Free A Glimpse at Happiness by Jean Fullerton Page B

the back eager to see you.’
     
    Josie’s heart jumped over in her chest. With her mouth dry as tinder she opened the door to the Nolans’ kitchen, and cast her eyes around the low-ceilinged scullery. In their old house the whole family had lived downstairs, with another family in the upstairs room but, for all that, Josie realised just how small these old terraced cottages really were.
     
    Mattie turned. She had Patrick’s well-defined cheekbones but a small chin rather than a square one. Her dark curls were gathered under the cotton handkerchief tied at the back of her head.
     
    ‘Josie!’ Mattie dashed at her and enveloped her in a tight embrace.
     
    Keeping her eyes from straying to the black mould around the window frames and the mousetrap in the corner, Josie returned her old school friend’s hug.
     
    ‘What am I about, grabbing you like that!’ Mattie said, giving Josie a shy smile and wiping her hands down her apron a couple of times. ‘You dressed in silks and me in this old thing covered with burnt sugar from the factory.’
     
    Josie embraced her again. ‘Oh Mattie,’ she said, her voice muffled by her friend’s shoulder. ‘It’s so good to see you.’
     
    ‘There, didn’t I say that our Josie would never be too full of airs and graces to take a dish of tea with her old friends,’ Sarah told her daughter, and Mattie’s shoulders relaxed.
     
    Josie struggled out of Mattie’s embrace. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ she asked.
     
    Mattie took her hands and drew her into the room. ‘Patrick said you were grand.’
     
    The smile froze on Josie’s face. Grand! Is that what he thought? A little stab of hurt jabbed at her breastbone.
     
    ‘Come and sit by the fire,’ Sarah urged.
     
    She sat down opposite the fire and noticed that the horsehair stuffing was bursting out from the fabric on the arm of the old chair. She thought of the new furniture she and her mother had bought at Heals, the huge department store in Tottenham Court Road . . . Josie banished the thought as she untied her bonnet and peeled off her gloves before settling herself back. Sarah sat opposite her and Mattie pulled up a stool. The faint scent of vinegar told Josie that Sarah hadn’t give up her daily scrubbing of the floors.
     
    A square table, with an odd assortment of upright chairs ranged around it, dominated the centre of the room. The yellowing linen cloth covering it served as the backdrop for a colourful assortment of cups and saucers. There was a full bucket of coal by the fireside.
     
    ‘I’m very sorry to hear that Mr Nolan passed on,’ Josie said.
     
    ‘Ah, thank you, my dear. He was a darlin’ man.’ Sarah fixed a bright smile on her face. ‘Now, tell me how your own dear mother is.’
     
    Sarah handed Josie a cup of tea. Josie took a sip. It was weak, and she was just about to say as much when she realised that, of course, Sarah must have used second-hand tea leaves.
     
    She smiled at Sarah. ‘Lovely,’ she said, and then told them all about her family and their time in New York and Boston.
     
    Mattie and Sarah’s eyes grew wide as she described their house in Brooklyn Heights just across the river from the city and her Uncle Jo’s chaotic family, which they had left behind.
     
    ‘It must be strange being back here,’ Mattie said.
     
    Josie nodded. ‘It is, although there has been so much to do since we returned I’ve only just noticed it now and again.’
     
    She glanced at the bare windows and thought of the lace panels hanging in the windows of the drawing room in the house at Stepney Green.
     
    ‘Patrick tells me you’re to be married,’ Josie said, abandoning thoughts of West End shopping and her own life. ‘Has he got a name, this young man of yours?’
     
    ‘He’s Brian Maguire.’ Mattie beamed. ‘You must remember him. He and Pat were always together.’
     
    ‘And getting up to mischief, if I recall,’ Josie replied, thinking of the lad universally known as