A New Year for The Seaside Girls , livre ebook

Boldwood Books - Tracy Baines

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183 pages

English

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Can the Seaside Girls embrace the new year with courage...

Cleethorpes – 1940
As the new year dawns the show at the Empire comes to an end and it’s time for the girls to move on.
Years of struggle are over for Frances O’Leary when Johnny Randolph returns to make things right for her and their daughter. Do they have a chance of happiness? Of being a family after so long?
But their good fortune is fraught with complications when sister Ruby Randolph decides to have her last hurrah, leaving a trail of devastation in her wake.
Jessie Delaney is afraid to follow her dreams and leave those she loves behind – can she really have it all?
All the seaside girls have their own battles to fight. And while they figure things out it’s time for them to do their bit for the war and keep Britain smiling.
A gritty and heart-warming saga perfect for readers of Elaine Everest, Nancy Revell and Pam Howes.

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Publié par	Boldwood Books
Date de parution	14 avril 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781804265345
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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A NEW YEAR FOR THE SEASIDE GIRLS

TRACY BAINES
CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Acknowledgments

More from Tracy Baines

About the Author

Sixpence Stories

About Boldwood Books
For Neil
For the love and the laughter
PROLOGUE

Johnny Randolph remained on the landing between the dress circle and the gods of the Empire theatre, suspended between the two, just as the old year was about to roll into the new. Frances had asked him to wait, he had no idea why, but then he hadn’t understood so many things these past few months.
Only a few hours ago he’d been on his way to meet her, a diamond ring in his pocket and a proposal on his lips. What should have been a magical moment spoiled once again by his sister, Ruby. The snow had been falling heavily when he’d set off and he couldn’t explain what made him turn back – could only thank God that he had. A wraithlike figure, scantily clad and barefoot, had been walking towards the park. It had taken seconds for him to realise it was her, a pale shadow moving towards the freezing water of the lake. He’d run, slipping and sliding in the snow, and dragged her from it. She’d been wild-eyed, babbling incoherently about letters, begging for his forgiveness. It was a while before he’d understood. Letters he’d written to Frances, the love of his life, had been intercepted – as had hers to him. Ruby and his mother to blame. It was a miracle they’d even found each other again, and in a way, he had Ruby to thank for that. For if it hadn’t been for her wayward and reckless behaviour they might have remained in London, might never have left America. He might never have found Frances again. A miracle.
A door opened and noises of the party in the rooms above drifted down to him, laughter, and music, and warmth. Two set of footsteps on the stairs, Frances, and a softer, lighter step. Two pairs of shoes, a woman’s, a child’s. A little girl of no more than three, with dark hair and dark eyes, like her mother’s, like his. He couldn’t take his eyes off her and when she smiled at him, he looked to Frances, his tired brain trying to make sense of it all.
‘Your child?’
‘Ours,’ Frances corrected him, letting go of the little girl’s hand. ‘Imogen, Daddy’s home at last.’
1
NEW YEAR’S DAY 1940

At the dawn of the new year, Ruby Randolph was involved in two wars. The first with the rest of Great Britain and its Allies, fighting Hitler – the second within herself. A battle she no longer wanted to win. She’d been smiling out to audiences since she was four years old, when she first went onstage with her parents and her elder brother, Johnny, putting on a happy face for people who had paid to see them – selling herself. Twenty years ago, she’d been afraid of the lights and the noise, but had loved the attention, the adoration. It had fed her – then consumed her. She’d been doing it so long she didn’t know how else to live. And now that Johnny knew everything, there would be nothing worth living for.
She lay, eyes shut but not sleeping, on the chintz sofa in the sitting room, drowsy from the medication the doctor had given her hours ago, aware of the fire crackling in the grate and the housekeeper, Mrs Frame, talking in a low whisper to her husband, Ted. The detached house in Park Drive had been home to the Randolph siblings for the last eight weeks, while they were topping the bill at the Palace Theatre in Grimsby for the winter season. The house overlooked the park, the park with the lake that she had walked into only hours ago. The lake that her brother had rescued her from. She shivered, feeling the sudden chill of the water again and Mrs Frame came over to her, adjusted the blanket. She touched her hand, spoke softly.
‘Miss Ruby?’
She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t want to see anything of the world. Not any more. It would have been better if Johnny had let her slip into the darkness, for she couldn’t imagine a future now. Everything their mother had warned her of had come to pass.
Alice Randolph had told her that any number of girls would take her place in Johnny’s affections when he fell in love. That would be difficult enough, but if that girl could sing and dance, why would he need Ruby to partner him? The seeds had been sown so easily and Ruby, already insecure, had struggled most of her life with fear – fear of being replaced, fear of being left alone. So it had been natural to do as her mother wished, hiding the letters from Frances and not delivering the ones he trustingly handed over, protecting herself, protecting them all. The Randolphs. Their father had died in an accident when Ruby was six, leaving behind a trail of debts. Mother had been left with nothing but the talent of her children and the will to succeed, and succeed she had – but at what cost?
‘Ruby?’ Was it her mother speaking? No, it couldn’t be, she remembered now. Not her mother, but Mrs Frame. Her head was filled with cotton wool, soft and fluffy clouds that she wanted to float away on, to a place where nothing could hurt her.
‘Leave her be, love,’ Mr Frame said from his place by the fire. ‘Sleep will heal, and the lass looks like she needs it. I’ve seen more flesh on a rabbit. Is she warm enough?’
A cool hand was placed on her forehead. ‘Warm on the outside but I can’t say as what she’s like on the inside, poor lamb.’ Mrs Frame cradled her head and gently raised it to adjust the pillow. It was a wonderful thing to be tended to with so much care; Ruby couldn’t remember the last time she’d been held so dearly. It ended when Mrs Frame went back to her chair and once again Ruby’s thoughts began to swirl and drift.
When the grandfather clock in the hall chimed twelve to herald the passing of the old into the new, Mr Frame got up. ‘Shall we toast the year with a drop of sherry?’ he suggested. ‘I’m sure Mr Randolph won’t mind.’ Ruby knew Mr Randolph wouldn’t mind, as long as he got what he wanted. She loathed this smelly, industrial place. Grimsby. He had tricked her, bringing her here, telling her he was thinking of the future, which he was – but of his, not hers. They had been due to open at the London Coliseum but when war was declared the theatres were closed, and Johnny had looked for opportunities elsewhere. By some strange quirk of fate, he had found Frances O’Leary, the Irish girl who had taken her place once, and was set to take it for good. It was about what he wanted. It had been, all along. He shouldn’t have turned back last night, to save her; he should have let her go. She was of no use to him now.
There was a gentle chink of glass as Mrs Frame picked up the decanter and poured, the ring of their glasses as they made a toast. ‘Well, love,’ Mr Frame announced, ‘to 1940 and whatever it brings. May we get through together, God willing.’ She lifted her eyelids a little, enough to see Mr Frame peck his wife on the cheek and share an affectionate hug before they sat down again in the chairs either side of the fire. Together.
Four years, that’s how long Johnny and Frances had been apart, and in that time the Randolphs had been making quite a name for themselves in America – the darlings of New York, the British Astaires. She’d never felt as loved as she had there. Until Johnny spoiled it. They’d been offered Broadway and he’d turned it down to come home. But where was home? She no longer knew.
The clock chimed the half hour and Mr Frame got up and went to the window, slipping beyond the curtain, careful not to let the light escape into the darkness outside.
‘Snow’s stopped, Flo,’ he said, tugging the curtains back into place. ‘That’s a blessing at least. I’ll be getting off home. Will you be all right if I leave the pair of you?’
His wife tutted. ‘Ted Frame, I’ve been managing perfectly well looking after folk for years. I’ll be more worried about you walking back. Did you bring your torch?’ Mrs Frame left the room and came back with his coat and hat. Ruby lifted her eyelids a little, watching her fuss over him, this man in his sixties, as if he were a small boy who might get lost in the dark.
Ruby closed her eyes again. Her mother had never cared for her like that. She couldn’t remember one moment in her entire life when she’d experienced the tenderness she’d seen playing out between these two people who loved each other. Did her mother even know what love was? Alice Randolph had returned home to England to die, without a word to her adult children. Ruby would never forgive her for that. Never. She had pushed them to succeed then betrayed them both, leaving Ruby keeper of her secrets. Nothing was meant to come between brother and sister; Alice wouldn’t allow it – but it had, more than Johnny had known, more than she had known. And it was her fault. He would know now of his child, for he hadn’t returned as he said he would. Tonight the entire length and breadth of her deceit had been broken wide open and, just as her mother had warned her, it was the beginning of the end for the Randolphs.
2

The small party left the Empire theatre on Alexandra Road in the early hours of New Year’s Day and headed for the terraced house on Barkhouse Lane where Frances O’Leary had lodgings. There had been no performance, it being Sunday, and the cast of the panto along with f