The Nightingale Girls - By Donna Douglas Page 0,67

the tiny silver hand Dora had given him. He’d never seen anything like it before. ‘What is it?’

‘My lucky charm.’

‘Why do you want to get rid of it, if it’s that lucky?’

‘Because I need the money to buy books. If I don’t get them, I’ll need more than a charm to get me through preliminary training.’

They stood on the patch of waste ground behind the nurses’ home. Nick had been intrigued when Dora had asked to meet him there. He’d tried to imagine what she might want, but this hadn’t even occurred to him.

‘Why come to me?’ he said. ‘Why not take it down to Solomon’s yourself?’

‘I don’t get another day off until next month and I need the money before then.’

‘Why don’t you ask your dad?’

‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ The vehemence of Dora’s reply shocked him. ‘I don’t want to ask him for money, all right? I’ve got my reasons.’ Her eyes met his. ‘Now, will you help me or not?’

Anyone else and he might have said no, especially after the way she’d just spoken to him. But Dora had always been good to him and Danny, and Nick didn’t forget a kindness.

‘I s’pose I could nip down there on my way home,’ he conceded grudgingly. He looked at the charm nestling in his palm. ‘How much do you need?’

‘The books cost just over a fiver new, but I might be able to get some secondhand for cheaper.’ She looked up at him anxiously. ‘Do you think I might get that much?’

‘From old Solomon? You’ll be lucky!’ he laughed, then saw the disappointment in her face and added, ‘I’ll see what I can do, all right? But no promises.’

‘I understand.’

She smiled that strange, lopsided smile of hers. No one in their right mind could ever call Dora pretty, but there was something about her.

He remembered her nanna’s words on Christmas Day: ‘Dora can’t afford to be fussy.’ And the way she’d turned red, and he’d pretended not to hear so she wouldn’t be embarrassed.

He liked Dora. She had a dream, just like him. He could imagine telling her about his plan to go to America, knowing she wouldn’t laugh at him.

As she walked away, he called after her, ‘How do you know I won’t just nick it and keep the money?’

She looked back over her shoulder at him. ‘I trust you,’ she said simply.

Her words haunted him all the way home. People didn’t trust Nick Riley. They either respected him because he was a hard grafter, or they feared him because he was good with his fists.

But no one had ever trusted him before. It was a strange, heady feeling.

He reached Solomon’s just as the old man was shutting up shop for the night.

Mr Solomon emerged from the curtained-off back room at the tinkle of the bell over the front door. He was a wiry little man, with a face as wrinkled as a walnut and shrewd brown eyes.

‘Nicky boy! To what do we owe this pleasure?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘How’s your mother? Well, I hope? I haven’t seen her in here for a while.’

That’s because we’ve got nothing left to pawn, Nick thought.

The musty smell of the cramped little shop made him feel sick. As a small boy it had seemed like a place of wonder, its shelves lined with all kinds of strange and magical things – old paintings, antiques, curios, children’s toys, even a stuffed cat once. And then there was the glass cabinet, crammed with watches, rings, necklaces, brooches, like a pirates’ treasure chest. He remembered spending hours just staring at them while his mother argued with old Solomon.

‘A tanner? Is that the best you can do, you tight old sod? How am I going to feed my kids?’

‘That’s your husband’s job, Mrs Riley, not mine,’ Mr Solomon would always reply.

But somehow the deed was always done in the end and his mother would drag Nick back to Griffin Street by the hand, complaining bitterly all the way about how she’d been robbed.

Ten years later she was still pawning everything she could get her hands on.

‘Got something for me, have you, Nick?’ Mr Solomon’s eyes gleamed with anticipation.

Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out Dora’s chain. ‘What can you give me for this?’

‘Well, well. What have we here?’ Mr Solomon dangled the chain from his fingers, admiring the charm as it swung gently before his eyes. ‘Now what’s a goy like you doing with a thing like this, Nicky