Clouds Below the Mountains by Vivienne Dockerty Read Free Book Online Page A

what she saw in him?
    A psychoanalyst would say that she had thrown her lot in with Simon, because she felt she was no longer loved by her parents. Jenni had thought about that when she was studying Sociology for her G.C.S.E. Maybe that could be said of her mother, who had recently got married for the third time, but not her father, who she was still in contact with and had been since she was a little girl. She supposed it was to get away from the sick making lovebirds that she had thrown herself at the first lad who made a fuss of her, she thought, remembering how she had met Simon at her mate’s house. Melanie was Simon’s cousin and because her house was near to the bread making factory, where he worked a three shift system on the conveyer belt, it was easy for him to drop in for a brew before or after he started work.
    Somehow, she had got sucked into a relationship with him and had found it pleasant at first to have a boyfriend on her arm. She had read all the magazines that told her of love and teenage sex, what boys liked to do with girls and what experiences girls had with boys and she had listened to the sex information given out at her school. Everyone was doing it, girls in her class who wanted to have a baby, girls in her class who didn’t want a baby, so that like her had been given the Pill. She didn’t know what she really wanted to do with her life, though a couple of A levels would be nice.
    She felt as if she had been talked into this holiday, while the first flush of romance had been between them, but as the months passed, she had begun to feel like a prostitute. An unpaid prostitute, unless you could call this holiday that Simon had paid for, reward for what she was having to put up with. There had to be something better than this for the rest of her life!
    Simon looked at his girlfriend with a huge wave of tenderness. She had always reminded him of a little puppy he’d been given when he was a child. Jenni had the same velvety brown eyes and shiny hair like the puppy and she was small, only five feet two, compared with his six foot nothing in stocking feet. That puppy had followed him everywhere, was devoted to him just like Jenni was. In fact the puppy eventually got on his nerves and he gave it a good kicking. His mother gave it away to someone she knew at work.
    He hoped that he would never do anything like that to Jenni, because she too could go away like the puppy had. He ordered another pint of beer when the waiter came with their food order. This was the life, as much beer as he could get down his neck, fast food in plenty which was the type of grub he liked, and his bird willing to open her legs anytime he felt like shagging her. What more could he want and the sun was shining as well!

Chapter Three.
    â€œDoes the restaurant have two sittings for dinner, Paul”, asked Cheryl, as she came out of the bathroom wearing a white towelling robe that the hotel had provided. “Oh, don’t smoke that in here, go out on the balcony if you have to smoke.”
    â€œDo you want me to answer your question or go out on the balcony, Darling?” asked Paul, hastily stubbing out his cigar, then carrying the ashtray out to the white plastic table. He knew she hated him smoking. She said it made her clothes and hair smell and it wasn’t good for the children’s chests, but hell, he had to have some pleasures in his hard working life.
    â€œSorry, I forgot to ask with having to put up with their petty regulations. I’ve already nearly poked my eye out with the tip of this bloody wristband thingy.”
    â€œDon’t swear in front of Annabelle, Darling. It’s a good job Jack is asleep in the bedroom, you know he’s like a parrot. Anyway, I’m not finding the wristband intrusive, it goes very well with the white bracelet on my watch.”
    â€œWell it doesn’t look good with my Rolex. I’m very annoyed still, even though that rep’ was