Free The Girl From Penny Lane by Katie Flynn

fancied herself in love with Stuart and even now, knowing how he and Nellie felt about each other, she was perhaps fonder of him than she should have been. But if he knew it he never made her feel uncomfortable or guilty, and he treated her just right, with a mixture of affection and teasing, so she pushed to the back of her mind the knowledge that Stuart still meant more to her – a bit more – than a brother-in-law should, and behaved naturally towards him.
    ‘Will you be grateful, young woman!’ Stuart said now with mock severity. ‘We’re not going to admit twice in one evening that we need the exercise, nor how much we like walking in the park, so let’s just get on and enjoy our little excursion. And don’t forget, we shall expect a letter every other day and a postcard in between, just to reassure our Nell that you haven’t been sucked down the plughole whilst having a bath, or pecked to death by a parrot escaped from the Sefton Park aviary.’
    ‘Or got dragged down by an octopus on the lake,’ Nellie contributed. ‘Really, young people these days – you just don’t know what they’ll do next.’
    They were walking down Greenbank Lane, Lilac trying to peer through the screening trees and bushes at the big houses on the left-hand side of the road, whilst Nellie gazed dreamily out over the fields and trees to the right.
    ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever live anywhere nicer than this, not even if we do move into the country, and just think, if we’d still been here, living at 39 Penny Lane, our littl’un might have gone to that school,’ Nellie remarked as they drew level with Greenbank School in its beautiful wooded grounds. ‘Imagine a kid having all that wonderful space to wander in! Why, it’s as big as Sefton Park, very near.’
    ‘Might be bigger,’ Lilac said, peering through the hedge. ‘Well, when I marry my millionaire, Nell, I’ll pay for your tiddler to come back here and get his education – isn’t that a fair offer?’
    ‘By the time you marry a millionaire I’ll be one in my own right,’ Stuart said. ‘And by the time young Gallagher is thinking about school we’ll be back here anyway, I’m sure.’
    ‘Or cleaning out Buckingham Palace for your-selves,’ Lilac said. ‘Ouch, Nellie, don’t pinch!’
    ‘Stop gabbling you two and step out,’ Stuart advised. ‘Come on, Nellie love, you know what it said in the book about exercise, the more you take the easier the birth will be. Besides, we’ve got to prove to all those soft southerners that Liverpool lasses make the best little mothers in Britain. Left right, left right!’
    He unlinked arms once more and began to walk with a ridiculous goose-step, lifting his knees to hip level with every step and swinging his arms so vigorously that Nellie and Lilac fell back to give him room.
    ‘Come on , girls!’ Stuart adjured them. ‘Follow my example and use your whole body when you walk. March like little soldiers – come on, show me what you’re made of!’
    ‘If we walked like that we’d show you our bloomers,’ Nellie grumbled. ‘And if you had young Gallagher kicking and squirming inside you, you’d take things a bit easy too. So stop fooling about, Stuart, and take my arm. Lilac’s coming to tea tomorrow, as well, so we’ll be able to discuss our plans for this house-sharing business then.’
    ‘Oh. Right. I’ll consider myself cut down to size,’ Stuart said. He put his arm round Nellie and gave her a squeeze. Nellie squeaked, then squeezed back and Lilac, watching, felt a curious little stab of something very like envy twisting in her breast.
    But I don’t want to marry and settle down, she reminded herself as they began to cross the park. I want some fun before I start letting some young man order me about. Time enough for all that, and certainly there’s nothing I’d like less than to have my figure ruined by some wretched baby!
    But later, when she was aboard her tram and turning to wave, she watched