The Price of Love (20 page)

She often wondered whether she should mention his unpleasant behaviour to his wife, but Madge Black was always so hostile towards her that she didn’t think it would do a lot of good.

It was the middle of August before Sam was fit enough to be discharged from hospital. He had lost quite a lot of weight and he looked far from well. His threadbare jacket hung from his shoulders as if it was suspended on a hanger and his grey trousers flapped against his thin legs as he walked.

A crowd of curious neighbours gathered in Horatio Street as the taxicab bringing them home from the hospital drew up. Several people called out to ask what was going on as Sam, leaning heavily on Lucy’s arm for support, was helped out of the taxi.

Hearing the commotion, Madge Black came to the front door and stood there, arms akimbo, and, for one minute, Lucy thought she wasn’t going to let them in.

‘What’s all this about, then?’ she asked aggressively. ‘He’s not had a skinful, has he?’

‘No, Mrs Black, my brother isn’t drunk; I’m bringing him home from hospital.’

Madge Black’s mouth tightened and she made no move to stand to one side so that they could enter. ‘Been in a fight and got himself beaten up, has he?’ she questioned.

‘No, of course he hasn’t.’

‘My Joe told you when we moved in here that we didn’t like having people who cause trouble living in the house.’

‘My brother’s hardly trouble. And he’s not likely to spread a broken arm and a lacerated face to anyone, now is he?’ Lucy retorted sharply. ‘Furthermore, he wouldn’t be in this state if it wasn’t for those two young hooligans who live in Hans Court who pushed him into the roadway.’

Madge Black’s mouth dropped open. ‘Gerraway! Are you talking about young Tommy and Billy Sparks?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Lucy told her.

‘Well, they’re friends of ours and this is the first I’ve heard that they had anything to do with what happened at the Orange Day parade,’ Madge Black commented, her eyes narrowing.

‘I’m quite sure you know all about it,’ Lucy stated, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘There was a full account in the
Echo
. Now, if you’ll let us pass, I’d like to take my brother up to our rooms so that he can have a rest.’

Although she put a brave face on things and tried to remain calm, inwardly Lucy was trembling as she heard the babble of comments that broke out all around them.

Some of the people were condemning the action of the two boys; others were siding with Madge Black about sick people spreading their illnesses.

‘If your brother isn’t well enough to stand on his own two feet, then he should still be in hospital,’ someone stated.

‘Made a right mess of his face; have a job finding anyone to take him on when he looks like that.’

‘He hasn’t got much to say for himself,’ one woman commented. ‘If you ask me, he’s got more bum than brains.’

‘No, he’s right enough in the head even though he’s a cripple; the trouble is, he’s uppity, the same as she is,’ Madge Black pronounced. ‘They think themselves too good for round here. Don’t know why they came to live here in the first place, not unless they’re running away from the rozzers.’

Sam said nothing but Lucy could feel him shaking as he clung to her arm and she wasn’t sure whether it was from weakness or anger because of what was being said about them both.

Determinedly she pushed past Madge Black and, ignoring the many remarks called out after them, helped Sam down the narrow passage and up the stairs.

The window of their living room overlooked the street outside and for a good half-hour afterwards a bunch of women were gathered there. Lucy could hear them talking volubly either to each other or to Madge Black who was still out on the doorstep, but Lucy shut her ears to their carping comments.

In the days that followed Sam was so weak and despondent that Lucy was concerned about leaving him on his own for very long. If only they could turn the clock back to when they were still living in Priory Terrace, she thought over and over again. In those days she could have asked one or other of the neighbours to pop in and keep an eye on him while she was out at work.

Even there, she reflected, things had changed. In the old days Robert’s mother or even Patsy’s mother, June, would have been willing to come in and make him a cup of tea and then stay for few minutes to have a chat and make sure he was all right.

There was no one in Horatio Street whom she could ask to do that, not even Madge Black. Perhaps she should have tried to make friends when they’d first arrived with some of the others who had rooms in the same house or even people living in the street instead of avoiding them. It was the same at Hans Court – they just didn’t fit in.

Sam needed so much attention that Lucy found it was impossible to cope with both her jobs. There wasn’t time after her office cleaning job finished to come home and make Sam a hot drink because she now went straight to the hotel kitchen to prepare the vegetables each day before she started the washing-up.

When Lucy explained her predicament to Martha West, the woman in charge of the kitchen, and asked if she could go back to simply coming at midday to do the washing-up, she was most indignant.

‘I’m not going to be messed about like that,’ she stated. ‘If you can’t do both then there are plenty of other girls who can.’

Lucy tried to protest but Martha West wasn’t interested and at the end of the week Lucy found herself dismissed.

Reduced to only the money from her office cleaning Lucy found that she was dipping into their precious savings; the money they had both worked so hard to put aside so that they could move out of Horatio Street.

She didn’t tell Sam but pretended that she was managing well enough and that it had been her decision to give up the hotel job so that she could spend more time with him.

He was so weak that she had insisted that he must be the one to sleep in the larger bedroom while she made do with the pokey little box room.

The room was so stuffy that she didn’t find it easy to sleep and, night after night, she lay there wondering what she could do to make things better for them both.

Sam didn’t seem to be improving in any way at all. He was still pitifully thin and there were black shadows under his eyes. He looked as though he’d had no sleep for weeks yet he spent the greater part of the day in bed with his eyes closed.

When she did manage to persuade him to get up, have a wash and shave and come through into the living room, he was so listless and depressed that she was seriously worried about him.

He hadn’t been outside the house since he’d come home and he never even mentioned going back to work. He blamed himself for all the bad luck they’d had and he even went as far as to say that it would have been far better if he had never recovered after the accident with the marchers.

When she tried to make light of his remarks, telling him that he’d have more energy once the weather was cooler, he said he would never feel better. He was sure that there was something terribly wrong with him and he wished he was dead.

Lucy refused to listen to such talk but, as she saw him growing weaker every day, she began to feel almost as depressed as he did. Constantly she blamed herself for not listening to his advice after their parents had been killed. She had ignored his suggestions because of her own pride. Now, she could see how very wrong she’d been and wished there was some way she could put matters right.

Two weeks later, early in September, when she came home from her office cleaning, Madge Black intercepted her as she was about to go upstairs.

‘There’s been a well-dressed bloke here today asking after you. He looked like a debt collector; are you in some sort of scrape?’ she asked inquisitively.

‘No, I most certainly am not,’ Lucy told her flatly.

‘There’s no need to be so hoity-toity,’ Madge Black sniffed. ‘Anyway, he’s coming back later on today. He looked too well dressed to be your fancy man,’ she added as she turned to go back into her own part of the house.

Her cheeks flaming, Lucy went on upstairs without answering. She had no idea at all who it could be and she racked her brains to see if there was any debt outstanding that she had overlooked but she was pretty sure there wasn’t, not unless it had something to do with Priory Terrace and she felt sure that had been forgotten.

Lucy was clearing away the remains of their midday meal when there was a rap on the door and she heard Madge Black shout, ‘Keep on knocking, I know she’s in there.’

‘Robert!’ Lucy gave a gasp of amazement when she opened the door and saw who was standing there. He was wearing a lightweight grey suit and he looked so smart that she could understand why Mrs Black had thought he might be a debt collector.

Her hand went up to smooth down her hair and she was conscious of how bedraggled she must look because she was still wearing her oldest skirt and blouse which she always put on in the morning when she went out to her cleaning job. The look on Robert’s face as he looked around their room registered his surprise at what they had been reduced to and she felt uncomfortable.

‘Hello, Lucy. May I come in?’

‘Yes, of course.’ His warm smile made her heart beat faster. She opened the door wider and at the same time, to hide her nervousness, called out, ‘Sam, you’ll never guess who’s come to see us.’

Sam didn’t even bother to reply; he simply glanced towards the door and, when he saw who it was, he looked away again as if not interested.

‘Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea, Robert?’ Lucy asked quickly, in an attempt to cover up the uncomfortable moment caused by Sam’s hostility. She wished now that she had told Sam that she had met Robert at the hospital, but as she hadn’t seen Robert again, she’d thought it was pointless to do so, especially as Sam was so ill.

‘No, not really.’ Robert removed his cap and twisted it awkwardly in his hands.

‘Do sit down. You may as well have that cuppa as it’s freshly made because we were just going to have one.’

He nodded and did as she asked. He was obviously as much on edge as they were and Lucy hoped the tea might help to put them all at their ease.

‘How are things now? Is Anna quite well again?’

‘Her leg has healed but otherwise things are pretty much the same as when I spoke to you at the hospital,’ he murmured as Lucy put the cup on the table in front of him. ‘That’s why I’m here, really; there’s something I want to ask you.’

‘Well, I might have known that you hadn’t come here to ask us how we were getting on,’ Sam muttered.

‘How did you know where we were living?’ Lucy asked, ignoring her brother’s comments.

‘It wasn’t easy.’ He smiled. ‘They wouldn’t give me your address at the hospital so I checked up at the
Echo
about what happened to Sam. I managed to speak to the chap who’d reported the incident and to persuade him to tell me where you were living,’ Robert told her.

‘Bloody well taken you long enough to come; that all happened a couple of months ago,’ Sam stated.

Robert didn’t answer; he took a mouthful of tea and was silent for such a long time that Lucy became both impatient and uneasy because she suspected what it was that he wanted to ask her.

Sam, too, sensed the tension. ‘Come on, then; spit it out, let’s hear what it is you have to say that is so important that you’ve taken the trouble to find us after all this time.’

Robert took a deep breath. ‘I’ve already mentioned to Lucy the problem I’m having looking after Anna. I saw her the day you were admitted to hospital, Sam. Perhaps I should explain,’ Robert said awkwardly. ‘You knew Patsy was expecting—’

‘Too bloody true I did,’ Sam cut in. ‘You pinched my girlfriend and now I suppose you’ve come to tell us that you want us to be bloody godparents to your kid.’

‘It’s a little girl and she’s called Anna,’ Lucy told Sam quickly. ‘She was born several months after we left Priory Terrace, but Patsy died in childbirth.’

Instinctively, Lucy rose and went over and put an arm round Sam then drew back as he roughly shook her hand away.

‘Is that all you wanted to tell us?’ Sam demanded.

‘No. It’s not everything,’ Robert said in a low voice. He looked directly at Lucy, ‘Can we go somewhere private to talk? I think I’m upsetting Sam.’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ Sam said in a bitter voice. ‘You didn’t do so when you stole my girlfriend from me while I was lying ill in hospital, so why consider my feelings now?’

‘Look, Sam, I’m sorry about what happened; I know how cut up you must feel, but I’ve really come to talk to Lucy and to ask her to do me a favour, not to start a row with you.’

‘Ask Lucy to do you a favour? You’ve got a bloody nerve. You jilted my sister and now you come here asking her to do you a favour! Who the hell do you think you are?’

Lucy waved both her hands between the two of them. ‘Shush!’ she ordered her brother. ‘I bumped into Robert when you were in hospital. He was visiting Anna who had a broken leg and he told me then about the hard time he was having bringing her up. The woman who moved into our old house was looking after her while he was at work but she has children of her own and it seems they play rather roughly with Anna. Now, can we listen to what Robert has to say?’

‘It is about Anna,’ Robert agreed. ‘I asked you then if you could look after her for me; help me to bring her up. Now I’m not simply asking you but begging you to consider doing so, Lucy.’

Sam stared at him for a moment in stunned silence. ‘Can’t your mother or Patsy’s mother do that?’ he asked in a strained voice.

‘Lucy obviously hasn’t told you that my mother is dead. She died before Christmas from consumption.’

‘Surely, though, Patsy’s mother—’

‘June Tanner was so upset when Patsy died that she wouldn’t have anything at all to do with the baby. Patsy’s father was pretty cut up about it as well; she was their only child. In the end they decided to move right away from Liverpool to try and make a fresh start and forget all about what had happened. They were adamant that they didn’t want anything at all to do with Anna.’

‘That’s so unnatural,’ Lucy protested sadly. ‘They’re her grandparents.’

‘I know, I was counting on their help but that’s the way it is,’ Robert said grimly. ‘I don’t want to put Anna up for adoption but I can’t raise her on my own.’