A New Dream - Maggie Ford (interesting novels to read TXT) 📗

‘You’ll be with other people, maybe girls your own age. You were with other girls your own age at school.’

‘But that was school…’

‘And what about me?’ interrupted James angrily. ‘Dragged out of my private school, any chance of going on to university dashed, thrust out into the world unprepared and unqualified when I might have done well. I hope you don’t expect me to start wielding a pick and shovel.’

Julia bit back a sharp retort to the sarcasm. ‘There are openings for clerks in banks and businesses for boys like you.’

‘Start at the bottom, you mean?’

‘Everyone starts at the bottom.’

‘If I’d been able to go on to university, I’d have had a good start.’

Julia made a huge effort to remain calm. She didn’t want this to descend into a slanging match. ‘You’re clever,’ she said evenly. ‘Starting at the bottom will give you good grounding for climbing the ladder to promotion.’

She saw a surly tightening of his lips. ‘If you think I’m going to…’ he began, but Virginia broke in, leaping up from the table, her thoughts getting the better of her.

‘And what about this place?’ she began, flinging her arms wide. ‘Living here – it’s an awful, horrible place!’

‘It’s clean and it’s respectable,’ Julia said sharply, resisting an urge to tell her that a child her age should have no say in these matters. But she understood how Virginia felt. ‘It could be worse,’ she could only say lamely.

‘Nothing could be worse than this!’ Virginia was very near to tears. ‘Like the rest of this area, it’s awful and the people are awful. Everywhere is dirty and grubby and the people are dirty and grubby.’

‘At least they work, those who have jobs, to keep themselves out of poverty,’ Julia said, trying not to raise her voice, ‘which is more than any of us have ever done. But now that’s just what we have got to do.’

Virginia retreated into silence but Stephanie turned savagely towards her older sister.

‘And what about you, Julia – what work will you be doing?’

Julia gave her sister a long, cool stare. ‘And who do you think is going to look after Mummy? She can’t be left here on her own.’

‘I could do that and you go out to work!’ Stephanie blazed. Julia turned a steady gaze on her. ‘And you want to be the one to stay here and wash clothes and clean the place and cook the meals and do the shopping?’ she challenged, pleased to see Stephanie go quiet.

She knew exactly what she was going to do. But now wasn’t the time to tell them. In their present mood she feared her plan might provoke incredulity, even derision. Her glance strayed to the corner where the stack of material sat taking up space in the already cramped room. ‘I’ll pull my weight, don’t worry,’ she replied firmly. But for now all that must wait. The first thing was to get a little more money around them. Then she could start making plans.

The worst part of her family’s reaction this morning hadn’t been Stephanie’s retorts, Virginia’s small show of frustration or their mother’s discomfort but the lost expression on her brother’s unworldly face. The only boy in a family of women, he had been pulled out of the protection and security of school life into a world where it was everyone for himself. Here he would be expected to make his own way, stripped of the cushion of his parents’ wealth and his father’s business. Yet there was no escaping that this was to be his future. Well, Julia thought, hardening her heart, it was just too bad. That was the way things were now. She turned away from his bleak look.

James lay trying desperately to sleep. In the past he had always fallen asleep the second his head hit the pillow – unless, he remembered sadly, there had been secret tuck to share in the dorm with the others.

The thought of having to work for his living affected him deeply. His life had been turned upside down. Home had only ever been somewhere to spend school holidays; the start of a new term welcomed as the chance to return to his many friends. Now he was totally friendless.

At school he’d felt at ease with lads of his own age, his own sort, sharing confidences, enjoying sports and hobbies. When classes finished they’d go fishing or into town to ogle girls and buy goodies. He was clever and as one of the older boys had held a position of prefect. He’d been looked up to, respected, had had a fine future ahead of him.

Then his father had died. Out of the blue he’d been torn from his friends and his comfortable life, back to a home and family he saw only four or five times a year. Now he was obliged to live with them permanently in a poky little flat Julia had bravely called clean and decent. And, even worse, he was now expected to go out to find work in some horrible mundane job, his dreams of a bright future in tatters.

Maybe it was the best Julia could find but, in James’s opinion, the flat was situated in an area that was far from clean and decent. From everywhere came the smell of stale cooking and drains. The men, most of them out of work, were pasty-faced, wore old jackets and trousers, cloth caps and collarless shirts. Their wives wore none-too-clean pinafores over dreary skirts and blouses, their shoes shoddy, their coats shabby, while kids in grubby hand-me-down clothes hung about street corners. Now he was expected to go out and do the type of work they were used to doing and with no idea how to go about it and no one to tell him.

Lying awake he thought miserably of the university he would have gone on to from school. There he’d have made something of himself.