Stella

The springs on the doors started, very early on, to establish their superiority and the girls only just managed to squeeze through before they closed.

A little embarrassed, Tommy forced one open to let himself through, the girls now waiting for him on the other side, having decided that, although they wouldn’t talk to him, they would let him accompany them.

Just as Tommy had managed to re-open it a stream of people filed through the arcade, oblivious to the fact that he was holding the door open for his own benefit and not for theirs. Many thank yous were uttered as they barged by him.

Eventually he escaped from his ‘door duty’ and trotted back up to the girls. They stopped outside the Palladium cinema to look at the photographs of the stars. A Janet Gaynor film was now showing. ‘Well, we can guess where Mrs Bunting will be spending her evenings this week,’ said Stella with a chuckle, and her younger sister laughed – as did Tommy, which immediately made the girls go quiet.

‘Oh, come on, give us a break,’ he pleaded as the three of them walked on. ‘I’m only trying to be friendly, like.’

‘So Molly Chadwick tells me,’ said Stella in a most sarcastic tone.

‘I DON’T LIKE MOLLY CHADWICK,’ he declared in a very loud voice, which convinced Stella he was telling the truth. She was a little surprised to have brought out such a reaction in him and it gave her an inexplicable thrill. However, once she had achieved her confession she wasn’t the sort to continue torturing her victim.

‘Are you bothered about seeing the Janet Gaynor film?’ she asked him.

‘No,’ he droned. ‘It’ll be a right mushy one that. I’d rather go to the Kingsway and see The White Hell of Pitz Palu. Aye, that’ll be a grand film.’

‘Who’s in it?’ asked Sadie with genuine interest.

‘Eh?’ Young Tommy had never been asked such a technical question before. As far as he and his mates were concerned a film was a film was a film. Who starred in it was of little consequence, so long as someone did. The important thing was how the villain died. Did he die slowly and in great pain or quickly with just a little pain because he had a likeable mum who’d contracted an incurable disease?

‘I said, who’s in it?’ repeated Sadie softly.

‘I . . . I’ve forgotten.’

‘Forgotten,’ sighed Stella, picking up on his slip.

‘That’s right,’ he said defensively.

‘Well, what’s it about then?’ she persisted.

Tommy looked blankly at Sadie. He needed her support. She was gentle and kind. She gave him some support. ‘Is it a love story, perhaps?’ she assisted.

‘Bloomin’ ’eck no.’ He felt himself blush bright red. He crossed his left eye to see if his nose had gone red. It had.

‘Then it’s probably an adventure story.’

‘Aye, that’s right. They’re always adventure stories with swear-words like “hell” in it. It’ll probably be about caves and savages and furnaces . . .’ He petered out of description.

‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ said Stella condescendingly. Tommy wished he hadn’t mentioned anything about the Kingsway.

They drifted by the market and stopped at the fish stall to say hello to ‘Pop’. Everyone knew Joe Billings as Pop. He was a youthful seventy; that is, he was young at heart.

Pop had a round, wizened face and kindly attitude like everyone’s grandfather should have, and this was how he came to be called Pop. He helped out Saturdays on the stall since retiring as a trawlerman a couple of years back. Sitting on an upturned crate, he was shelling a bucket full of shrimps.

Stella thought he looked like a big shrimp himself: all pink and puffy and a curved back. ‘’Ello, kids. What do you know, then?’

‘Hello, Pop. Nothing,’ said Stella. They always started conversations in this way.

They gazed hungrily at the piles of shelled shrimps in a large carton. The dancing had made Stella hungry. Tommy just loved shrimps more than anything else, and Sadie could eat anything, anytime, any place.

Pop smiled and his face wrinkled all the more. ‘Go on. ’Ave a few. I’ve plenty there.’ They didn’t need any further encouragement and dived in with eager hands. ‘Steady on, now. Don’t go spillin’ ’em.’

Pop stood up to serve a customer. ‘What’ll it be for Bob’s supper t’night then, Mrs Robertson?’

Stella nudged Sadie. ‘You’ve got more than me,’ she complained.

‘No I ’aven’t.’

‘Y’ave. Don’t argue ’bout it.’

‘Here yer are, Stella,’ said Tommy, coming between them. ‘Have some of mine.’

Stella blushed. ‘I don’t want yours, thank you, Tommy Moran.’ She gave her sister a fiery glare. ‘I want hers.’

‘Now, now,’ calmed Pop, as he returned to his position on his crate. ‘You’ve all done well enough.’

He began rummaging in his pockets and at once the children’s eyes lit up. This was the moment they liked best. Pop was famous throughout Lancaster for his giant pockets on his black great-coat. They’d been a source of much mystery to children for many years. They were always filled with ‘goodies’, and the girls had been told by their mother that they were the deepest pockets in the world – probably bottomless. They didn’t believe her, though. Maybe six or seven feet deep, but surely not bottomless? ‘Here y’are. A coupla green arras each. Suck ’em slow.’

Green arrows. Red hot peppermints. Maybe they should be called red arrows, thought Stella.

They thanked him, popped them into their mouths and with fleeting cries of goodbye, they trotted away. Pop shook his head as he put a green arrow into his own mouth.

‘You should come and watch Sadie and me dancing sometime, Tommy,’ said Stella, suddenly.

‘Oh, no. I couldn’t do that,’ replied Tommy.

‘I’m not asking you to join in, you know. Just watch us. We’re ever so good, aren’t we, Sadie?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said doubtfully.

‘’Course we are. We’re going to be dancers when we leave school: rotten, smelly, pooey school. Aren’t we, Sadie?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Stop saying that,’ Stella snapped. Sadie stopped saying it.

‘Come along next Saturday, Tommy.’

He pondered for a moment. It would be worth his while going, just to be near Stella, his sweetheart. But at what price? What would his mates say if they caught him coming out of the dancing school?

Stone the crows I’d never live it down, he thought. ‘I can’t make it Saturday. I said I’d go with me dad to see Morecambe play.’

Stella scowled at him. It was a poor excuse. Kick off wasn’t until three; even she knew that.

‘As you like, but don’t expect to see us any other times if you can’t accept our kind invitations.’ She held her nose up to add more aloofness as Sadie wished she wouldn’t include her in every decision she made.

He had only himself to blame that they didn’t talk to him for the following three weeks. Well, Sadie did once or twice, but she made sure her sister didn’t find out.

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