Christmas Past Read Online Free PDF Page A

quick hug. ‘Thanks for everything,’ she whispered and hurried
out, before they could notice the tears in her eyes.
    ‘Well,’ said the doctor, ‘let’s hope they enjoy themselves. I almost wish we were going with them.’
    Tom parked the car outside the school. The music reached them as he opened the car door, and Mary began to wish she hadn’t come. Everybody would stare when she walked in.
What if she couldn’t dance and made a fool of herself in front of everyone? She had found the steps easy in the scullery. Mrs Roberts had brought down the gramophone from the spare room, a
lovely polished cabinet affair with two doors at the front and a picture of a little dog inside. Dr Roberts had taught her the waltz, the foxtrot and the veleta, and had told her about the Paul
Jones, when everyone swapped partners – she would sit that one out. That was if anyone asked her to dance in the first place. Mrs Roberts had changed the records and kept the gramophone wound
up, and they’d all laughed when he had bowed and thanked her at the end of each dance. Mary had been touched when he had asked his wife for the last waltz, and had made herself scarce,
leaving the couple alone.
    In the schoolroom a four-piece band was playing but no one was dancing. Mary almost fainted when she realised she had to cross the large expanse of wooden floor to reach the
cloakroom, but Tom’s sisters Bessie and Lucy linked arms with her and marched her across. Every eye in the room followed the trio and Bessie giggled as they heard two old dears mutter to each
other about how disgraceful her backless dress was. They patted their hair into place and Lucy lent Mary a lipstick.
    ‘Remind me to wipe it off before we go home,’ Bessie said. ‘Me dad’ll have a fit if he sees us caked up in lipstick.’
    Mary grinned and relaxed now she knew Bessie and Lucy were just as friendly as their brother. She just wished her own sisters weren’t so far away.
    Satisfied with their appearance at last, they marched out of the cloakroom to join the other dancers, finding seats amongst the rows of chairs lining three sides of the room. The band was on a
raised platform taking up nearly the whole of the other wall, and in the corner stood a trestle table filled with cups and saucers, and a tea urn larger than anything Mary had seen before. Also on
the table were plates already containing two sandwiches and a bun. Every so often someone would trundle a pram across the floor, sometimes containing two babies who couldn’t have been born
more than nine months apart.
    The two old dears got up to dance. The band was playing ‘Daisy Daisy’ with a few wrong notes, and soon several couples had taken to the floor, most of them women dancing together, or
little girls dragging boy cousins or playmates, much to their chagrin.
    Mary asked her friends where all the men were.
    ‘They’ll be here when the pub closes at ten,’ said Lucy. ‘You won’t get the lads dancing until they’ve had a pint or two.’ ‘Then they’ll
expect to walk us home.’ Bessie laughed. ‘They’re in for a disappointment tonight, though. We’ll be riding home in style.’
    ‘Just depends who asks us,’ said Lucy. ‘I quite fancy Harry Holmes from Millington.’
    ‘Yer’d better not let me dad know,’ Bessie said. ‘The Millington gang have quite a reputation.’
    Tom had not come in with them, disappearing in the direction of the pub, but now he walked in and came over to them.
    ‘Well, Cinders, how about a dance with Prince Charming?’
    ‘What’s up wi’ you then, coming in before closing time? Wonders’ll never cease.’
    Tom took no notice of Lucy. After one pint he had for some reason become rather bored with the same old jokes, and decided Mary would make better company.
    She wished he hadn’t asked her to dance yet. The floor was still rather empty and everybody would see if she stumbled. Luckily her long dress covered her ankles and as Tom swept her into