Winners and Losers

 

Recent Titles by Linda Sole from Severn House

The Family Feud Series

THE LIE

A PROMISE MADE

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The Sarah Beaufort Mystery Series

MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

JUSTICE IS SERVED

A DIFFERENT KIND OF JUSTICE

The Country House Series

GIVE ME TOMORROW

A BRIGHT NEW DAY

WISH DOWN THE MOON

The London Series

BRIDGET

KATHY

AMY

THE TIES THAT BIND

THE BONDS THAT BREAK

THE HEARTS THAT HOLD

THE ROSE ARCH

A CORNISH ROSE

A ROSE IN WINTER

FLAME CHILD

A SONG FOR ATHENA

writing as Anne Herries

 

A WICKED WENCH

MILADY'S REVENGE

The Civil War Series

LOVERS AND ENEMIES

LOVE LIES WEEPING

THE SEEDS OF SIN

LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH

First world edition published 2009

in Great Britain and 2010 in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2009 by Linda Sole.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Sole, Linda.

Winners and Losers. – (A Family Feud saga)

1. Searles family (Fictitious characters) – Fiction. 2. Rock

musicians – Fiction. 3. Brain – Tumours – Patients – Fiction.

4. Domestic fiction.

I. Title II. Series

823.9'14-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-263-4 (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6821-3 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-187-4 (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

One

‘
W
here are you going?' Sarah turned as she heard her mother's voice. ‘If you're meeting friends at that youth club again, just be careful – and don't talk to strangers on your way home, especially men in cars or vans.'

‘Mum!' Sarah's laugh was a mixture of affection and frustration. ‘Anyone would think I was fourteen. I'm nearly nineteen. You don't have to treat me like a child.'

‘You think you're grown up and in some ways you are,' Mrs Jenkins said. ‘But you are still very young, Sarah. You don't know what some men are like – and you read about dreadful things these days . . .'

Sarah kissed her mother's cheek. ‘Don't worry. I'm always careful. I shan't be late so don't watch the clock.'

She went out of the front door, closing it carefully behind her. Her mother and father were stricter than her friends' parents were, but they spoiled her, buying her pretty clothes and anything else she wanted. The only problem was that they treated her as a little girl – her mother in particular – and she wasn't a child any more. Several of the girls she'd gone to school with were already married and had started families of their own; others had gone to university or had moved away to find better jobs than were available in their small market town – or city, as it ought to be called.

Sarah had once asked why Ely was called a city, when it was really only a small town. Her father, who was a member of the council, told her it was because they had a wonderful cathedral and that she should be proud to live in such a quiet, respectable place.

Sometimes she thought she would like to go far away. She liked shopping in Cambridge when she could, because there were a lot more shops and it seemed more alive than her hometown, but she could only manage to get there now and then, especially now that she had left school and found herself a job. She was lucky to have been taken on by a smart dress shop, which had recently opened in the High Street. Her wages were not generous, but she earned more than some of her friends did.

She walked past St Mary's church and the Cathedral green, where the old cannon stood guard as it had for years, heading for Cambridge Road. As she approached the youth club, she saw some of her friends gathered outside and waved to them, her spirits lifting. There was always something to do at the club, because she liked playing darts or table tennis, and even though she couldn't play she enjoyed watching the young men playing snooker. Sometimes one of the members would bring a new record and they would dance.

‘Janice . . . Phyllis,' she called to her friends. ‘I was afraid you might not be here.'

‘We were thinking of going to the jive club,' Phyllis told her. ‘I went last week and it was good fun, Sarah. You should join.'

‘I should like to,' Sarah replied. ‘I'll see what Mum says and let you know.'

‘Surely you don't have to ask?' Janice stared at her as if she were mad. ‘I stopped asking my mother years ago.'

‘Mum likes to know where I am,' Sarah said. ‘Oh, don't let's talk about it. I know what you think, but Mum is so good to me. I don't like to upset her.'

Sarah saw the look that passed between her friends. She knew what they thought of the way she always tried to respect her parents' wishes.

‘How do you like working in Woolworth's, Phyllis?' she asked to change the subject.

‘I'd rather work where you do,' Phyllis said. ‘You lucky thing. How did you manage to get a job like that?'

Sarah laughed. She had been lucky to get the job. She suspected the fact that she was Ron Jenkins' daughter might have had something to do with it, but she wasn't going to confess that to her friends. Her employer's husband was a Mason and Sarah's father had met him at the lodge meeting. He'd told Sarah there was a job going. She knew she wasn't the only one who applied, but she was the one chosen.

‘I suppose I was just lucky,' she said. ‘Have you been to see
Gone with the Wind
yet? I went on Monday with Mum and Dad.'

‘I saw it ages ago, the first time it came here,' Janice said.

‘Oh yes, so did I,' Sarah agreed. ‘But I loved it so much I wanted to see it again – I could watch it over and over. Rhett Butler is gorgeous, isn't he?'

‘You mean Clark Gable,' Janice said and grinned. ‘I go to every film he stars in . . .'

The girls smiled at each other as they discussed their favourite film stars and the new clothes, make-up and records they had bought. When they entered the large set of rather dingy rooms that were used for the youth club, a round robin game of table tennis was going on, and a group of young men were playing darts. One of them called out to the girls and they drifted towards them, smiling and nudging each other as they accepted the invitation to play. The smell of cigarette smoke was strong, mixing with the pungent odour of hair cream and the strong, cheap perfume some of the girls wore.

Sarah took the set of darts and smiled at the young man. She knew him as Phil Burton. His father was a local shopkeeper and very respectable, but Phil was known to be a flirt and he was all hands. Sarah thought that if she took him home her mother would think him very suitable, but then she had no idea that he had already tried to get Sarah to go with him in his car up to the deserted aerodrome. Sarah was well aware what would happen if she did, and so far she'd said no and meant it. She was aware that some of the men thought she was stuck up or frigid, but she didn't particularly want to end up having to get married in a hurry the way some of her friends had.

She liked Phil, as she liked some of the other men, but she hadn't yet seen anyone who made her heart beat faster.

Connor Searles sat in his car eating fish and chips and watching the girl walking towards him in the driving mirror. There was something different about her; she dressed more stylishly than most other girls did in the small market town of Ely, and she held her head high. He had seen her about the town a few times but he didn't know her name. He wound down his window as she drew level and grinned when she turned to look.

‘Hello, darling,' he said confidently. ‘Where are you off to this evening?'

She gave him a slaying look and walked on without speaking. Connor let out a piercing wolf whistle but she didn't glance back.

‘You don't want to bother with her,' his mate Tiddy Jones said from the passenger seat. ‘Stuck-up bitch! I asked her for a dance down the church hall last Saturday and she told me to get lost.'

‘Why would she bother with you?' Connor asked and laughed as Tiddy aimed a blow at his head. ‘She'd have to be mad to go out with a loser like you!'

‘Now who's talking?' Tiddy scowled. ‘Face it, mate, we've neither of us got a chance with the likes of her – our wages wouldn't pay for the clothes she was wearing, let alone buy her the kind of house she would expect.'

‘Speak for yourself. I've got prospects,' Connor said, though he was lying. He worked on his brother's farm for little more than his keep – a comedown from the days when his father, Robert Searles, had been one of the richest farmers in the district.

‘Oh yeah? Tell me about it,' Tiddy drawled. ‘You're like me, mate, stuck in a dead-end job. Worse off, if you ask me. At least my father owns his smallholding – your brother has sons of his own. When he dies you'll get nothing.'

‘Wouldn't want it,' Connor told him. ‘I'm only hanging around until Dan gets on his feet and then I'm off.'

‘Where to?' Tiddy asked and laughed, as Connor couldn't answer. ‘Forget it, mate. You'll never make the break.'

‘What is her name?'

Tiddy stared at him, then made a mocking face. ‘Sarah Jenkins. Much good it will do you. Her father owns a part share in a local building firm. They've got money. She went to a boarding school and thinks she is worth ten of the likes of us.'

‘I haven't found a girl yet who said no when I asked,' Connor said. ‘She'll fall like all the rest when I'm ready.'

‘Yeah and pigs might fly,' Tiddy retorted. ‘Let's go to the jive club. Jean Bates goes there and I fancy her . . .'

Connor obligingly started the engine. He was lucky to have the small Austin and knew that Tiddy hung around with him mainly because of it. Dan had bought the car cheap and done it up for him, giving it to him for his last birthday. He might not earn enough to court a girl like Sarah Jenkins, but he certainly wasn't interested in a slut like Jean Bates. Tiddy could have her and welcome.

Sometimes Connor wondered why he hung out with Tiddy, who wasn't really a friend – not like Peter Robinson. Peter was Alice's brother and they had been friends all their lives, but Peter had got tired of working on the land. He'd surprised everyone by joining the navy when he was twenty.