Save the last Dance for me

By K J Sullivan-Mack

This is a story about four ordinary girls from a small town who made a pact on New Year's Eve, nineteen sixty; a new decade for the eighteen-year-olds, who were too young to remember the last decade well. But this was their decade, the beginning of a new grown up life, and where it would take them.

 

Their pact was, that wherever they were in the world, they would meet up at the paradise palace ballroom, fifty years hence and from that moment they each wondered where life would take over the next five decades and where the journey would end.

 

This is a story of the many trials and tribulations to get to the end of their journey and end up wiser, sadder, happier? There are many surprises and shocks along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K J Sullivan-Mack
• Release date: Aug 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393336426

Book preview

Save the Last Dance for Me

K J Sullivan-Mack

eBook edition Published in 2017 by aSys Publishing

Paperback edition Published in 2017 by aSys Publishing

Copyright © 2017 K J Sullivan-Mack

K J Sullivan-Mack has asserted her rights under ‘the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988’ to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved

No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission from the author.

Published by aSys Publishing

Physical ISBN: 978-1-910757-86-4

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter

ONE

They won’t be there, said Mary, it will all be a waste of time. If I go, I will be the only one there.

No, said Jennifer, if you don’t go you’ll regret it forever, not knowing if the others turned up, you’d never know if they did.

Yes, that’s OK Jennifer, it was such a long time ago, fifty years ago; a teenagers view on the future, all idealists about our future, thinking things would go the way we planned. How naive we were; anyway, I don’t go out socially anymore, so what would I wear?

Borrow one of mine, said Jennifer, you still have a trim figure. Yes thought Mary, I haven’t changed in that respect and my hair is still a pale blonde bob; showing signs of going white but on the whole not bad for my age. They will probably have seen the world and done everything, while I have done nothing and been nowhere. Fifty years ago when we made this silly pact at eighteen years old, we all started life on an even keel. Mary started thinking back to New Year’s Eve nineteen sixty; let’s all meet here in fifty years time no matter where we are or what we’re doing.

Chapter

TWO

Rosie Hills shared a bedroom with five siblings, all in one bed. She had to look after them on Friday and Saturday night while her mam and dad went to the working men’s club. When they came home, Rosie could hear them making love; that’s where all the children came from. It wasn’t loving, it was animal instinct, just sex, just a way of relieving themselves of the week’s stress. Her mother looked nearly twice as old as she was. Rosie had to tip all her wages up to help, as she was the only one working; her dad had been on the national assistance for years. Rosie got four pounds a week working in a cotton mill, from seven in the morning till five thirty at night. Rosie’s clothes would be put in Billy’s pawn shop on Monday, and when Rosie got paid on Friday, they would be taken out. Everyone did the same thing; Sunday clothes in the pawnshop Monday, out Friday when they got paid. After all, they only needed their overalls during the week; could only afford to go out weekends, no one had a wardrobe, they didn’t need one.

Chapter

THREE

Joy Norton grew up in a pub and didn’t know what it was like to have a family holiday. It was one week with mum and one week with dad, usually Southport or Morecambe; neither wanted to be too far away from the pub, and they didn’t trust any relief managers.

Joy looked at her parents; they hadn’t changed since she could remember, they had always looked old, more like brother and sister. Joy wondered how they had ever got together or had her. They were