‘I was just wishing we didn’t have to leave,’ I said and shook my head as I saw the teasing light in his eyes. ‘It’s all right for you – you don’t have to go back to the lanes.’
‘I like your parents’ house,’ Matthew said and looked serious. ‘I know the area isn’t the best, but the house is lovely inside.’
‘I hate the lanes,’ I said. ‘I want to live in something like this one day, Matt. And I want it to be in a nice area, a place where people don’t swear and drink all the time.’
‘That’s a bit harsh. There are some really good people in Farthing Lane. Your parents don’t drink to excess and Joe doesn’t swear either. I admire your parents, and particularly your mother for being proud of her roots.’
‘But I can’t stay in the house all the time. You haven’t heard the noise they make coming out of the Feathers on a Saturday night. It’s enough to waken the dead.’
‘You’re a snob, Amy Robinson,’ Matthew said with a teasing smile. ‘Your father gave you everything you ever wanted and you’ve been utterly spoiled.’
‘Yes, I know.’ I was half ashamed as I met his eyes. We’d had this conversation before and he always won, because in my heart I knew he was right. ‘It isn’t that I don’t appreciate all they’ve done for me. I just don’t want to live there any more.’
‘Surely you can put up with it for a while?’ Matthew raised his brows at me. ‘We agreed that we wouldn’t get married for another year or so. I can’t afford to buy a house yet, and I don’t want to start out living with my parents.’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’ I gazed back longingly at the house we had just left as Matthew opened the door of his Austin saloon for me. He was the sales representative for a firm of gentlemen’s tailoring and he had to travel all over London and the Home Counties with his samples, which was why he could afford to run such a nice car. ‘I like your parents, Matt. And it would only be for a while.’
‘No, Amy,’ Matthew said and his mouth drew into a thin line. We’d had this conversation more than once, too. ‘I told you it would be a while before we could marry, and you agreed you were willing to wait.’
‘Of course I’ll wait,’ I said, sliding into the car which smelled of leather and new clothes. ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’
Matthew closed the door on me. Glancing at his face as he slid into the driving seat, I saw that a little nerve was flicking at his temple and knew he was annoyed with me. I bit down on my bottom lip, stopping myself from saying all the things that were on the tip of my tongue. How could Matthew understand what I felt about going home when I had never told him?
I might have told him about the dreams if I had thought it would make a difference, but I knew he would just dismiss them as being nonsense.
‘It was just a dream,’ he would say. ‘Besides, you’re grown up now and you should have the sense to stay away from men who have been drinking.’
Matthew was very practical. Sometimes I would have liked him to be more romantic. It would have been nice to be courted with bouquets of flowers and expensive gifts, but though he bought me some good perfume on my birthday and a box of Cadbury’s chocolates when we went to the pictures, he was never extravagant.
‘If we want a nice home, I have to save,’ he’d told me when he saw the expensive leather bag and shoes my father had given me for my birthday. ‘I’ll give you things like that one day, Amy – when I’ve climbed up the ranks a bit. I’m not going to be a sales rep all my life. I’m going to apply for a manager’s job the first chance I get, and one day I’ll have a shop of my own.’
I knew that my father would have lent him the money to set up his own business if he’d asked, but it would be a waste of breath to tell him that. Matthew was proud, and I admired him for his determination to get ahead by his own efforts. In fact I was pretty much head over heels in love with him, and I hated our quarrels, all of which were of my making.
Matthew was hard working, honest and decent – all the things I had been taught to admire and wanted in the man I would marry one day. Yet there were times when I wished that he would do something reckless for once. My life was pleasant and easy, but not often exciting.
Hearing me sigh, Matthew glanced my way.
‘Couldn’t you go and stay with your aunt again? I thought she wanted you to work for her?’
‘Yes, she does.’ I smiled as I thought of Aunt Lainie. She owned an expensive gown shop in the West End of London and lived in the flat above. I had stayed with her several times in the past. ‘But my mother doesn’t want me to live with Lainie. When I suggested it she looked hurt and I felt awful.’
‘I’m sure she would understand if you explained. After all, it would be a nice place for you to work, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes …’ I left my thoughts unspoken. Matthew was thinking that we could save more if I was also at work, and that was true. What I didn’t care to explain was that I didn’t particularly want to work in my aunt’s shop – or any shop. My ambition was to design clothes. At art college I had discovered that I was quite good at it, and I’d already sent out some of my designs to various commercial fashion houses. So far I hadn’t received any replies. ‘It’s a nice shop. Aunt Lainie has made it even more exclusive now that she owns it. She says they get a really good clientele these days, so I suppose it would be all right.’
Matthew laughed. ‘Lainie O’Rourke is an even bigger snob than you, Amy. To speak to her you would think she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and she couldn’t be more different from your mother. No one would ever think they were sisters.’
Matthew made no secret of the fact that he adored my mother. He had told me that Bridget Robinson was one of the finest ladies he had ever met. It wasn’t that he disliked Lainie, simply that he thought her a little selfish sometimes.
Of course, he didn’t know Lainie as I did. She might seem selfish to people who only saw one side of her, but I knew she was very different underneath. Lainie was tough in matters of business, but she could be kind when someone was in trouble. I remembered the way she had looked after one of her girls at the shop when her father had thrown her out of her home because she was pregnant. Lainie had sent the girl away somewhere to have the baby, and afterwards she had given her a job in the back room doing alterations. Most employers would have sacked her, but Lainie had gone out of her way to help, and I admired that.
‘Sally has put the baby out with a good family,’ Lainie told me. ‘She needs to work to support her son, but at least she wasn’t forced to give him up.’
Her eyes had seemed to reflect a deep sadness as she spoke, and I’d sensed something hidden. I had always known that Lainie had a secret. As a small child I’d picked up whispers, sentences left unfinished and knowing looks between my mother and aunt. And I knew that Lainie hated the area in which she had lived as a child as much as I did.
‘If it were not for Bridget I would never set foot in that street again,’ she had told me once when I’d asked why she didn’t visit us very often. ‘I don’t want to remember that part of my life, Amy. It’s over and finished, and I am a different person. I’ve educated myself, dragged myself out of the mire and slime, and it was damned hard work. I shall never let myself be dragged back into that kind of a life, and if Bridget had any sense she would move right away from the docks. Joe wants to buy her a decent house somewhere and she’s a fool not to jump at the chance.’
‘I wish she would! Then I needn’t go back ever again.’
‘You could always live with me, Amy. You know I would love to have you.’
There was something in her eyes then that made me wonder if she was lonely. Lainie was an attractive woman, with softly waved fair hair that she kept looking immaculate, and a trim figure. In her early forties, she had never married but I didn’t know why. She must