The Decision Read Online Free PDF

Leslie Caron in Gigi . She was very much influenced by the cinema: Scarlett had been named after Scarlett O’Hara. Sandra had read Gone With the Wind while she was pregnant and been deeply affected by it, and only some very firm words from Peter Shaw had prevented her from calling their firstborn son Rhett.
    ‘But he looks just like him,’ she had said, gazing down at the squinting eyes and black hair of the baby. ‘He’s going to be really dark and handsome.’
    Peter had told her that no son of his would have a sissy name like Rhett and Matt, when he was told, was extremely grateful to his father.
    Scarlett arrived home just after six, rushing in looking crisply businesslike in her navy uniform, engulfing Matt in hugs and kisses.
    ‘Oh, it’s so lovely to see you. Mum’s been so worried about you, thought you wouldn’t survive.’
    ‘I’m fine,’ said Matt, ‘course I am. And it’s great to see you too, Scarlett.’
    They were very close. There were only seventeen months between them – ‘then Pete found out what was causing it,’ Sandra would explain with one of her earthy giggles – and they had grown up practically as twins. Scarlett had the same thick, dark hair as Matt, the same large dark eyes, set off by absurdly long eyelashes, the same straight nose, the same neat, sharply carved jaw. She exuded vitality as Matt did; she was quite small and very slim and irrepressibly energetic. She had inherited her mother’s eye for clothes and she would devour the fashion magazines noting trends and what they called fashion tips. She had always attracted attention wherever she went, and still more so now, with the sophistication of her new career; indeed the week before she had been photographed at the local dance hall, jiving with a girl friend, a dizzy whirl of flying ponytail and circular skirt, complete with layers of frilled nylon petticoats – all bought in the market and starched with sugar water – and glorious whiteteethed grin. It had appeared in the local paper and Sandra had framed it and hung it in the front room.
    Matt was younger than Scarlett, but he had always protected her in the school playground when they were little and guarded her against predatory boys when they grew older, and she acted as dating agent for him, as his good looks turned him into a magnet for her friends.
    He was inordinately proud of her and her career, it was a big leap for a girl from Clapham, from a secondary modern. Being an air hostess was about as good a career as a girl could hope for. As good as being a private secretary, only with more prestige. The uniform, the foreign travel, the dashing pilots.
    But she had thrown herself into her application, done a Linguaphone course in French, having heard that a second language was a big advantage, and she had a talent for sweeping people along with her enthusiasm, making them believe in whatever she was saying, which had stood her in good stead at her initial interview.
    Matt had said he thought you had to be posh to be an air hostess, but Scarlett laughed.
    ‘Matt! I can be posh. If I try. You know I can.’
    This was perfectly true; she had a sharp eye and a distinct talent for the social climb. Her accent could move from Clapham Junction to nice suburban at will, and she knew precisely when and how to tone down her rather exuberant manner.
    ‘So – what we going to do tonight?’ she said now. ‘I thought we might go to the Lyceum, if you feel up to it.’
    ‘Course I do.’
    They had a good time at the Lyceum; Scarlett invited her friend Josie along, as well as Malcolm, her on–off boyfriend, hauled in when she needed him, dropped again when she didn’t.
    Josie liked Matt, in fact she fancied him rotten, and she was fun. Matt had a couple of beers with his dad at the pub before they left and a couple more when they arrived at the dance hall. Exhaustion and the excitement of freedom doubled their potency; he danced the evening away through a haze, not only