Christmas with the Shipyard Girls by Nancy Revell

Author:Nancy Revell [Revell, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473558465
Publisher: Random House

‘Rosie?’

‘Yes?’

They were walking up Holmeside. Away from the boutique, heading for home.

‘Doesn’t Bel have a sister called Maisie?’

‘Yes.’

‘But that’s obviously not her, is it?’

‘What do you mean that it’s obviously not her?’

‘Well, obviously, because Bel is white, and Maisie is coloured.’

‘Not if Bel and Maisie had different fathers.’

‘Really?’ Charlotte was intrigued. ‘So Pearl was married to a black man?’

‘I don’t know about married, but from what I gather, she was in a relationship with a stoker from the West Indies.’

‘Really?’ The intrigue in Charlotte’s voice was clear. ‘But Maisie doesn’t sound as though she’s from here? She speaks like a southerner.’

‘That’s because she is.’ Rosie checked the road and grabbed Charlotte’s arm as they crossed over and began walking up Vine Place. ‘Pearl had Maisie adopted. Down south.’

‘Really?’

They walked on for a few moments.

Rosie could almost hear her sister’s brain whirring at full speed.

‘So, how come she’s up here now?’

Rosie stepped up her pace.

‘From what I gathered,’ she said, ‘Maisie wanted to find her birth mother, which obviously she did.’

Rosie deliberately left out the drama of Maisie turning up at Bel and Joe’s wedding reception and declaring her parentage to all and sundry. A declaration that had sent Pearl off on a bender, culminating in her trying to end it all by taking a swim in the middle of the night down Hendon beach.

‘What? And she decided to stay up here?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So she got lodgings at Lily’s? With Kate and the American woman, Vivian?’

‘That’s right.’ Rosie decided not to enlighten Charlotte about Vivian’s Liverpudlian roots.

‘And what does Maisie do? For a living?’ Charlotte asked.

God, why did Charlotte have to be so damned inquisitive?

‘Honestly, Charlie. Why are you so obsessed with what people do for a living?’

Charlotte thought about it for a moment.

‘I suppose I’m just curious.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she laughed. ‘I know, I know. Curiosity … cats …’

They walked on. Charlotte hurrying to keep up the pace.

‘I think,’ Charlotte said, a little breathlessly, ‘I’m just wondering about what I might want to do. You know, when I get older.’

‘I think you’ve got plenty of time for that,’ Rosie said. ‘Anyway, I thought you wanted to go to university? Put that intelligent and overactive brain of yours to use?’

Charlotte smiled. She loved it when her sister gave her a compliment. Even if it was a backhanded one. And even if it was because Rosie was avoiding her question.

Why, though, did her sister seem so reticent to talk about Lily and anyone associated with her?

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