Dead to Me Read Online Free Page A

‘I ain’t never bin in a car or a cab. Fancy being rich enough to go everywhere in one! Or being rich enough to ’ave a fur coat, or a diamond necklace! Just the price of a ticket for up in the gods would buy me food for a week.’
    For Verity it was commonplace to go about town in either her father’s car or in a cab. Her mother had both diamonds and a fur coat, and it certainly had never occurred to her that a theatre ticket cost as much as a week’s food for some people. Suddenly she felt ashamed that she had so much and Ruby so little. It wasn’t fair at all.
    At home she had dresses she’d only worn two or three times before they were too small for her, and eachmealtime there was so much food left uneaten. Granted that sometimes this was made into a meal for the following day, but mostly it went straight in the dustbin.
    But as shocking as the inequality between her and Ruby was, it was nothing compared to discovering what Ruby’s mother did for a living.
    They were sitting on a bench in St James’s Park, looking at the ducks on the pond, when Ruby said she often went through her mother’s pockets when she was asleep to get money to pay the rent and buy food. She said if she didn’t do this, it would only be spent on drink.
    ‘So how does she earn the money?’ Verity asked.
    ‘Selling herself, of course,’ Ruby replied.
    ‘But how? What way?’ Verity asked in bewilderment.
    ‘She lets men fuck her.’
    Verity was so shocked she could only gape at her new friend. She’d been told that word at school just a few weeks ago; the girl who told her said, though it was mostly used as a very bad swear word, it also meant the sex act.
    ‘You mustn’t say that word, it’s a really bad one,’ Verity protested.
    ‘Round where I live folk use it all the time,’ Ruby said defiantly. ‘Besides, it’s what ma does. And it ain’t no good you looking like that at me, all big eyes and stuff, cos you don’t know how ’ard it is to get respectable work when you’ve got a kid in tow. When I was born it was either that or the work’ouse. I’d ’ave bin taken off her and she didn’t want that. She did what she did cos of me, and I know she only drinks to forget what she’s become.’
    As shocked as Verity was, she was also touched by Ruby’s understanding of her mother’s predicament andher loyalty to her. There was no bitterness at all, and it made Verity realize that she had no business to complain about her own home life.
    To be told something like that was quite enough of a shock for one day, but then Ruby took her to Soho, and showed her where prostitutes lived.
    ‘There ain’t much to see during the day,’ Ruby explained as they walked through narrow streets and alleyways. It was a grubby, mixed sort of area, with very old buildings and some very seedy-looking shops, but there were proper businesses there too – printers, garment manufacturers, bookshops and haberdashers – and the streets were teeming with normal working people. ‘But come seven in the evening, it’s all change. There’s pros on street corners and in doorways looking for business, their pimps and other villains arrive to do their mischief, and there’s nobs too what come for the restaurants and nightclubs.’
    ‘Really?’ Verity was astounded to think that rich people would want to go slumming.
    Ruby chuckled. ‘Folks is always surprised by that! They say some of the best food in London is served round ’ere. I wouldn’t know that for certain, seeing as I ain’t got two farthings to rub together, but they say there’s good music in the nightclubs an’ all.’
    ‘Gosh!’ Verity said, feeling like she knew nothing about anything. ‘I’ve learned so much today.’
    ‘Time you taught me sommat, then,’ Ruby laughed. ‘’Ow’s about you take me in a caff and teach me ’ow to eat like a lady? It don’t ’ave to be a fancy place, I don’t want to show you up.’
    Verity chose a place that was marginally smarter