Memories Are Made of This by June Francis

her.
Ray’s a Laugh
is on soon.’
    â€˜I think I’ll listen with you before I go out,’ said Hester. ‘I could do with cheering up. You all right on your own, Sam?’
    â€˜Of course I am,’ he said shortly.
    Sam drank his tea and then took Carol’s remaining letters upstairs. There had been a time, just after Carol was killed, when he could not bear reading them. He sat on his bed and unfolded one of them, noticing that the ink was fading in places. It was bad enough that his great-aunt had destroyed several, without the knowledge that one day soon he might not be able to read those he still possessed. Why had she had to go and burn them? It mattered, even though he knew the contents off by heart.
    He sighed, thinking if only Carol had stuck to their original plan, which was for him to visit her at her aunt’s smallholding near Ormskirk, she would still be alive. According to her aunt she had been missing Liverpool and had planned to surprise him. What so upset him was that he had never got to see her when she did arrive in Liverpool. She had been killed before he discovered about her plan to visit. He gazed down at Carol’s neat copperplate handwriting and thought he must find another hiding place for the letters.
    He lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, wondering, despite what he had said to his sisters, whether it was time for him to move on and find himself not only a place of his own – not easy with the housing situation being what it was
–
but a wife as well. He had begun to yearn for the comfort that only a woman could provide. He had been having dreams about Dorothy Wilson, who had been Carol’s best friend, that just wouldn’t go away. He had briefly caught sight of a woman coming out of the stage door at the Playhouse a short while ago and had been convinced it was Dorothy. If he had not been in a rush, he just might have checked her out there and then. Maybe it was guilt that had prevented him from visiting the theatre later to see if it really was her.
    He closed his eyes and the memory of the younger Dorothy’s face impressed itself against his eyelids. He imagined burying himself in her soft feminine body and could almost smell the sweet fragrance of Pond’s face cream and ‘Evening in Paris’ scent. She had been slightly older than Carol. His heart began to race. She was smiling eagerly at him and her lips were swollen from his kisses. Her hair was the colour of ripening wheat, a lighter shade than his own, but hers had a silky texture to it that his lacked. He remembered how it had brushed against his bare chest. They should never have done what they did, but both of them had been hurting, so they had spent that May evening of Carol’s funeral in Dorothy’s parents’ bed, whilst her mother was at the munitions factory and her father in the army on the south coast.
    He remembered how Dorothy had encouraged him to let himself go, despite his attempts to hold back. At least from the noises she had made he knew that she had got pleasure from the act. Maybe that was why afterwards they had avoided meeting again? Eventually, he heard that she was carving out an acting career for herself and was on tour with a theatrical company. He had worried briefly that she might have got pregnant, but obviously she had been OK or she would have been in touch.
    A wry smile twisted his mouth, remembering how she had talked about one day seeing her name up in lights. At least she hadn’t given up on her dream. He would like to see her again but had no idea where she was right now. Maybe he should visit her widowed mother? That was if she was still alive. He had not been able to face her after having spent a couple of hours in her bed with Dorothy and so had avoided the street where she lived for years.
    â€˜Are you all right, Sam?’
    Hester’s voice startled him and he banged his head on the headboard as he sat up.