Patricia Burns - Follow Your Dream

‘Me too,’ James agreed.

He never thought he would admit it, but Boring Bob’s family had turned out to be much more interesting than he’d expected.

‘WHERE are you off to, squirt?’ Frank demanded, barring Lillian’s way downstairs.

‘None of your beeswax,’ Lillian told him, making to dodge under his arm.

She wasn’t quite quick enough. Frank caught hold of her wrist.

‘Not so fast, squirt. You’re supposed to be helping.’

It was the time of the dreaded spring clean. All the paintwork had to be washed, all the windows cleaned, inside and out, the curtains taken down and washed, the carpets and rugs taken outside and beaten, the floors scrubbed, the fireplaces scoured and the furniture polished. Everyone, even the men, was supposed to be helping. Gran, of course, was organising it all. She didn’t actually do any physical work.

‘I’ve done mine,’ Lillian said. Her hands were red and raw from the sugar soap solution she had been using to wash the paint in all the first floor rooms. It was now all clean and shining, but nothing could disguise the fact that it was chipped.

‘No, you ain’t, because the back room floor’s got to be done yet.’

‘That’s yours. You was on floors,’ Lillian protested.

Frank’s grip tightened. He bent her arm up behind her back. ‘I got better things to do. You can finish it for me.’

‘What’s in it for me?’

‘You’ll be sorry if you don’t, that’s what.’

He pushed her arm a bit further up. Lillian bit back a squeal of pain.

‘I’ll tell Gran you’ve bunked off,’ she threatened.

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘Try me.’

Another hitch of her arm. Lillian gritted her teeth.

‘Sixpence,’ she managed to say.

Despite the fact that he was by far the bigger and stronger, Frank was forced to bargain. He didn’t dare risk Gran knowing he had wriggled out of part of his task.

‘Thruppence.’

‘Fivepence ha’penny.’

‘Fivepence, and not a farthing more.’

‘Done.’

Frank released her and she held her hand out for the money. Her back and arms and knees were all aching from the cleaning she had done already, but five pence was not to be sneezed at. She needed a lot more than that before she could buy the new tyres and inner tubes for her bike. With a sigh, Frank fished four pennies and two ha’pennies out of his pocket, slapped them into her palm and went clattering downstairs, whistling the latest Johnnie Ray number. Lillian knew just where he was off to; he was going to join his mates and hang about down at the amusement arcades on the seafront. She was doing him a favour, taking some of his cash off him. He would only go and lose it all on the machines.

Half an hour later, Lillian emptied the now filthy cleaning water into the first floor toilet and lugged the bucket and scrubbing brush and block of green Fairy household soap downstairs. The whole house smelt of damp floorboards and polish and the vinegar that had been used to shine the windows. The windows and doors were all open to give the place a good airing. On her way through to the yard, she met her dad coming in from work in his lift attendant’s uniform.

‘You finished already?’ he asked.

‘Yup.’

He looked at her suspiciously. ‘You done it all properly? Your gran’ll be up there to check.’

Gran was sure to find some fault, but Lillian knew she had made a good job of it. She had been well trained.

‘Yup, every bit.’

‘Right, well, you can go down the newsagent’s and get me a packet of fags.’

Lillian groaned inwardly. She wanted to go out in the yard and get her bike out. James was coming to see what she had done when he finished work today.

‘All right,’ she sighed, with as good grace as she could manage. After all, there was no getting out of it. She was the youngest, the runner of errands.

Her father counted the exact amount into her hand, so there was no chance even of being given the change. Lillian went out of the back door—nobody ever used the front—wheeled her bike out of the shed and leaned it against the fence, then went through the rickety gate and along the alleyways, emerging into the street six houses up from her own. Outside, it was warm in the spring sunshine, even though it was now late afternoon. Freed from the day’s chores, Lillian felt light and happy. Today was the day that James had said he would come—lovely James who treated her as if she was somebody. She had to stop herself from putting a skip into her step. After all, she was fourteen now, not a little kid. Next year she would be leaving school.

At the newsagent’s, a woman was buying sweets. The paper bags were lined up along the top of the counter, half pounds of toffees and pear drops and humbugs. Now she was hesitating between mint creams and nut brittle.

‘Oh, I’ll have a half of each,’ she decided.

Since sweet rationing had been taken off in February, people had been going mad for sweets. Lillian drew in the sugary smell, her stomach rumbling. In her pocket was the five pence that she had extracted from Frank. She gazed at her favourite, Fry’s Five Boys chocolate. But then there was nougat as well. She loved nougat, and it lasted longer. She jingled the money, sorely tempted. No, she mustn’t. Every penny brought those tyres nearer, and with them the day she could get on that bike and ride it.

As she stepped out of the shop with her father’s Player’s Navy Cut, she saw James just rounding the corner into her road on his bike. She let out a shriek.

‘James! Wait for me!’

He skidded to a halt as she raced towards him, amazed that he had actually stopped. No one in her family would wait for her like this. She pounded down the road, her plaits bobbing on her back as she ran.

‘Oh—’ she panted as she joined him. ‘You’ve really come. I didn’t know if you would.’

James looked faintly puzzled. ‘I said I would, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, but people don’t always do what they say they will,’ she pointed out.

‘I do,’ James told her.

And she knew absolutely that this was the truth. He was not the sort of person who would let you down. It gave her a strange glow inside.

‘You’re not like my family,’ she told him as they started towards her house. ‘But never mind them. I’ve been working really hard on my bike. Just wait till you see it! It’s shiny as new.’

He actually listened to her and asked her sensible questions. Lillian could hardly believe it. She led him in through the back way to where the curtains were still drying on the washing lines in the yard.

‘We’ve been spring cleaning,’ she explained.

‘Oh, yes. My mum goes mad on that each year for a bit, but she never gets very far. Susan and I usually finish it. But we’ve only got a little flat to clean. It must be a big job doing all this place,’ James said, looking at the back of the house as it reared up above them, the bare windows gleaming. ‘Do you all help? Wendy as well?’

‘Even Dad’ll have to tomorrow, when he’s off work,’ Lillian told him. ‘Oh—I got to go and give him these cigarettes. Would you like a cuppa?’

James said that he would.

‘You can see what I’ve done to my bike while I’m making it,’ she suggested.

When she came back out with a large cup of tea and the biscuit she’d dared to take, he was already busy with his tool kit and oil can. He admired what she had done and for a while they talked cogs and chains and brakes. Lillian soaked up all the information.

‘You’re very clever,’ she said.

James shrugged. ‘I enjoy getting things working. Bikes are easy. Cars take a lot more skill. Some of the blokes where I work, they do the job but they don’t think about it. If something’s a bit tricky, they just adjust a few things and get it moving but they don’t make it sing. If a car’s going well, you can hear it, it speaks to you.’