A Little Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

always love me?’ Bobby chewed her bottom lip and blinked hard, always one stomach flip away from the memory of her dad, the man who had loved her most in the whole wide world but had left her on a pavement and gone away for good without looking back. No matter the reason behind his actions, he had left her and that still hurt.
    ‘He’d be mad not to. And if he even thinks about doing anything that makes you unhappy, he’ll have me to deal with.’ Pru nodded, only half in jest.
    She hadn’t shared her fears about William with Bobby. That he seemed a little aloof; not quite disinterested, but certainly not full of the enthusiasm that his wife-to-be displayed. Milly said she was being over-protective, reminded her that boys were different. She was probably right. But it was hard not to be over-protective. She had been chosen to look after Alfie’s precious girl and she couldn’t afford to get it wrong. His words would stay with her forever. As Bobby howled and stamped outside the front door, Alfie had looked at the sky and then the pavement, gently patting the top of his daughter’s head and her shoulders, unable to meet the eyes of his little girl, the one person in the world to whom he could not lie. He shook his head. ‘I’m not coming back, Bob. But you’ll be fine; Aunty Pru’s got you now.’
    It was as if Bobby read her thoughts. ‘I wonder what my dad would say if he could see me now, dressed up like this!’ She gathered up handfuls of her skirt and let it fall. ‘I realised the other day, Pru, I’ve been alive much longer without him than with him and yet it doesn’t feel like that to me. It’s weird, isn’t it, how you can miss something so badly that you only had for a very short time.’
    Alfie had died alone, just four months later, in a dirty basement flat in Hackney. Pru had cried for days at his passing, not so much for the manner in which he had died, or even the sadness that Bobby would carry with her, but because Alfie had deserved so much more and for the want of a more stable start and a pinch of self-confidence, he just might have got it.
    Bobby had been rather unresponsive to the news of his passing, which worried both Pru and Milly greatly. Sitting her down, Pru had told her it was all right to feel sad and to cry for her dad. Bobby, who was nine by then, had shrugged her shoulders, shaken her fringe out of her eyes and looked squarely at her aunt. ‘I know that, but I have cried all my tears out for him. I knew I wouldn’t see him again when he left me here and it already makes me sad every day – when I wake up, sometimes at school and before I go to sleep. I can’t be any sadder, because I’m already the most sad I can be.’
    It was so touching and honest and it had brought tears to Pru’s eyes.
    Looking at his gorgeous grown-up daughter now, Pru nodded her agreement. ‘It is weird, my love. It’s strange for me too. I still expect him to pop up, all smiles and with something funny to tell me. He could always make me laugh, more than anyone else.’
    ‘I would have loved him to meet William. He’d have said he was stuck-up at first, but once they got to know each other, they’d have got on great. It wouldn’t have mattered to me what my dad did or had. I would give anything for him to walk me down the aisle. I would love to have him back for just that one day!’
    ‘Oh, love.’ Pru swallowed the lump that sat at the back of her throat, a lump that she had been trying to shift for over a decade. ‘He’d be so proud of you! But he’s with you always, watching over your shoulder and keeping you safe. You know that, don’t you?’
    Bobby nodded. Yes, she knew that.
    Later that evening William plonked himself down in Pru’s chair, rubbed his eyes and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He crossed his heavy army boots at the ankles and knitted his palms across the back of his head. ‘I’m absolutely shattered.’
    ‘You are? I’ve spent the best part of my