Custard Tarts and Broken Hearts Read Online Free

pair of trousers, baggy at the waist and held up by a pair of braces. He looked faintly ridiculous, but she wasn’t going to laugh, not now.
    ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I lost track of—’
    ‘What’s it to be?’ Her father held up the thick leather belt that he usually wore as well as his braces.
    ‘This, or a night on the streets?’
    His voice was quiet and controlled, but his face was even redder than usual and thin spittle had collected at the corners of his mouth. She knew there was nothing George Clark hated more than to be crossed, especially by his children. Nellie avoided looking directly at him.
    ‘I’ll come in then.’ She knew what was coming.
    He took her by the elbow and marched her into the little kitchen. She shot a glance up the stairs, to see her pale-faced sister hovering at the top. Alice shook her head, in a resigned way, that told Nellie she had tried on her sister’s behalf and failed. Nellie managed a weak smile, before being pulled into the kitchen. There her father grabbed her hand and administered his usual six smart slaps of the belt.
    ‘You dare defy me again and you’ll get more than that, next time!’
    His large red nose glowed with exertion and what Nellie guessed was the effect of a drop too much of his favourite tipple. She wanted to grab the belt and strike him back. Images of red welts across his cheek flashed into her mind. But it was useless, then she really would be on the streets. One thing she wouldn’t give him was a tear. The bloody big bully could wait till kingdom come for that, she thought, in silent rebellion.
    ‘Get up to bed and don’t think you’re going out again of a night. And you dare lie to me again! I know it was a barefaced lie, about that Bosher boy being there tonight. You listen to me, girl, him and his Bolshy friends are trouble. Always stirring up people to be discontented with what they’ve got. Prancing about on soapboxes, telling me I’m hard done by. I can look after me own, and I don’t need some jumped-up docker’s son telling me different. I don’t want you having nothing more to do with them union lot. D’yer hear?’
    Now he was shouting. Of course she heard, the whole bloody street could hear. She nodded, longing to get away, and then he let her go. She followed him upstairs and crept into the front bedroom, where, as expected, three heads shot up. The two boys, Freddie and Bobby, sat up in their bed, looking at her expectantly, and Alice jumped out of the bed she shared with Nellie, to put her arm round her.
    ‘Did the old git hurt you, Nell?’ she whispered.
    ‘Nah,’ Nellie lied, ‘he’s getting old and soft.’ But her palm stung as if a hot poker had been laid across it.
    ‘Gawd, you’re shaking, though.’
    ‘It’s temper, Al. I’m only shaking ’cause I can’t have a go back at the old sod.’
    ‘Come on, love, let me help you get changed,’ said Alice, starting to unbutton the back of her blouse.
    But Nellie noticed that the two wide-eyed boys were still staring at her. Bobby, especially, looked close to tears. She knew his soft heart would not be able to manage seeing her vulnerable or in pain.
    ‘Go on, boys, back to kip,’ she said encouragingly. ‘I’m a tough old boot!’ She reached down to tickle Bobby and give Freddie a hug, before pulling the little curtain that separated their half of the room from the boys’ beds.
    ‘It’s so unfair, Al,’ she went on in a whisper. ‘He treats me like I’m still a child, but if it weren’t for me he’d have no one to cook and clean for him, or to look after the boys.’
    She was seething as Alice tried to calm her.
    ‘Don’t leave us, Nell, will you? He’s harder on you than the rest of us and I know it’s not fair, but we’d be lost without you.’
    When Nellie saw her sister’s lip trembling, she forgot her own injuries. It was easy to forget Alice was little more than a child herself.
    ‘Shhh, love, ’course I’m not leaving you, it’s just I