Winners and Losers

by Linda Sole

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Linda Sole from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Recent Titles by Linda Sole from Severn House

  The Family Feud Series

  THE LIE

  A PROMISE MADE

  WINNERS AND LOSERS

  The Sarah Beaufort Mystery Series

  MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

  JUSTICE IS SERVED

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF JUSTICE

  The Country House Series

  GIVE ME TOMORROW

  A BRIGHT NEW DAY

  WISH DOWN THE MOON

  The London Series

  BRIDGET

  KATHY

  AMY

  THE TIES THAT BIND

  THE BONDS THAT BREAK

  THE HEARTS THAT HOLD

  THE ROSE ARCH

  A CORNISH ROSE

  A ROSE IN WINTER

  FLAME CHILD

  A SONG FOR ATHENA

  writing as Anne Herries

  A WICKED WENCH

  MILADY’S REVENGE

  The Civil War Series

  LOVERS AND ENEMIES

  LOVE LIES WEEPING

  THE SEEDS OF SIN

  LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH

  WINNERS AND LOSERS

  Linda Sole

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published 2009

  in Great Britain and 2010 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2009 by Linda Sole.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Sole, Linda.

  Winners and Losers. – (A Family Feud saga)

  1. Searles family (Fictitious characters) – Fiction. 2. Rock

  musicians – Fiction. 3. Brain – Tumours – Patients – Fiction.

  4. Domestic fiction.

  I. Title II. Series

  823.9'14-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-263-4 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6821-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-187-4 (trade paper)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  One

  ‘Where are you going?’ Sarah turned as she heard her mother’s voice. ‘If you’re meeting friends at that youth club again, just be careful – and don’t talk to strangers on your way home, especially men in cars or vans.’

  ‘Mum!’ Sarah’s laugh was a mixture of affection and frustration. ‘Anyone would think I was fourteen. I’m nearly nineteen. You don’t have to treat me like a child.’

  ‘You think you’re grown up and in some ways you are,’ Mrs Jenkins said. ‘But you are still very young, Sarah. You don’t know what some men are like – and you read about dreadful things these days . . .’

  Sarah kissed her mother’s cheek. ‘Don’t worry. I’m always careful. I shan’t be late so don’t watch the clock.’

  She went out of the front door, closing it carefully behind her. Her mother and father were stricter than her friends’ parents were, but they spoiled her, buying her pretty clothes and anything else she wanted. The only problem was that they treated her as a little girl – her mother in particular – and she wasn’t a child any more. Several of the girls she’d gone to school with were already married and had started families of their own; others had gone to university or had moved away to find better jobs than were available in their small market town – or city, as it ought to be called.

  Sarah had once asked why Ely was called a city, when it was really only a small town. Her father, who was a member of the council, told her it was because they had a wonderful cathedral and that she should be proud to live in such a quiet, respectable place.

  Sometimes she thought she would like to go far away. She liked shopping in Cambridge when she could, because there were a lot more shops and it seemed more alive than her hometown, but she could only manage to get there now and then, especially now that she had left school and found herself a job. She was lucky to have been taken on by a smart dress shop, which had recently opened in the High Street. Her wages were not generous, but she earned more than some of her friends did.

  She walked past St Mary’s church and the Cathedral green, where the old cannon stood guard as it had for years, heading for Cambridge Road. As she approached the youth club, she saw some of her friends gathered outside and waved to them, her spirits lifting. There was always something to do at the club, because she liked playing darts or table tennis, and even though she couldn’t play she enjoyed watching the young men playing snooker. Sometimes one of the members would bring a new record and they would dance.

  ‘Janice . . . Phyllis,’ she called to her friends. ‘I was afraid you might not be here.’

  ‘We were thinking of going to the jive club,’ Phyllis told her. ‘I went last week and it was good fun, Sarah. You should join.’

  ‘I should like to,’ Sarah replied. ‘I’ll see what Mum says and let you know.’

  ‘Surely you don’t have to ask?’ Janice stared at her as if she were mad. ‘I stopped asking my mother years ago.’

  ‘Mum likes to know where I am,’ Sarah said. ‘Oh, don’t let’s talk about it. I know what you think, but Mum is so good to me. I don’t like to upset her.’

  Sarah saw the look that passed between her friends. She knew what they thought of the way she always tried to respect her parents’ wishes.

  ‘How do you like working in Woolworth’s, Phyllis?’ she asked to change the subject.

  ‘I’d rather work where you do,’ Phyllis said. ‘You lucky thing. How did you manage to get a job like that?’

  Sarah laughed. She had been lucky to get the job. She suspected the fact that she was Ron Jenkins’ daughter might have had something to do with it, but she wasn’t going to confess that to her friends. Her employer’s husband was a Mason and Sarah’s father had met him at the lodge meeting. He’d told Sarah there was a job going. She knew she wasn’t the only one who applied, but she was the one chosen.

  ‘I suppose I was just lucky,’ she said. ‘Have you been to see Gone with the Wind yet? I went on Monday with Mum and Dad.’

  ‘I saw it ages ago, the first time it came here,’ Janice said.

  ‘Oh yes, so did I,’ Sarah agreed. ‘But I loved it so much I wanted to see it again – I could watch it over and over. Rhett Butler is gorgeous, isn’t he?’

  ‘You mean Clark Gable,’ Janice said and grinned. ‘I go to every film he stars in . . .’

  The girls smiled at
each other as they discussed their favourite film stars and the new clothes, make-up and records they had bought. When they entered the large set of rather dingy rooms that were used for the youth club, a round robin game of table tennis was going on, and a group of young men were playing darts. One of them called out to the girls and they drifted towards them, smiling and nudging each other as they accepted the invitation to play. The smell of cigarette smoke was strong, mixing with the pungent odour of hair cream and the strong, cheap perfume some of the girls wore.

  Sarah took the set of darts and smiled at the young man. She knew him as Phil Burton. His father was a local shopkeeper and very respectable, but Phil was known to be a flirt and he was all hands. Sarah thought that if she took him home her mother would think him very suitable, but then she had no idea that he had already tried to get Sarah to go with him in his car up to the deserted aerodrome. Sarah was well aware what would happen if she did, and so far she’d said no and meant it. She was aware that some of the men thought she was stuck up or frigid, but she didn’t particularly want to end up having to get married in a hurry the way some of her friends had.

  She liked Phil, as she liked some of the other men, but she hadn’t yet seen anyone who made her heart beat faster.

  Connor Searles sat in his car eating fish and chips and watching the girl walking towards him in the driving mirror. There was something different about her; she dressed more stylishly than most other girls did in the small market town of Ely, and she held her head high. He had seen her about the town a few times but he didn’t know her name. He wound down his window as she drew level and grinned when she turned to look.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ he said confidently. ‘Where are you off to this evening?’

  She gave him a slaying look and walked on without speaking. Connor let out a piercing wolf whistle but she didn’t glance back.

  ‘You don’t want to bother with her,’ his mate Tiddy Jones said from the passenger seat. ‘Stuck-up bitch! I asked her for a dance down the church hall last Saturday and she told me to get lost.’

  ‘Why would she bother with you?’ Connor asked and laughed as Tiddy aimed a blow at his head. ‘She’d have to be mad to go out with a loser like you!’

  ‘Now who’s talking?’ Tiddy scowled. ‘Face it, mate, we’ve neither of us got a chance with the likes of her – our wages wouldn’t pay for the clothes she was wearing, let alone buy her the kind of house she would expect.’

  ‘Speak for yourself. I’ve got prospects,’ Connor said, though he was lying. He worked on his brother’s farm for little more than his keep – a comedown from the days when his father, Robert Searles, had been one of the richest farmers in the district.

  ‘Oh yeah? Tell me about it,’ Tiddy drawled. ‘You’re like me, mate, stuck in a dead-end job. Worse off, if you ask me. At least my father owns his smallholding – your brother has sons of his own. When he dies you’ll get nothing.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want it,’ Connor told him. ‘I’m only hanging around until Dan gets on his feet and then I’m off.’

  ‘Where to?’ Tiddy asked and laughed, as Connor couldn’t answer. ‘Forget it, mate. You’ll never make the break.’

  ‘What is her name?’

  Tiddy stared at him, then made a mocking face. ‘Sarah Jenkins. Much good it will do you. Her father owns a part share in a local building firm. They’ve got money. She went to a boarding school and thinks she is worth ten of the likes of us.’

  ‘I haven’t found a girl yet who said no when I asked,’ Connor said. ‘She’ll fall like all the rest when I’m ready.’

  ‘Yeah and pigs might fly,’ Tiddy retorted. ‘Let’s go to the jive club. Jean Bates goes there and I fancy her . . .’

  Connor obligingly started the engine. He was lucky to have the small Austin and knew that Tiddy hung around with him mainly because of it. Dan had bought the car cheap and done it up for him, giving it to him for his last birthday. He might not earn enough to court a girl like Sarah Jenkins, but he certainly wasn’t interested in a slut like Jean Bates. Tiddy could have her and welcome.

  Sometimes Connor wondered why he hung out with Tiddy, who wasn’t really a friend – not like Peter Robinson. Peter was Alice’s brother and they had been friends all their lives, but Peter had got tired of working on the land. He’d surprised everyone by joining the navy when he was twenty.

  ‘Why don’t you come too?’ Peter had asked. ‘It will be more fun than hanging around here all our lives.’

  Connor had made the excuse that he couldn’t leave his brother in the lurch, which was true but only a part of the truth. Dan had come home from the war a hero, but there had been too many problems waiting for him, not least the fact that their elder brother Henry had let things go and the farm was facing bankruptcy. Despite that, he had taken his youngest brother to live with him and his wife, and Connor felt he owed him something for that at least. Sometimes he felt trapped working on the land with no prospects for the future, because things had moved on in the few years since the war ended. Gradually the country was becoming more prosperous, putting the years of hardship behind it. Connor knew he wanted more out of his life, but as yet he didn’t know what he wanted to do.

  Tiddy was right about the girl, though. There was no way he could afford to give her the things she expected from life.

  Sarah let herself into the house and went straight up to her room. She looked at herself in the mirror, brushing her thick hair. It had been cut to collar length recently and she’d had an ends perm to put a little bounce into it. She supposed the colour of her hair was quite pretty, because it had sort of reddish lights in it and a slight natural wave. Her mother had said she didn’t need a perm at all, but Sarah liked the extra bounce.

  She’d had fun at the youth club, but she’d left earlier than she needed to because she had got bored with the darts and her friends had gone off to the pub for a drink. Sarah had been asked along but she’d refused; her mother didn’t like her to go into pubs. She didn’t like Sarah to smoke either, but she had that evening.

  Undressing, Sarah thought about the man in the car. She hadn’t answered when he spoke to her, because her mother had told her she shouldn’t – but she had noticed that he was rather good-looking. He had very dark, almost black hair that looked a bit wavy. She hadn’t been able to see the colour of his eyes in that quick glance, but she thought they might have been grey.

  Sarah sighed as she slipped into bed and switched off the lamp. Phil had tried to grope her when she went outside to the toilets at the club, but she had managed to avoid him.

  ‘Mummy’s girl,’ he had called after her.

  The jeer stung a little, because she knew that one of her friends must have been talking about her behind her back. She was pretty sure that neither Janice nor Phyllis was a virgin. They didn’t say it openly, but she had heard some whispering going on at the youth club and she wondered if they knew what the men said behind their backs.

  Sarah didn’t want them to talk about her like that; she would rather they laughed and called her a mummy’s girl – although she wasn’t, not really. She did lots of things her mother wouldn’t approve of, but some of the advice she was given made sense to Sarah.

  She saw her friends wheeling prams and looking washed out, as if they were tired and fed up with struggling to make ends meet. They hadn’t had much chance to have fun. Sarah wished she could find someone she really liked enough to do it with – she wouldn’t mind getting married then – but so far she hadn’t met the right one.

  As she fell asleep she was still thinking about the man in the car. He had such bold eyes and his grin had nearly made her smile despite her determination to ignore him.

  ‘Connor,’ Alice Searles said as her brother-in-law came down to the large farmhouse kitchen the next morning, yawning. ‘There’s a letter for you – and a card from Peter. I had one too. He says he is in Gibraltar and he will have leave in a couple of months. He is going to visit when he gets back.’

>   ‘Great,’ Connor said and smiled at her. He had always liked his brother’s wife. She was a little plumper than she had been when she first went out with Dan, but still attractive. ‘I was thinking about Peter last night . . .’

  ‘Do you miss him? I do.’ Alice sighed. ‘I’m glad he joined the merchant navy, though, because it has been a good life for him. I think he hoped you would join too.’

  ‘He asked me to,’ Connor admitted. The kitchen was warm and smelled of dogs, babies, herbs and frying bacon. It was a familiar smell and comfortable, but sometimes he would rather have been alone, away from all the hustle and bustle in the mornings as the children scrambled for their breakfast before leaving to walk the three miles to school. ‘I thought about it, but I don’t think the navy is for me. Besides, I couldn’t just walk out on Dan – he needed me.’

  ‘Yes. He still does . . .’ Alice looked thoughtful. ‘You shouldn’t let that stop you, though, Con – if there’s something you would rather do with your life?’

  ‘I wouldn’t if I knew what would suit me,’ Connor said truthfully. ‘I sometimes think I ought to do something but I don’t know what I want . . .’ He grinned at her. ‘Do you want me out of your hair, Alice?’

  He had lived with them since his brother came back at the end of the war. It hadn’t occurred to him that Alice might enjoy having her home to herself.

  ‘No, of course not, daft,’ Alice said and smiled. ‘I just think you don’t have much fun tied to the land. Don’t let the years slip by and then regret it, Con.’

  ‘I’ve got a holiday coming up, remember. I’m off to stay with Emily in a couple of days.’

  ‘Yes, that will be nice for you. Emily has such a lovely home and she always makes us all feel welcome.’

  ‘That house is lovely, but she has a hell of a time to keep it going.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Everyone thinks she is rich, but in a way she is no better off than we are . . .’