Little Girl Lost (16 page)

‘Thank you so much, constable,’ Sylvie said politely. Her voice was cool but her face, she knew, was flushed and her eyes bright. Without stopping to think why he had addressed her as a stranger, she began to say that she had meant to call round in Hunter Street, but she found her voice abruptly cut off by one of Brendan’s large hands which came up to cover her mouth. ‘I’ll just say me farewells to your husband, Mrs Dugdale,’ he said. ‘Because I’ve come to believe he hears every word I say, though he can’t speak for himself, not yet.’

He had removed his hand from her mouth as he spoke, realising that Sylvie had got the message: it was neither safe nor kind to talk in front of Len as though he could neither hear nor make sense of what was said. Now he turned to the bed. ‘Evenin’, Mr Dugdale. I’m on duty for the next six days but I dare say I’ll find a moment to pop round and have a word. You see, I’m still not too sure how you come to be dumped in that alley, because when a feller’s hurt in a riot folk mostly leave him lie where he fell, and I’d like to know a bit more detail when you’re able to tell me.’ With that, he leaned over the bed, picked up Len’s large, unnaturally clean hand, and shook it slightly. Then he gave Sylvie a quick smile and made his way out through the curtains and back down the ward.

Sylvie stayed with Len for about twenty minutes. For once, she was at a loss as to what she should tell him. She knew her mother-in-law had decreed that Len should be told nothing worrying and had not spoken of his father’s death in front of him, though she, personally, did not believe that he could hear a word she said. The doctor in charge of Len’s case, however, thought otherwise, so Mrs Dugdale had chatted about customers, the doings of the staff, and Becky’s funny little ways. So far, Sylvie had really not been able to talk to him with any ease; the dark secret which had taken her to Dublin hung over her like a pall, and she was afraid she might let something slip which would give her away. Having seen Brendan, of course, she guessed that he would hang about outside so that they might talk, for so sudden had been her departure from Dublin that she had had no opportunity to tell him that she was returning. However, there was the shopping expedition with Becky to mention, and the fact that she had bought the child a beautiful straw hat, trimmed with poppies. She also talked a little about how kind her mother’s American cousins had been to her, understanding that she needed to save her money and never pressing her to spend it. ‘Because I know you are as keen as I am myself to have a home of our own one day,’ she said now. She took hold of his large hand and squeezed it and felt a thrill of excitement course through her when he returned, very slightly, the pressure of her fingers. ‘Len? Oh, Len, I’m almost sure you squeezed my hand! Can you squeeze it again, chuck? Oh, do try!’

But the hand within her own remained motionless and Sylvie concluded that she had either imagined the movement or that it had merely been a twitching of the long unused muscles. Besides, she told herself as she said her farewells and kissed his unresponsive cheek, what difference would it make if he did regain consciousness? From what the medical team had told her, it would be months, rather than weeks, before he could work again.

She left the hospital building and saw Brendan waiting for her. She joined him and he walked beside her as she made her way back towards the pub. He glanced at her, his eyes smiling. ‘I was at the funeral but I didn’t come back to the Ferryman,’ he said quietly. ‘I guessed you’d returned to Liverpool as soon as you heard what had happened, and I knew you’d visit Len, but I didn’t try to contact you in case it started folk talking; better that we meet naturally, like now.’ His glance ranged appreciatively over her. ‘You’re looking very well, alanna. It seems Dublin air suited you. Now, how is the baby?’

‘Oh, Catherine Mary, you mean?’ Sylvie said airily.

‘Catherine Mary? Sure and isn’t that a pretty name? What about her surname, though? Will she be known as Catherine Mary Dugdale, or Catherine Mary Davies?’

‘I called her O’Keefe; I hope you don’t mind,’ Sylvie said rather guiltily. ‘Caitlin thought it were best, seein’ as how she’d passed me off as her cousin. I don’t know how Pat felt – he’s the O’Keefe after all – but he never objected, not to me at any rate.’ She looked rather anxiously up at her companion. ‘Caitlin is the kindest person in the world, but – but I don’t think Patrick liked me very much. I did my best, helping in the house, looking after the kids, buying treats for everyone on me pay day, but I always had the feeling he resented me.’

Brendan nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s understandable in a way,’ he said. ‘I dare say he felt you were a responsibility, but I hope he were never unkind. I never knew him well, not like I knew Caitlin, but he seemed a pleasant sort of feller.’

‘He is a nice feller and I shouldn’t have criticised him,’ Sylvie said remorsefully. ‘I dare say he disapproved of my having the baby by Robbie when I were married to Len.’

Brendan gave her another appraising look, followed by a grin. ‘You don’t say?’ he said, and there was a definite laugh in his voice. ‘Now tell me about Catherine Mary; what does she look like? Does she take after you, or Robbie?’ His face softened, the quizzical look being replaced by one of great sympathy. ‘I’m a feller so it’s difficult for me to understand how a mother feels, but it must have been like tearing your heart out to leave the little ’un behind.’ He stopped walking abruptly. ‘Who’s feeding her? Catherine Mary, I mean. She needs her mother’s milk, doesn’t she?’

‘I found a wet nurse livin’ nearby; my milk dried up before the baby was more than a couple of days old,’ Sylvie said, rather awkwardly. She felt that this was not a subject she should be discussing with a young man. ‘As for who she resembles, it’s Robbie. She – she’s got ginger hair, like his, and I dare say some people would think her as plain as a boot, but she’s too young yet to know what she’ll look like in a year or two!’ Brendan started walking again and Sylvie trotted along beside him. ‘Are you going to continue visiting Len? Because if so, maybe we could meet outside the hospital and exchange news,’ she suggested rather breathlessly, for Brendan’s natural stride was a good deal longer than hers. ‘I’ve agreed to pay a – a young woman to look after the baby until she’s old enough to be adopted.’

‘It’s for the best that she should be adopted and go to someone who could care for her,’ Brendan said earnestly. ‘Your mother-in-law really needs you, Sylvie, to help her run the pub and to look after Becky, and if you want my opinion, I think you’ll find Len’s experience will have changed him. So for the moment, you’ve simply got to play a waiting game. Just remember you’re not alone, the way you were in Ireland. You’ve got your mam, your family, even your mother-in-law; and there’s meself of course, anxious to do anything I can to help you.’

By now they were approaching the Ferryman and Sylvie took his hand for a moment, giving it a brief squeeze. ‘Oh, Brendan, you are good. You’ve already helped me out of the most dreadful trouble, but everything’s such a mess,’ she said miserably. ‘Becky can’t forgive me for leaving her. Oh, I’ve been silly and selfish, I know that. All the bad things I’ve done have been because I married someone when I was too young to know what I was taking on. Only one good thing has come out of all this and that’s your friendship. Thank you, thank you.’

Brendan grinned at her. ‘You aren’t the first person to get into a muddle because she jumped into marriage and then found she’d made a mistake, and Becky will come round once she knows you’re not going to leave her again,’ he assured her. ‘Chin up! You’re here where you belong, with Becky and the rest of your family, and Caitlin will make sure that Catherine Mary goes to a good home.’

Sylvie smiled gratefully at him. She really did like Brendan and told herself that he would make some woman a fine husband one day. Unfortunately, however, it could not be herself, not whilst Len lived.

Brendan had stopped outside the Ferryman and was gesturing for her to go inside. ‘All this civil unrest – the riots and that, and the strikes – mean I’m never sure when I’ll be on duty,’ he told her. ‘I can’t say when I’ll get to the hospital again, but I’ve been visiting the Ferryman on a regular basis, doing my best to see there’s no trouble here since the tragedy, so no doubt we’ll see each other from time to time.’

Sylvie stood for a moment with her hand on the door, watching Brendan making his way along the crowded pavement, then went slowly into the house. Sighing, she crossed the empty bar and headed for the kitchen; there was work to be done and she’d best get on with it, for tomorrow they would be open for business once more.

Chapter Six

It was a cold day. Sylvie was washing up the breakfast dishes. Len had come out of hospital some weeks before Christmas, mainly because the medical staff felt they could do nothing more for him. He had recovered consciousness all right, but he couldn’t talk, and he could neither walk nor get up from the bed they had made for him in the room behind the bar; in fact, he was not the Len that Sylvie had known. If he knew who she was, he gave no sign of it, nodding his thanks when she took him a meal, and smiling a slow, rather stupid smile when she asked him a question, or reminded him gently that Mrs Dugdale was his mam, Becky his little daughter and she herself his wife.

Mrs Dugdale had told him, with tears, that his father was dead, but Sylvie was sure he had not taken it in, nor did he respond in any way when friends came calling, or customers shouted a greeting across the bar. Right now, however, Becky was sitting on her father’s bed, chattering away about the events in her life whilst waiting for her grandmother to take her shopping. Sylvie listened, smiling to herself, but then turned from the sink, remarking as she did so that since Len was nearly asleep, Becky might as well begin to get ready to go out. Becky, who could sometimes be difficult, stared at Sylvie for an unnerving moment and then remarked: ‘He likes to hear me talk; Grandma Dugdale says he does, so what do you know?’

‘I know you’re a rude little girl,’ Sylvie replied sharply, stung by her daughter’s words. ‘And Grandma Davies is about to go down to the market for some messages. If you want to go with her, you’d best behave yourself.’

‘I
am
going with her,’ Becky said loftily. ‘You can’t bleeding well stop me.’

Sylvie opened her mouth to say that indeed she could just as Mrs Davies entered the room. ‘Come along, Becky. I’ve got so many messages that I need your strong little arms to help me carry them home.’

Becky shot a triumphant look at her mother. ‘Told you so,’ she said impudently, rushing across the room and snatching her coat off the peg on the back of the door. ‘If there’s so much shopping, Grandma Davies, why don’t we have us dinners at the Dining Rooms by Paddy’s Market? I do love to have me dinner out.’ She turned to her father. ‘Is there anything you want, Da? Would you like a few sweeties?’

Len made no reply and Becky ran over to the bed and gave his hand a pat. ‘I’ll get you some sweeties anyway,’ she promised. ‘Ta-ra Daddy.’

She went to pass Sylvie but her mother grabbed her by the shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. Sylvie knew that Becky’s pertness was not entirely the child’s fault; between Grandma Dugdale, Grandma Davies and herself, Becky was over-indulged to say the least, but Sylvie had decided that this behaviour must be nipped in the bud before it became a habit. Accordingly, she pulled Becky round until the child was facing her, and then said quietly: ‘You will go nowhere, Becky, until you have said you are sorry for speaking to me so rudely. And you certainly shan’t have your dinner out, for rude children get punishments, not treats.’

For a moment, Becky stared at her mother defiantly, then she flung both arms round Sylvie’s neck. ‘I’m sorry I were rude, Mummy,’ she muttered. ‘But it’s what Cousin Alfie said to his mammy when she telled him to fetch a sack o’ spuds from the greengrocer on Heyworth Street.’

‘Alfie’s a rude, naughty boy,’ Sylvie said, repressively. ‘Don’t copy him again. Now off with you, queen, or you won’t be home in time for your dinner.’

Sylvie waited until Becky and her mother had disappeared, then donned coat and hat and let herself out of the pub. She shoved her gloved hands into the pocket of her winter coat and decided that if she got the job she was about to apply for, she would buy new gloves and a smart hat with her very first wages. She had been unable to get work outside the pub since returning from Ireland, but a week previously there had been an advertisement in the
Echo
for a sales assistant in Lewis’s Hat and Glove department. Sylvie remembered how happy she had been when she had worked in Switzer’s and had told her mother-in-law, with an edge of defiance in her voice, that she meant to apply for the position. Mrs Dugdale was a good deal easier to deal with than she had been, but she had looked doubtfully at Sylvie. ‘But you work at the pub in the evenings, and you find that hard enough,’ she had pointed out reasonably. ‘And you work pretty hard during the day as well; we all do. I don’t deny it would be nice for you to get out of the old Ferryman now and again, but this ’un’s a full-time job . . .’ she had tapped the newspaper as she spoke, ‘which means eight till six, longer some nights.’ Her face had softened. ‘Why, you’d see almost nothing of Becky, and I know how you value your time with her, the little darling.’

‘I think perhaps I’ve been trying too hard with Becky,’ Sylvie had said slowly. ‘I’m beginning to believe that she’d appreciate me more if she didn’t see so much of me. She knows how desperately I need her love, especially since poor Len isn’t able to – to love anyone right now. So if I take a job away from the pub, I’ll just make sure I spend an hour with Becky before bed each evening. And you must admit, Ma Dugdale, that the money would come in useful.’

Mrs Dugdale had agreed, rather doubtfully, that this was so and Sylvie had answered the advertisement and been granted an interview this very morning. She knew she was looking her best. Her flaxen hair had been plaited and then coiled into a large bun, whilst the dark hat perched upon the top of her head was enlivened by a big chiffon scarf of palest blue wound around its crown. Her navy blue skirt and jacket had been brushed and pressed, and her dark winter coat, which matched her hat, looked smart enough to impress most people. All in all, Sylvie thought, if appearance and experience were all that were required, she really should get the job.