As the Crow Flies Read Online Free Page B

began pacing round
the room.
    “There’s
no way that you could possibly have known,” said Becky. “I haven’t even told
the assistants at the shop yet. They think he’s off sick for the day.”
    “Do
you want me to tell them?” asked Charlie. “Is that why you came round?”
    “No,”
she said, raising her head slowly and pausing for a moment. “I want you to take
over the shop.”
    Charlie
was so stunned by this suggestion that although he stopped pacing he made no
attempt to reply.
    “My
father always used to say that it wouldn’t be that long before you had your own
shop, so I thought...”
    “But
I don’t know the first thing about baking,” stammered Charlie as he fell back
into his chair.
    “Tata’s
two assistants know everything there is to know about the trade, and I suspect
you’ll know even more than they do within a few months. What that shop needs at
this particular moment is a salesman. My father always considered that you were
as good as old Granpa Charlie and everyone knows he was the best.”
    “But
what about my barrow?”
    “It’s
only a few yards away from the shop, so you could easily keep an eye on both.”
She hesitated before adding, “Unlike your delivery service.”
    “You
knew about that?”
    “Even
know you tried to pay back the last five shillings a few minutes before my
father went to the synagogue one Saturday. We had no secrets.”
    “So
‘ow would it work?” asked Charlie, beginning to feel he was always a yard
behind the girl.
    “You
run the barrow and the shop and we’ll be fifty-fifty partners.”
    “And
what will you do to cam your share?”
    “I’ll
check the books every month and make sure that we pay our tax on time and don’t
break any council regulations.”
    “I’ve
never paid any taxes before,” said Charlie “and who in ‘elf’s name cares about
the council and their sappy regulations?”
    Becky’s
dark eyes fixed on him for the first time. “People who one day hope to be
running a serious business enterprise, Charlie Trumper, that’s who.”
    “Fifty-fifty
doesn’t seem all that fair to me,” said Charlie, still trying to get the upper
hand.
    “My
shop is considerably more valuable than your barrow and it also derives a far
larger income.”
    “Did,
until your father died,” said Charlie, regretting the words immediately after
he had spoken them.
    Becky
bowed her head again. “Are we to be partners or not?” she muttered.
    “Sixty-forty,”
said Charlie.
    She
hesitated for a long moment, then suddenly thrust out her arm. Charlie rose
from the chair and shook her hand vigorously to confirm that his first deal was
closed.
    After
Dan Salmon’s funeral Charlie tried to read the Daily Chronicle every morning in
the hope of discovering what the second battalion, Royal Fusiliers was up to
and where his father might be, He knew the regiment was fighting somewhere in
France, but its exact location was never recorded in the paper, so Charlie was
none the wiser.
    The
daily broadsheet began to have a double fascination for Charlie, as he started
to take an interest in the advertisements displayed on almost every page. He
couldn’t believe that those notes in the West End were willing to pay good
money for things that seemed to him to be nothing more than unnecessary
luxuries. However, it didn’t stop Charlie wanting to taste CocaCola, the latest
drink from America, at a cost of a penny a bottle; or to try the new safety
razor from Gillette despite the fact that he hadn’t even started shaving at
sixpence for the holder and tuppence for six blades: he felt sure his father,
who had only ever used a cutthroat, would consider the very idea sissy. And a
woman’s girdle at two guineas struck Charlie as quite ridiculous. Neither Sal
nor Kitty would ever need one of those although Posh Porky might soon enough,
the way she was going.
    So
intrigued did Charlie become by these seemingly endless selling opportunities
that he started to take a tram