Josephine Cox Mother’s Day 3-Book Collection: Live the Dream, Lovers and Liars, The Beachcomber. Josephine Cox
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greeting, Jasper set his small case down beside his feet, shuffling uncomfortably in his best coat and hat. He didn’t look at the man again, because he wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He needed to plan how he would tell Liz why her beloved Robert had not come back.
After being deposited a short distance from the railway station, he quickly made his way there. He boarded the train and showed his ticket, and was no sooner settled in his seat than the train was off. With a great whoosh of steam and a tug on the whistle, it was soon chugging away, its noisy, rhythmic motion lulling him to sleep.
On the same morning, Kathy was coming out of the shop when she almost collided with the postman. ‘I’ve a letter for you, Miss.’ A jolly-faced man with a head like a billiard ball, he knew every man, woman and child within a ten-mile radius of West Bay. ‘I really should deliver it through your letterbox myself,’ he said drily, ‘but, well, seeing as I’ve bumped into you like this, I don’t suppose it would do any harm, just this once.’ He glanced down at the letter. ‘From somebody important is it, d’you think?’
‘I won’t know till I look inside.’ Holding out her hand, Kathy thought she had better take it from him before he opened it himself. ‘I don’t know who could be writing to me,’ she remarked, quickly taking possession of the letter. ‘Hardly anyone knows my address.’
‘Really?’ He liked a bit of gossip, and being a postman offered unique opportunities in that direction. ‘Is that from neglect or choice?’ he wanted to know.
‘Choice,’ Kathy declared. ‘The fewer people who know where I am, the more peace and quiet I’ll get.’
‘Peace and quiet!’ He was amazed. ‘I should have thought a young woman like yourself would welcome company?’
Kathy gave him one of her sweeter smiles. ‘Well, you’d be wrong then, wouldn’t you?’ Itching to see who the letter was from, she hurried away.
She could hear him moaning as she went. ‘Well, I never,’ he complained to the old shopkeeper. ‘There’s a young madam if ever I saw one!’
If he thought to get support from Jasper’s old pal, he was mistaken, for as Kathy turned the corner she could hear the old woman’s curt reply. ‘Serves you right for being such a nosey old so-and-so!’ And off she went back inside to take a well-earned pinch of snuff.
Closing the front door behind her, Kathy threw off her coat. Going to the table, she sat herself down. The handwriting was childish, but she knew whose it was.
Ripping open the envelope, she read the first line. It was enough to tell her that the letter really was from Maggie.
As she read she began to smile, then she tittered, then she was laughing out loud. In full colour and with her incorrigible sense of humour, Maggie had written a lengthy account of her recent exploits. It began:
Hello, Kathy, old gal,
What yer been up to then, eh? Whatever it is, I bet yer ain’t been having as much fun as your old friend, Maggie.
What have I been up to now, you may well ask. Well, I’ll tell you. First of all, that arsehole of a manager at the pictures gave me the bleeding sack! Would you believe it, eh? Bloody cheek! And me the best usherette he’s ever had … no, not in that way, gal … I mean, I’m the best usherette he’s ever had … under the table, and on it. In between the rows of seats after everybody’s gone home, and anywhere else that took our fancy.
Only I had this unholy row with this old woman, and her snotty-nosed ratbag of a kid! I’d like to have wrung both their bleedin’ necks, only I never got the chance. Anyway, the upshot of it all is this; me and the old cow got into another fight, and there was this other old bugger who went berserk with an umbrella, and all hell were let loose. Everybody walked out and the manager had to pay money back, and I got the blame … as usual!
So then I got the sack, but he paid me well, though I bet he wished to God he hadn’t, ’cause I phoned his wife and said he were sick. Then I teased the old bugger like there was no tomorrow. When his wife walked in, I started crying an’ screaming about how he’d taken advantage of me, poor girl that I am. She offered me money to keep my mouth shut – all to do with pride and shame I expect. Truth is, gal, I don’t give a bugger what it’s to do with, so long as it’s me as comes off best in the end, which this time I did!
Anyway, that’s all my news, except to say I ain’t forgot where yer are, gal, don’t think that. Now I got some money, I’m hoping to have a little holiday. One o’ these fine days, I’ll turn up on your doorstep like a bad penny, you see if I don’t.
Till then, take care of yourself, gal.
Luv yer till the cows come home, Maggie.
There was spilt ink and coffee stains all over the pages. ‘You’ll never change, will you, Mags, and thank God for that.’ Kathy had laughed so hard her sides ached. She longed to see her friend.
She turned her attention to the chores of the day.
The laundry was her first task. Being used to taking her clothes to the laundry in Acton, and washing out her smalls in the sink, she had found it hard to get used to the copper-boiler that sat in the corner of the outhouse. She still washed her smalls in the bath, but for sheets and towels and anything heavy she had learned to use the boiler; though she had seen an advertisement for a twin-tub washing machine that she meant to buy when she had enough money. For now, though, it was sleeves rolled up and get on with it.
When the water was boiling she dropped the clothes in one by one, submerging them with the help of a long wooden stick which stood beside the boiler. When the clothes were rising and steeping, she went back inside the house.
Taking a newspaper and handbrush, she went to the fire-grate, where she dropped to her knees. It wasn’t a hard job, but it was dirty and dusty. So, she went slowly … shovelling the ashes out from underneath and placing them ever so gently into the laid-out newspaper.
When the ashes were all out, and the cinders piled onto the grating ready for the next fire, she folded the newspaper to make a little bag. She then carried the bag out to the bin, and returned to the kitchen.
Taking a floorcloth from the cupboard, she wet it through, wrung it out, and, going into the sitting room, wiped the hearth over until it shone. Next, she made a fan of the leftover newspapers, and set it in the hearth.
She then dusted the furniture and plumped the sofa cushions. All that remained was for her to go into the stair-cupboard and take out the carpet-sweeper.
This was a job she hated, because the stiff bristles on the carpet-sweeper soon got clogged up and needed cleaning every five minutes or so. Still, she told herself, it did a good job and that was all that mattered. ‘I need one of those vacuum cleaners,’ she muttered as she worked. That was another thing she meant to buy when she could afford it. There were a few things she needed, but they weren’t yet priorities on her list.
When the carpet was cleaned, she put away the sweeper and checked the washing; it was ready. Filling the deep pot sink with cold water, she took up the stick; teasing the clothes out one by one, she slid them into the sink, her face bright pink as the warm steam rose like a cloud to envelop her.
She gave the clothes a thorough rinsing, before wringing them out and folding them into her laundry-basket. Next, the boiler was emptied and the job done. ‘Thank goodness for that!’ It was the worst chore of all, she thought.
It didn’t take long to peg them out. Ten minutes later, they were hanging on the line, limp and dripping; until she sent the line sky-high with her wooden prop. Then the clothes caught the breeze and came alive, dancing and leaping about like crazy things.
Stooping to collect the stray pegs from the ground, Kathy was astonished to hear a voice calling her name. ‘Yoo-hoo! Where are ye, gal?’
Kathy couldn’t believe her ears. ‘MAGGIE!’ Dropping the pegs, she ran to the side gate, and there was Maggie, peering over the top and grinning from ear to ear, asking to be let in. ‘If this