Applause (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 2) by Madalyn Morgan (best authors to read txt) 📕

couldn’t tell – had been swept up by the wind and was stuck among the branches of an ash tree. It flapped as if it was waving goodbye. Below, in a small park that had been turned into allotments, children dressed in thick coats and wearing woollen scarves and matching mittens played happily among runner bean canes and rows of cabbages while their fathers tended the earth. Margot turned away and looked at Bill. He was sitting opposite, asleep. His head lolled to the left, in anticipation of a pillow.

Watching him sleep brought it home to Margot just how hard the last few months had been on Bill. There seemed to be more and more trips to Bletchley and Hastings. The blitzing of the East End had been relentless, which meant he and his ambulance crew worked later, sometimes into the early hours of the morning. And however hard she tried she wasn’t able to get over the deaths of Nancy and Bert, which she knew worried Bill. He also worried about the physical pain she was in, her mental state, and the fact that she wasn’t sleeping at night. Poor Bill.

Margot rose and hobbled over to sit beside him. She put her arm through his and snuggled up. The next time his head lolled to the left he didn’t jerk it back, but left it to rest on her shoulder. He smiled contentedly and Margot, while her husband slept, looked out of the window again. She watched as the train sped past woods and fields, towns and villages. Eventually her eyes grew heavy and she closed them, drifting into a shallow, fitful sleep.

Balancing on a tightrope, she poked her head through a knife-thin gap in the stage curtains and looked into the auditorium. She strained to see who was in the audience, but the fog was too thick. She stepped back, but the curtains were made of cobwebs and stuck to her, tightening around her neck. In a frenzy she clawed at them, tore them from her. Free at last, she watched them rise high in the air, but suddenly they swooped down even thicker. Margot ducked. She batted them away with a beautiful silver hand-mirror. The cobwebs wound themselves around the looking glass until she could no longer see her reflection. She held the mirror with bleeding hands. The cobwebs held it too. She mustn’t lose or break the mirror; it belonged to her sister Bess. Granny gave it her when she passed the eleven plus. Bending down until she was level with the cobweb, she looked into its glazed and staring eyes. Then, mustering all her strength, she gave the mirror a final tug. ‘No!’ she screamed. It slipped through her bloody fingers and flew through the air. In slow motion she watched the mirror fall from the Juliet balcony. It landed in the alley opposite the theatre and shattered into a thousand pieces.

‘Goldie? What are you doing here?’ Margot said. ‘He’s still following you. You’ve got to get away from him.’ The fog was getting thicker, choking her. ‘There’s Nancy. Nancy?’ She began to run, but the nearer she got to Nancy the further away she seemed to be. ‘Stop!’ she shouted. ‘Can’t you hear the footsteps?’ Margot stopped and the footsteps stopped. She looked over her shoulder. The fog was curling, beckoning her, and getting thicker. At least if she couldn’t see Nazi Dave he couldn’t see her. Happier now, she turned for home. Home? Where is home? She was lost again.

‘Go back the way you came, Margot.’

She looked round. ‘Who said that? Shush,’ she whispered.

‘Can’t you hear the footsteps? Well, can’t you? Run, Margot! Run! “Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run.” You must get away from the footsteps.’

‘I can’t, I’m frightened of the shadows and cobwebs.’ Crouching, Margot looked up into a shimmering light. ‘Nancy, you’re safe,’ she said with relief.

‘Why didn’t you help me, Margot? Why didn’t you help me?’

‘I didn’t know you were in the taxi. It had gone six. I thought you were in the theatre.’

‘I thought you were my friend.’ Nancy’s image began to fade.

‘I am your friend, Nancy. Please don’t go,’ Margot cried, but Nancy had turned into Bert.

‘Run for your life Margot, the Nazi bugger is after you,’ he shouted.

As she turned to run she saw Dave Sutherland. Eyes the colour of pitch, his fat mouth slobbering beneath his stupid moustache. She began to scream. She couldn’t get away, the fog was thicker now. It wrapped itself around her like a filthy blanket and held her in its disgusting grip. ‘Bill, I can’t breathe,’ she gasped. ‘Help me, I’ve lost my shoe. Bill!’ she screamed. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m here, Margot. Sweetheart, it’s all right, you’re safe,’ Bill said, ‘you’re safe.’

Clinging onto him, Margot opened her eyes. She looked around the compartment as if she was seeing it for the first time. ‘Safe,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, my love, you’re safe. It was only a dream. A bad dream, but you’re safe now.’ Bill held Margot tight and rocked her until she stopped crying.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In torrential rain, with the wind cutting across the platform, Margot’s older sister Bess helped her from the train while her father helped his son-in-law with the suitcases.

‘Welcome home, lad,’ Thomas Dudley said, shaking Bill’s hand. ‘You look all in!’

‘I’m all right, it’s Margot who isn’t well,’ he said, looking at her through the sheeting rain. ‘She looks so small in Bess’s arms.’

‘There’s never been more than an ha’porth of meat on her. Don’t worry son, she’ll soon have some flesh on her bones, her mother’ll see to that.’ When Bill and Thomas Dudley caught up with the sisters, Margot turned to her father and broke down in tears.

‘There, there, Margaret love.’ Her father dropped the suitcase he’d been carrying and wrapped his arms around his sobbing daughter. ‘You’ll be