Free Pure as the Lily by Catherine Cookson Page A

She had always thought he was nice looking, but now she saw he was good—looking, handsome. Again she could see why her ma compared him with her da and felt for him as she did.
    “I’ll be back about eleven, perhaps before; I might get bored. Anyway, if I’m not back by half past eleven you’ll know I’ve got blind drunk and somebody’ll be carting me back.” He smiled a wide smile and his teeth looked whiter than ever against his tanned skin.
    All she said to this was, “Oh, Mr. Tollett.”
    “You never know, I’m let out so little that I just might get paralytic. Anyway’—his voice dropped ‘as soon as you close make yourself comfortable. I’ve left you some eats on the table, and I’ve picked out some records that you might like to hear. Put them on and enjoy yourself.” Oh. Oh, that’s nice. Oh, I’d love that. Oh thanks, Mr. Tollett. “ David’s sound, sleeping like a top. and there’s the bell. “ He pointed towards the shop.
    “Bye-bye.”
    “Bye-bye, Mr. Tollett. Enjoy yourself.”
    I shall. “
    “And’—she put her hand to her mouth as if she were calling him over a long distance and whispered ‘get tight if you like.”
    “Thanks, Mary. Thanks’ Both laughing, he went out one way and she the other.
    She was supposed to close the shop at nine but it was nearly twenty-past when she got rid of the last customer. As Mr. Tollett had said they had come swarming in at the last minute; but fortunately she hadn’t had to deal with any of the bad-debt lot.
    She was tired when she got upstairs, and she flopped down immediately into an easy chair in the sitting-room. The curtains were drawn, the fire was blazing merrily, and the light was on. It had been nice of him, she thought, to leave the light on and nobody in the room. She looked towards the radiogram. There were the records on the side, and next to them a big dish of sweets.
    She pulled herself up and walked over to the table and picked up the dish and exclaimed aloud, “Oh! a walnut cream whirl.” How did he know?
    She had never told him that these were her favourites. Only twice in her life had she had a walnut cream whirl. She took the walnut off the top, then put it back as she thought. No, I’ll keep it for after; I’ll have a cup of cocoa and something to eat first. I’ll keep that for when I put the records on.
    Her tiredness forgotten, she almost skipped into the kitchen, made herself some cocoa, put a slice of boiled ham between two pieces of bread, then sat down at the little table near the window to eat it.
    She wouldn’t take it into the sitting-room, no, she didn’t want to make any crumbs there. When she was finished eating she washed her face and hands because she felt sweaty, and as she dried herself on the roller towel behind the door she turned her face to the side and looked in the little mirror hanging on the wall, Ben’s shaving mirror.
    She stared at her face. Was she bonny? Men often
    said she was bonny; not only her gran da and her da but Mr. Weir and Mr. Tyler and Mr. Knowles. If she passed them at the corner they would laugh at her and say, “By! you’re getting a bonny lass, Mary.” She liked it when they said that, although she would shake her head at them and say, “Eeh! Mr.
    so-and-so.”
    She went into the sitting-room again and looked at the records.
    Ketelby’s In a Monastery Garden. Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty.
    The Blue Danube Waltz. Victor Silvester’s Dance Band. Oh, she’d put that on first, she liked him.
    Oh lovely! lovely! The exclamation she made aloud covered both the whipped cream whirl and the music and as she bit through the hard chocolate and into the cream she waltzed: one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, and she laughed to herself as she went round the room, weaving in and out of the furniture. She loved dancing, she would love to be able to dance properly. She had once gone to a dance in the Catholic school rooms with Teresa Hewitt. It had been wonderful, she