Camellia Read Online Free PDF

only irritate her still further. 'Will it always be like this?'
    She meant would the big hole he'd left in her life ever be filled? Would there ever be a night when she wouldn't remember how he always read her a goodnight story? Or a weekend when she didn't think of their walks together out on the marsh. Mummy had never taken as much interest in what she did at school, about her friends, or even what she thought about as Daddy did. She had tried to stop thinking about these things, but she couldn't.
    'It will get better,' Granny said firmly. 'I can't promise it will overnight and all those memories of your daddy will stay in your mind, because they're special ones and you'll want to hang onto them. But you will find they don't hurt so much soon.'
    'Were you like Mummy when Grandpa died?' Camellia asked.
    'No, I didn't make a big fuss when he died,' Doris said carefully. 'But then Grandpa was seventy and I knew he couldn't live forever. It's different for Mummy. She'll still only twenty-seven and she expected your Daddy to be with her for years and years.'
    There were a great many more things Camellia wanted to ask, like why her mother didn't seem to care about her any longer. Why she wanted to put on a pink dress instead of the black one, and why if Granny was Bonny's mother did she seem to dislike her so much? But somehow she knew these and other questions niggling at the back of her head were best left unasked.
    'Will you come to see me again?' she asked instead.
    Again Doris hesitated. She knew she would catch the next train down if ever Bonny needed her, despite everything that had been said. But a sixth sense told her that her daughter was intending to cut off her entire past, because she was through with grieving.
    'I'll come if you need me,' she said quietly. 'Maybe Mummy will let you come and stay with me during the holidays. Write to me, my lovely. Always remember I'm your Granny and I love you.'
    Camellia's memory of her father's death had started the tears again. She wiped them away with the hem of her overall and stared up at the sky. But another vivid, and this time shameful memory slipped into her mind.
    It was five years after her father's death, in February 1961 when Camellia woke one Friday night to the sound of Johnny Kidd's 'Shakin' All Over'. The music wasn't just loud, it was deafening. Switching on the light Camellia saw that it was ten past one, she wondered how long it would be before one of the neighbours called the police.
    If it wasn't for the photograph beside her bed, she might have thought those cosy, quiet days of her early childhood were just a fantasy she'd dreamed up to comfort herself.
    But there they were, in black and white, a family group. Camellia was five when it was taken, wearing a velvet party dress with a lace collar, her mother in a now rather dated waisted costume, and much shorter hair than she had at present, and her father standing behind their couch wearing a dark suit.
    Camellia could see she was plump even then, but she looked kind of sweet, albeit too serious. Now she was fat, really fat, and her dark eyes seemed to have retreated into puffy flesh, like two slits. John Norton was dead. Sweet little Camellia was now a big lump. And Bonny wasn't a real mother any more.
    Even the happy days at Collegiate School were over, snatched away back in December, two days before her eleventh birthday.
    Bonny claimed she had been advised by the head teacher that as Camellia wouldn't pass her eleven-plus exam, she might as well go to the state junior school, in the new year, then on to the secondary modern next September. But that was a wicked lie, she was always near the top of the class and Miss Grady had often said she was clever enough to win a scholarship to one of the best girls' schools.
    Camellia switched off the light and pulled her pillow over her head to shut out the noise. She didn't need to go downstairs to see what was going on. She could imagine the scene in the lounge