Read Bye Bye Love for Free Online

And it suited her. There was something wild and vivid about her. When his parents had said something about the new cellar man bringing his daughter with him, he’d not really thought about it. If he had any notion of what she might be like, it was a pasty-faced kid, someone who got in the way. Not a girl like this, with a challenging stare and a mobile mouth and the beginning of a woman’s figure showing through her thin cotton dress.
    ‘I’ll come with you, if you like. Show you round a bit,’ he offered.
    ‘I have been to Southend before, you know,’ Scarlett said.
    Jonathan felt horribly rejected. He hid it with a nonchalant shrug. ‘OK. If you’d rather be on your own—’
    To his delight, she looked slightly flustered.

    ‘No…I mean…I just thought you might have something else you wanted to do,’ she said.
    ‘Tell you what I do want to do, and that’s eat,’ Jonathan admitted. ‘I’ve been out all day in the Ray, and I’m starving.’
    ‘The Ray?’
    Of course, stupid of him, she wasn’t local, she wouldn’t know what he was talking about.
    ‘It’s a channel of water out in the estuary beyond the mud-flats,’ he explained. ‘You sail out on the falling tide, then you can spend all day out there sailing and swimming and having races and that, and playing cricket on the Ray Sands. It’s brilliant. Do you sail?’
    Scarlett shook her head. Her ponytail of dark, almost black hair shivered in glossy waves.
    ‘We lived in the country.’
    ‘Can you swim?’
    ‘Oh, yes. I learnt at school. I got my hundred yards certificate.’
    ‘Then you’ll have to come out with us one day. If you want to, that is.’
    He found he was holding his breath. How wonderful if she said yes.
    ‘Thanks—yes.’
    He felt like punching the air. Fancy taking her out for a whole day on the water! His mind raced, turning over how to bribe his friend to let him have the boat to himself, what time they would have to start, all the things he wanted to show her. But for now he had to keep her attention.
    ‘Are you hungry?’
    She appeared to consider.

    ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’
    She sounded almost surprised. He ran over the logistics in his head. It was just about the worst time to start cooking now. He came up with an interim plan.
    ‘Let’s go and get some chips, then. Irma or Marlene might want the kitchen at the moment, but we can go in when the pub opens and everyone’s busy.’
    ‘Marlene?’ Scarlett said.
    ‘Yes, she’s the other live-in barmaid. Haven’t you met her yet?’
    ‘No. Won’t your mum be expecting you?’ she asked.
    Jonathan had to stop himself from giving a derisive laugh. His mother, expecting him? That would be the day.
    ‘Oh, she doesn’t know I’m in yet,’ he said, which was true. ‘You never know quite when you’re going to be back when you’ve been out in the boat. So do you fancy some chips?’
    Scarlett nodded.
    ‘Yes, please. I’ll just go and get some money.’
    Suddenly it seemed very important that she didn’t leave.
    ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got some,’ Jonathan assured her, jingling some change in his pocket.
    ‘But I—’
    ‘Look, I’ll get them this time and you can next, all right?’
    She hesitated a moment, then agreed. He couldn’t believe how smoothly it was going. In the past when he’d tried to talk to girls, they’d either go all giggly and silly or look at him as if he were some lower form of life. But Scarlett talked to him like…well, not quite like a friend, because there was more to it than that. He didn’t know what, couldn’t put a name to it, but it was there all the same.
    Walking with her along the sea front, Jonathan felt ten feet tall. They could all see him with this pretty girl, all the people he knew. He glowed as the funfair attendants called out to him, the girl behind the ice cream stand waved, the elderly Italian lady winding pink candyfloss round a stick blew him a kiss. When they got to the chip shop, he was greeted like a long