Trust Me by Lesley Pearse Page A

as Susan came nearer, Dulcie glanced round, saw her and leaped to her feet. A wide, wide smile spread across her face and she came tearing down the street to greet her.
    ‘What are you doing here, miss, have you come to see me?’ she asked, her blue eyes wide with delight.
    ‘Now, what else would bring me down this road if not to see you?’ Susan said with a smile. ‘How are you?’
    ‘Okay,’ Dulcie replied, her eyes sliding away from her teacher’s face. ‘Did you get told Mummy died?’
    Susan nodded. ‘Yes I did, Dulcie, and I’m so sorry.’
    ‘Daddy didn’t kill her,’ she snapped out, as if needing to get that straight immediately.
    Susan put her arms around Dulcie and held her tightly for a few seconds, overwhelmed with sympathy for the child. ‘I know, dear, I liked your daddy very much and that’s why I came today. I hoped it might make you feel a bit better,’ she whispered into the child’s hair.
    May came running up then. ‘Did you see me skipping?’ she asked in a shrill voice. ‘Beryl and Janice have been teaching me.’
    Susan gulped, sensing in that moment how different the two girls were. May was too young to grasp the gravity of what had happened, Dulcie was bowed down by it.
    ‘Shall we go in to see your granny?’ Susan asked.
    May disappeared almost as soon as she’d checked that nothing in Miss Sims’s bag was for her. Susan had brought two pots of blackcurrant jam made by her mother, a quarter of tea, sugar and some home-cooked ham.
    ‘My mother and I thought you might be finding it a bit difficult if you haven’t got the children’s ration books yet,’ she said to Maud by way of an explanation. ‘I hope you aren’t offended.’
    ‘Offended! ‘Course I’m not, it’s good of you, miss,’ Maud said, looking delighted. ‘I ‘ave got the ration books now, ‘cos that policeman took me up to ‘Ither Green on Thursday to get some more stuff for the kids. It’s right kindly of you to come and visit us too. It means a lot to Dulcie, don’t it, girl,’ she said, nodding at her granddaughter.
    Susan drew Dulcie on to her knee. ‘Well, we’re old friends, aren’t we, Dulcie, and in times of trouble we all need friends.’
    ‘Will I be able to come back to school soon?’ Dulcie asked.
    ‘The funeral’s on Monday,’ Maud said pointedly, making a gesture to Susan as if she wanted to have a word with her in private. ‘I keep telling Dulcie that I can’t see ‘ow she can go back to your school after that. It’s too far away.’
    ‘Granny’s right,’ Susan said. ‘It is, and I’m sure the school here is just as nice.’
    Dulcie’s lower lip trembled. ‘But I liked Lee Manor, and you.’
    Susan found she had a lump in her throat. She had known this visit wasn’t going to be easy, but she hadn’t really prepared herself for what this tragedy meant personally to Dulcie. ‘Well, I still care just as much about you,’ she said. ‘I’ll come to see you if you want me to. Maybe I can go and speak to your new teacher too, so she knows how clever you are, how about that?’
    Dulcie nodded, and her eyes looked a little less bleak.
    Susan got out her purse and pulled out a shilling. ‘Now, suppose you and May go and buy an ice-cream,’ she suggested. ‘I need to have a little chat with Granny, and I can’t stay very long this time because my father is meeting me in an hour. While you’re gone you can think about anything special you want to tell me.’
    Maud gave Susan an appraising look as Dulcie left. ‘You’re a real nice woman,’ she said. ‘I bet that snooty headmistress of your’n don’t know you’ve come down ‘ere.’
    Susan smiled at the old woman’s intuition. ‘No, she doesn’t. But Dulcie was always a bit special to me, Mrs Taylor, and like I said to Dulcie, I liked your son too. I wanted you all to know you had my support, and if there’s anything I can do to help, just ask.’
    Maud jiggled her teeth up and down thoughtfully. ‘Can