Little Girl Lost (4 page)

‘Oh yes, they’ll believe it. They know I’m desperate for a home of my own, and of course Len hasn’t been earning while he’s been clapped up,’ Sylvie said. ‘And even Len was getting sick and tired of living under his parents’ roof. The only thing is, it would be dreadfully hard to leave Becky – though I suppose it wouldn’t be for very long, really. But won’t your cousin mind, Brendan?’

Brendan patted her shoulder reassuringly. ‘She’s a grand girl is Caitlin O’Keefe, and I’m sure she’ll be happy to get you out of trouble once I’ve explained everything to her. And if you can’t get a job over there, then I’ll send you enough money to keep you going until the baby’s born,’ he said. ‘Caitlin’s married to a feller called Pat. They’ve a grosh of kids and live in a couple of rooms off Francis Street, in a place called Handkerchief Alley, but Caitlin’s got a heart as big as a bus and we’ve always been good friends. I’ll write and ask her if she’ll take you in and I’m sure she’ll do her best to help you, particularly if in return you give a hand wit’ the kids and the cleanin’ an’ such.’

Sylvie clasped her hands round his arm and then, to his great astonishment, stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve all the help you’re givin’ me,’ she said humbly. ‘But I thank you from the bottom of my heart.’ She glanced down at herself. ‘How long will it be before Caitlin’s reply to your letter arrives, do you think?’

‘Well, I’ll do me best,’ Brendan said. ‘But if all goes according to plan, I’d hope to get you off to Ireland in two or three weeks.’ He took her arm and began to lead her towards the Ferryman. ‘If someone happens to have seen us together, just tell ’em the scuffer were a bit doubtful as to why you were on the streets so late at night and insisted on accompanying you home.’

‘But you aren’t in your uniform,’ Sylvie objected. ‘Anyway, nobody will be awake, not at this hour. Ma- and Pa-in-law sleep in the big double bedroom overlookin’ the main road, but Bertie will have put the back-door key on the nail above the lintel when he left. He keeps the lock oiled so I can get in without a sound and be in my bed five minutes after that. Becky won’t wake; she sleeps like a log, the little darling. She shares my room, of course, but she hardly ever wakes me. Ma-in-law will have put her to bed at around seven o’clock; I work evenings, cleaning in Lewis’s on Ranelagh Street when the store closes, and I often go on to Annie’s after that, so they won’t have wondered where I am.’

‘Oh, I didn’t realise you worked away from home. That’ll make things a good deal easier,’ Brendan said. ‘What time do you finish your cleaning job? I could meet you at the back entrance of Lewis’s if I were off duty.’

Sylvie tilted her head in thought. ‘I’m usually done between nine and ten,’ she said. ‘It would be grand if you could meet me out of work; why, you could walk me home and we could talk – then it would be you that Len tore limb from limb!’ She gave his hand a quick squeeze to show that she was joking. ‘It’s ever so good of you, Brendan. I do Monday to Friday at the store.’

Brendan took her elbow and steered her round to the back of the pub, lowering his voice to a confidential murmur. ‘Is that the back gate? Yes, I reckon it must be; don’t they lock it at night?’

‘No, because the dustmen come early, sometimes before anyone’s up,’ Sylvie said, raising the latch and slipping into the cobbled courtyard beyond. She dropped her voice to a murmur so low that Brendan had difficulty in catching her words. ‘There’s no need to come any further and you’ve a fair walk home. See you tomorrow!’

Brendan, however, accompanied her to the door and reached up to the lintel to hand her the key from where it hung on its nail. ‘I don’t know how you would have fetched it down if I hadn’t been here,’ he remonstrated. ‘You’re not tall enough to reach the lintel, let alone the key.’

In the tricky moonlight, he saw her lips curve into a mischievous smile. ‘See that bucket?’ she whispered. ‘Bertie always leaves it there, upside down, so all I have to do is step on to it real carefully and fetch the key down in a trice. Now you know all my secrets . . . and there’s no one I’d rather trust than yourself.’

Brendan was about to bashfully disclaim when she took the key from him and turned it in the lock. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek before opening the door and slipping inside, closing it softly behind her.

For a moment, Brendan just stood there as the key clicked in the lock, listening to the soft patter of her receding footsteps. Then he walked slowly and cautiously across the back yard, let himself out of the gate, and stood in the jigger leaning his broad shoulders against the tall brick wall. After a moment, his hand stole up and touched his cheek. He had been kissed by other girls, but he had never before felt the giddying, wonderful feeling that had swept over him as Sylvie’s mouth had gently touched his skin for the second time. Am I in love, he asked himself, with a girl I scarcely know who’s married to a feller with a deal more money than I’m ever likely to have? Yet I’ve been brought up to believe that marriage is for better for worse, for richer for poorer, and that divorce is a real sin. I’d never be able to call Sylvie mine.

It was not a bright or hopeful picture that Brendan painted as he strode through the dark streets towards his lodgings, so it was strange that he smiled blissfully as he walked, and was still smiling when he climbed into his bed at last.

In her own bed, Sylvie smiled, too. She liked that young constable, really liked him. He was good-looking, of course, and very tall, with the typical Irish dark blue eyes and black hair, curly as a lamb’s fleece. But she told herself that this was not why she liked him. He was reliable, sensible and very much on her side. She loved Annie dearly but it had not been her sister who had been able to suggest a solution to her problem, but the young constable. He was going to try to arrange a temporary home for her, with his cousin in Dublin, until the child within her was born.

He had saved her life, of course, and she was grateful on that count, but she reminded herself that had he not loomed so suddenly out of the driving rain she would never have tripped over the bollard and landed in the water. Not that it was his fault; she had been too full of her own troubles to watch where she was going.

He was so sympathetic, too. She could still remember the way his eyes softened when she told him of her troubles; remembered, too, how those same eyes had hardened when she spoke of her broken ribs, her crushed and blackened toes.

Snuggling down beneath her blankets, Sylvie thought, rather guiltily, that she had not been strictly truthful about those broken ribs. The blow which had done the damage had been aimed at a young man who had had one drink too many; he had seen Sylvie coming into the bar one night to collect empty glasses and had grabbed for her, making a very rude remark as he did so. He had not known she was Len’s wife, of course, but unfortunately he had turned away at the crucial moment, making an even ruder remark, and Len’s heavy fist had already been travelling far too fast to stop. She had dropped like a stone, gasping for breath, crying out to Len that he had killed her, which at least had saved the customer from the well-deserved battering he might otherwise have received. It had been her first intimation that Len could be violent, however, and she had been frightened by the murderous look on his face as he had crossed the bar. But Len had assured her that he was truly sorry for hurting her, had taken her to the nearest hospital explaining, more or less truthfully, that she had accidentally intervened in a ‘bit of bother’, and had been hurt by sheer bad luck. A doctor had strapped up her ribs and Len had treated her like a princess for weeks.

However, she had told him that he should never hit a man foolish with drink and endeavoured to make him promise to think before flying into a rage again. He had said, humbly, that he would try to do so, but even then she had doubted his ability to control his temper and had been anxious that his anger should never be directed at her.

‘I know it were an accident, but next time it might be me chin, or me eyes,’ she had said aggrievedly as they lay in bed that night, for the strapping tugged at her injured ribs and even breathing was a painful business. ‘You’ll have to watch that temper of yours, Len Dugdale, or you’ll find yourself in real trouble.’

‘But I can’t bear to see another feller reachin’ for you,’ Len had mumbled. ‘You’re so pretty that every man who looks at you must want you like I do. I know you’d never have married me if it weren’t for Becky comin’ so of course I’m scared all the time that you might meet someone you liked better’n me.’

Sylvie had sighed. ‘I shan’t, because I’ve got you, and Becky, and a nice home,’ she said diplomatically. ‘Besides, I married you, didn’t I? So I’m not likely to look at another feller in – in that sort of way. Why, whatever would Father O’Reilly say?’

Len had given a relieved sigh and laid a heavy arm across her shoulders. ‘I’ll try to remember that, ’cos I know you’re a good girl, and won’t play me false,’ he had said. ‘I know I ain’t handsome, nor I ain’t clever, but I’m crazy about you, little Sylvie.’

Sylvie, with her ribs still tweaking whenever she moved, had decided that in future she would stay behind the counter and let someone else collect the dirty glasses from the bar, and tried to dismiss the incident from her mind. It was not as though she had ever given him any cause for jealousy; she supposed that some men were jealous by nature and the women who married them had to be aware of the fact.

The affair of the crushed toes was a case in point. Len had been painting the window frames on the outside of the pub one Saturday afternoon and she had been holding the ladder when a passing workman had wolf-whistled, following it up with a shout of: ‘Wish you would hold my ladder, queen.’

Sylvie had turned her head, the way one does when one is addressed, and had heard from above her a growl of rage which many a tiger would have envied. Len had leapt down from the ladder intent, she realised, on mayhem, and his heavy boots had landed crushingly on Sylvie’s sandalled feet and knocked her flying. Sylvie had shrieked – two of her toes had later proved to be broken – and the ladder, relieved so suddenly of Len’s weight, had also descended on her. The workman, though hampered by two heavy buckets full of whitewash, had made off down the road with amazing speed, the whitewash sloshing out of the buckets as he went and making curious patterns all along the flagway. Len would undoubtedly have followed him and wreaked revenge, but he could scarcely do so with his wife lying moaning on the pavement, a ladder on top of her and green paint everywhere. Instead, he had dragged her clear of the ladder and apologised anxiously, adding bracingly: ‘But you ain’t much hurt, I can tell; you’ve a good healthy colour. C’mon, let me help you indoors an’ make you a nice cup o’ tea.’

Sylvie had been absolutely furious. Her head ached from the blow the ladder had given it, her crushed toes were sheer agony and here was her great oafish husband telling her that there was nothing wrong with her. And when she had tried to stand, she was unable to do so. ‘My . . . my feet . . . you landed on my feet,’ she had gasped. ‘Sometimes I really hate you, Len Dugdale.’

He had been sorry then, had picked her up in his arms, and carried her tenderly into his mother’s kitchen. But on this occasion he had refused to take her to the hospital. ‘I dursn’t show me face there again, not after last time,’ he had mumbled, looking appealingly at his mother. ‘Send Bertie to Dr Hislop. He’ll come round if you give Bertie half a crown so he’s got the money in advance.’

The doctor had arrived, examined the bump on her head and the state of her toes, and accepted without so much as a blink the explanation that the ladder had slipped and both Len and ladder had descended on poor Mrs Dugdale. Indeed, why should he not? The pavement outside was covered in green paint, the walls were splashed with it, and both Sylvie and Len bore traces on their skin, hair and clothes of their recent encounter with green hard gloss. It had taken several hours of careful work with turpentine before the two of them were clean once more, and all Sylvie’s clothing had been ruined and had to be thrown in the dustbin.

The doctor had said he thought two of Sylvie’s toes were broken, but because they were so badly mangled he could do little about it. He had bandaged her feet lightly and had told the Dugdales, rather grimly, that young Mrs Dugdale must not attempt to walk for at least four weeks, and possibly six. Then he had promised to come in again next day and had left, advising Len to get to work on the pavement before folk walked through and spread the paint even further.

Now, smiling at the recollection, Sylvie told herself that she had not really deceived the young constable. Both accidents had been occasioned by Len’s jealousy, and there had been other incidents, less dramatic, but just as painful for her. Once, at a family party, a cousin of Len’s had given Sylvie a peck on the cheek during a game of Forfeits. Because he was a cousin, and there were a great many people present, Len had said nothing. She had forgotten all about it until they were in their own room that night, when he had suddenly seized her by both shoulders and shaken her till her teeth rattled. ‘Don’t you ever let a feller kiss you again,’ he had said menacingly. ‘Because next time it won’t be just a shaking you’ll get, it’ll be a black eye. Then see if the fellers want to touch you!’

She had flared up, of course she had, pointing out that it was scarcely her fault that his wretched cousin had seen fit to kiss her cheek – if you could call it a kiss, that was. ‘And if you start hitting me, Len Dugdale, you’ll wake up one morning and find me an’ Becky gone,’ she had said. ‘How would you like that, eh?’

He had mumbled what she now realised was his usual defence when attacked. ‘It weren’t my fault; I only gave you a shake because I love you. I telled you before I wouldn’t have other fellers payin’ attention to my wife. Ma and Pa always said you was flighty, but I didn’t believe ’em – still don’t, only it’s in me mind that they could be right . . .’