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      ‘Mum! You can’t wear that blouse with that skirt!’

      Cora looked mortified. ‘Oh, darling, really? Are you sure? Only I thought—Mrs Jefferson gave me this blouse, you know, and she buys her clothes in London. But if you think—I don’t want to let you down. Not when we’re going to tea with the Parkers.’

      James went and put an arm round her. He faced his sister.

      ‘Leave Mum alone, Suse. She looks perfectly all right. More than good enough for the flaming Parkers. Anyone would think we were going to Buckingham Palace.’

      Tears of frustration were gathering in Susan’s eyes.

      ‘Can’t you see? This is important to me. The Parkers have invited all of us to go round and meet all of them. I want it to be perfect. I mean, look at this place—’ She gestured at their home, three rooms and a kitchenette on the first floor of a small terraced house, with an outside toilet that they had to share with the people downstairs. ‘The Parkers live in that great big place just off the seafront.’

      ‘It’s a guest house,’ James stated. ‘They don’t live in all of it.’

      ‘But it’s theirs. They own it. They don’t rent it.’

      Their mother sighed. ‘I know it’s not what you want, darling. You deserve better than this, both of you. It’s so poky in here. When I first got married, I never expected to still be living somewhere like this, all these years on. Never in a month of Sundays. We had such dreams, you know. We were going to have a big house with a garden and a garage and everything, one of those lovely places down in Thorpe Bay. If only your poor dear father had survived…’

      Her voice trailed off. James and Susan were silenced, as they always were, when their mother started on this subject. The words ‘If only…’ had threaded all through their childhood. There was nothing meaningful they could say, for it was true, things would have been completely different for them if their father had not been killed in the war. The eyes of all three of them turned to the photograph in pride of place on the mantelpiece, showing a tall man in cricket whites with dark hair and eyes and a narrow, clever face who looked back at them with a sunny smile. As James grew older, it was becoming ever clearer that he was the image of his father.

      James gave Cora another hug. ‘You won’t live here for ever, Mum. I’ll buy you a house with a garden one day, you’ll see.’

      He might be the youngest of their little household, but he was the man of the family, had been since he was five years old, and it was up to him to provide.

      Cora reached up and patted his cheek. ‘You’re a good boy, Jamie.’

      He could tell that she didn’t really believe him. How could a boy who worked in a garage ever get to buy a house?

      ‘And anyway,’ he said, returning to the argument that he and Susan were having, ‘just because the Parkers live in their own place down by the seafront, it doesn’t mean they’re better than us. So stop having a go at us, Susan. We’re not going to let you down.’

      ‘I didn’t say you were. I just said I wanted it to be perfect, and you—’ Susan broke off, catching sight of the clock. ‘Look at the time! We’ll be late if we don’t set off in five minutes. Come on, Mum, I’ll help you do your hair.’

      After a brief flurry of activity they set out, James and his mother arm in arm, Susan walking just ahead of them.

      ‘Doesn’t she look a picture?’ Cora said, smiling proudly at her daughter’s back.

      ‘Lovely,’ James agreed, to keep her happy.

      Susan was tip-tapping along in her polished court shoes, neat and proper in the powder blue suit that she had made herself on the old hand-cranked Singer sewing machine. She wore a little blue felt hat perched on top of her head and new white gloves. Her black handbag hung from her arm. The whole outfit had taken months and months of saving from her wages as a junior in the office of a department store in the High Street.

      ‘Just like something out of a magazine.’ Cora sighed. ‘You look just like something out of a magazine,’ she called ahead to Susan.

      Susan turned her head and smiled back at her. ‘Really?’

      Even James had to admit that his sister was looking pretty. Plenty of men would be delighted to go out with her. Why she was so stuck on Boring Bob was a mystery to him.

      ‘I do hope the Parkers will like us. This is so important to Susan,’ his mother said.

      ‘Mum, the Parkers aren’t as wonderful as Suse likes to make out, you know. Has she told you how they came to be living here?’

      ‘No, but—’

      ‘Susan told me one day. She says that Gran Parker’s husband once had a butcher’s shop in Upminster, but he died of a heart attack and his elder son, Norman, took over. Norman was useless, and what profits he did make he spent at the races. On top of that, he had a nasty temper. Bob’s father, Doug, was the younger son and he thought he could make a better fist of it and said so, and one day when they were having a row Norman picked up a knife and attacked Doug. His arm was so badly injured that at one point they thought it was going to have to be amputated. Norman walked out, joined the army and died in India of malaria, the butcher’s went bust and, with what money was left, Gran moved to Southend with Doug and his family and put a deposit on the guest house. Which was fine until the war came and that business nearly went bust too. From what I can make out, they’re just about hanging on now, with people wanting to go on holiday again. So you see, they’re not a grand family living in a big house. They’re ordinary people who’ve had a lot of bad luck, just like you have.’

      ‘Oh—yes—I see. Dear me, what a terrible story! Fancy one brother attacking another like that. How dreadful.’

      Going over the tale kept them occupied as they made their way along the depressing back streets with their rows of almost identical houses till they could see the grey gleam of the Thames estuary, finally emerging on to Southend seafront just past the gasworks. All three of them paused to take in the scenery. Susan gazed at the dome of the Kursaal, where she had met Bob at the dance hall. Cora looked mistily at the pier, marching out across the grey mudflats to the shining river. She and her late husband had taken many a romantic stroll along its mile and a quarter of decking. James looked at the Golden Mile of amusements and longed to be there with his friends, playing the machines and eyeing up the girls, instead of being stuck with this gruesome family tea with the Parkers.

      It was still too early in the year for many day trippers to be about, but the sunny weather had brought out plenty of locals to walk off the effects of their Sunday lunches. Young couples wandered hand in hand, families marched along in groups, elderly people stopped to look at the fishing boats or across the water to the hills of Kent, dogs ran around barking at the seagulls.

      A brisk walk along the promenade in the spring sunshine brought the Kershaws to the Sunny View Guest House, set a few houses back from the seafront on a side road. There was not much to set it apart from any of the others in the terrace. They were all three storeys high with square bay windows, grubby brickwork and dark paint. All displayed ‘Vacancies’ signs. James couldn’t imagine wanting to stay in any of them. They looked most unwelcoming.

      The front door of Sunny View was opened by a skinny kid of thirteen or so with long plaits. She looked about as pleased to see them as James was to see the Parkers.

      Susan put on her grown-up voice. ‘Hello, Lillian dear. How are you today?’

      ‘All right, I s’pose. You better come in.’

      Bob came to meet them in the hall, took Cora’s coat and gave it to the kid to hang up, then opened the door to the front room.

      ‘We’re in Gran’s room today,’ he told them, in a tone of voice that made it clear they should think themselves honoured.

      The entire Parker clan was gathered in the gloomy

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