Unforgettable by Jean Saunders

from faraway places to Southampton docks.
    Her father had once been a loving parent who hadn’t been consumed with drink … and now her mother was racked with guilt, knowing that the relief she and Gracie both felt, was because they no longer had to put up with his moods and tempers. And the guilt was doing Queenie no good at all.
    â€˜I’ve given her something to calm her down,’ the doctor told Gracie. ‘She’s taken this badly, which is only to be expected, and she’ll need careful watching. Her heart is further weakened by the coughing and retching from her illness, and this shock is enough to tip her over the edge.’
    He never minced his words, and Gracie thanked him numbly. She had thanked the two men bringing them the news about her father, and voicing her gratitude at being warned of a death sentence seemed just as farcical.
    The doctor looked at her sharply. ‘You must take care of yourself as well, Gracie. You need to be strong for your mother now.’
    â€˜I know. I don’t want her to go to the funeral, but she’s insisting on it.’
    â€˜Don’t try to stop her,’ he said brutally. ‘She needs to say good-bye to your father properly, and it can’t make much difference in the long run.’
    â€˜What does that mean?’ Gracie said, hating him for what she knew damn well he meant.
    â€˜My advice is to make the most of your mother while you’ve still got her. Now, about arrangements—if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.’
    She could read his mind. They lived in apoor part of the town; they weren’t a well-off family, and if there was no money … She lifted her chin. ‘I shall see to everything, Doctor. Mum was always thrifty about life insurances, and she’s also been paying into a funeral club for years. We shall manage.’
    She stopped talking, afraid that her voice would break if she had to say much more. Queenie said the funeral club payments had been intended for the eventual death of both parents, though since the onset of her illness, it was obviously thought that she would go first. Nobody had expected Mick to die yet, especially in such a tragic manner, however ignominious. It was still the loss of a husband and father.
    A week later, Mick Brown was laid to rest, and the neighbours rallied round with pots of tea and sandwiches ready for when the two women returned from the churchyard. By tradition, they wouldn’t return to an empty house, and the curtains that had been drawn all the week, were pulled back to let in the daylight.
    A clutch of Mick’s workmates and drinking buddies had been at the graveside, some muttering good words about him, others looking embarrassed and awkward to be there at all. Gracie couldn’t help wondering savagely which of them had been involved inthe punch-up that had led to her father staggering about in a drunken rage and which had eventually led to his death. But what did any of it matter now? The death had been recorded as accidental, and there had been enough witnesses to vouch for the way Mick had gone lumbering off in the night.
    All Gracie wanted was to get this day over. They didn’t invite people back to the house afterwards. Gracie had insisted that there was to be no bun-fight, and only the women neighbours who had helped with tea and sympathy would be there waiting for them. And Percy Hill.
    â€˜What’s he doing here?’ Gracie hissed to Mrs Jennings, when she had got her mother settled in an armchair with a cup of tea.
    â€˜We couldn’t keep him out,’ Lizzie said resentfully. ‘Calls it his duty to pay his respects to one of his tenants, but he’s no more than a bloody leech, pardon the language, casting his eye over his property, and making sure the rent will still be paid now your dad’s dead and buried.’
    Gracie flinched, wishing she didn’t make it sound so final. Which it was, of