Secrets of the Singer Girls by Kate Thompson Read Free Book Online Page B

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stray bit of skirt or gambling. Any money he ever did earn he chucked down his neck.’
    ‘Maybe because he knew you’d bend his ear whenever he stepped foot across the doorstep,’ blazed Daisy. ‘No one ever felt comfortable in our house. You saw to that all
right. We breathed and you bleached the air. If my childhood were a smell, you know what it’d be, Vera? Carbolic soap and disinfectant! Where was the love? The cuddles? I didn’t care
that we had the cleanest doorstep on the street. Dad’s been the only person to show me any love, so don’t you dare make up such poisonous lies about him.’
    ‘You tell her,’ piped up Frank, who had been watching in satisfied silence up until now. He was clearly enjoying the sour twist in the evening, that he had brought about. He turned
to Vera with a gloating grin. ‘You heard your sister, it’s only me who showed her any affection growing up. You never had any cuddles for her.’
    ‘Be that as it may, it was me who raised you, Daisy,’ Vera countered.
    ‘Suffocated me more like,’ Daisy snapped back. ‘Oh, you were always there all right, Vera, watching over me. Afraid I might make the wrong choice in life, pick the wrong
friends, afraid to let me have the smallest measure of freedom.’ Her words were falling over themselves. ‘You tried to be mother to me until I could bear it no longer. Don’t you
get it? I’m eighteen now. I’m going to go my own way in life.’
    Vera’s face was wrung with despair, haunted by her sister’s cruel outburst. ‘I was only trying to raise you the way I know Mother would have wanted,’ she whispered.
    ‘Yeah? Well, I wish it was you and not our mother who burned that night in the fire,’ Daisy spat. ‘Then me and Dad would be happy.’
    Quick as a flash, Vera struck Daisy full force with a stinging slap round her cheek. A crimson flush immediately coloured the place where Vera’s palm had made its impact. Poppy winced, and
Sal shook her head sadly.
    Deathly white, Vera stepped backwards as if it were her who had been struck. Try as she might, Poppy couldn’t reconcile this defeated wretch of a woman with the strong lady she had met in
the factory earlier that day.
    Frank’s eyes darted from his older child to his younger, wicked amusement flickering over his face.
    ‘Now, now, Vera. Play nicely with your sister,’ he taunted.
    ‘That’s enough,’ she whispered. ‘It’s late and we’ve all got work tomorrow. Come on, Daisy, we’re going home.’
    But Daisy shook her head and stepped back. ‘Forget it. I’m not coming home with you. You can’t tell me what to do anymore.’
    With that, she turned and, in a flash of crimson, strode out of the pub. Sal grabbed her bag and, with a last despairing look at the group, ran after her friend.
    ‘I’m off, then,’ muttered Frank, glaring at Vera. ‘Don’t wait up. I’ve picked up a night shift. We’ll talk about your little display later.’
    Poppy stared at the wreckage of the night, from the defeated figure of Vera gazing heartbroken after her sister to the stunned faces of the Singer Girls. Cold fingers gripped Poppy’s heart
as she surveyed the scene. She realized that her new friend Daisy, though beautiful, was capable of cruelty, and her elder sister, Vera, was frailer than her tough outer shell indicated. She may
have been the boss of the Singer Girls, but in matters of the heart, her younger sister held all the cards.
    By the time they made it back to the Shadwells’ terrace in nearby Tavern Street, Poppy and Vera were spent. Poppy sat in silence and watched as Vera bustled around the tiny kitchen and
prepared tea on the old range, heaping tea leaves into a vast brown pot. Despite its humble appearance, the kitchen was spotlessly clean and the range freshly black-leaded. Vera’s nickname
suddenly made sense to Poppy. It was no leafy country estate, but to Vera her home was her castle.
    ‘Toilet’s in the outhouse out back, and