He was not a holidaymaker, neither was he with the theatre. His name was Jerry and he was with a firm of contractors who kept both piers and a great many of the other Marine Parade attractions in good repair. He had been repainting the Wellington pier when his undoubted good looks had caught Merle’s attention, but at first he had not seemed particularly interested in any of the girls, though friendly with them all. That had been rather nice, since it meant that when Jerry joined them they became a foursome rather than a threesome, for despite Angela and Lottie’s making every effort to include Merle they were uneasily aware that sometimes she became bored with their talk of school and schoolfellows. However, as August progressed, it became clear to Lottie that Jerry liked her pal, and she was glad of it. She thought him a big improvement on Alex, though she was uneasily aware that Merle was still seeing the ventriloquist from time to time. Jerry, being local, was a fund of information.
