The Women in Black by Madeleine St John Page A

in case you hadn’t noticed.’
    ‘That’s exactly why we want you to go out with us,’ said the more extrovert of the two men, ‘don’t we, eh?’ and he nudged his friend in the arm.
    ‘Oh yeah, right you are!’ said he.
    ‘We’ll meet you at the Cross, then, eight-thirty, at Lindy’s,’ said Myra. ‘And don’t keep us waiting.’
    ‘As if we would,’ they said. ‘Eight-thirty sharp!’
    Fay’s heart sank. She had been meeting these men, or others resembling them in every important particular, throughout her adult life. She had eaten their dinners, drunk gin-and-limes at their expense, and she had danced in their arms; she had fought off, and sometimes submitted to, their love-making. She had travelled this particular road to its bitter and now dusty end and her heart now failed her, but to decline this evening’s engagement had been a thing impossible: Myra would have thought she was mad.
    ‘Gee, yes,’ she told her friend. ‘You never know, do you? He might be the one I’ve been waiting for. Is he tall?’
    Myra thought about the less attractive of the two men: the other she had bagged for herself.
    ‘Not very,’ she said, ‘but he’s not short. Just medium. Listen, though,’ she added, quickly, ‘I think he’s rich. I think I remember seeing a gold watch on his wrist. I reckon you’ll like him; I reckon he’s your type. Wait and see!’
    ‘Yes, okay,’ said Fay, a tiny flicker of hope and courage stirring within her sad heart. ‘I’ll wait and see.’
    ‘That’s the stuff,’ said Myra.

11
    Lisa and her mother were going to the pictures this Saturday evening, too; it was what they usually did on Saturday evenings. Sometimes Lisa’s father came with them; it depended. ‘We’ll wait and see whether your dad wants to come,’ said Mrs Miles to her daughter about half an hour before he was due to come home from the races where he had spent the afternoon and God knew (Mrs Miles never would) how much of his salary. She wiped the working surfaces of the kitchen over once more with a sponge and rinsed it out. Lisa sat at the table.
    ‘I hope that job isn’t too much for you, Lesley,’ said her mother, looking at her carefully. ‘I was hoping to see you get a bit fatter, now your exams are over.’
    ‘I’m all right, Mum,’ said Lisa. ‘I’m fine. I’ll get fat in the New Year, after the job ends. I’ll stay home all day and read, and get fat.’
    ‘That’s a good girl,’ said Mrs Miles. ‘I’ll buy you some chocolate to eat, to help you along.’
    ‘Oh thanks, Mum,’ said Lisa.
    Lisa and her mother had a secret which they had only shared by the fewest of words and looks: a secret and terrible plan had now begun to formulate itself whereby Lisa, should she actually gain the Commonwealth Scholarship which would pay her fees, would in fact, by one means or another and in defiance of her father’s ukase , enter the University of Sydney in the new term. The secret occasionally became present in both their minds at once: it then seemed to hover above their heads in the form of a pink invisible cloud which glowed at its margins, too beautiful to indicate, too frail to name. It hovered now, as each imagined Lesley, Lisa, fatter, stronger, and an undergraduate. First, though, they must each—again secretly, in private and alone—suffer the agony of waiting for the examination results upon which all else depended. Three more weeks of this agony remained.
    ‘There’s your Dad now,’ said Mrs Miles. ‘Let’s see what he wants to do.’
    The paterfamilias came into the kitchen.
    ‘Hello there,’ he said.
    He did not kiss them. He stood in the doorway, looking quite pleased with himself, as well he might: his pockets were full of five-pound notes.
    ‘Did you have a good day, Ed?’ asked Mrs Miles, meaning, did you enjoy the racing.
    ‘Not bad, not bad,’ said he, meaning, I won over a hundred quid, which begins to make up for the hundred and fifty I lost last