Free Rose of Tralee by Katie Flynn Page B

but I ain’t never been on the boats in Seffy.’
    ‘Right, then boats first it is,’ Mrs Ryder said. ‘I’m fair parched an’ longin’ for a nice cup o’ tea, but I agree, we’ll go on the boats first – or rather you two will. I shall sit on a seat an’ watch.’
    ‘I thought you had tea wi’ Aunt Daisy,’ Rose said. ‘You telled her to put the kettle over the flame.’
    ‘Aye, but she doesn’t have milk, only conny-onny,so I had it black an’ it don’t quench me thirst the same,’ her mother explained. ‘Look – there’s the park gates! First one there gets a penny!’
    Jack Ryder was driving his tram past Lime Street station when he saw Mona. She would, he reflected wryly, have been difficult to miss. She was wearing a bright scarlet coat, a small green hat and very high-heeled shoes, and her skirt was so short that he could see her knees. She was standing at the tram stop and as his vehicle approached she raised her eyes and saw him. For a moment she looked startled, then she gave him a practised smile and a small wave and, as he stopped, moved casually away, as though she had not been waiting for a tram at all.
    But she had, Jack knew that. She was with a middle-aged gent in a bowler hat and a dark overcoat. A businessman of some sort, Jack presumed. Years older than herself, of course ... oh Gawd, why had he noticed her? He was pretty sure, after a number of such encounters with Mona, always accompanied by a different feller, that his niece was no better than she should be, but while he could shut his eyes to it he would. He couldn’t understand why she did it, either. Street-walking was dangerous, as well as against the law, and Mona had a job which brought in regular, if not good, money each week.
    Daisy had spoiled her when she was a kid, Jack remembered that all too well. Fancy clothes, lots of trips out, pictures whenever she wanted to go. Sometimes he wondered how Daisy had managed that... if Mona’s present behaviour was ‘like mother, like daughter’, whether Daisy had gone with sailors to make a bit extra after her husband had left her, but naturally, he could not voice the thought aloud. Lily,he knew, would be outraged and terribly upset with him, and even if he proved himself right she would be dreadully hurt.
    But it was why he didn’t like her taking the kid round there. Children weren’t stupid and his Rose was as bright as a button. If she twigged what Mona was up to... well, suppose she thought that since her mam took her round to Daisy’s place and let her chatter to Mona such behaviour was acceptable? She was his heart’s darling, was Rosie, he wouldn’t have her getting the wrong idea, not even if, in the end, it meant that he had to put his foot down over Daisy, tell Lily what he believed and make her see that, for their daughter’s sake, they would have to steer clear of both Daisy and Mona.
    The trouble was, Jack liked a quiet life and he liked the people he loved to be comfortable. Lily behaved towards Daisy as though she were the elder, he sometimes thought. She was forever going round there with food she had baked, she spent time with her sister even when she was busy herself, she gave her presents. Sometimes it was a pretty blouse which she would have toiled over for nights and nights, at others a pair of thick woollen stockings for winter wear, or some embroidered pillowcases, or a thick, soft towel to take to the bath-house. Not that Daisy ever visited the bath-house so far as Jack knew; she always looked unwashed to him.
    An elderly woman tottered across the tram’s path and Jack, who had not been going fast anyway, moved the handle to cut the power and slow them down, then gradually built up speed once more as the road cleared. Daisy Mullins had been a thorn in his flesh ever since he and Lily had first met, and her disapproval of him – and his of her – had not becomeless with the years. But he had no right – or reason – to grumble, because he