Free Unforgettable by Jean Saunders

composed herself by the time she took the tea into the front room where her mother was dozing on and off by now. Seeing Gracie, she made a determined effort to perk up, and managed to drink some of the tea once it had cooled down. Predictably, she didn’t touch the biscuit.
    â€˜Mum, I’ve been thinking. I don’t want to sponge on Dad, and it may be months before you get better,’ she went on delicately.
    Queenie shook her head. ‘We both know that’s not going to happen.’
    Gracie ignored the remark. ‘I need to work, Mum, but I wouldn’t leave you now. If I can use your old sewing-machine I could take in sewing alterations at home. I’d try not to let it disturb you too much.’
    â€˜It wouldn’t disturb me! I like the sound of the sewing-machine. It’s going to be yours, anyway.’
    Gracie swallowed hard. She hated all thisimplication of death and what happened afterwards, but she could see it was important to her mother. She was so brave, facing what was inevitable.
    â€˜I’ll put a card in the grocer’s window then, and I’ll call myself a London Outworker. Does that sound fancy enough?’ she added.
    But Queenie had drifted off to sleep now, and Gracie tiptoed out, already composing the words on the card to advertise her skills. She hadn’t really meant to call herself any such thing as a ‘London Outworker’, but if it impressed likely customers it didn’t seem such a bad idea.
    The old treadle sewing-machine in the parlour hadn’t been used since Gracie had gone to London. Her fingers suddenly tingled with anticipation. Doing alterations to garments wasn’t the same as making something new, even in the tedium of Lawson’s Shirt Factory, but the skill was the same, and it was the work she enjoyed more than anything else.
    She felt slightly uplifted. Any money she could earn could pay for the little extras her dad seemed incapable of recognizing that her mother needed. She wasn’t going to be useless here, and she had to keep busy for her own sanity and to keep her mind off what lay ahead.
    Her father approved of the suggestion—providing his dinner was on the table when he wanted it, and that the parlour wasn’t filled with stuff everywhere and bits of fluff and cotton-dust in the air to smother the taste of his food. It wouldn’t do Queenie’s chest any good, either, he added as an afterthought.
    â€˜Don’t worry, Dad,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Nothing will interfere with your well-being. We wouldn’t want that, would we?’
    He looked at her through narrowed eyes, unsure of this newly independent daughter who no longer flinched when he shouted, and had ideas of her own. His womenfolk were ganging up on him—as far as Queenie could gang up on anybody, he thought with an unexpected pang.
    â€˜See to it then,’ he said gruffly. ‘As long as it don’t fret your mother.’
    * * *
    After the dance with Davey Watkins she saw him several times before he returned to his ship, but she made it plain to him that it was a relationship that was going nowhere except friendship. Though she couldn’t deny he had done her mother good with his nonsense when he had called at the house.
    She also admitted that it had been a sensible decision to go dancing with him. It had exorcised any foolish dreams she might have had. She could even make a few jokes with him about the local band who weren’t up to much, and not compare them with other, slicker bands in London dance-halls. She even reluctantly agreed to answer any letters he sent her from foreign parts.
    A month or so later, a letter arrived, but it wasn’t from Davey. As Dolly had always told her, she wasn’t a great letter-writer. She wrote as she talked, flitting from subject to subject as thoughts came into her head.
    Gracie still felt cheered, just to be in contact with her old world again. She had