Unforgettable by Jean Saunders Page A

course. No matter how solemnly the vicar intoned the words about life everlasting, and our brother Mick being sent to a higher place to be withhis Maker, and all that religious stuff, it didn’t change anything. You were still dead and buried.
    She swallowed a sob, turned around and cannoned straight into Percy Hill, coming out of the parlour. His hands went out to steady her, and she was thankful she hadn’t yet taken off her costume jacket so that she didn’t have to feel the pressure of his fingers on her bare arms.
    â€˜Steady now, Gracie. We don’t want two accidents in the family, do we?’ he said in his cloying voice. Even when he was trying to be sympathetic, which she presumed he was trying to be now, he still had that nasty little calculating gleam in his eyes.
    â€˜Thank you for calling, Mr Hill,’ she said, keeping her voice distant. ‘My mother and I are bearing up quite well in the circumstances.’
    That was what you said, wasn’t it? Even when your heart was breaking, and you wished this oaf and his like to Kingdom Come, you said you were bearing up quite well in the circumstances.
    â€˜We’ll be fine with our neighbours now, thank you,’ she went on pointedly, hoping he would take the hint. ‘Women need to be together at a time like this.’
    He pressed his hand over hers. It wasclammy and moist, and she had an enormous job not to fling it away from her.
    â€˜I understand, my dear. Just remember that you have a father figure in me, and if there’s any little thing I can do for you, you only have to ask. I’ll leave you now, and I’ll be along to see you at the end of the week.’
    For the rent money, of course. The blood money. For a moment, Gracie felt a violent urge to laugh out loud at his hypocrisy, and really thought she was going to do so. And how would that look on the day of her father’s funeral!
    But once he had left the house, the women relaxed, and began the custom of telling their own tales about the deceased, and their own shared experiences of child-bearing and deaths in an attempt to cheer up her mother. It was an odd kind of therapy to Gracie, but it was what they did, and it seemed to work, so that by the time they were at last alone, her mother had a little more colour in her cheeks and was actually smiling at some of their anecdotes.
    But it was short-lived, and in the next weeks Gracie had more to worry about than the regular visits of the landlord, as Queenie went downhill rapidly.
    â€˜I know Dad’s death was an awful shock to her, but he led her such a life, that I thoughtshe’d start to relax by now,’ Gracie told Lizzie Jennings.
    â€˜It often happens,’ the neighbour said sagely. ‘You may have thought they didn’t get on, Gracie, but all married couples find their own pattern of living, and this was theirs. Now that he’s gone, she misses his tantrums and his yelling. They may have been a long time past the lovey-dovey stage, but I remember what it was like when my old man passed over. Me and him never had a good word to say about one another, but when he went it was like losing my right arm.’
    She made it sound like an exclusive sisterhood to which only widows belonged, and Gracie supposed that was exactly what it was. You couldn’t understand it because you had never experienced it. She shivered, knowing that she didn’t want to, either.
    â€˜Is Percy Hill pestering you, Gracie?’ Lizzie said out of the blue. ‘I’ve seen him in the street more than usual lately.’
    â€˜He’s called in a few times apart from collecting the rent to enquire after Mum. I suppose he’s only being considerate.’
    Lizzie snorted. ‘Considerate, my aunt Fanny! He knows damn well that your mum’s days are numbered, and once you’re left on your own he’ll have his eyes on more than this house if you know what I mean.’
    â€˜I