Free Playing Around by Gilda O'Neill Page B

like that, you’re going to make me jealous.’
    ‘You’re right there, Martin.’ It was Tilly Murray, red-faced from doing yet another batch of baking. ‘Doesn’t she look a picture? But it’s a shame about your hair, Jackie. If you’re not careful you’re really going to spoil it. Other girls’d love having all them waves you keep getting rid of.’
    As Jackie rolled her eyes at Angie, sharing the knowledge that Mrs Murray was
such a square
, Angie could not remember feeling happier in her entire life, until that was, Martin winked broadly at her, grabbed the banister rail and raced up the stairs two at a time.
    ‘See you, Squirt,’ he called down to her. ‘Or should I say, see you, gorgeous?’
    Almost swooning, Angie just about managed to find her way down the front path and back along the terrace to her own house.
    Martin, who was whistling like a canary as he considered his freshly shaved reflection from every angle in his bedroom mirror, was almost as ecstatic. He was getting ready to go to Jill Walker’s.
    To Jill Walker’s flat
.
    ‘And where do you think you’ve been?’ Vi, still in her dressing gown despite it being nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, was sitting in the little back kitchen drinking a mug of coffee. ‘And what have you done to your hair?’
    ‘I’ve been out shopping with Jackie and I’ve been to the hairdresser’s, and,’ she added before she lost her nerve, ‘now I’m going dancing.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Me and Jackie. We’re going to the Wyckham Hall. In Romford.’
    ‘If you think you’re going out till all hours …’
    ‘No, Mum, I don’t. Jackie has to be in by eleven, and we’ll be together. Mrs Murray gives her the money for a minicab.’
    ‘Typical of that Tilly, lets them kids get away with murder.’
    Angie refused to be drawn. She had heard what her mum had said to Chas about her. She knew what she really thought of her, her own daughter. But she wouldn’t let her mum spoil things. Not tonight. She wouldn’t let her mum spoil anything for her ever again.
    ‘You can’t go out and leave this place like this.’ She waved her cigarette about to indicate the supposed squalor she was sitting in. ‘Chas is coming round later.’
    ‘Why don’t you do it?’
    ‘I don’t think I heard you right.’
    ‘Yes you did, Mum. And I can’t do it. I’m getting ready to go out.’
    ‘You’d leave me to do all this with my condition?’
    ‘Mum, I don’t want to be unkind, but I don’t think you’ve actually got a condition.’
    ‘If only you knew what I went through when I had you.’
    Angie stared down at her feet. ‘Women have babies all the time. All over the world. And they don’t make their kids feel guilty just for being born. Every single day of their lives.’ She raised her eyes. ‘You can be so cruel to me. Do you know that?’
    Violet gulped. ‘Don’t be soft. I’m not cruel. You know how much I think of you.’
    ‘I know exactly what you think of me. That I’m pathetic. A timid little rabbit. Well, I’m not. Not any more.’
    ‘I don’t understand how you can treat me like this, Angela. Not after all I’ve done for you. When your dad got killed down the Mile End Road …’ She paused to sniff loudly. ‘They tried to take you off me. But I wouldn’t let them. I said to them, I said, you’re not taking my baby.’ She fussed around, digging out a hankie from her pocket. ‘Any other woman would have let them. But me, I wouldn’t. I kept you. Despite everything.’
    Angie had heard it all so many times before, yet somehow it still worked.
    ‘I’ll do the kitchen, but you’ll have to sort the rest out yourself.’
    ‘Thanks, love, you know how much I appreciate it.’
    ‘Yeah.’ Angie walked over to the door. ‘I’ll just hang up my coat.’
    ‘Wait a minute, darling. Just come up and help Mummy make the bed before you start in here.’
    ‘Peter, I’d like you to meet my wife.’ David grabbed Sonia’s arm as she