Page 48 of A Fresh Start at Bramble Cottage
“I like hiking.”
“Oh. Well... there you go. There was a debating society — in fact there was a society for just about anything you could think of.”
Bez had visibly relaxed — the tension had eased from her shoulders, and she was no longer hugging her backpack so tightly.
She hadn’t set out to give advice — who was she to give advice to anyone, considering the doldrums she’d let her own life sink into? But nevertheless it did seem as if she’d given the girl some food for thought. She wouldn’t push it anymore.
It had given her food for thought, too. What had happened to the lively, fun-loving girlsheused to be? She’d got buried in ‘sensible’. Aunt Molly hadn’t been sensible — at an even younger age she’d danced at the Moulin Rouge in little more than a few strings of pearls.
“I’m looking for a charity shop to donate some of my Aunt Molly’s clothes to,” she remarked.
At last, a friendly response. “Which one?”
“It doesn’t matter. Do you know where they are?”
“Of course. There are three, right on the High Street. One’s for animals, one’s for cancer research and one’s for heart diseases.”
“Well, I’ve got two suitcases and a couple of decent coats. Maybe I’ll share them out between all three.”
“She was nice, your Aunt Molly.” Bez was almost smiling. “Not grumpy like some old people. She told me once that she was in the war.”
“Oh?”
“I was doing a project for history and she told me she’d lived in Paris during the war, when the Germans were there. She was younger than me.” Now there was real animation in her voice. “She said sometimes it was horrible — there was never enough toeat, and you couldn’t go where you liked, and if you forgot to take your identity papers everywhere you could get into real trouble. But sometimes it was dead exciting. She told me she used to run messages and that, for the Resistance.”
Vicky glanced at her in surprise. “She did?”
“Well, that was what she said, anyway. Mum said she was probably making it up.” Her tone indicated what she thought of any opinion her mother might hold. “Do you think she was?”
“I don’t know,” Vicky conceded. “I could ask my mum.”
“What subject did you do at university?” Bez had put her backpack in the footwell between her feet.
“Medieval history.”
“Why did you pick that?”
“I was fascinated by it. Well, any era of history, really, but that one most of all. There was so much going on — kings and queens fighting each other over the throne, deadly plagues, the odd revolution...”
Bez laughed. “It sounds like fun.”
“I’m not sure I’d have wanted to live then, though,” Vicky confessed. “There was so much disease — most people only lived into their thirties.”
“A lot of women died in childbirth, didn’t they?”
“They did — it was the main cause of death among women. And the men got killed off in the endless battles.”
“Things haven’t changed much there.” Bez’s voice lilted with cynical amusement. “They still like nothing better than a good punch-up. Football, whatever... any excuse will do. Stupid.”
They slid into an easy conversation — Bez seemed to have entirely forgotten her earlier sulks. Until they reached the roundabout and the turn-off for the town.
“Could you drop me at the train station?” she asked — though Vicky detected a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the adventure now.
“Okay.”
What to do? She couldn’t just let the girl go off to London like this — but how could she stop her? As she followed the signs for the train station her mind churned with a dozen ideas, all of which she rejected as likely to make matters worse.
She was no closer to a solution as she turned into the car park in front of the station. “Do you want to leave an address to let your mum know where you’re staying?” she suggested as Bez picked up her backpack and opened the passenger door.
