The Lie by Linda Sole Read Free Book Online Page B

you?’
    â€˜Nah,’ Peter said, and grinned, willing to admit it now that Connor had admitted he didn’t know either. ‘Alice says I’ll know soon enough, when I’m ready.’
    â€˜Do you think she’s done it?’
    â€˜With your Daniel?’ Peter screwed up his face in thought. ‘Nah, I shouldn’t think so – not yet, anywise. She’s looking all soppy and singing all over the place, but it’s too soon. Alice isn’t like that Nora Roberts. Ken said his brother says she’s anyone’s. She’ll let any of them do it for the price of a drink up the pub.’
    â€˜I don’t want a girl like that,’ Connor said. ‘I’m glad your Alice isn’t that way – and I hope she marries our Daniel. If this flipping war was over he could come home and things would be better. They might take me to live with them, and you could come too.’
    â€˜Can’t see my mum letting me go and live with them,’ Peter said. ‘She likes me around all the time. I do my delivery for Johnson’s Groceries on the bike and then she wants me to stop at home with her while Dad goes to the pub. We sit and eat cheese on toast by the fire for a special treat if we’ve got any left – crumpets too sometimes, with her own jam or honey when we can get it.’
    â€˜Mother’s boy!’ Connor taunted, and yet he couldn’t help envying his friend. It was a long time since he’d known what it was like to have a loving mother. Margaret certainly wasn’t that, nor did he want her to be. He blamed her for his father’s death, though he didn’t have any real reason, but he was sure it was her fault in his own mind.
    Peter grinned and aimed a punch at him. In another moment they were fighting on the ground, but not angrily, just in the way of friends, amusing themselves. Seeing them scrapping, a man passing called encouragement and laughed.
    â€˜That’s it, give him one, Peter lad. Them Searles can do with a bit of a lesson, stuck-up bastards. Heading for a fall, that’s what they are.’
    â€˜Shut your face, pig brain,’ Peter yelled after him, incensed at the insult to his friend, and then went back into the fight with renewed vigour. It ended as swiftly as it had begun when Mrs Robinson came to the door and called to them.
    â€˜Peter! Stop fighting with Connor at once! The two of you are more trouble than a pair of Bantam cocks, always scrapping. I want you to run an errand – and when you get back there will be a piece of cake for both of you, that’s if Connor wants to stay for tea?’
    â€˜Yes, please!’ Both boys chorused together. It wasn’t often there was cake for tea, though because their families had farms there were always some eggs and a bit of farm butter now and then. Peter gave Connor a hand up as they grinned at each other. It was good to be friends, good to be young, even if they did want answers to the burning question of how you did ‘it’.
    Peter took the shopping list and his mother’s money and they raced off up the street, trying to beat each other to the shop on the corner, trying to be first. It was a constant competition between them, but it made their lives more rewarding.
    Alice watched from the front window as the boys went racing up the street and smiled to herself. They were good boys, both of them, and she liked Connor. She had been polishing the front-room furniture with the window open and she’d heard what they were talking about as she worked.
    Those rogues, the things they did and said! It had made her cheeks burn when they were discussing her and Daniel, but she was amused and had gone on listening, even though perhaps she ought not to have. She was glad Connor liked her, but sad that he hated his stepmother. She quite liked Margaret Searles herself, though she’d seen something one day at the house before Robert died, something