Free A Girl Can Dream by Anne Bennett

Meg from the day she had taken her up for her interview in Lewis’s and now she felt she would like to help her in some way.
    ‘How about if we meet up here every Friday?’ she suggested.
    Meg shook her head. ‘I have to be back by lunchtime. The children come home for dinner, you see. Today they are seeing to themselves,’ she added, ‘because I had to buy Ruth some new clothes.’
    ‘How old is your eldest brother?’
    ‘Terry’s twelve.’
    ‘So say you left soup or something?’ Joy persisted. ‘He’s old enough to dish it up and get them all back to school on time.’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Meg said. ‘My dad might not like it.’
    ‘What difference would it make to him?’
    ‘None, I suppose,’ Meg said. ‘It’s just I’ve got out of the habit of thinking about myself.’
    ‘Then start again,’ Joy said. ‘God blimey, Meg, you’re a long time dead.’
    Meg’s laugh startled the drowsy baby a little and Joy said, ‘Why don’t you put it to your dad? I’m sure he will see no harm in it. Anyway,’ she said, getting to her feet, ‘must be away or I’ll be getting my cards, but I’ll be here next week about the same time if you can make it.’
    ‘I’ll try,’ Meg promised, and she sat enviously watching her friend returning to work while she held Ruth against her shoulder, rubbing her back in case she had wind.

SIX
    Meg might never have got round to mentioning her meeting Joy if it hadn’t been for Billy telling them that evening about meeting a kind lady.
    ‘And who is this kind lady?’ Charlie asked.
    Billy shrugged and said, ‘Dunno, but she bought us egg on toast and doughnuts and her name is Joy and she don’t half talk a lot.’
    They all laughed and Terry put in, ‘Surprised you noticed that, Billy. Bit like pot calling kettle.’ for everyone knew Billy was a chatterbox.
    Charlie, though, was more interested in who the ‘kind lady’ was. He knew because of what she had taken on that Meg had few friends now, and certainly not one who would treat her and her young brother to egg on toast and doughnuts.
    ‘Billy’s right,’ she told her father. ‘Her name is Joy, Joy Tranter. She’s the girl from Lewis’s that took me up to the interview the day Mom fell in the yard.’
    ‘Fancy her remembering you all this time.’
    Meg nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I mean only saw her for a short time and yet we sort of hit it off. I thought we might have become friends if I’d worked there.’
    Charlie heard the wistfulness in Meg’s voice and felt guilty that she had no friends her own age. ‘Haven’t you seen her since?’
    ‘Just once before today,’ Meg said. ‘She goes to the Bull Ring often on a Friday because it’s her pay day and she has a mooch around the shops and treats herself to a snack in the Market Hall café, but normally I have to be home for the children at twelve so I leave before her dinner hour.’
    ‘So what happened today?’
    ‘I had to buy some winter clothes for Ruth today, remember?’ Meg said. ‘The children sorted themselves out.’
    ‘And it did them no harm, I would say,’ Charlie said. He looked from one child to the other. ‘Did it?’
    ‘No, Dad,’ they chorused.
    ‘So can you do that every Friday so Meg has a chance to meet her friend?’
    They all nodded solemnly, and Meg was touched by her father’s consideration and the children falling in with his plan so readily. ‘I didn’t think you would be so keen on me going every week.’
    ‘Why on earth not?’ Charlie said. ‘God, Meg it’s not much to ask.’
    ‘And I am not helpless,’ Terry said. ‘I am twelve, you know, not two.’
    ‘I could leave you some soup or something just to heat up.’
    ‘There’s no need.’
    ‘Well, I’ll leave the details up to you,’ Charlie said. ‘But in the meantime, Meg, while it was very nice of your friend to treat you today, I shouldn’t think she earns that much so she wouldn’t want to do it every week.’
    ‘I shouldn’t want