by Rosie Harris
‘What happens if you don’t go back to your ship?’ Sam enquired.
‘I’ll certainly be in trouble. I might get fined and, at the very least, I will be dismissed and won’t be able to work for the same shipping company ever again.’
‘Surely you don’t want to take the risk of that happening?’ Lucy said worriedly.
‘The way things are, I certainly don’t. Once you’re out of work then the chances of getting signed on again is not good, especially if you have a bad record. You have to produce a reference from your last captain so there’s no chance of them not finding out.’
‘In that case, then, you don’t have any option but to rejoin your ship,’ Sam told him. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll do what we can for your mam; she’s been very good to us so we’ll take care of her one way or the other. There’s no need for you to be concerned.’
Chapter Fifteen
As soon as she finished work the next morning Lucy went straight over to Birkenhead to find out what news there was of Berky. As she was entering the hospital she met Barry coming out.
‘How is Berky?’ she asked anxiously.
‘The news isn’t good,’ he said worriedly. ‘Getting wet and cold has added to her problems; she has some sort of chest infection as well as her broken leg.’
‘Did they let you see her?’
‘No, and there’s not much point in you going in because they said she had been taken into the theatre to have her leg attended to and won’t be out of the anaesthetic for several hours. They said to come back later but I won’t be able to do that because my ship sails in just over an hour.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll come this evening and see her then, if they’ll let me,’ Lucy promised.
‘That would be good,’ Barry said gratefully. ‘By the way, they won’t tell you anything about how she is unless you are a relation so, since I won’t be here, I’ve given your name to them as my mam’s next of kin. I hope you don’t mind,’ he added quickly as he saw Lucy frown.
‘No, I suppose that’s all right, but what relation am I supposed to be to your mother?’ Lucy asked.
‘I’ve told them that your name is Lucy Mason and that you’re my wife and you’ll be acting for me while I’m away at sea.’
‘What on earth made you do that?’ Lucy exclaimed in dismay, her face reddening.
‘It was the only way I could think of to make sure that they would tell you everything there was to know about my mam’s condition.’
‘What happens if they find out the truth, that I’m not even related to her?’
‘They won’t,’ he assured her confidently.
‘Your mam might tell them, or have you told her as well?’
‘I haven’t had the chance, have I? I told you they wouldn’t let me see her.’
‘She might think I’ve told them and she might be quite angry about it,’ Lucy said worriedly, her dark eyes full of concern.
‘Rubbish! She’ll be delighted,’ he laughed.
‘Well, I’m not. I don’t like telling lies and that’s a whopper,’ Lucy told him firmly.
Barry sighed and looked at his watch. ‘I was doing it for Berky’s sake. I can’t stop to discuss it or they’ll sail without me. We’ll sort it all out as soon as I get home again.’
‘You haven’t told her and you are expecting me to do it, is that right?’
Barry kissed her lightly on the cheek, ‘Thanks, Lucy, I knew I could depend on you. Don’t worry about it; I’m sure my mam won’t be upset by what I’ve said.’
‘Well, that’s something we won’t know until I tell her,’ Lucy said disapprovingly.
‘Please look after her, Lucy; I’m depending on you.’
With another quick hug and a kiss on her brow, Barry had gone, leaving her standing there wondering what on earth she was letting herself in for and extremely annoyed with Barry for claiming that they were married even if it was the only way of making sure she would be allowed to see his mother.
It niggled away in the back of her mind for the rest of the day. She was on the point of mentioning it to the woman who was in charge at the hotel kitchen to see what she thought but then she decided that perhaps it was better not to do so, but she couldn’t help feeling concerned about all the implications involved.
Later that evening when they sat down to eat and she told Sam what Barry had done, he didn’t seem very interested.
‘I don’t understand what you are getting so worked up about,’ he said as he loaded his fork with mashed potato and gravy.
‘If someone at the hospital refers to me as Barry’s wife, then Berky might believe it is true.’
‘Does that matter?’
Lucy laid down her knife and fork. ‘Of course it does. She’s always dropping hints about looking forward to Barry being married and pushing the two of us together.’
Sam shrugged non-committally and went on with his meal.
‘Don’t simply dismiss it, Sam,’ Lucy said, her voice laced with annoyance, ‘tell me what I ought to do.’
‘Not much you can do, is there?’ Sam said laconically. ‘Anyway, why all the fuss? What does it matter?’
‘It matters to me,’ Lucy told him hotly. ‘Even though Berky must know it’s not true, she’s bound to think that there’s something going on between us.’
‘And isn’t there?’ Sam teased.
‘I like Barry but only as a friend,’ Lucy emphasised, ‘and telling Berky that would probably upset her a great deal.’
‘Then don’t tell her. Let her think that one day you are going to marry Barry.’
‘But I’m not!’
‘All right, but don’t shout.’ Sam grinned, putting his hands over his ears.
‘Then don’t start surmising that one day I might marry Barry Mason,’ Lucy said, her mouth a tight line.
‘How can you say that for certain? You like him a great deal so if he asks you to marry him, why don’t you?’
Lucy didn’t answer. She gave her full attention to the food in front of her.
‘You’re not still carrying a candle for Robert, surely to heavens,’ Sam exploded. ‘He jilted you and double-crossed me with my girlfriend while I was too ill to do anything about it.’
He shoved his chair back so violently that it went crashing to the floor. ‘I’ll never understand women,’ he said scathingly as he picked it up and pushed it under the table.
‘You had that Percy Carter mooning after you for years. He’d have jumped at the chance of marrying you and look at the life you would have had then. You walked away from him and a good home to live in squalor until we came here. Now you are turning down Barry, a chap with a regular job who worships the ground you walk on, and whose mother has you up on a pedestal. What is it you want, Lucy? What sort of man is ever going to meet your expectations?’
Lucy sat stunned as he walked out of the room. She felt as if she was seeing herself in a new light and it utterly confused her. She knew Sam hadn’t wanted to move away from Priory Terrace but she’d had no idea he felt so strongly about it all. It was almost as if he was blaming her for all that had gone wrong.
Perhaps in some ways he was right and she had done the wrong thing, but would marrying Percy Carter or any man she didn’t love put matters right, or would it also end in tears?
When Lucy and Sam went over to the hospital later that evening they were told that Berky was still extremely ill and could not have any visitors, except close relations.
‘We are close relations,’ Sam stated, ‘surely we can have a few minutes with her?’
‘Wait here and I’ll check with the sister in charge,’ the receptionist told them.
When she came back she said they could visit but only for ten minutes.
‘Who are you, exactly?’ the sister asked when they entered the ward. ‘Are you her son?’
‘No,’ Sam admitted, ‘but my sister is her daughter-in-law. I’ve come with her because Mrs Mason’s son is away at sea.’
‘Very well,
then, you can go in for ten minutes,’ she said looking at Lucy, ‘but I’m afraid you won’t be able to,’ she said turning to Sam, ‘so please wait outside in the corridor.’
Lucy felt her heart pounding as she approached the screened-off bed. Berky was propped up against a mountain of pillows and she looked very pale and was having great trouble breathing.
Her eyes flickered open when the sister spoke to her. ‘Your daughter-in-law is here to see you, Mrs Mason.’
‘What? I haven’t got a daughter-in-law,’ Berky croaked in a puzzled voice. ‘My son Barry’s not married; it’s him that I want to see,’ she added in a pitiful whisper.
‘She must have forgotten,’ Lucy said quickly and managed a trembling smile when the sister looked at her questioningly.
Before the sister could intervene she picked up one of Berky’s hands and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘It’s Lucy,’ she said softly, bending down and kissing Berky on the brow.
The older woman’s face lit up. ‘Lucy, my luv, where’s Barry? What’s happened to me, what am I doing here in this bed? Take me home with you.’
‘You had a fall while we were coming down Bidston Hill,’ Lucy reminded her. ‘You’ve hurt your leg and you are in hospital.’
‘My leg? No, it’s my chest that hurts. Terrible pain when I breathe. Tell Barry to come and take me home.’
‘Barry has had to rejoin his ship,’ Lucy told her gently. ‘I’m afraid you will have to stay here until you’re better. I’ll take you home as soon as you are well enough.’
Berky sighed resignedly and closed her eyes.
‘I think that is enough for today,’ the sister said quietly, moving Lucy away from the bed. ‘She needs to rest now. You might be able to stay longer tomorrow if she is feeling a little better,’ she added in a reassuring voice.
‘It’s Barry she wants to see,’ Lucy told Sam as they made their way back to the landing stage for the ferry boat that would take them back to Liverpool. ‘I wonder if we can get a message to him through the shipping company?’
‘We can try; he won’t have gone far since they only sailed yesterday; perhaps they have some way of getting him home again.’
‘He won’t be able to do anything until they reach a port and then even if they do let him come back, he’ll have to wait until there’s a boat sailing to Liverpool.’
‘Not necessarily. Any boat that is coming to England would do. He can always take a train from whichever port he disembarks at back to here.’
The shipping company were quite cooperative when Lucy called in the next morning after she’d finished work and they promised to send a message by telegraph. ‘It will be there waiting when they dock at Amsterdam tomorrow,’ the clerk promised. ‘I’ll send a message to the captain explaining matters and he will inform seaman Mason.’
‘Will they allow him to come home?’ Lucy asked anxiously.
‘Since his mother is so desperately ill I am sure they will. If you’d like to come back about this time tomorrow I should have an answer for you. That’s unless he has already turned up on your doorstep,’ he added with a smile.
‘We’ve done all we can,’ Sam commented as they went home. ‘It’s a pity Barry didn’t ask for extended leave, but I don’t suppose he thought his mother was as ill as she is.’
‘It seems to be her chest and not her leg that is the main cause for concern,’ Lucy mused. ‘All we can do now is wait and hope that perhaps Barry is back in time to visit her tomorrow.’
‘That’s hardly likely if the ship doesn’t reach Amsterdam until tomorrow.’
‘I suppose not. I was thinking what that clerk said about his turning up.’
‘He was trying to cheer you up,’ Sam told her. ‘We’ll go back tomorrow like he said and see if he has any news. If we know that Barry is definitely on his way home, we can tell Berky when we go to see her tomorrow night and that will delight her.’
Knowing they were both too worried to sleep they sat up late debating what they ought to do about Berky’s rooms until she came home.
‘Locking the doors and leaving them as they are is probably the best thing,’ Sam stated.
‘Yes, I know that, but it was more about her duties here as landlady that I was thinking about,’ Lucy told him. ‘Apparently Berky collected the rents each week on behalf of the landlord and I don’t even know who he is, do you?’
‘No.’ Sam shook his head. ‘I never gave it a thought. She seemed to decide what we all paid and she made sure she collected the money on time. The sooner Barry gets back and sorts such things out the better.’
‘That’s if he knows the ins and outs of it all,’ Lucy said worriedly.
‘Well, if he doesn’t, I’m sure the landlord will soon turn up if he doesn’t receive his money and then we can tell him what’s happened to Berky.’
‘Do you think we should tell the other people who live here?’
‘I don’t know; I’ve not had much to do with any of them. I’ve passed the time of day when I’ve met them as I was coming in or going out but that’s all.’
‘Probably we should leave it until Barry comes home and let him handle all those sorts of things,’ Lucy agreed.
It was almost midnight when they heard the sharp thud on the front door. They looked at each other questioningly.
‘Could it be Barry?’ Lucy asked.
Sam shook his head. ‘He’d never manage to get home this quickly.’
‘Shall we ignore it?’
‘No, it might be important, I’ll go and see who it is,’ Sam said, rising from his chair.
‘Be careful,’ Lucy warned as she followed him into the hall.
When Sam opened the door Lucy felt apprehensive when she saw two policemen standing there.
‘Does Mrs Mason live here?’ one of them asked.
‘Mrs Mason is in hospital,’ Sam told him.
‘I mean Mrs Lucy Mason.’
Lucy gasped and retreated quickly back into their room. They must have found out that she’d been lying and impersonating Berky’s daughter-in-law, she thought in alarm. She felt scared; surely, though, they couldn’t arrest her for doing that, she told herself.
‘I think you’d better come in and tell us what this is about,’ she heard Sam say. ‘Come through here,’ he invited, leading them into their living room.
‘Are you Mrs Brenda Mason’s daughter-in-law?’ one of them asked looking at Lucy.
She stared at them unable to answer and looked at Sam hoping he would take over.
‘You have some news about Mrs Mason for us?’ Sam asked.
‘Are you Barry Mason?’
‘No, I’m Sam Collins and this is my sister,’ Sam told them, putting an arm around Lucy’s shoulders. ‘Barry is at sea but we have sent a message through the shipping line for him to come home because his mother is so ill. As a matter of fact, we thought that was who it was knocking on the door.’
‘I see. When is he due?’
Barry explained about Barry’s ship being due to dock at Amsterdam tomorrow and he would be coming straight home.
The police officer nodded. ‘Well, I’m afraid he is going to be too late; we’ve come to inform you that Mrs Mason died at ten o’clock this evening.’
Chapter Sixteen
Lucy and Sam looked at each other in stunned silence after the policemen left. Then Sam hugged her and tried to comfort her as the tears rolled down her cheeks.
‘What a terrible shock it’s going to be for Barry when he gets home,’ she snuffled.
‘Let’s hope he manages to get here fairly quickly so that he can take charge of everything,’ Sam agreed.
‘They said something about letting the hospital have details about her and the funeral arrangements, didn’t they?’ Lucy asked, moving out of his arms and wiping away her tears with a handkerchief.
‘Yes, but I think we should wait for Barry to get home, don’t you? He mightn’t like us going through her private papers.’
‘The trouble is, we le
t those policemen think that I was her daughter-in-law and Barry has said I’m her next of kin so we might have to be the ones to do so,’ Lucy said worriedly.
‘Well, we don’t need to do anything about it tonight and with a bit of luck Barry might arrive home tomorrow. We’ll both be out at work so if anyone comes here looking for us in the morning they won’t be able to find us.’
Barry arrived early in the afternoon the following day shortly after Lucy came home from work.
‘I wasn’t sure whether to come home first or go straight to the hospital,’ he told her as he dropped his kit bag on to the floor and hugged her. ‘How is Mam?’
Lucy bit her lip. She wanted to break the news to him gently but couldn’t find the right words. He took one look at her face and shook his head in despair. ‘I’m too late, aren’t I?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ Lucy nodded. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Last night. The police came to tell us. They said the hospital needed her personal details and information about the funeral arrangements.’
He nodded again but didn’t speak.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
The moment she’d asked the question she felt that it was a trite thing to say but, to her relief, he simply nodded, then walked over to the window and stared out unseeingly.
He was still standing there, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched, when she had made the tea and poured him out a cup and she could see the grief etched on his face when he turned round to take it from her.
It brought back memories of when she’d lost both her parents in the car accident and it made her feel so sad that she wanted to put her arms round him and comfort him. She hesitated, wondering if he would read more into it than she intended and the moment passed.
Barry drank his tea in silence, and then put the cup down on the table. ‘I suppose I’d better go to the hospital,’ he said.
‘Would you like me to come with you?’ Lucy asked.
He hesitated then shook his head. ‘No, I think it might be better if I went on my own. You said they wanted to know about the funeral arrangements; you haven’t done anything about that, have you?’
