh, heavens! There’s something coming!’
Mavis and Isobel looked back over their shoulders as the noise of a vehicle and the pin-pricks of light from its shrouded headlights came towards them.
‘Quick, there’s a ditch here. Come on, they might not see us.’
‘Ugh! There’s water in the bottom,’ exclaimed the fastidious Isobel.
‘Better than being in the guard-room,’ Mavis said tartly, shuddering as the cold water covered her ankles.
Kate groaned and slipped from their grasp, splashing on to her knees in the bottom of the ditch.