THE H-BOMB GIRL by Stephen Baxter (beach books txt) 📕

Of course it wasn’t her diary. How could it be? But she remembered how oddly Agatha had looked at her. What was going on here?

Bernadette had seen all this. “Another one of your cousins, H-Bomb Girl?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The eyes,” Joel said. “The shape of her face. Like Miss Wells. Like you.”

“There really is something funny about you,” Bernadette said without malice.

Laura asked, “Who is she?”

“Agatha? Beats me. I don’t know why Jimmy keeps her on.”

“Probably for a bit of the old bayonet practice.” Nick O’Teen joined them.

“Come off it, Nick,” Bernadette said. “Last time I saw a mouth like hers it had a hook in it.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” Nick was in his Ted uniform, a blue suit and shoes with pointed toes. His duck’s-arse hair was slicked back, and he looked sharp, clean, his bootlace tie carefully knotted. His eyes were bright, his lips full.

Agatha brought back their coffee, a tiny cup with three huge straws falling out of it.

Nick reached into his pocket. “I’ll mug you for this, Bern.”

Agatha looked at Joel. She smiled, a strange, empty expression. “Are you Joel Christmas?”

Joel looked alarmed. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. Just—it doesn’t matter.” She turned to Nick. “And are you wearing make-up?”

He just smiled back. “I’m on stage in a couple of hours.”

“You look like a clown.”

“And your name means ‘death’, darling. Keep the change. Bern, come and join us.”

He led them to a table, where another boy was already sitting. They had to scrounge chairs to sit down. There was a bowl of boiled sweets on the table. Bernadette cadged a ciggie from Nick. He produced packets of Park Drive, Embassy, Woodbine, all more than half-empty.

Nick introduced Laura to the boy, who was in his group the Woodbines. “Billy Waddle, drummer to the stars.” The drummer, a plump, good-looking boy with a sullen mouth, did a brief drum roll on the table top with cutlery. A couple of girls on a nearby table looked over and laughed. He grinned back.

Bernadette crowded in next to the drummer. She looked more animated than she had since Laura had met her. “Hello, Billy. Long time no see.”

But Billy was still grinning at the other girls.

Bernadette grew angry. “You don’t half irk my shingles, Billy Waddle. Leave those scrubbers alone!”

Nick watched, his expression complicated. Joel looked at the floor. Billy Waddle didn’t say a word.

Laura saw all this. There was a lot going on here, she thought. A lot of ties between these people, whose lives she had just walked into. In a way, it was just like at home. And she wasn’t a part of any of it.

Bernadette changed the subject. “Nick wouldn’t like your dad, H-Bomb Girl.”

“Why not?”

“Nick doesn’t like soldiers,” Bernadette said, goading. “Do you, Ciaran O’Teen?”

Joel looked at Nick. “Why?”

“I had to do National Service. They’ve scrapped it now. I was one of the last to be called up. Lucky me. Eighteen months of square-bashing and spud-peeling. Like a cross between boarding school and a loonie bin. I got thrown out in the end. They said it was my fault.”

Laura asked, “What was?”

“Among other things, a broken jaw.” He rubbed his chin. “I was a bit of a target in there. Long story. You lot have been spared all that.”

Bernadette glanced at Laura, and they said it together. “You kids today don’t know you’re born.” They laughed.

“All right, all right.”

With their one coffee drunk and Bernadette’s ciggie smoked, Nick produced more money for another round.

Laura took the coffee cup back to the counter. Agatha had her back turned. Laura could clearly see the “diary” in her pocket.

Big Jimmy took the cup, and smiled at her. “Thanks. You new here?”

“We just moved up. My family.”

He listened to her accent. “From where? Down south? How you fitting in?”

She considered bluffing it out. Something in the expression on his round, warm face made her tell the truth. “Badly. Everybody takes the mick. I want to go home.”

He smiled, his brown eyes creasing. When he spoke again his accent was strong Chinese, not a trace of Scouse. “I feel like that sometimes. I was born in Hong Kong. Emigrated here, worked at my cousin’s restaurant, saved up, bought my own place. Now I do this, and other things. Out of place? Maybe everybody feels the same way. My advice is, just pretend you fit in, and pretty soon you find you do fit in. Come again. You’re welcome here. But bring some money next time.” He grinned and turned away to make the coffee.

Laura didn’t go on with the others to Nick’s gig that night. She didn’t quite have the nerve.

She got home about eight.

She had to knock. She wouldn’t get a key of her own until she was twenty-one, and she was given “the key of the door.”

Dad opened the door, one-handed. He had the phone headset tucked under one ear and was making notes on a pad. “Yes… Yes, sir. And what about our own deployment?… Yes, I understand the decisions will follow on from the diplomatic posture we adopt, but we need to be prepared…”

He barely noticed her as she squeezed past him.

Her mother was sitting alone in the parlour, before the television. Sunday Night at the London Palladium was showing, with some dismal comedian bantering with Bruce Forsyth. Two wine glasses sat on the occasional table beside her. Mum looked vaguely drunk, her eyes glazed silver by the telly’s pearl light. “Hello, dear. Have you eaten?”

“Yes,” Laura lied. “Who’s Dad speaking to?”

“Work,” Mum said. “Been on the phone for hours. Some crisis or other, I suppose. Do you want a cup of tea?”

“No, thanks. I could do with a bath. I’ve got some homework left too.”

Mum laughed. “You leave it late, don’t you?”

Mort bustled in, shirtsleeves rolled up, tie loose, wine bottle in his hand. He looked huge in the little English parlour. “I found another Liebfraumilch, honey. Oh, hi, Laura. How’s life in the land of the bobbysoxers?” He laughed at her.

Laura