A New Dream by Maggie Ford (world of reading .TXT) 📕

Virginia shrugged. ‘It was all so muddled. I seemed to be in and out of there before I knew what was happening.’

‘Try!’

Again Virginia shrugged. ‘He said he’d let me know. They’ll write to say if I’ve got the job. I think he said in about a week.’

‘What else?’ Julia had quickened her step towards the bus stop and home, and her sister was obliged to keep up with her. ‘What questions did he ask?’

‘He asked to see my school report,’ Virginia answered breathlessly.

‘Go on,’ Julia urged.

‘He said it was very good.’

‘He did, did he?’ Julia said, her heart lifting in new hope.

‘He asked what school I went to,’ Virginia supplied, warming at last to the subject. ‘He seemed interested in that. I had to add up some figures. He said I’d got them right. He did say I spoke nicely. He asked me to write something and I remember he said I had a good hand. I can’t think of anything else.’

It all sounded encouraging. Julia was beginning to feel that her sister might even get the position, but curbed the feeling, knowing how easily hope can turn to disappointment. She said nothing to Virginia of her hopes. The bus was coming and they both broke into a run and hurriedly boarded it. Julia’s heart had quickened and not purely from hurrying to get on the vehicle.

Things weren’t going so well for Stephanie or for James. He had been to three interviews so far and had heard nothing as yet.

‘You need to be more assertive,’ Julia told him. ‘If I know you, you’re behaving in front of them like a schoolboy who knows nothing of the world.’

‘I don’t,’ he told her frankly, ruffled by her directness.

‘Then pretend you do!’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ he retorted, becoming riled. ‘You haven’t gone hunting for work yourself yet. All you’ve done is sit back and tell us what we should be doing as if you were head of the family.’

Julia hadn’t retaliated. It wasn’t worth another family argument. She just hoped something would come up for him soon. There had been far too many arguments these past two weeks. Her mother, appearing frailer by the day, would stop her ears with her hands as soon as voices became raised, calling piteously for a little peace and quiet.

She wasn’t adjusting well to her situation but nor were any of them.

The strain was starting to tell on them all and the money they’d brought with them was now dangerously low. They had had some luck selling their jewellery, though it had tugged at their heart strings to see it go. The proceeds had been put into a post office savings account.

As for her ideas for the material she’d brought here with her, so far she hadn’t had the will or the expertise, she was coming to realize, to do anything with it. It still sat in one corner, a bone of contention with Stephanie.

‘All I do is trip over it,’ she complained continuously. ‘The room’s small enough without that clutter. Why did you want to bring it here in the first place, for God’s sake?’

‘You can only trip over it if you make a special point of going in that corner,’ Julia retaliated.

‘Well, it’s still in the way,’ Stephanie persisted. ‘The table could go there if it weren’t for that. It’s no use to anyone and just takes up room. What on earth did you think you could do with it? Make dresses? You can’t sew to save your life and anyway I’m not going to wear anything home-made.’

No, thought Julia, you’d prefer to spend our last pennies on dresses from expensive shops. But her sister had a point. Soon she’d have to do something about all those wild intentions of hers before they faded into thin air, though like James, she had little experience of competing in the world they now found themselves in.

James at least was trying. Stephanie, after two unsuccessful attempts to find a job, had apparently decided to give up.

‘There just isn’t anything,’ she told Julia as she glared resentfully at her sister, ‘unless you count serving behind grubby shop counters as decent work. I turned down both offers.’

Julia was shocked. ‘You turned them down?’ she echoed.

Their mother, sitting like one exhausted in the ancient armchair she’d claimed as her own, whispered, ‘You can’t expect a nicely brought up young lady to accept such dirty employment. It’s bad enough being pushed out to work.’

‘One awful man, a greengrocer,’ Stephanie went on, encouraged, ‘even had the cheek to say I had the wrong attitude for dealing with the public.’

‘Anything would do for the time being,’ Julia said, curbing a sudden impulse to remark that the man was probably right in his assessment of Stephanie. ‘Later you could get something better. You’ll just have to take whatever comes because you can’t sit around all day moping. That money in the post office won’t last for ever and if we don’t start bringing something in soon, we could end up in a worse situation than we were before.’

‘What do you mean, we?’ Stephanie burst out petulantly, turning from the window to glare at her. ‘I don’t see you trying to earn money.’

‘I have plans,’ Julia began but Stephanie wasn’t listening.

‘It’s all very well telling us what to do when all you do yourself is sit around here looking after Mummy. Anyway, if I work behind a counter it will have to be in something like a boutique, or as a receptionist in a hairdressing salon. I’m pretty enough. I deserve better than handling dirty, smelly old vegetables or filling customers’ bottles with vinegar or paraffin. No thanks!’

With that she bounced off into their bedroom to throw herself full length on the bed she shared with Julia, the other shared by her mother and Virginia. From there her angry voice floated back. ‘I don’t see anyone attacking James for not having a job yet, or Virginia for taking