Starlight

by Anne Douglas

  ‘We’ve seen enough,’ Jess agreed. ‘Thanks for letting us in, we appreciate it.’

  ‘Sad for you, we know. Don’t think we don’t understand at Keys and Keys. It’s just the way things work out, eh?’ He hesitated a moment. ‘You’ve all got new jobs, I take it?’

  Yes, apart from Fred and Edie who had decided to retire, most had new jobs, either in cinemas or cafes, although Rusty’s was only a fill-in until he began his television course at one of the technical colleges in September. Only Sally and Jess herself had nothing planned, and if Sally said she was going to enjoy herself doing nothing, Jess had her suspicions that she might in fact be fully occupied. Not for ever, even if she turned out to be right and she’d be bringing up Ma’s first grandchild, for she’d certainly be looking round one day, wanting to run something, as Addie herself would say. But that was in the future. Now there was only the present, and their sad, sad goodbyes.

  Once again, they were outside the glass doors, and Mr Henderson was locking them.

  ‘That it?’ he asked, with his cheerful smile.

  ‘That’s it,’ Jess said.

  ‘Goodbye, then, and the best of luck!’

  Away he went with his keys, and those left looked at one another and then, for the last time, at the fine, white, still-standing building. They would not be coming to see the demolition, or even the terrible hole it would leave. Oh, no, no! Some time, of course, they’d have to see the new store, rising on the site, but for the moment, they put that out of their minds and thought of their future.

  ‘After all, tomorrow is another day,’ Scarlett O’Hara had said in Gone With the Wind, the Princes’ most popular film ever, and it was true. There might never be another film like that, thought Jess. There would certainly never be another Princes. But with any luck, a little of its starlight would go with her and Rusty and the others into their new lives. Life went on, whatever happened.

  ‘It’ll be a bit late, but are you two coming back with Derry and me for your dinner?’ Addie said to Jess and Rusty.

  ‘Fancy needing to ask!’ they exclaimed.

  And, as people began to walk slowly away from the Princes, Jess and Rusty, holding hands, followed Addie and Derry across the street to the station, and did not look back.