Eileen said, after a while. ‘We must be doing something right.‘
‘Tis mostly your doing, ‘Furlong admitted. "Where am I ever only away all day then home to the table and up to bed and gone again before they rise.‘
‘You‘re all right, Bill,‘ Eileen said. ‘We‘ve not a penny owing, and that‘s down to you.‘ - P28
It took a while to go over everything and to decide, between them, what should and should not be bought.
In the end, they stretched it out to as much as they could afford:
a pair of jeans for Kathleen, who‘d been watching the ad for 501s on television;
a Queen album for Joan, who‘d glued herself to the Live Aid concert that summer and had fallen in love with Freddie Mercury.
Sheila had written the shortest letter, asking plainly for Scrabble, providing no alternative.
They decided on a spinning globe of the world for Grace, who wasn‘t sure what she wanted but had written out a long list.
Loretta was not in two minds: if Santa would pleese bring Enid Blyton‘s Five Go Down to the Sea or Five Run Away Together or both, she was going to leave a big slice of cake out for him and hide another behind the television. - P29
‘A Walter Macken, maybe. Or David Copperfield. I never did get round to reading that one.‘
‘Right you are.‘
‘Or a big dictionary, for the house, for the girls.‘
He liked the thought of having a dictionary in the house.
‘Is there something on your mind, Bill?‘ Her finger slid over the top of the glass, circling it. You were miles away this night.‘
Furlong looked away, feeling her instincts at work again, the hot power of her gaze. - P31
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