LITMIR.BIZ

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gone back to Ireland.’

      ‘Back to Ireland?’ Lucy echoed, her eyes widening in surprise. None of her sisters had heard that bit of news as far as she was aware. ‘What, for good?’

      ‘Dunno,’ Matilda replied. ‘Yesterday I went up to Smithie’s shop.’ She sent her daughter a sour smile. ‘See, I can do the trip on me own, if I have to. Anyhow, I bumped into Reg’s friend Vince. He looked a bit embarrassed; don’t know why ’cos I never had a habit of questioning him about Reg. So, he just come out with it and said Reg had caught the boat back a few weeks previous.’

      Lucy had met Vince a few times and thought him a weasely sort of fellow. ‘Perhaps he was just saying that, Mum, ’cos he felt awkward and wanted to nip off.’

      ‘Just said I never pestered him over Reg. Don’t matter anyway; let him stay in Ireland, for all I care. Seen him in his true colours now, ain’t I?’ Matilda pursed her lips. ‘Bleedin’ good job, weren’t it, we never did the “in sickness and in health” bit,’ she added bitterly.

      Despite Matilda’s bravado Lucy could tell her mother was getting upset talking about the man who’d abandoned her. She and her sisters, along with most of Campbell Road’s inhabitants, were aware that Reg ought to have been at home with their mother on the night their evil uncle had turned up with murderous intentions. Nobody really blamed Reg for allowing himself to be waylaid by a pal for a drink in a pub; but then nobody blamed Tilly either for being unrelentingly resentful that he had.

      That horrible night had been a catalogue of calamity for their family. On the very same night, their cousin, Robert Wild, Jimmy’s son, had been beaten up so badly by thugs that he’d nearly died. The disasters had been like toppling dominoes: one setting the other in motion. A shiver rippled through Lucy at the memory of the dreadful months that had followed when they’d feared Matilda and Robert might both die of their injuries.

      Determinedly, Lucy cheered herself up and, to impress on her mum that she was definitely not returning to Essex, she briskly dragged her case in from the landing. She left the trunk against the wall but plonked the shopping bag down on the table. ‘Here,brought us in a nice couple of currant buns so let’s get that kettle on.’

      ‘Those from Travis’s?’ Tilly grumpily interrogated. ‘You know I only like stuff from the Travis bakery.’

      ‘Yeah, Mum,’ Lucy mocked in a dreary tone that transformed in to a chuckle. Like her sisters, she was used to Tilly’s deliberately contrary ways. ‘They are from old man Travis. The dirty old git don’t change, do he? Still stares straight at me chest when he serves me.’

      Tilly opened the paper bag and her eyes lit up as a spicy scent wafted to her nostrils. It was a treat for her to have something fresh and tasty. To save herself the ordeal of a trip out, or the need to ask a neighbour for a favour, she ate little and made what she had last.

      Lucy picked up the kettle and gave it a shake to see if there was enough water in it for a pot of tea. She pulled out a chair for her mother to sink into, for she’d noticed Tilly had been holding on to the table edge to ease the weight off her legs. ‘Sit yourself down again, Mum, and I’ll make a brew. Have you got any jam to put in these buns?’

      Ten minutes later the tea was made and the buns split and spread with marge as Tilly hadn’t got any jam.

      ‘So when’s your interview?’ Tilly took a large bite out of the warm, aromatic bun. Any currants that escaped were picked from her plate and popped in her mouth.

      ‘Ten o’clock on Friday, Bloomsbury.’ Lucy brushed crumbs from her lips with her fingertips. ‘A Mrs Venner is the housekeeper and a Mrs Boyd is me senior. I’ll be seeing them both in Mrs Venner’s office. It’s a posh establishment, by the sound of things; belongs to a Lord and Lady Mortimer in Bedford Square.’ She raised her eyebrows, displaying pride at the prospect of working for the aristocracy. ‘Don’t suppose I’ll get to see much of them. The housekeeper and the lady’s maid’ll be me guvnors.’

      Tilly nodded sagely. ‘You turn up all nice and tidy with manners to match then, my gel, and the job’ll be yours.’

      Lucy grinned and delved into a pocket. She pulled out an envelope. ‘Should be mine, no trouble; if not, I’ll have Mrs Lovat’s hide.’ She playfully waved the envelope under her mother’s nose. ‘The housekeeper at me last job’s done me a lovely reference, don’t you know ...’

      Winnie Finch thrust her son’s coat at him. ‘Get that on and get yourself off or you’ll be late for school, Tom.’

      The boy grimaced as he gingerly stuck an arm in a sleeve. ‘Can I stay home today, Mum?’

      ‘No, you can’t. I’ve got me job to do, you know that.’ Winifred avoided Tom’s pleading eyes.

      ‘Can I stop home with Jenny?’

      ‘No, you can’t; she’s off out to find herself work.’ Winnie knew her son was still suffering from getting a belt off his father earlier in the week. Not that Eddie had intended to discipline Tom when he pounded up the stairs that night, face contorted in rage. Tom was his favourite and he rarely laid a finger on him.

      Jennifer, the brazen little cow, had been his target because she’d defied him and poked her nose in while Eddie had been doing a deal with Bill Black. Winnie knew her husband hated any of them to see or hear what was going on when his associates called round. If Eddie could, he’d arrange it so Bill always turned up at an appointed time, rather than whenever he felt like dropping by with a box of stuff or, as he had this time, a pocketful of gemstone rings.

      Winnie was aware too that the fact one of his daughters was turning into a little tart before she’d been out of school six months was less worrying to Eddie than knowing Jennifer had seen the jewellery. Jenny’s jaw had sagged open in the way Winnie imagined her own had done when she’d spotted those sparklers on the table. What she desperately wanted to know – and had tried hard to discover – was whether the lovely stuff was still in the house. Since that evening, Winnie had been through the kitchen with a fine-tooth comb and turned up nothing at all. She’d even accidentally dislodged a cupboard from the wall in her search and had made a very inexpert job of screwing it back in place. If the gems were in the house, and Winnie could find them, or Eddie’s stash of banknotes, she’d take herself and Tom off as fast as she could. The twins were old enough now to sort themselves out, in Winnie’s opinion.

      Katherine was a good, hardworking girl – she’d been doing her little job serving in the kiosk at the local flicks the evening Bill Black turned up – and Winnie would feel a twinge at leaving her behind. But Katherine had a good brain on her and Winnie was confident she would eventually get a nice full-time position in a factory. Katherine talked constantly of training to be a nurse and Winnie reckoned she had the right attitude to see it through. As for Jenny, Winnie feared if she didn’t change her ways, she’d be hanging around on street corners touting for business from the likes of Bill Black. But, brazen as she’d been that night, Jenny hadn’t deserved the beating Eddie had given her. Her daughter’s legs were still black and blue, despite the fact that the blankets she’d dived under had given her some protection from her father’s fury. If Katherine had been home she’d also have got a taste of Eddie’s brutality because she always stood up to him if he set about her sister.

      Jennifer’s howls had brought her brother running in from his bedroom and, though just six years old, Tom had jumped on his father’s back to try to protect her, and got a bash for his trouble.

      Winnie helped Tom on with his coat, uncomfortably aware her impatience to get him out of the house was making him wince. It had been her job to stop Eddie’s rampage that night, not her son’s. Jennifer had deserved chastisement. Besides, whenever her husband was in one of those moods, Winnie always paid later ... in bed, and on that particular evening she hadn’t seen why she should have to put up with the bastard setting about her twice.

      ‘There’s an advertisement for an assistant in the Dobson’s shop window,’ Winnie barked at Jennifer, who was descending the stairs,

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