Betrayal

by Martina Cole

brethren! Matthew 12:49 When lovely woman stoops to folly And finds too late that men betray, What charm

was she could be very funny when the fancy took her. ‘So I said, “Go and find your fucking fathers and get some sweet money off them!”’ She screeched with laughter at her own wit and a few of the other mothers in the busy shop joined in. Reeva’s ever-present cigarette was dangling from her red-stained lips and her distended belly told anyone who cared to look that she was nearly on her time. Jack Walters, the manager of the Co-op, liked Reeva. She wasn’t a bad girl really – she had just been badly used in her time by the many men she seemed to attract. She attracted him. She was a good-looking young woman with a warm and generous personality