The InBetweens

By Liz Rosales

Place: London, UK. Year: 1985. Pauli feels like an actor who’s lost the script – to her own life. Belonging nowhere, everything is familiar and at the same time incomprehensible. There’s a ripple in the fabric of time…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781458315748

Liz Rosales

Liz Rosales is a European transplant currently residing in Mexico.A soft-spoken, introverted being who avoids socialising, and prefers cosy dinners with a few friends. Liz loves the sound of the wind, the smell of rain, coffee, and printed books - preferably all at once. At one time or other they has been a silver-smith, artist, magazine editor, graphic designer, worked in repro-graphics and in finance, and a wide variety of insignificant temp-jobs

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Copyright

The InBetweens

Copyright © 2021 Liz Rosales / GatotePress

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4583-1574-8

Imprint: Lulu.com

It had been a Friday. Lucky Friday. Pauli had finished her shift and collected her wages.

Reluctant to go home, she’d drifted aimlessly along the still unfamiliar streets in this part of London when she’d spotted The Shop. There was no way she could have missed it. Like a homing pigeon Pauli felt it reel her in. 40s Wink. That first day she'd just gawped at the window, in awe and at the same time too intimidated to enter.

Getting the job in the betting shop had been a stroke of luck too; Pauli had spied the hand written trainee customer assistant wanted card in the window while looking for a nearby pub where she'd read in TimeOut an Irish band would be playing Waterboys covers.

It was boring but it was a job, and as long as the bets were placed promptly and queues did not build up no one cared much about anything, including Pauli's pastel free wardrobe.

Pauli made her way back the following week. And the next. Then one day - feeling unusually confident - she stepped inside.

The peal of the old fashioned brass doorbell made her jump and almost run back out again. Autopilot kicked in and and she muttered an apology to no one in particular. Not one paid her any attention. Fine. Pauli stepped behind the nearest rack of clothes and pretended to look for something.

40s Wink was full of things once treasured. Pauli sensed the quality of a bygone era – how else could any of it have survived this long and be so expensive?

She browsed contentedly, soaking up the intoxicating atmosphere, and leaving only when she didn't think she could stay much longer without actually purchasing something.

Going to 40s Wink became a weekly treat, almost an act of worship, but as to what she was worshipping Pauli was not sure.

In September it would be 40 years since the end of World War two. Her grandpa and an uncle had both died in the fields of France, and houses in the street her family had lived had been obliterated during the blitz.

The only one who would talk about it was her great gran and she’d only talked about the camaraderie of people pulling together, sheltering in the tube station during air raids, the newfound freedom of young women going out to work. Never a mention of the horrors Pauli gradually became aware of. The things humans were capable of inflicting on each other never failed to unnerve her.

How brave would she have been if she had lived through those times? Would she have joined the resistance? She'd only taken two years of French, nowhere near enough to be of any real use, and she did not have the kind of super-brain required at Bletchley park. Convincing her parents to...what exactly? Dig for victory?

Would she perhaps have been distributing underground printed leaflets? Pauli had read a book about the White Rose and had been deeply impressed. Their courage was breathtaking and Pauli knew she'd never have been anywhere near as brave.

‘There's no such thing as bravery or courage when it's the only option there is.’ There it was – again. The Voice. What it said always made sense when she thought about it.

Her first purchase had been a Zippo lighter. It had felt so familiar when Pauli had picked it up she didn't want to let go of the smooth, scratched brass. And the music...

It crept under her skin effortlessly, immortalised in the collective consciousness through countless TV-series.

The too cool for you assistant had even started to nod at her but only if no one else was around. That started after Pauli had had to wait for change thanks to the frosty one not wanting to ruin her newly varnished nails. Pauli complimented her on the colour and offered a Stimorol chewing gum while waiting. Poppy Red. Pauli had bought a lipstick and nail-varnish in the same colour at Boots. On, it looked like the colour was wearing her, and she disliked the kind of attention it drew, so she kept it in her handbag with the Midnight pigeon one and admired its rich colour in private. The last thing she wanted to do in the testosterone filled Laddies was to draw attention to her