The Children Left Behind by Lizzie Page

Author:Lizzie Page [Page, Lizzie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803149585
Published: 2023-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

That Sunday, Maureen came back for another visit and since there wasn’t cake, she set about making some – she had always been resourceful like that. Clara dried the dishes from a disappointing lunch and watched as Maureen mixed the flour and baking powder and stirred. It was like she’d never been away.

Maureen loved a gossip, too, and she had lots of stories about Big Jean and Little Jean and the awful man who taught them sometimes, who had a glass eye (that was not why she disliked him, or at least it was not the only reason). Clara had worried that she would struggle to keep up on her course, as Maureen was not an academic girl, but she seemed to be thriving. She talked about the massive room with the typewriters and hard-backed chairs, the posters on the wall left over from the war; and she boasted about her typing speeds and how to end letters – ‘There’s Yours Sincerely and Yours Faithfully. Or you could say Yours Endearingly.’

It was fantastic: Maureen had never been one of the more forthcoming children, but now she chatted away to Clara as though, well as though they were friends (although she was insistent on still calling her Miss Newton).

Maureen had just put the cake in the oven when she said, oh so casually, that she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do after secretarial college.

Clara nearly dropped the dishcloth. ‘What? I thought you wanted to be a secretary!’ Wasn’t that what she had gone there for?

‘Maybe,’ Maureen said cheerfully, ‘but I miss children. And baking. Office life is all about sitting down while creepy old men with bad breath stand over you, watching your every move.’

While this wasn’t an entirely accurate description of life at Clara’s former employer in London, she had a point, Clara mused. ‘There are other things…’ she said tentatively.

‘Like what?’

Like the satisfaction of an invoice come in and filed. Like a bar chart. Did Maureen not love a bar chart? Or a pie chart?

Maureen sniffed. ‘I’ve not decided yet.’

‘It’s costing a lot,’ Clara said. It was clear Maureen didn’t respect the money. And why would she when she hadn’t put in the hours for it?

Maureen pouted. ‘But if I find out it’s NOT something I want to do, then that’s worthwhile too, isn’t it? Big Joan says it’s a process of elimination.’

Clara didn’t know where she got these ideas from. ‘Process of elimination’ indeed. The joy of making mistakes was for the wealthy, for people of means, not orphans from children’s homes.

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