Twelve Girls , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Jon Beattiey

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

129 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

A series of interconnected vignettes, profiling different aspirations, quirks and fancies of widely diverse characters, though each impacts on others in a remarkable way. A novel both emotive and inspiring, it will not fail at some point to touch the heart-strings.

Informations

Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	30 septembre 2008
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781848769939
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	4 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Twelve Girls

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

CONTOUR Hardback ISBN - 978-1906221-447 Paperback ISBN - 978-1906221-430

APPLE GIRL Hardback ISBN - 978-1905886-715 Paperback ISBN - 978-1905886-623

JON BEATTIEY

Girls

Copyright © 2008 Bruce Edwards

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Matador 9 De Montfort Mews Leicester LE1 7FW, UK Tel: (+44) 116 255 9311 / 9312 Email: books@troubador.co.uk Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

This is a work of fiction. Characters, companies and locations are either the product of the author's imagination or, in the case of locations, if real, used fictitiously without any
intent to describe their actual environment.

ISBN 978-1906510-947 (pb) ISBN 978-1906510-381 (hb)

A Cataloguing-in-Publication (CIP) catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset in 11pt Book Antiqua by Troubador Publishing Ltd, Leicester, UK
Printed in the UK by The Cromwell Press Ltd,Trowbridge,Wilts, UK

in memory.

The girls who didn't make it,

let no man despise

TWELVE GIRLS
Authors Note xi
Juliette - but there were two, the black haired waitress and 1 the blonde
36 old one
Harriet & Alice – believe the unbelievable. Give hope to the least expected
62
90 ship Rachel - with a complexity to unravel
114
Sharon - tragedy dealt with and turned into a vocation 145
Annette - perfection has to suffer to reveal true love
181 Carol - a project to end indecision has surprising results
207
Teresa - rescued from the edge, an answer to prayers. 250
Deirdre - a whirlwind to bring funding and happiness 296
Postscript - and the wheel turns full circle 325
AUTHOR'S NOTE

I must acknowledge the support and encouragement received from all my former acquaintances in the London area during the ten formative years from 1982 when these stories began to take shape. The vibrancy of life in the City and East End of London should not be underestimated.

Reaction to the human need and emotions as portrayed (which can surface at any time and in any situation) will differ substantially from person to person. These stories are designed to show in a readable way what can be achieved by reacting instinctively to circumstances.

This is a work of fiction. The techniques, methods, processes and situations of any organisation presumed to be involved in any story herein are entirely figments of literary imagination and may well have no bearing whatsoever on current practices. No presumption should be made that actions and decisions taken within the storylines would be considered correct in today's environment.

Juliette

'Hit me, then!' The echo of her half cry, half shout, was to be scarcely heard above the drumming noise of the late afternoon rubbish bag for his neighbour to tip into the chute heard her; the large West Indian woman who was waddling along the light the bits of a fag they'd found in the stairwell heard her; all disregarded the sound. It was an everyday part of life in a coppers came to batter down a door and haul out some poor sod of a druggy.
Greta, the blonde girl with greasy hair down to her pendulous boobs, heard her as well, and shrugged. What was provided the bruises didn't show. She shut the landing door and went back to the telly. She didn't hear the dull thud or the box.

rotten hinges, thought nothing of it on her way down to the shops, but when she came back with her big bag of crisps and better of her. You never knew if there was a packet of fags you could nick. She peered in, called 'elloo', and got no reply. She wrinkled her nose at the stench, not that she was perfect, but this place! The crappy rug in the entrance hall was all rucked spare hand on the corner of the wall, and stuck her head round to see into the living space. The settee, on its side, was showing herself. The curtains, such as they were, flicked in and out of the open window, the purpley grey sky of the rolling storm lemon yellow colour. Didn't seem as though there was anyone else about, so putting her plastic carrier down carefully and again, not too loudly, turned to look around as she advanced across the floor, and saw her.
* * *

hair, grey eyes and a dimply smile that could break out at any time. Now twenty-five, she'd been around, mostly in the City, mood took her. She was good at her job, dextrous, knowledgeable, always on time, never complained about groping hands very efficiently and politely, managing at the same time to give the impression she was sorry in so doing. was so pleasant, and never once had she ever had to worry about getting home if the evenings had run on; asking for a lift Pal – Paul his full name – had stayed over the night once, but he was an exception; she'd felt sorry for him when he'd cried your bed just because he'd lost his pet, not that he'd done anything, just curled up with her as a sort of comfort thing. a virgin, never had the urges some of her mates talked about. It was going home after work one Friday night, after she'd
had a couple of halves of lager with the head chef Clive and of some guy following her, or at least she thought he was. Crossing the road behind her, taking the same route down the even through the passageway that opened onto the small park, but when she looked back after almost running across the fumbled to open the flat door with the latchkey; and slammed it shut behind her. Normally she closed it quietly, so as not to souls, who rather mothered her, and the music student, Bertrand, who was forever running out of coffee and so she didn't mind. Before she went to bed that night she made doubly sure she closed the curtains, and undressed by the morning came, having slept well enough through to her normal eight o'clock, she'd forgotten about him, if it was a him, her home, but time was getting on and she knew his wife worried. Happily, tonight there was no one behind her, just the floppy black coat she didn't look like a street prossy.
Sundays and Mondays she had her days off; on the Sunday reading in her next-to-nothings while the spin-dryer did its job. Then in the afternoon she took a cab to the cemetery and the canal side. Sometimes she stopped and chatted to the old man who regularly tried fishing near the lock, but that particular her head and after doing the flowers just walked straight back home in the wet. She could have taken another taxi home, but extra return fare. It was a good hour's walk, and she was fair puffed by the time she got back to the little park.
A youngish bloke was sitting on the park bench, reading a Inexplicably she stopped and asked him, why read a book in the rain? It looked soggy, so it couldn't have been easy to turn down looked dreadfully uncomfortable. His coat looked like quite a good one, though, and the rest of what she could see
'I've nothing else to do,' was the reply she got. He didn't look up, but merely tried to turn another page. It stuck, so he
'Why not sit in a bus shelter, then, or in a tube station?'
'I like it here.' His voice sounded educated, but he still
She took pity on him. If the café had been open, she'd have taken him there, and given him a cup of tea. 'You can come and eases. I'll make you a cup of tea. It's only across the road.' How brave was that? Used to men and their foibles, not such a big deal.
This time he did look up, and she saw he could not have been much more that twentyfive, if that. His face looked eyes against the light, or the wet.
'Why?'
She thought she could see him consider her offer for a moment, as he stared at his shoes and the growing puddle were floating and a discarded polystyrene burger box filling with water.
He didn't close the book, merely stuck a finger in the spine and held it like a bag, wiped his hair with the other hand and still head down, squelching through the sodden grass, droplets spraying ahead of his sopping shoes.
Back in the flat, she made him take off his coat and his mat to soak up the wet. She fetched him an old towel to dry his hair, and fished about in the hallstand drawer to find a comb.
'Alex.' He still held the book.
'Let me find something to dry the book, Alex.'
He held it protectively, close to him. 'I'll do it. Some kitchen roll?'
She fetched a new roll. They came from the café, perks of the book in three layers, laid it down on another sheet on the hall table. She had seen the tooled leather bound quality and though dark and stained with the damp.
'What's it called?' Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.'
'Oh. What's it about?' It didn't mean anything to her.
She was surprised and a little disturbed, but he seemed harmless. 'Well, Alex, suppose you come and sit in the lounge rain, in our park.' He nodded, following her through, but only after collecting his book and holding it like eggshells. She left put the kettle on, then risked going into her bedroom to take off her damp jersey top and old woollen skirt in favour of a frumpy, she knew, but then she wasn't going to show him anything, not if he was reading a sexy book, if that's what it was.
He drunk his mug of tea politely, not slurping, holding the him biscuits, but he shook his head. He kept glancing at the book, as if it would take off like some frightened bird.
'Is it valuable?'
'Won't it hurt it, being all wet?'
'I can't help not reading it, not until I know it by heart. It'll
'Oh!'
She couldn't think of anything else to say, and the two of
'I'd bette