Coming Home to the Four Streets Nadine Dorries (book recommendations for young adults TXT) 📖

still lived and breathed, had not been struck down by lightning, and the priest, despite frequent references from the pulpit to the evils of vanity, fumed in vain. Cindy was a walking miracle and, what was more, she and Reg went out at night together – he never went to the pub alone. He bought her presents, obviously adored her – and not one woman could quite work out how it was she did it.

Now she popped the Vim tin on the shelf at the back of the shop, as the spin dryer came to the end of its cycle and she began to remove the washed and bleach-stained towels from the day before, just as the shop bell rang.

‘Eric, love,’ Cindy exclaimed as he walked in, the coins in his leather bag clinking, the collection book in his hand with the pencil wedged in a thick brown rubber band to keep the page open. ‘I thought you were a customer and I was thinking, please God, no, I can’t be doing with anyone arriving early today – it’s me washing and cleaning day and if I don’t get these hung up now, they won’t be dry for the morning. How are you?’

Eric opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He frowned, his head tilted slightly to one side. He was about to say, ‘I’m just fine, Cindy, how are you?’ as he always did, but the words had stuck in his throat.

‘Eric, are you all right, love? The cat got your tongue?’ Stepping forward, she placed her hand on Eric’s arm and gently caressed his shoulder. ‘Eric, love, what’s wrong?’

Eric looked into Cindy’s kind and welcoming eyes and his guard slipped somewhere deep down inside him. A tear silently trickled out and rolled down his cheek. Cindy took him by the elbow and, pushing one of the overhead dryers to the side, sat him down on the chair. She didn’t ask any further questions, she didn’t need to. Enough tears had been shed in Cindy’s salon for her to know what to do next.

‘Right, you sit there; I’ll go in the back and make us both a cuppa. I’ve got a nice bottle of the Irish for times like this and I’ll put us both a good splash in.’ She gently ran her hand up and down his forearm, gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘You just sit there and catch your breath,’ she said and left him for the few minutes she instinctively knew he needed alone.

Five minutes later, when she returned, there were no tears to be seen, just a thoughtful Eric, gazing out of the window, watching women bustling past, heads bent low against the Mersey breeze that whipped through the parade like a wind tunnel.

‘Isn’t the morning awful? It’s going to pour down soon,’ said Cindy, placing the cup and saucer in his hand. ‘Mind you, best we have it all now, out of the way before the carnival. And no point in anyone getting their hair done today, it’s wrecked by the time they’ve walked home.’ She sat down next to him, balancing her own cup and saucer on her knee and watched as he took the first sip of his tea. ‘Don’t be signing any important papers after drinking that,’ she said, ‘I’ve put a double in yours.’

Eric managed half a smile and allowed the burning liquid to run down his throat and settle into the pit of his stomach. The combination of tea, whiskey and sugar restored his equilibrium. Cindy didn’t ask him what was wrong: she knew, if he needed and wanted to tell her, he would do so, in his own time. They drank the tea together and, as he had run out of his five cigarettes, he accepted the offer of one of her Embassy filters. He settled back in the chair and looking at Cindy, raised a smile.

‘You feeling better now?’ she asked.

‘I am,’ he said, ‘I’m like a new man, whiskey in the tea and an Embassy filter instead of a roll-up, don’t be…’ He stopped. He was about to say, ‘Don’t be telling our Gladys,’ when he realised that he couldn’t care less if Cindy did. ‘Are you going anywhere nice tonight?’ he asked, keen to keep the focus away from himself. Cindy placed a pink lustre, cut-glass ashtray on the arm of the two chairs between them and laughed as she blew smoke into the air. ‘Eh, you, that’s my line, not yours.’ She nudged his arm and the tea slopped over his cup into the saucer.

‘You can drink that out of the saucer,’ she said.

Lifting it to his lips with one hand, he said, ‘Waste not want not,’ and slurped the overspill.

Cindy sat back in her chair. ‘I say that to every customer, you know, to get the conversation going, as if that was ever a problem around here. I reckon I know everyone’s life story.’ Eric raised his eyebrows over the rim of his cup. ‘Oh yes, I do. All the ins and outs, the trials and tribulations. The women who get the backhanders, the black eyes and the backstreet abortions. They sit in that chair there and tell me. I brush away as many tears as I do clumps of hair from the floor.’ She nodded towards the chair in front of the mirror and then, turning to Eric, said, ‘And do you know what? I will take every word of it to my grave.’

It was Eric’s turn to smile. ‘Thanks for the tea, Cindy, but I’m all right. I think I’m just tired.’

‘Or you just need a laugh. As it happens, me and our Reg, we always go to the Anchor on a Wednesday night and many other nights; never see you in there though, Eric. Why don’t you come and join us tonight? I promise you’ll have a laugh.’ She deliberately didn’t mention Gladys. ‘Go on, why don’t you come down? We’d love to see you, so come