Playing Around by Gilda O'Neill Read Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t imagine he would. She would have to investigate this one. ‘A dolly bird, eh?’
    Angie said nothing, she just fiddled with the buttons of her navy mac, the same mac she had worn almost every day since she had started work in the City a week after her fifteenth birthday.
    ‘Won the pools, has she?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Your nan. Giving you money.’
    ‘Don’t think so.’
    ‘And what’s your mum gonna say?’
    ‘She probably won’t even notice. So long as I don’t bother her.’
    Jackie narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s brought all this on?’
    Before Angie could think of a more convincing reason than: I thought your gorgeous brother actually fancied me; then I didn’t, but now I’m not so sure, but I think he just might, so I’d better tidy myself up a bit. Just in case. Or even a less pathetic reason than: I can’t bear being the object of my mum’s pity, and my mum’s boyfriend’s sneering, the District line train came into sight.
    Jackie elbowed her way forward to get a good spot at the front of the platform. ‘With a bit of luck we’ll get into Barking in time for the twenty past.’
    ‘Meet me later?’ Angie gasped, as she struggled through the other tardy, Monday-morning commuters. ‘To talk about it?’
    ‘OK. I’ll see you at the sandwich bar in Leadenhall Market just after one.’ Jackie spat the words through her teeth, as she glared a warning at a middle-aged man who thought he could get on the train before her.
    ‘Can’t we go to the Wimpy in Wentworth Street?’
    ‘Please yourself.’
    ‘Good, I’ve got to get a few bits for indoors.’
    ‘Your mum left the cupboard empty again?’
    She had, but Angie would never have said so. She didn’t like admitting how carelessly her mother treated her, not to other people. Not even to Jackie. It made Angie feel ashamed. But despite having to spend half her lunch hour doing food shopping, despite the crush on the train, and despite being late for work, Angie Knight was beaming with pleasure. She was going to be a dolly bird. And then Martin would really notice her.
    Well, maybe she shouldn’t quite jump the gun about Martin, maybe she had better wait and see, but he had definitely seemed interested in her.
    Definitely.
    ‘Martin.’
    At the sound of his name being called in that unmistakable accent, Martin knew it could be nobody but Jill Walker. He took a deep breath and turned round to look for her in the sea of students moving listlessly along the corridors to their morning lectures.
    She waved cheerily at him. ‘I’m glad I found you,’ she said, edging her way towards him. ‘I’ve looked everywhere.’
    She was puffing. She must have been rushing around the place.
Looking for me
.
    He grinned foolishly. ‘Well, here I am.’
    ‘I wanted to tell you that I’m going to see my personal tutor. This morning. To explain I’m behind, but I’m going to catch up. And I wanted to say thank you.’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘For being so nice to me.’ She cocked her head to one side and smiled. ‘I wondered if you’d let me say thank you properly. Wondered if you’d fancy coming round to the flat. On Saturday night. For something to eat.’
    Martin’s stomach did a back flip, just as if he was in an express lift that had screeched to a halt mid-way down a tower block. ‘That’d be great.’
    Great? It would be fantastic.
    Recalling what happened next – at least two hundred times that wonderful Monday morning – Martin couldn’t imagine that he would ever feel so elated again. Jill had smiled another one of those smiles, had raised herself up on her tip-toes, and had kissed him on the cheek. Just like that. In front of every one.
    ‘About seven?’
    He nodded dumbly.
    ‘See you later?’
    Martin nodded his head up and down again like a prize nit.
    ‘It’ll only be spaghetti bolognese and a bottle of Chianti,’ she called over her shoulder, as she hurried off along the corridor. ‘Will that do?’
    Again the moronic nodding.