Broke Read Online Free PDF Page A

like the luckiest woman in the world.

3
    Ginger Jenny had never been one for going out. In the past she’d avoided it because she’d been scared of bumping into the bitches who had made her life a misery at school. But in the last two years it had been because she’d been too busy nursing her mum to go any further than the local shops or the doctor’s surgery. Today was the first time in as long as she could remember that she had been anywhere without the clunky old wheelchair preceding her every step, and it felt as if she’d had a limb amputated.
    Everyone had been very kind, especially the vicar who had said some lovely things about her mum despite never having met her. But Jenny had kept her mouth firmly shut when he’d asked if anybody wanted to speak. There was nothing she had wanted to say – nothing that she cared to say in front of strangers, anyway. And that was what the other mourners were to her, truth be told. The small gaggle of elderly neighbours who had come along to pay their respects, for example.
    Jenny had lived in the same house her entire life, and those neighbours had seen her grow from baby to teenager to the woman she was now. Yet none of them had bothered to call round to see how she was coping while her mum had been sick. And she would never forget the time she’d pushed her mum out in the wheelchair and seen old Mrs Peters scuttle back into her house to avoid them. But they had all turned up in black today, looking suitably mournful, as if they actually cared.
    And the same went for the women from the cake factory who had worked alongside her mum for fifteen years before the cancer forced her to quit, only one of whom had ever bothered to call round to see how she was doing.
    Still, at least the neighbours had bought flowers – albeit one poxy bunch between the three of them. And the factory girls had presented Jenny with the fifty-seven quid they had collected in a whip-round, so they weren’t completely heartless.
    Which was more than could be said for the bastards at the community centre where her mum had worked as a part-time barmaid for eight years. They hadn’t even bothered to send a card, never mind show their faces.
    As for family, the only ones who had turned up from her mum’s side were two elderly aunts, Hetty and Lizzie, whom Jenny only vaguely remembered having visited as a child. None of her dad’s side had shown up, but that was no surprise considering Jenny hadn’t seen most of them since her dad had walked out when she was nine.
    All in all, it was a pretty poor turnout, and Jenny was glad that her mum hadn’t been there to witness how little she had meant to the world.
    It was the first funeral Jenny had ever attended, much less had to arrange. She had completely forgotten that she was supposed to cater for the guests, so she’d been relieved when one of the neighbours had suggested going for a drink in The Junction instead. She was sitting between her aunts now, on a bench seat in the corner, and she was cringing as the elderly sisters bullied the other mourners – and anybody who was standing nearby and was foolish enough to look their way – into joining in with their sing-song. When Lizzie launched into On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep for the fourth time, Jenny stifled a yawn. It had been a long day and she was dying to go home, but none of the others seemed in any rush to leave and she didn’t want to appear rude by being the first to go.
    Icy air swirled around her ankles every time the door opened. Shivering when someone else walked in now, she glanced towards the door and nearly choked on her drink when she saw Mark Taylor. It was five years since she’d last seen him, but he hadn’t changed a bit. His glossy black hair was a little shorter, but his face was every bit as handsome as she remembered. And as he and his friend Steve sauntered towards the bar he still exuded that air of self-confidence that she’d always found so attractive.
    ‘Earth to