Faith - Lesley Pearse [36]
From that day on, Laura almost became a member of the Thompson family. Lena often remarked how good she was with her younger children, and she liked the way Laura thought nothing of doing a pile of ironing or cleaning her kitchen for her. Frank often said she was an answer to his and Lena’s prayers because she’d made Jackie more appreciative of them.
Lena did eventually ask her more about her parents’ death and Aunt Mabel who had become her guardian. By then Laura had the story off pat: she said her parents died in a car accident when she was only four so she remembered very little about them, but her father had been a vet. As for her Aunt Mabel, she embellished her into a kindly but scatty spinster who had done her best as her guardian for years, but felt Laura was old enough to look after herself now. Lena tutted with disapproval, saying she thought it very irresponsible of her to clear off abroad while Laura was still so young, but that she admired Laura for her lack of bitterness and ability to cope alone.
‘You’ll go far,’ she said, giving Laura a cuddle. ‘You are bright, level-headed and practical. And if you want a stand-in mother, then you’ve got me.’
All through that first summer of 1961, the two girls spent at least two evenings a week together, and all day on Sundays. Jackie worked as a copy typist in the City, so she only worked Monday till Friday, and Laura hated that she had to work in the shop on Saturdays. But Jackie invariably came to meet her after work so that they could get dressed and do each other’s hair together before going out.
Too young to go into pubs, they mostly hung about in coffee bars and parks and went to the rollerskating rink looking for boys. They giggled and flirted, but the relationships they formed with boys never went beyond necking in the park or going to the pictures. Jackie always said she wasn’t going to go ‘all the way’ until she met the boy she intended to marry, and that he would have to be very rich as well as handsome because she had no intention of living in poverty, even for love.
Laura agreed that she felt the same, but she never told Jackie she had real, first-hand experience of poverty and had been put off the idea of any kind of intimacy with men because of Vincent. Sometimes she ached to spill out the truth about her background, especially how much she missed her younger siblings, but she was afraid to. As each week passed she seemed to add more embroidery to the life she’d shared with dotty Aunt Mabel, and the house they’d lived in on Holland Park. She felt she was too far down the road to do a U-turn and admit it wasn’t true because Jackie might despise her for lying.
As the summer slipped by Laura had another problem beyond the lies she’d told. Her wages at the Home and Colonial were very low, and by the time she’d paid the rent on her room and bought food, there was precious little money left for clothes, bus fares or any kind of entertainment.
Jackie’s parents let her keep her entire wages to spend on herself. Laura felt compelled to keep up with her, and the only way she could do it was by stealing. Even before she met Jackie she had been in the habit of helping herself to a few groceries and the odd blouse, skirt or the swimsuit she’d been wearing when she met her friend, but suddenly she found that she needed more cash.
The solution presented itself when she had gone up to Oxford Street to steal a new dress. She found a pretty blue one in Selfridges, which she just tried on in the changing room, then put her own clothes over it and walked out, but then she wished she had money for some new shoes.
While wandering around Marks and Spencer she observed a woman getting a cash refund for a garment which didn’t fit. The assistant didn’t ask for the woman’s receipt, just opened the till and gave her the money back. There and then Laura slipped a cardigan into her bag and left the shop. An hour later she was at the other Marks and Spencer down the bottom of Oxford Street claiming a refund for it.
It was so simple and easy that she hugged herself with