“Oh I don’t know. I’ve had more education, a better job, more freedom, than she did.” Sandy didn’t want anyone to think that there had been no progress. Life hadn’t been a bed of roses in the small Welsh town.
Wilma sighed. Sandy was by far the nicest of the girls who had shared her flat, but she would leave, she would leave soon. Without a proper explanation. And Nelson would say that she left because she was too toffee-nosed for the area, and Old Johny, the man from Barbados two floors down, would say that it was good riddance to that young whitey anyway, and only Wilma would know that it had nothing to do with colours of skin or area, or smells of curry or steel bands in the basement. It had everything to do with life being short and most people wanting to have a laugh and a good time.
BOOKS BY MAEVE BINCHY
Whitethorn Woods
Nights of Rain and Stars
Quentins
Scarlet Feather
Tara Road
The Return Journey
Evening Class
This Year It Will Be Different
Echoes
The Glass Lake
London Transports
The Copper Beech
The Lilac Bus
Circle of Friends
Silver Wedding
Firefly Summer
Light a Penny Candle
LONDON TRANSPORTS
A Delta Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First published in Great Britain in 1978 and 1980 by Quartet Books and Ward River Press Limited
Dell mass market edition published June 1995
Delta Trade Paperback edition / June 2007
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982 by Maeve Binchy
“Warren Street” was first published as “The Dressmaker’s Dilemma” in
Woman’s Own
, June 1979; “Victoria” and “Pimlico” were first published in
The Irish Times
, 1979; “Euston” was first published as “Forgiveness” in
The Irish Times
, 1982.
Charing Cross Bridge
(1906) by Andre Derain / Musée d’Orsay, Paris, copyright © SuperStock, Inc. / SuperStock
Delta is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33765-2
v3.0