Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings by Julia Stoneham Read Free Book Online Page B

Lane until being recently conscripted, but only into the catering corps on account of his flat feet. Hesterstared at the curlers and the face powder and the little jars of Pond’s Vanishing Cream and Cold Cream and the bottle of Amami shampoo, which now stood on Annie’s side of the dressing table.
    ‘What with all that fuss with Georgina, we never got round to you, did we!’ Annie said, adding, when Hester shyly hung her head, ‘Come on! Your name’s Hester. And…?!’
    ‘And me dad’s a dairyman,’ Hester said. She had difficulty in understanding her room-mate’s cockney accent but, despite worries about Annie’s appearance and shocked by the colours and the cut of her clothes, found that she was reluctantly, almost guiltily, responding to her friendliness.
    ‘Yeah?… Go on, then!’ Annie persisted, smoothing out the creases in a blue crêpe de Chine frock before hooking it onto the rail in the wardrobe.
    ‘And he preaches, Sundays.’
    ‘Oh!’ said Annie.
    ‘We belong to the Brethren. It’s a religion.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Annie. ‘Well, it would be, wouldn’t it! Is that why you wear dark colours and that?’ she enquired, running out of coat hangers.
    ‘Bright colours is sinful.’ Hester’s accent, Annie noticed, was like Mrs Crocker’s only softer. ‘It says so in the book.’
    ‘What book?’ Annie asked innocently, her face already betraying her response to Hester’s convictions.
    ‘The Bible!’ said Hester as though there was only onebook. Annie, her unpacking finished, had pulled a packet of Woodbines from her handbag and was searching unsuccessfully for matches. She caught Hester’s look.
    ‘Oh ’eck…I suppose smokin’s a sin an’ all?’
    ‘Yeah, ’tis,’ Hester muttered almost inaudibly.
    Annie got to her feet, showed her teeth in a wide smile and crossed the small space to the door.
    ‘Reckon I’ll have my fag next door then,’ she said.
    Hester sat on her bed beside her carpet-bag from which she lifted a framed photograph of her father, her mother and her young brother. She stared for a moment at the hard eyes of her father and then positioned the photograph carefully on the small table which separated the twin beds.
    In the neighbouring room Marion and Winnie had rapidly appropriated the extra space left by Georgina’s decampment. The unoccupied third bed was now strewn with brightly coloured garments and half a dozen pairs of new silk stockings. Winnie lay sprawled on her bed reading a film magazine while Marion, one foot braced against the dressing table, daubed blood-red varnish onto her toenails. When Annie put her head round the door and asked Marion and Winnie if they had a match they responded in unison.
    ‘Yeah!’ they chorused, ‘your face and my bum!’ Then Marion, tossing a box of Swan Vestas in Annie’s direction, asked sharply whether their visitor had ever heard of knocking.
    Although not invited into the room, Annie smiled and lingered in the doorway, smoking.
    ‘Nice colour,’ she said, nodding at Marion’s nail varnish. ‘Many blokes round here?’
    ‘If you know where to find ’em,’ Marion said.
    ‘Or if you like your men under sixteen or over sixty,’ Winnie giggled, adding to Marion, ‘Hey! She could come with us, Sat’day night, down the pub.’ She hesitated, silenced by a sharp look from her friend and then asked tentatively, ‘Couldn’t she?’
    Marion’s glance as she screwed the top tightly onto the nail polish was designed to shut Winnie up and close the subject but Winnie persisted. She would have been happy enough for Annie to join them. There were always more than enough men to go round on a Saturday night. But Marion remained adamant, exercising her well-developed facility to lie.
    ‘No, Win,’ she said, ‘she can’t ’cos we’re going on, aren’t we!’ She began running a razor over a smooth shin.
    ‘On?’ Winnie echoed. She was, Marion considered, very stupid at times.
    ‘To Exeter, Win! To that dance!