The Nightingale Girls Read Online Free Page A

Nanna Winnie took out her teeth and slipped them into her pocket.
    ‘Mum!’ Rose protested. ‘Do you have to do that at the table?’
    ‘Why not? I don’t need ’em now I’ve finished eating. And they rub my gums raw.’
    After tea, Dora and Josie cleared the plates away while Alf relaxed in his armchair beside the fire. Rose sat opposite with her mending, while Nanna Winnie half dozed in her rocking chair.
    ‘You know what I’m going to do one day, Rosie?’ Alf said. ‘Buy you a house. A proper modern house, out in Loughton near your sister Brenda’s place. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Somewhere with a decent garden, not that stinking little back yard.’
    ‘Oi, do you mind? That back yard’s been good enough for me all these years,’ Nanna said, opening one eye. But Alf wasn’t listening.
    ‘You can grow flowers, and I can grow fruit and veg, and keep chickens. And we’ll have electricity in all the rooms.’
    ‘I don’t hold with electricity,’ Nanna grumbled.
    ‘That sounds nice.’ Rose smiled down at her mending. She never stopped working, no matter what the occasion. King George himself could come round for his tea, and Rose would still be turning the collars on a couple of shirts.
    ‘Nice? It’ll be more than nice, love. And it’s what youdeserve.’ Alf scratched his expanded belly and sighed with contentment. ‘I’m the luckiest man in the world, do you know that? I’ve got a beautiful wife, lovely kids – what more could a man ask for, eh?’
    ‘Listen to him go on, making all kinds of stupid promises he can’t keep,’ Dora whispered to Josie as they loaded plates into the sink in the scullery. ‘I don’t know how Mum puts up with it.’
    ‘She doesn’t mind.’ Josie shrugged, stacking the dishes in the deep sink. ‘She knows how Alf likes to talk.’
    ‘All the same, I wish he’d shut up about the bloody house in Loughton. He’s only a van driver, not Governor of the Bank of England.’
    ‘Dora!’ Josie laughed at her in surprise. ‘I don’t know why you don’t like him.’
    Dora looked at her sister. Josie was very grown-up for her age. There were four years between them, but since their middle sister Maggie had died they’d become more like friends than sisters. They had once shared all kinds of secrets, tucked together in their big bed, whispering and laughing together under the covers so Bea couldn’t hear.
    But there were some secrets Dora couldn’t share, not even with her sister.
    ‘I just don’t,’ she mumbled, picking a plate off the draining board to dry. ‘I won’t miss him when I leave, that’s for sure.’
    ‘Don’t talk about leaving, I don’t like it,’ Josie said, pulling a face. Then in the next breath she added, ‘Do you think I could have your old bedroom when you go?’
    ‘No!’ She shouted it so forcefully Josie stared at her in surprise.
    ‘Why not? It’s no fun being stuck in a bed with Bea. She kicks me in the night, and she snores worse thanNanna. And she’s so nosey too. She’s always into my things.’
    ‘All the same, you don’t want to be in my old room. It’s so cold and draughty, and – it’s haunted.’
    Josie’s dark eyes widened. ‘You’ve never said.’
    ‘That’s ’cos I’ve never wanted to frighten you. But there’s a ghost all right.’
    Just then Rose appeared in the scullery doorway, her cheeks flushed pink from the port and lemon she’d had.
    ‘Everything all right?’ she asked. ‘I thought I heard our Dora shouting.’
    ‘She says her bedroom’s haunted,’ Josie said.
    Dora didn’t meet her mother’s eye, but she could feel her frown. ‘Your sister’s having you on,’ she said briskly. ‘The only thing haunts this place is your Nanna. And she’d be enough to scare any ghost off. Now Dora, stop filling Josie’s head with nonsense.’
    I wish it
was
nonsense, Dora thought.
    After they’d washed up the dishes, Alf went to the pub, and for the first time in the evening, Dora