Stella by Eric Morecambe

Author:Eric Morecambe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Chapter Ten

Mrs Bennet said she heard our Stella on the radio last Monday,’ remarked Sadie. ‘Did she, now?’ responded Tommy, with a blatant lack of interest. His eyes and mind were focused on the pools sheets splayed out before him.

‘You weren’t even listening, were you?’ she said.

‘Can you remember if you put last night’s paper in the bin or next to the door?’

‘I knew you weren’t listening,’ she sighed.

‘Eh?’

‘Nothing,’ she groaned, despairingly. ‘It’s by the back door.’

‘‘Be a pet and fetch it for me, love.’

Sadie looked across at him incredulously. ‘What d’yer last slave die of?’

‘Answering back.’ He quickly turned and gave her a sweet smile. For Tommy it was quite a risky remark: he had to be sure she could tell he was kidding.

‘Lord save us,’ she cried, and then went to fetch the paper.

They had been married for nearly a year. Tommy was still employed at the Lancil factory and Sadie still worked at the cake shop, though not quite so many hours every week. The most exciting moment of their marriage, indeed their lives to date, came when they moved out of Corkell’s Yard and into their very own corporation house in Willow Lane – fourteen and six a week; three up and two down.

It had its own strip of garden where Tommy spent many hours checking on his own vegetables. Other than a touch of gardening, and the regularity of his work, Tommy liked to take a pint with his mates once in a while: and, of course, do the pools.

With each passing day it was harder to tell the difference between Sadie and Mrs Ravenscroft. When she stood in the kitchen wiping her flour-coated hands on her black, sack-like dress there was no difference at all. Her dress was so plain and hung so limply from her body it disguised whatever figure she may have had beneath it. Her stockings were thick and the colour of strong tea. The only way you could have told that they had legs inside them was by the holes and ladders that scarred them from top to bottom – not that anyone saw the top area (except Tommy, and then only on Saturday nights). But it was to be expected. The dress, and the stockings, were both seconds off her mother. It was a gesture to help them save some money.

Tommy had pulled free the sports page before Sadie had had the chance to say, ‘Here you are, your lordship.’ Instead she said, ‘I don’t see how the paper will help you any. If they’re all so good at predicting scores then everybody would be rich.’

‘That’s daft,’ he said, without looking up. ‘They’re only there to act as a guide – to inform you of what the experts reckon. It’s still up to you to make the decisions.’ A distant smile smothered his face as his mind drifted back to something he’d read. ‘I remember that fella from Scotland winning ten thousand, not so long ago. First time and, blow me down, he scoops ten thousand.

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