Material Girl Read Online Free PDF

was so lucky, Scarlet, and so loved, that I found it easy to show it to your father. I hope that’s how I make you feel now, I don’t ever want you to guess about my feelings for you, and neither should Richard. Of course, Richard is so kind, so good-natured, he has nothing but love in him, and he was lucky when he met Hannah so young, but they are so rightfor each other, and she is such a lovely girl, with such a lot of love to give too.’
    She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, with concern.
    ‘I love you and Richard utterly. When I left people didn’t think that was possible, but in a way I left because I loved you. I always thought you knew that. Katharine Hepburn said “loved people are loving people”, and I believe that. Your dad didn’t have that sense of being loved, and he didn’t know how to show it to me.’
    ‘Is that why you left?’
    ‘Scarlet, things are rarely that black and white. I loved him, it was very hard. But you know that your father loves you, don’t you, Scarlet?’
    ‘Of course, he’s just not … demonstrative.’ Dad has never hugged me with abandon, he chooses his words carefully, and trips over sentiment clumsily. He can’t express himself, I know that. He can laugh, and does. But he can’t cry.
    ‘You’ve noticed that, Scarlet, and yet …’
    ‘And yet?’ I asked, waiting for her to go on.
    ‘Be careful, Scarlet. There isn’t just one type of man for you.’
    Mum lives by the sea now, in a little village called Rottingdean, a couple of miles outside of Brighton, on her own. She prefers it that way. She takes long walks on the beach and reads a lot, and sees films with the man who lives next door.
    Standing outside the Majestic Theatre I read the poster in the opposite frame: ‘ Tennessee Williams’s The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore: previews start Monday 20th! ’
    There is a guy selling the Evening Standard a little further up the road. I check my watch and skip up towards him, rummaging for forty pence in my bag. It is always too late to get a paper by the time I get out in the evening, and it’smy only source of news. If half the world goes up in smoke I’ll read it in the Standard . Otherwise I might never know. Plus I like to leave it for Ben so he can do the sudoku. It’s a little thing I do, a point of contact, the Evening Standard left on the kitchen table. I hope he smiles when he sees it in the mornings, before I am even out of bed. I hope he thinks of me when he picks it up. I think of him when I leave it there at night.
    I hold my hand out with my forty pence.
    Behind the stand the old guy is wearing a flat cap and an overcoat. His glasses are thick and slightly smeared with grease. He smiles at me and I notice he only has his front four teeth, top and bottom, the rest are missing. I wonder if he can still whistle.
    ‘Have you got it?’ he asks.
    ‘Is it forty pence?’ I reply.
    I look down at the two twenty-pence pieces in my outstretched palm, confused.
    ‘Or have you lost it?’ he asks, lisping the words through his four teeth.
    ‘Sorry? I don’t understand.’ I offer him my forty pence again, but he doesn’t take it. He smiles. Perhaps he is an idiot.
    ‘Your passion for life,’ he says. ‘You had it …’
    I stare at him. He smiles and takes the forty pence from my hand, and replaces it with an Evening Standard , folded in half. A man walks over and offers him forty pence, which he takes as he passes him a paper and says, ‘Thank you, sir.’ An older woman nudges me out of the way as she offers him her change, and he passes her a paper and says, ‘Thank you, dear.’
    I turn and walk back towards the theatre. I feel a buzzing in my bag, and reach in for my phone. I am standing outside The Majestic’s back door when I answer. ‘Hello?’
    ‘It’s me,’ Ben says. ‘I popped back to get the post, in case they’d delivered my Xbox game. They hadn’t, but you have a letter … from some clinic.’
    ‘I’ll open