A Silver Lining Read Online Free PDF

how she behaved?
    ‘I was only trying to help,’ he complained mildly.
    ‘I’ve seen how you try to help,’ she countered acidly. ‘When I buy four pennyworth of meat from a butcher I expect just that. Not a charity hand-out that’s more than any normal family can eat in a month of Sundays.’
    ‘But Miss Moore ...’
    She didn’t wait to hear what the ‘but’ was. Wrenching her elbow out of his supporting hold she strode round the corner and up the hill. Sustained by anger she managed to ignore her pain until she turned into a small grimy street hemmed in on both sides by narrow terraced cottages. Morgan Street –home. An inviting image of her bed hovered tantalisingly in her mind. At that moment all she wanted was to lie down and close her eyes against the world, but even as the desire formulated itself her fingers closed around the unaccustomed weight of the two half-crowns in her pocket. There was something she had to do first, before she lost, or was tempted to spend, her unaccustomed riches.
    She halted outside the first stone house in the terrace. Inside, a table had been pushed close to the sooty window of the front parlour. Dusty packets of tea, dried peas, sugar, and four small pyramids of tins were displayed against a background of deep blue sugar paper. Two of the tins contained luxurious corned beef; the others held the more everyday tomatoes, beans and sardines.
    At the very front, within easy view of even the smallest child, lay a large open cardboard box jammed with wooden twigs of liquorice chews, farthing ‘dabs’, halfpenny everlasting strips, toffee and coconut scrapings, and sherbet screws.
    Pushing open the warped wooden door she walked over the uneven flags of the passage and turned into the front room shop that was dominated by a rough, waist-high counter. There was room enough –just –to stand in front of and study the goods ranged on the shelves behind.
    ‘Don’t normally see you in here at this time of day, Alma.’ Edna Hopkins wrapped a wafer-thin slice of cheese she had just cut for Lillian Bartlett, the only other customer in the shop.
    ‘Come to settle our tab, Mrs Hopkins.’ Alma looked round for something to lean against. There was nothing but the wall behind the door.
    ‘Well that’s welcome news.’ Edna lifted a child’s red covered exercise book from the deep wooden tray that served as a till. ‘I wish all our customers were as prompt.’
    She gave Mrs Bartlett a sideways glance. ‘Three and six, I think.’ Alma took the two half-crowns from her pocket and pushed them over the counter.
    ‘Come into a fortune, Alma?’ Lillian Bartlett joked as Mrs Hopkins pencilled a large cross over the page and extracted the change from her box.
    ‘Hardly,’ Alma closed her eyes for a moment as another pain gripped her abdomen.
    ‘You look peaky, love. Are you all right?’
    ‘No. I think I’ve eaten something.’
    ‘Always the same at Christmas,’ Edna interrupted as she replaced the red book. ‘Stuff ourselves silly with things we can’t afford the rest of the year only to suffer for it for days afterwards.’
    ‘That’s it,’ Alma agreed as she pocketed her money. ‘And thank your Iorwerth for me will you please, Mrs Hopkins. It was good of him to carry my tree and parcels back from the market.’
    ‘Think nothing of it, love. He’s always looking for an excuse to flex those muscles of his. Especially in front of Madge.’
    ‘She seems a nice girl.’ Alma bit her lip to stop herself from crying out.
    ‘That she is. He’s done well for himself there.’
    ‘Nice to see someone happy.’ There was an unmistakable edge to Alma’s voice: she wondered if Mrs Hopkins would have made her as welcome if she’d been the one Iorwerth had brought home.
    Lillian nodded knowingly as Alma made her way unsteadily out of the shop. ‘She is looking peaky. Did you know about that one and Ronnie Ronconi?’ –her penetrating voice followed Alma to her own house, but by