Dead to Me by Lesley Pearse

Author:Lesley Pearse
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780718181222
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-05-30T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘Fancy Amy leaving the Post Office!’ Beryl remarked to Verity. ‘Do you know why?’

Both girls were putting on their dungarees in readiness to climb telegraph poles and check the wiring for faults. Beryl was twenty-five and an experienced driver, so she drove the van and they took turns in doing the pole climbing, the one on the ground holding the ladder steady.

Verity was puzzled at Beryl’s remark. ‘She hasn’t left. She went home to Southend to see her family for a few days, but she’s coming back.’

‘She isn’t, she handed in her notice a week ago.’

‘No! That can’t be right, she’s due back tomorrow or the next day. She would’ve told me, if she was leaving.’

Beryl shook her head. ‘Well, all I can say is that Miss Haig asked me last week if you two had had a falling out, because Amy had given in her notice and would be leaving at the end of the week. I told her that, as far as I knew, you were still as thick as thieves. Then she asked me not to talk about it, not even to you, as Amy didn’t want anyone questioning her.’

Verity just stood in shocked surprise, the braces on her dungarees still dangling down unbuttoned. She couldn’t really believe what Beryl had said, but as Beryl was neither a troublemaker nor a liar, and Miss Haig was the supervisor, it had to be true.

It did make sense of why Amy took so much stuff with her last Friday. She’d claimed it was just her winter clothes, which she was going to leave at her parents’ home to make more space, and Verity hadn’t noticed if everything else was gone too.

But why did she go? Was it because of having to give her room up for Archie?

Amy had seemed to get on well with him, better than Verity did. It was she who started calling him by his Christian name, and Verity followed along with it.

Could he have said or done something she didn’t like? Verity squirmed at the idea, as memories of what he made her do to him came back to her. Yet even if he did something truly horrible to her, and she ran off because of it, why leave her job too? Besides, surely if he had assaulted her in some way she would have said something to Verity, if only a vague hint?

‘Oh dear, you really didn’t know, did you?’ Beryl said, in concern. ‘How strange this is! Amy has always been one for blabbing everything out. If she had a grievance, the whole world would know. I can’t imagine how she managed to keep this under her hat.’ She paused for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. ‘Maybe it’s family problems, like her mum’s ill or getting hysterical about the bombing. Southend is, after all, likely to get a hammering being on the coast and on the way to London.’

Verity was too shaken to reply. Beryl was what Ruby would have called a ‘Posh Bint’.

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