Free Families and Friendships by Margaret Thornton Page B

an automatic washing machine.
    Debbie had a very nice bedroom, which was the envy of some of her friends who had to share with their sisters. It had been decorated – by her father – in the colours she had chosen; pale yellow, with one wall papered with a design of bold yellow and orange flowers; orange curtains to match and an orange candlewick bedspread. She had contemporary G-plan furniture, her record player and a shelf for her books, progressing from Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfield to Edna O’Brien, Kingsley Amis and Alan Sillitoe as she got older. Although she was always happier grubbing about in the garden, rather than sitting reading a book.
    Her mother had allowed her to buy a minidress, and a miniskirt and tight sweater, although at school the skirts were regulation knee length, sometimes rolled over a couple of times at the waistband, if they thought they could get away with it. Mum had also let her have her dark curly hair cut short, though she had needed a lot of persuading. ‘Oh dear, Debbie! You’ll lose all your lovely curls,’ she had said. But even Mum had to admit it looked nice, styled with a fringe and back combed in what was called a ‘bouffant’ fashion.
    Debbie was fifteen when she met Kevin Hill, and it was then that she began to realize that there was a life outside of home and school, exams and Guides and all that. Working at the garden centre and mixing with people who were older than herself gave her a taste for the wider world. It was then, also, that she started to think about how she had come to be in the world in the first place.
    What about her mother? She knew that ‘birth mother’ was the correct term, as opposed to her adoptive mother. She had never thought of Vera like that, though – she was just Mum – until quite recently.
    What about the girl – she must only have been a girl at the time – who had given birth to her? What had she been like? A wild, disobedient sort of girl who had ‘got into trouble’, as her mother would say? Or … had she been led astray and not known what she was doing?
    And what about the lad – or man, maybe – her real father? Was he very young too, as she assumed her birth mother had been? Had he disappeared from the scene, or had the two of them got married later? The thoughts and images went round and round in her head, but she didn’t tell anyone how she was feeling, not at first. Not even Shirley, her best friend, and certainly not her mum and dad. Neither did she tell Kevin, when she first met him, about her being adopted.
    It was after she had known him a while and they started going out together that she had started to rebel against the strictures imposed by her mother: getting home by ten thirty, tidying her bedroom, not wearing too much lipstick because it looked common. And, above all, about studying hard at school – hadn’t she always done so? – so that she could get good results in her O levels and go into the sixth form and then to university. What a complete waste of time that would be when she could go out to work and earn some money.
    â€˜I’m fed up with my mum nagging at me all the time,’ she complained to Kevin as they walked along the prom one evening. It was just a few weeks before the exams. ‘I’m working hard at school, like I always do, but she never shuts up about it. About going into the sixth form, and I’ve told her I don’t want to. I want to leave school and work at Sunnyhill. Your dad said he’d take me on permanently, if that’s what I want.’
    â€˜He suggested it, Debbie,’ Kevin replied carefully, ‘because he knows how you enjoy the work and what a hard worker you are. Not like some of the lazy louts we’ve had from time to time.’ They stopped walking and leant against the railings, looking out at the sea that was fully in, lapping against the sea wall.
    Kevin was not sure