Unforgettable Read Online Free PDF Page B

then? I must be paying you too much if you can go dancing of a Saturday night. You won’t be paying the Palais any more visits though. You can take a quick look at this, then bring it back to my office. I don’t want you slacking all morning.’
    His voice was already fading when they looked at the open pages of the morning paper and saw their own faces looking back up at them like startled rabbits in the camera flash. And beneath it, for all to see, were their names, and the details that they were factory girls who’d felt like going up in the world for a night that had ended in disaster.
    â€˜Blimey, what a sight I look! What did I tell you!’ Dolly screeched, not concerned with anything else.
    The other girls crowded round eagerly.
    â€˜What happened? Did the place really go up in smoke with you in it?’
    â€˜Pretty much,’ Gracie said, shuddering at the memory. ‘But we were near the entrance, so we got out before the worst of it.’
    She felt shivery all over, knowing that every time anyone asked her about it, she would realize again just how lucky she was.
    â€˜Was anyone killed?’
    â€˜Shut up a minute and I’ll tell you,’ Dolly bawled, reading quickly. ‘It says about fifty people were badly burned and up to twenty died, but it was hard to tell exactly since there were no records of who was there. The dead and injured were mostly trapped by other people trying to reach the entrance doors.’
    She snapped the newspaper shut, as Ed Lawson bellowed at them to get on with their work.
    â€˜I’d better not read any more, and old Lawson will have our guts for garters if we don’t get started,’ she said.
    Gracie bent over her machine, her face paper-white as the events were relived in her mind. Dolly had no soul, she raged, and then she couldn’t think any more. Without warning, she keeled over her machine in a dead faint.
    When she came to she was being propped up, and something was being pressed against her lips as Dolly tried to make her drink some water. The only effect was to make Gracie splutter and spill it down her work overall.
    â€˜Jesus, gel, you gave us a fright then,’ Dolly said. ‘Old Lawson came stamping down theroom, wanting to know if you was up the duff.’
    â€˜What!’ Gracie was overcome with mortification, breathing so fast now that she was probably in danger of fainting all over again.
    She held herself together with an effort. She wasn’t spineless. But she wasn’t the sort of girl Ed Lawson was implying either. She was a good girl, a clean-minded girl, and she intended to stay that way until the man of her dreams asked her to marry him.
    â€˜It’s all right, Gracie,’ another girl said easily. ‘We all vouched for you, and anyway, we all know you ain’t nothing like Dolly here. We just told old Lawson you had a shock from seeing your picture in the newspaper.’
    â€˜That’s the truth, ain’t it?’ Dolly said, glaring. ‘So if you’re all right now, we’d better start some work, or we’ll all be for the knacker’s yard. You’re not going to go off again, are you?’
    â€˜Of course not,’ Gracie snapped, recovering fast.
    â€˜Good, because Lawson’s threatening to stop us half an hour’s pay for looking after you if we don’t look smart.’
    The bit of excitement over Gracie soon passed, but not the excitement over seeing their pictures in the newspaper. Dolly was soon preening herself, despite moaning thatshe could have looked a damn sight better for the cameraman if only he’d given her a chance.
    While all Gracie could think about was the effect it would have on her parents—
if
they saw it, of course. There was not much hope of it not happening. When he was sober her dad read the newspapers from cover to cover, and he spent his nightly drinking binges ranting about the useless government, the state