Lime Street Blues Read Online Free PDF

said soberly when he kissed the bride. ‘Are you happy, Rose?’
    ‘I’ve never been happier, Colonel.’
    ‘Then I hope you stay that way, my dearest girl.’
    Rose couldn’t understand why there were tears in his eyes.

Part Two

Chapter 2
1957
    Jeannie Flowers lay face down on the grass. The hot sun beat down on her back through her school frock, and she liked the way the dry grass tickled her nose and chin, and the palms of her hands.
    ‘Would you like a strawberry?’ her mother enquired.
    ‘In a minute, Mum.’ She didn’t want to move. She felt as if she was part of the garden, connected to the earth itself, as she listened to the birds chirrupping fussily away in the hawthorn hedge and the humming of a bee that was probably nestled in one of the buttercups or daisies that sprang up minutes after the grass was cut – or so her dad claimed.
    ‘Mind you don’t get grass stains on your frock, and don’t forget your piano practice!’
    ‘I’ll get changed in a minute and practise after tea.’ Any other day but Friday, she would have taken off the frock as soon as she got home to wear for school next day. She lay where she was until the bee sounded dangerously close, then sat up.
    Her mother was sitting on a cane chair with the bowl of strawberries she’d just picked on her knee. Rose Flowers – ‘the prettiest name in the world for the world’s prettiest woman’, according to Jeannie’s dad – had spent the day preparing food for the weekend; pies, savoury and sweet, a large slab of bunloaf, dozens of scones andfairy cakes, and three crusty loaves. The strawberries were for jam. Rose gave one to her daughter. There was a film of flour on her arms and a dab on the end of her little straight nose. ‘This looks the biggest.’
    ‘Ta, Mum.’
    Mother and daughter, one a smaller version of the other, didn’t speak for a while, both thinking about the weekend ahead.
    Tomorrow, Ailsham Women’s Institute was holding its regular Midsummer Fête on the village green. Rose was in charge of the white elephant stall and the garden shed was full of bric-a-brac that people had been bringing for weeks. Jeannie had offered to help, mainly because she had her eye on a pretty manicure set and an enamelled compact, which Mum had refused to let her buy until the day because it wouldn’t be fair.
    ‘And anyway, love, I’m not sure if you’re old enough to have a compact at eleven.’
    ‘Oh,
Mum
. There won’t be powder in it, will there?’ Jeannie had snorted.
    ‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it,’ her father had said grimly. Women only used cosmetics to disguise the fact they were plain, he claimed, and most didn’t manage it successfully. Jeannie’s mother had been forbidden to wear make-up – she’d never owned a lipstick in her life.
    Dad was entering his marrows and tomatoes in the vegetable show and would almost certainly win again. Some people said this was unfair, Tom Flowers being a gardener by trade, to which Tom would reply that he could have entered a dozen varieties of vegetables and swept the board, not to mention a host of blooms. He had roses in his garden as big as cabbages.
    Jeannie could smell the roses now. Their sweet scent, mixed with the quite different smells emanating from thekitchen, made her even more aware of how utterly perfect life was. If she’d had more energy, she would have leapt to her feet, done a little dance, and sung a little song to express her happiness.
    Instead, she uttered a long, contented sigh. Her mother looked up and their blue eyes met. They understood each other. Rose smiled. ‘Lovely, isn’t it,’ she breathed.
    ‘Mm!’ Jeannie nodded. They were the luckiest, most fortunate family in the world. On Sunday, her younger brother, Gerald, would be nine. Instead of a party, Gerald had asked to go to New Brighton on the ferry, which involved catching the train from Ailsham to Liverpool, then the boat from the Pier Head.
    Weekends were always