Read Here Come the Girls for Free Online Page B

Saturday night, and all she could afford was a fifteen-pound phone from Asda – and yet there was Kevin scamming off the state but able to afford a fancy iPhone and twelve million downloaded apps. She stared out of the bus window and caught her reflection. She looked years older than her age, with her long blonde hair tied back so harshly in a cleaning-practical ponytail. Her clothes were drab and frumpy, piling on even more years. It was the image of a woman tired of life. And she realised that was because she was tired of it. If it wasn’t for her olive-green eyes, she wouldn’t have recognised herself as the same person who was once so fresh and smiley and full of dreams.
    Olive couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t caring for people. Her dad was lame and she was always fetching and carrying for him; her mum, constantly in her bed with some ailment or other. At the time of her conception, Olive’s mum was in her mid-forties, her dad in his late fifties, and both seemed even older in their outlook. They never came to see her in school shows or prize-giving events. It was Ven’s mum and dad who were there to cheer her on and in whose house she found some semblance of the loving parent/child relationship for which she longed: Mrs Smith busying around them making sure they were fed and watered, Mr Smith slipping them secret money to go to the pictures with. Home for Olive was more of a workhouse than a sanctuary. To her shame, sometimes she felt like one of those ‘designer babies’ conceived only to look after her parents in their dotage.
    It would probably have been better had she not gone away to Cephalonia that summer, because it made her realise there was a lot of world and life out there to be enjoyed. But one day, when she rang home from the phone in the Lemon Tree, the feeble voice of her mother reprimanded her for leaving them to cope alone, and the guilt drove her instantly back to Barnsley where she found her parents in a right old state of not looking after themselves, which scarred her deeply to see. And yet, on his many call-out visits, the doctor intimated, quite impatiently sometimes, that there was nothing much wrong with either of them.
    Olive’s dad died of a stroke when she was twenty-four. She was grieving for him when the big, cocky David Hardcastle stood up on the bus to let her sit down. That simple act of giving to someone who wasn’t used to it secured him a wholehearted yes, when he asked her out for a date. He was something to take her mind away from her mother’s increasing mental confusion. When she became a danger to herself and Olive couldn’t handle her any more, she was put into a lovely home in Penistone, although Olive had to sell their house to pay for the bills. Being in David’s arms and listening to the plans he had for them took her away from all the drudgery of form-filling-in and visits to a mum who didn’t recognise her any more. Doreen, she recalled, was always friendly to her and Olive felt flattered that the woman would ask her to ‘stick the kettle on’, a sign that she was welcome in her home. It made sense for David and Olive to get married and move in with Doreen when the house sale was completed. The money was all gone by the time Olive’s mum died. There was nothing left for a deposit for her own home. But by then, she had slipped into a routine of caring again – different home, same rules. And the idiot that she was had been so blinded by a bit of love-light shining in her direction that she hadn’t seen it coming.
    A surprise of tears pricked at her olive-green eyes. She never cried – she had no time for the luxury – but she realised, sitting on that bus and looking at the reflection of the sad-faced woman in the window, how totally worn out she was. When one job ended, another started; she only rested when she was asleep in the sliver of bedspace which David allowed her. There was no break in her routine, no meals out or trips to the pictures