A Better World than This by Marie Joseph

Author:Marie Joseph [Joseph, Marie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781448107780
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-04-05T01:01:01+00:00

Blackpool in February was dead. The Christmas and New Year visitors had gone back home and across from the wide stretch of promenade the stalls and shops were shuttered, buffered against the Atlantic gales. The smell of frying and sugary candy-floss had been whisked away by the cold bracing air. It tasted now of seaweed and salty sea, Florence decided, striding along by Mr Penny’s side, without having to modify her steps to his. In the darkness the incoming tide battered its waves against the sea wall and sent glistening showers of spray over the railings, beading their coats and dampening the scarves wrapped tightly round their necks.

Florence felt gloriously and wonderfully alive. At one with the elements, she told herself. Now and again she glanced sideways at the man walking beside her, shoulders hunched into the collar of his tweed overcoat. She was going to enjoy getting to know this man better. How marvellous to meet a man with a soul twinned to your own, far removed from the furtive cinema-goers she had known with their wandering hands and common ways.

Mr Penny had been humouring Daisy when he talked about his fondness for Hollywood musicals. She was sure of that. For all her friend’s untutored intelligence, Daisy was more than a bit naïve, one had to admit that. Two men huddled in raincoats walking a windswept dog passed them, leaning into the wind.

‘Daisy’s heart rules her head, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘That child is the last thing she needs to be burdened with just now.’

‘How long has she known Jimmy’s father?’ The howling wind almost tore his words away.

‘A whirlwind romance, Mr Penny. Straight from a film in which everybody sings a love song at the drop of a hat. Preferably in Paris, in spring.’ They crossed the road and as he took her arm she bent her knees slightly to make herself roughly the same height. ‘Old Mrs Bell used to keep Daisy’s feet on the ground, but she died, alas, in tragic circumstances and Mr Barnet was there at the time to console, so you see. …’

‘What kind of tragic circumstances?’

They walked back past the shuttered stalls which, on that sunny July day, had been piled with tiers of Blackpool rock ‘lettered all through’. Florence told him how Martha had died in a deckchair with the sun shining. In front of Sam’s children, though they hadn’t seemed to notice, from what Daisy had said, which surprised her as young Jimmy took all in without saying much.

Florence marvelled at the way Mr Penny listened intently, inclining his head to catch her every word.

‘Very traumatic,’ she said, and he agreed.

‘Poor little Miss Bell,’ he said.

Florence bent her knees until she was walking almost bandy-legged. Life has written those lines on his face, she told herself. A mere glimmer of light shone from the Tower. Flattered beyond words at his interest in what she was saying, Florence told about the day she had taken Daisy up in the lift. ‘To cheer her up.

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