One Blue Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

lapel of the new raincoat that he’d bought in Leslie’s stores on a sixpence-a-week card. ‘Lost a bob and found a farthing?’
    ‘I’m great,’ she smiled through her tears. ‘It’s just this damned cold and wet.’
    ‘Back for the weekend?’
    ‘No, for good,’ she said, forgetting for an instant that she had nowhere to sleep that night.
    ‘Couldn’t stand the pace?’ he asked snidely.
    ‘No, the wages’ she said cuttingly. ‘I’ve had enough of hospital slave labour. I’m off to town to look for something better.’
    ‘If you find it, let me know. I’ve had about enough of hospital slave labour too, but then, whenever I’ve looked I’ve never found anything better. There’s a depression on, or so they tell me.’
    ‘Could be that you’re not looking in the right places, and then again could be that you haven’t the talent I’ve got on offer,’ she retorted, regaining some of her old spirit as she lifted the hem of her coat provocatively to her knees. ‘See you around.’
    ‘In the Palladium, six o’clock tonight?’ he asked hopefully.
    ‘With an old man like you?’ she laughed. ‘I’m kind to the elderly, but not that kind.’
    ‘Since when has twenty-two been old?’
    ‘Twenty-three,’ she corrected. ‘You’re four years older than Will and that makes you ancient!’ She stuck her tongue out cheekily. ‘See you around, Granddad.’
    Glan laughed in spite of the brush-off as she walked away. He’d forgotten what a Tartar Diana was. Life was certainly going to perk up with her living next door.

Chapter Three
    ‘I hate Saturdays,’ Tina moaned to her younger sister Gina who’d been ordered into the café by Ronnie to put in an hour’s practice in the cashier’s chair. ‘Here, move over.’ She nudged her sister from the edge of her seat, unlaced her shoes and rubbed her aching feet through her thick, cable-knit stockings. ‘And I hate waitressing,’ she added emphatically. She affected a whining voice: ‘“Miss, Miss, I ordered two teas, not coffee ... Miss there’s only butter on one side of this Chelsea. It costs a penny farthing you know ... ” Never mind that the lump of butter I slapped on the other side of the bun is big enough for four. Next week I’m sitting on the till, dear sister. It’s time you got blisters on your feet.’
    ‘I’m too young to wait tables,’ Gina said. ‘Too much exercise stunts growing bones.’
    ‘In that case you’ll grow into a ruddy giant.’
    ‘I’ll have none of that language in here, Tina,’ Ronnie reprimanded her. ‘And get your shoes on – sharpish. You’re putting the customers off their food.’
    ‘Slave driver.’ Her voice pitched high as her temper flared. ‘I must have walked twenty miles today around these tables ...’
    ‘And you can walk twenty more. With your shoes on,’ he added loudly, slapping the ice cream and coffee she’d ordered on to the marble-topped section of the counter. ‘Serve these. After you’ve washed your hands.’
    ‘He’s getting far too big for his boots,’ Tina hissed at her sister as she laced her shoes back on and fired mutinous glances in Ronnie’s direction. ‘Sometimes I think he’s in training to become another Papa.’
    ‘He’s ten times worse than Papa ever was,’ Gina answered, smiling as one of the market boys approached the till with a sixpence in his hand. ‘Mama can always soften Papa.’
    ‘It’ll take a blue moon for a woman to want to stand close enough to Ronnie to soften him.’
    ‘Tina!’ Ronnie snarled.
    ‘I’m going. I’m going,’ she shouted irritably. Pushing her way around the counter she threw back the curtain and stormed into the kitchen, where she washed her hands with as much fuss and splashing of water as she could manage.
    A pretty girl with unfashionably long fair hair and soft grey eyes opened the café door, folded her umbrella, shook the rain from her coat and walked up to the counter.
    ‘Seen Haydn Powell, Ronnie?’ she