Free The Sunday Girls by Maureen Reynolds Page A

or take sides,’ she said.
    This statement incensed Bella even more. ‘I sometimes see her when I’m carrying my messages up the street.’ She gave Granny a ferocious scowl. ‘She swaggers towards me, dressed like the lady of the manor, but does she offer to help me? Does she thump.’
    Granny was fed up hearing Bella’s moans. ‘Well, Bella, you should get your messages delivered from Lipton’s and Danny will bring them on his message bike. And another thing, Hattie is my lassie and I’ll not have you running her down. We think she keeps herself really smart. Especially when she wears her bonny blue frock with the dropped waistline. It goes really well her dark Eton crop hairstyle. She looks like Ann.’
    I was appalled. I hated my short dark hair, longing instead to have lovely long golden ringlets. But I had to admit silently that my hair was the least of my worries just now. I was still without a job and another thorn in my flesh was the non-appearance of Dad. Every time I called at the flat in the Hilltown, he was out and I was even beginning to suspect that Rita and Nellie were just as evasive. But maybe I was just being daft.
    The flat kept slipping back to its original untidiness and, although I did make attempts to keep some sort of order, I finally gave up. As it was, we had enough worries to think about. Lily was teething and every night was a trial with her noisy bouts of crying. Twin red spots appeared on her smooth cheeks and she looked distressed and wet-eyed.
    One morning, after a particularly fractious night, I was sent to the chemist. ‘Get a packet of Seidlitz powders for the baby’s sore gums,’ said Granny.
    These powders helped slightly but we started to take it in turn to get up through the night with her. All through this demanding time, I was thankful not to be working because I doubt if I could have got up in time for work in the morning after such disturbed nights. It was lovely to lie in bed in my tiny cupboard after a spell of night duty and listen to Granny as she stirred the large pot of porridge, its aroma wafting through the cracks in the door.
    Although the year was almost over and the weather was bitterly cold, Grandad still took Lily for her daily walk in the old dilapidated pram. She loved those trips and Grandad never stopped telling us how much she adored her pram. Not like Hattie – on seeing the pram for the first time, she had threatened to boycott the entire family such was her humiliation at being associated with it, albeit at a distance. In fact, she had almost fainted at the time. This was followed by a strangled cry when she was told where it had been bought. She had stepped smartly backwards as if it would contaminate her, a look of disgust on her handsome, refined face. Still, she had come round in time. Not that she was reconciled to it – no, it was more the solemn promise extracted from Grandad that he would keep well away from the Perth Road with it.
    One day, she produced some of Joy’s cast-off clothes but, because of the difference in size, nothing fitted Lily except for a lovely knitted yellow pram suit with a matching pixie hood. This had been a present from a relative who had obviously never set eyes on the dainty Joy – hence the fact that it fitted our Lily. Sitting propped up against a thick cushion, she looked like a bright sunbeam in her pram and lots of people stopped to comment on her prettiness – compliments with pleased Grandad immensely. ‘Folk aye stop me when I’m out with the baby and nobody ever mentions the scruffy pram.’ This was obviously aimed at Granny. He remembered her initial response and Hattie’s look of horror.
    A few days before Hogmanay, Hattie appeared at the house, a deep frown on her face. ‘Mrs Pringle wants me to bring Ann and Lily out to her house for a visit.’ She made it sound like a royal command. ‘She wants to have a chat with Ann.’ The frown deepened as she gazed at me with her dark eyes that were