Free Try a Little Tenderness by Joan Jonker

forgetting that.’
    ‘Not too old, Mam, but I think yer’d have a job putting me across yer knees. Yer see, yer’d need yer two hands to stop me from slipping off.’
    Mary saw Stan’s familiar figure turn the corner of the street and she laid a hand on Molly’s arm. ‘Ay out, here’s my feller. I’ll see yer tomorrow, sunshine. Ta-ra Seamus, ta-ra Mick.’ She couldn’t resist patting the boy’s cheek. ‘If I was twenty years younger, sunshine, I’d be running after yer.’
    ‘If yer were twenty years younger, Mrs Nightingale,’ he called after her, ‘yer wouldn’t have to run fast, I’d be letting yer catch me.’
    ‘I’m going to be stuck for money,’ Mary told her friend as they sat facing each other across the table. ‘I’m all right for food, but it’s the presents. The two girls want clothes, and Stan could do with a new shirt and pullover. The few bob I’ll have isn’t going to run to it.’
    ‘Do what I’m doing,’ Amy said, her hands curled around the cup. ‘Get a cheque off yer club woman. I’m just as broke as you are, so it’s a case of having to.’ Her chubby face creased in a smile. ‘I’ll be cursing the poor woman every week when she’s due, hoping she falls and breaks a leg before she gets to our house.’ She saw Mary shaking her head and chuckled. ‘Yer know I don’t really hope she breaks a leg, I’m not that wicked. Just a sprained ankle would do, that would be enough to keep her off work.’
    ‘Amy Hanley, I don’t know how you sleep at night. God will pay yer back one day, you just mark my words.’
    ‘Nah, He wouldn’t do that. Yer see, girl, God’s got a good sense of humour, which is more than can be said for you.’
    ‘I’ve got a sense of humour, sunshine, but it isn’t warped, like yours is. Anyway, I think I’ll take yer advice and ask the club woman for a two-pound cheque. That would save me scrimping and scraping. And with our Laura passing that interview for a job at Ogdens, I’ll be able to afford to pay an extra bob a week.’
    ‘I bet she was over the moon, was she?’
    ‘Like a dog with two tails. Honestly, she never stopped talking. Anyone would think she was the only one ever to get a job. And what she’s going to do with her pocket-money is no one’s business. Talk about breaking eggs with a big stick, isn’t in it.’
    ‘I know someone who used to work there, and she said the money wasn’t bad and they were a good firm to work for. She was on packing the cigarettes, and she said they got so many for nothing each week. So your Stan could come up lucky.’ Amy put the cup down on the saucer and wipedthe back of her hand across her mouth. ‘It’s to be hoped your Laura doesn’t start smoking, though, girl. I can’t stand to see a woman with a fag hanging out of the side of her mouth. Always reminds me of a gangster’s moll.’
    ‘Yeah, I think they look as common as muck.’
    ‘My grandma used to smoke a clay pipe, mind. I was only little, but I can remember her as plain as day. She used to shuffle to the corner pub every night, with a jug hidden under her shawl for a pint of stout. And she’d sit in her rocking chair, as happy as Larry, puffing at this clay pipe and drinking her stout. Deaf as a doorpost she was, couldn’t hear a word yer said to her. Yer could tell her someone had died, and she’d laugh her bleedin’ head off. Didn’t do her no harm either, ’cos she lived until she was ninety.’
    ‘There yer are, yer see, a warped sense of humour runs in your family.’ Mary stood up and reached for the cups. ‘Let’s get down to the shops before they close for dinner. I want to get all the ironing done this afternoon, that’ll be one thing off me mind.’
    ‘I’m ready, girl, I brought me coat with me. I don’t want much shopping, so I can put me things in your basket.’
    Mary came back from putting the cups in the kitchen. ‘Yer may have a warped sense of humour, sunshine, and yer may be wicked, but no one