Three Little Maids(10)
‘I suppose you’ve heard about the poor girl that was found on the cliffs this morning,’ she said conversationally leaning over the counter. ‘It don’t seem safe anywhere these days. Makes me glad I haven’t got to worry about my daughter. I wouldn’t like to be those poor souls when they hear that they’ve lost their child.’
‘I’ve did hear something earlier, Mrs Perkins.’
June Perkins leaned closer still over the counter. ‘Well Fred Hill, the hotel porter, told me about it before I left the hotel this morning.’ Viviane nodded. Fred had spread it round pretty quickly. ‘I don’t mind telling you it gave me one of my queer turns. Shook me up proper, it did, Mrs Sherlborne.’
‘I’m sure it did, Mrs Perkins.’
‘Mrs Frost gave me a glass of her best sweet sherry to get me back on my feet. Went down a treat.’ She smacked her lips. ‘Bad news travels quickly, don’t it? It’s not safe for kids to be out alone. Not late at night, it’s not, dear.
‘I always make sure that my grandson, Raymond tells me where he’s going since he was mixed up with those gangs of kids from the Nelson estate. Now that he’s working for the Carey’s he has to behave. It’s up to the girl’s parents, I reckon. If they let them out to dance in discos in the early hours without checking that they get home safely in one piece. It’s just asking for trouble.’
‘I agree with you there, Mrs Perkins. I worry about my daughter living in London. But she is a sensible girl. You have to trust them.’
‘Oh... I trust Raymond. It’s the girls I don’t trust. I don’t like him messing about with girls. I don’t want any trouble like that with him.’ She shook her frizzy head. ‘I don’t want any kid calling him Daddy at his young age.’
She left the counter for the romance section and Viviane wondered how June Perkin’s eighteen-year-old grandson was really finding work at Carey’s Funeral Parlour. She smiled his looks certainly suited the undertaking profession. Thick wavy fair hair, dark eyes, tall and gangly, with a spotty skin, plus a melancholy expression on the long thin good looking features.
If the job paid well and kept him out of trouble his grandmother would be happy. But was he as simple as he looked? She recalled she’d heard some rumours earlier on while he was still at school. It brought the police on her doorstep more than once and he had been cautioned but these June Perkins, for once. had been careful not to mention.
5
Viviane left her colleagues, coping in the library and took her packed lunch with her to the sea front as she usually did on most fine days. She preferred a late lunch and more especially today as it was exceptionally warm. She sat down on a wooden seat in the sun shelter facing the sea and slowly ate her ham and salad sandwiches, and sipped her can of diet cola.
The raucous sea gulls turned somersaults, like acrobats, in the air to catch the crusts she threw to them whilst the sparrows and pigeons descended like a plague of locusts around her sandaled feet and feasted on the remains. She wasn’t all that hungry and she wondered if she might still be doing this every day when she was old. The thought was sobering as she’d spotted that some of the other shelters were part filled by pensioners.
She leant back with a sigh against the hard wooden seat, and winced as it scorched her back through the thin cotton blouse. She made a conscious effort to relax and watched the holidaymakers passing by, making their way to the livelier end of Harcombe.
The picturesque old town, with its good share of black beamed houses still and narrow streets filled to bursting point with antique and second hand bookshops had its obvious attractions. But the pier and entertainment on the sea front, consisting of the slot machines arcade, the dodgem cars, motorboats on the lake, the merry go round and the miniature golf course, along with the rock shops, whelk and cockle stalls, fish and chip shops and the pubs, was what really pulled in the crowds.
There was a slight quiver of salty breeze coming off the sparkling sea. The tide was going out and the smell of the brown seaweed covering the rocks was strong and pungent as they were exposed to the sun. Noise rose from the beach as children climbed over the rocks with their string nets and plastic buckets to get to the small sheltered pools which gave some sanctuary to the pink starfish, small crabs and the scuttling, darting shrimps till the tide rushed in quickly again.
Behind her, across the busy road, was the White Rock Hotel, owned by Mrs Esme Frost; still held its own, although it struggled yearly against the high council rates and the increasing stiff competition from the bigger hotels.