place a minute longer. We’re going right now.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘YOU can’t do that!’ the Missus stated, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, her head thrust forward.
‘You can’t stop me,’ Victor told her.
For the first time since that dreadful day when her mother had died, Scarlett saw the old Dad back, the man who could make decisions rather than just be pushed along by events.
There was uproar again, with Jonathan begging them not to go, the Guv’nor telling them to sling their hook, the Missus telling them that if they did they weren’t getting any wages.
‘I’m not letting my daughter stay in this place a moment longer,’ Victor said. ‘You can stick your wages where the sun don’t shine. My little girl’s safety comes first. Come on, Scarlett, we’re leaving.’
With his arm still around her, he brushed past the Missus and headed for the stairs. Behind them Scarlett could hear Jonathan arguing with his mother, and soon after his footsteps on the stairs behind them.
‘Stop—Scarlett—Mr Smith—you mustn’t do this—’
‘Jonathan—’
Scarlett twisted out of her father’s hold and flung her arms round him as he caught up with them. They clung to each other.
‘Oh, Scarlett, I’m so sorry, so sorry—’
Still shaking with shock and anger, she sobbed on his shoulder. ‘I don’t want to leave you.’
It had all happened so quickly, it was hard to take it in. All she knew was that she and Jonathan must part.
‘I don’t want you to go. We must be able to do something.’
They stumbled up the last steps and onto the landing. Her father was already unlocking his door.
‘Mr Smith, please—you don’t have to go right this minute—’ Jonathan tried to reason.
Victor opened the door and paused on the threshold.
‘I’m sorry, son. I’ve no argument with you, but we simply can’t stay, and that’s all there is to it.’
‘If you’d just let everyone cool down—’
‘They can cool down as much as they like. They can beg me to stay, but it won’t make any difference.’
‘Dad, please—’ Scarlett begged.
Her father looked at her, his eyes full of sorrow. ‘Scarlett, love, do you really want to stay where that man could do that to you again?’
Scarlett felt as if she were being ripped apart inside. Her body crawled with dread and loathing when she thought about what had happened, what might have happened if she had not gone on the offensive. She never wanted to see the Guv’nor or the Missus again, but neither did she want to part from Jonathan.
‘No—’ she whispered.
‘But you can’t just go—’ Jonathan cried.
Her father unlocked her door.
‘Get a bag, love. You know, stuff for tonight.’
Hardly knowing what she was doing, Scarlett picked up a few random objects and put them into a shopping bag. Her legs and arms didn’t feel as if they belonged to her. It was like swimming through mud. Before she knew what was happening, she was at the back door. She could hear Jonathan’s mother yelling at him to come back at once.
‘Go on, son,’ Victor said.
‘I’m coming with you, at least until you find somewhere,’ Jonathan insisted. ‘I can’t let you just disappear.’
It was cold outside in the September evening. Once out on the dark back street, Victor’s resolve seemed to crumble a little.
‘I suppose we’d better look for a guest house,’ he said, gazing vaguely down the street as if one would instantly appear before him.
‘There’s loads just round the corner,’ Jonathan said. ‘One of them’ll have a vacancy.’
It was easier said than done. The streets of small houses leading back from the sea front were full of places advertising rooms, but nearly all had No Vacancies signs up. The landladies of the first two they tried simply took one look at the bedraggled little group on the step and shut the door in their faces. The next only had a double room. The one after told them that they only took respectable couples.
‘Flaming cheek,’ Victor growled. ‘What do they think we are?’
They finally found two rooms in a corner property that smelt strongly of damp and disinfectant.
‘Not you,’ the landlady said to Jonathan as he tried to come in too. ‘I’m not having any funny business here.’
They were all of them too weary to argue any more.
‘Come back in the morning,’ Jonathan called, before the door was shut. ‘I love you.’
The landlady snorted and showed them to two chilly rooms on different floors.
‘’Night, Scarlett, love,’ her father said, giving her a brief hug. ‘It’ll all look better in the morning, you’ll see.’
‘Right,’ Scarlett said, but in her heart she couldn’t believe it.
She sat down on the lumpy bed, feeling utterly alone. How had all this happened? How had she come to be practically begging people to give them a bed for the night? How could her mum die and leave them to this? For a long time she just sat, trying to make sense of it all. It was only when she needed to go to the bathroom that she realised she had not brought any washing things with her. Neither had she brought a nightdress. Her shopping bag contained her teddy, her hairbrush, a cardigan, the photo of her mother and Gone with the Wind.
She dragged her tired body downstairs to the bathroom, used the toilet, washed her hands under the cold tap and rinsed her mouth out with water. Back in the room again, she felt the menacing quiet closing in on her, emphasized by distant sounds of revelry from the sea front. She took off her shoes and socks and dress and reluctantly got between the sheets of the bed. The events of the evening were still replaying endlessly in her head, making sleep impossible. She propped her mother’s picture up against the foot of the bed and hugged the worn old teddy to her, but somehow it failed to comfort the way it had used to when she was little. She picked up the book, the precious gift from her mother, and opened it at the marker. Yankee soldiers were invading Tara. The story wove its spell. Soon her sorrows were submerged in her namesake’s travails. She read and read until her eyes closed and Gone with the Wind slid unheeded onto her lap.
In the morning they ate the greasy breakfast provided by their landlady, packed up their things again and walked out onto the street. It was ten o’clock on a wet Sunday. Nothing was open. They had nowhere to go.
‘Jonathan said to go back to the Trafalgar,’ Scarlett said.
‘I’m not setting foot in that place,’ her father told her.
‘But our things! We can’t leave them behind!’
Besides, she was desperate to see Jonathan again.
After some wrangling, Scarlett simply took charge and set off for the sea front. Her father waited at the corner while Scarlett went to the back of the pub. At the yard gate, she hesitated. The building that had always seemed grim now looked positively threatening. But the need to be with Jonathan drove her on. She walked across the gloomy yard. The back door flew open. It was him.
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