The Price of Love

by Rosie Harris

  She made for the door before Robert could argue with her. Some inner instinct told her Sam might be down at the Pier Head and she went straight there.

  It was quite a cold morning and a keen wind was blowing in off the river. As she approached the floating roadway she saw the Royal Daffodil was about to dock and she spotted a lone figure standing on the top deck leaning over the rails and staring down into the dark turbulent waters of the Mersey.

  Fear gripped her like a giant hand; she was sure it was Sam. Terrified that he was going to jump she screamed his name. The sharp wind lifted the sound as if it was the cry of one of the many gulls circling the boat and carried it away.

  She almost knocked over the seaman who was lowering the gangplank as the boat ground against the quayside. It was so early in the morning that there were only half a dozen passengers coming off the boat and she rushed past them, muttering her apologies as she pushed them out of her way in her eagerness to reach Sam.

  ‘Come on home, your breakfast is going cold,’ she screamed at him trying to make herself heard above the combined sound of the wind and the noise of the boat’s engines.

  She wasn’t sure if he’d heard her or not but when he turned his head she sensed that he’d seen her.

  ‘Keep away, Lucy, you shouldn’t be here,’ he rasped, backing away from her. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Why, where are you going?’ She tried to keep the fear out of her voice but it was impossible. She knew even before he told her that he intended to jump.

  ‘Don’t do it, Sam; think of me and Brenda. You’ve got all your life ahead of you.’

  ‘Life, what life? I have nothing to look forward to. Brenda will be better off without me and so will you. I’m nothing but a burden; I’m an out-of-work-down-and-out,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘Oh dear, you didn’t get the job at Carter’s Cars, then?’ she commiserated.

  ‘Percy Carter didn’t even take the trouble to see me,’ he told her bitterly. ‘He sent one of the office girls down to tell me that there was no job for me after all.’

  Lucy felt her stomach churn. Was that her fault? she wondered. Had she jeopardised Sam’s chances by rejecting Percy’s advances the night he’d taken her out?

  ‘So where have you been since then? Why didn’t you come home? We’ve all been so worried. Robert even went to the hospital last night to ask Brenda if she had seen anything of you.’

  Sam gave a wry laugh. ‘Brenda won’t want to see me again, not when she hears I don’t have a job. All our dreams and plans for a future together are as far away from coming to anything as they’ve ever been,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘There are other jobs; Carter’s Cars isn’t the beginning and end of the world, you know.’

  ‘It is for me. I haven’t got qualifications on paper so they are the only ones who know what I am capable of doing. What other employer will take my word for it when I tell them that I almost completed my apprenticeship? I can’t see Percy Carter or his old man giving me references, can you?’

  Lucy didn’t know what to say but as Sam turned away and stared down into the murky Mersey once again she felt desperate. Somehow she had to persuade him to come home with her.

  ‘Standing there looking down into the water isn’t going to solve anything,’ she said sharply. ‘Come on, let’s go home and when you’ve had a meal, we can start to plan what to do next. Perhaps you could start your shoeshining business up again,’ she suggested.

  ‘I’ve stopped thinking about the future; it ends right here. If you don’t want to watch me jump, then go but, whatever happens, don’t feel sorry for me. This is the best way out; I’m a failure and a burden and I always have been.’

  ‘Come on, whacker, you’ve been riding back and forth on this boat all night, haven’t you got a home to go to?’

  The jovial voice of a deckhand startled them both. He’d come up on top deck without either of them noticing, they’d been so engrossed in their own problem.

  ‘If he’s your boyfriend, love, now that he’s sobered up, why don’t you forgive him and kiss and make up?’ the deckhand told Lucy with a broad grin.

  ‘We are just leaving,’ Lucy assured him. Stepping forward and firmly taking hold of Sam’s arm she added, ‘I hope he hasn’t been too much of a nuisance.’

  ‘We get used to it; most nights there’s someone who’s had a skinful who’d rather stay on board than go home and face the music.’

  ‘Come on!’ Lucy pulled on Sam’s arm. ‘I’ve left Robert keeping an eye on Anna, which means that he’s already late for work so we’d better get back as quickly as we can.’

  For a moment as he tried to resist, she thought he was going to refuse to go with her. Then with a resigned sigh he walked with her towards the gangplank.

  They walked home in silence. They found Robert was nursing Anna when they went in. ‘She seems to be a bit flushed and unhappy,’ he said as he passed her over to Lucy. ‘I’ve tried giving her a drink of milk and a biscuit but she doesn’t seem to want them.’

  ‘She’s been restless most of the night,’ Lucy agreed as she took Anna from him. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort her out, you get to work.’

  ‘You all right, Sam?’ Robert asked as he shrugged on his coat and pulled his cap out of the pocket and put it on.

  ‘Yes, you don’t need to worry about me,’ Sam told him gruffly. ‘You’d better get a move on, though, or you’ll find yourself out of a job the same as me.’

  ‘Brenda will probably be here any minute now,’ Robert said as he headed for the front door. ‘She said she’d be dropping in as soon as she came off duty to see if you were all right, Sam. She was very worried about you the same as the rest of us were when you didn’t come home last night.’

  ‘I’m off to bed,’ Sam stated the moment the door closed behind Robert.

  ‘Aren’t you going to wait and see Brenda? You heard what Robert said,’ Lucy asked in surprise.

  ‘No. I don’t want to talk to her. Tell her that it’s all over between us,’ Sam said flatly.

  ‘Over between you? What on earth are you talking about, Sam? Only a couple of days ago you were both talking about getting married quite soon.’

  ‘That’s when I thought I was getting a job and would be able to support a wife,’ Sam said bitterly. ‘There’s not much point in her wasting any more time with me, is there, when I haven’t got a job and I’m not likely to get one in a hurry.’

  ‘Perhaps you should let Brenda be the one to decide that,’ Lucy told him.

  Before Sam could reply there was a knock on the front door and Lucy, carrying Anna in her arms, opened it and welcomed Brenda into the hallway.

  ‘He’s just this minute come home and he’s in the living room,’ Lucy told her. ‘I’m just going to take Anna back upstairs for another sleep; that’s if I can pacify her.’

  Lucy stayed upstairs singing softly to Anna until she was asleep then she covered her over before going back downstairs.

  Brenda was on the point of leaving but she stayed long enough to ask what was wrong with Anna.

  ‘I think she is tired because none of us slept well last night,’ Lucy explained.

  ‘I understand that. I’m off now to catch up on my own sleep but I’ll try and pop back later before I go on duty, if that’s all right.’

  Lucy nodded and smiled and then left Sam to say goodbye to Brenda while she went into the kitchen to make Sam something to eat and a pot of tea for the two of them.

  ‘I hope you didn’t say any of that silly nonsense to Brenda that you were spouting to me earlier on when we were on the boat,’ Lucy commented as she placed some toast in front of Sam and picked up the teapot and filled both their cups.

  ‘Not much point, she probably wouldn’t have listened to me,’ Sam said sullenly.

  ‘Well, that’s lucky for you and shows she has more common sense than you have. She knows the same as I do that you will get a job given time.’

  ‘Given time,’ he mocked. ‘Wh
at sort of time are we talking about? Do you mean this year, next year or when?’

  ‘Sam, try and be patient. You’ve had a run of bad luck and you are still not completely fit. Another few months will make all the difference.’

  ‘By then I’ll be too old to be considered for a job,’ he said in a bitter voice.

  Lucy stirred her tea thoughtfully. ‘You’re only a couple of years older than me, Sam.’

  ‘I’m twenty-two, I have no qualifications and the only work I’ve ever really done is to shine shoes.’

  ‘Don’t belittle yourself. It was very successful and you were doing a good trade until that unfortunate incident on Orangeman’s Day,’ Lucy pointed out.

  ‘You can hardly call it much of a job,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t see Brenda wanting to marry a shoeshine boy, can you?’

  ‘If you were making a living wage, then I don’t think she would mind,’ Lucy argued.

  ‘She mightn’t, but I would; it’s not a proper job for a married man, now is it?’

  Before they could discuss it any further there was a plaintive wail from upstairs indicating that Anna was awake again and that by the sound of things she was far from well.

  ‘Can you clear away these dishes for me?’ Lucy asked as she went back up to try and comfort Anna.

  A few minutes later she was back down again with Anna in her arms. ‘I’m sure there is something more than having a bad night wrong with her,’ she said worriedly. ‘Her head is burning; she must have a temperature.’

  ‘When I’ve finished doing these dishes would you like to go round to the doctor’s and ask him to call?’ Sam asked.

  ‘I suppose I could walk round there with her,’ Lucy murmured hesitantly.

  ‘Not a very good idea; there’s a cold wind blowing outside, remember,’ Sam cautioned. ‘It might be best if you stayed here with her and I went and asked him to call.’

  It was almost two hours before the doctor arrived. By then Anna was struggling to breathe and Lucy was at her wits’ end trying to pacify her.

  The doctor was middle aged and authoritative. His face became grave after he’d examined Anna and listened to her breathing through his stethoscope.

  ‘This child has diphtheria and needs to be in hospital and properly looked after,’ he stated. ‘I’ll arrange for an ambulance; it should be here to collect her within the hour.’

  ‘Can I go along to the hospital and stay there with her?’ Lucy asked hopefully.

  ‘You can certainly go as far as the hospital with her but once there she will be put into an isolation ward and you won’t be allowed anywhere near her after that.’

  ‘We will be able to visit her?’ Lucy said anxiously.

  ‘They may let you see her through a window, but you won’t be allowed into the ward. Surely you are aware that diphtheria is a highly infectious illness? It’s most fortunate that none of you have caught it.’

  ‘Yes, I do know that, but she needs me there to comfort her,’ Lucy argued.

  ‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘we are wasting valuable time; she is far too ill to know whether you are there or not. What she needs at this moment is skilled nursing and the sooner she gets it the better will be her chance of pulling through.’

  Lucy stared at him in disbelief. ‘Are you saying that Anna might die?’ she gasped.

  ‘It’s an extremely serious illness and quite a high percentage of children do not recover,’ he stated.

  ‘Please don’t say that,’ Lucy pleaded.

  ‘Try not to worry,’ he said placatingly. ‘I’m going to make the necessary arrangement now so will you have her ready when the ambulance arrives?’ he added returning his stethoscope to his black bag and snapping it shut before picking up his bowler hat and making for the door.

  Chapter Thirty

  For the next few days all Lucy’s thoughts were centred on little Anna. Even Sam’s disappointment over not getting a job paled into insignificance as they waited for news.

  Brenda had warned them that the real testing time would be in a couple of days when the fever reached its peak. If she survived that then she would get better although it might be a very long time before she was completely well again.

  Lucy and Robert were at the hospital on the night of the crisis and whenever Lucy peered through the small viewing window and saw how grey and lifeless little Anna was, she dreaded what the news might be.

  It was shortly after midnight when a nurse emerged from the isolation ward and came over to speak to them. Lucy felt sick with anticipation as she clutched at Robert’s hand, wondering what they were going to be told.

  ‘The crisis has passed,’ the nurse said quietly. ‘Anna has pulled through. She will have to stay in hospital for some time yet but the worst is over and she will recover.’

  For a moment Lucy couldn’t believe her ears and then she burst into tears.

  ‘Come on, you shouldn’t be crying; Anna’s going to be all right!’ Robert consoled her, hugging her close.

  ‘I know, I’m so relieved, that’s why I’m crying,’ Lucy breathed thankfully. ‘I thought we were going to lose her and life would never be the same without her.’

  ‘Does she really mean that much to you?’ Robert asked softly.

  ‘Yes, she does. I love her more than anything in the world,’ Lucy told him.

  Gently he placed a hand under her chin, tilting her face so that he could look deep into her tear-filled eyes. ‘You really do care about Anna, don’t you?’

  Lucy nodded vehemently. ‘Of course I do, Robert. As much as if she was my very own.’

  ‘Even though she’s Patsy’s child?’

  Lucy gave an imperceptible shrug. ‘She’s your little girl, Robert, and that is all that matters to me.’

  Robert sighed as he released her. ‘I am so glad about that,’ he said softly. ‘She means a great deal to me as well. I want her to be happy and as long as you are looking after her I know she will be.’

  Sam and Brenda were both elated when Robert and Lucy returned home and told them the good news about Anna.

  ‘Have you any idea how long she will have to stay in hospital?’ Sam asked. ‘I miss having her around the place.’

  ‘They didn’t say,’ Lucy murmured. She looked enquiringly at Brenda. ‘Do you think it will be very long?’

  ‘I don’t know, it depends on her progress,’ Brenda said cautiously. ‘Rest assured, though, she is in good hands so there is no need to worry about her.’

  ‘No,’ Lucy agreed. ‘I can get back to worrying about Sam instead. I’m sorry I’ve had no time for your problems during the last few days,’ she told her brother apologetically. ‘I am very disappointed that you didn’t get the job at Carter’s Cars.’

  Sam shrugged dismissively, ‘What did you say to upset Percy Carter the night you went out with him?’ he asked, his voice tinged with bitterness.

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ Lucy said quickly but she felt the colour rushing to her face as she remembered the unpleasantness between them when he’d brought her home. She also noticed the frown on Robert’s face although he said nothing.

  Over the next few days, Lucy felt that Robert seemed to be distracted and it troubled her because she couldn’t understand why. She tried to tell herself that he was preoccupied because he was still worried about Anna but she was sure that it went deeper than that.

  In the end she could stand the strain no longer and asked him outright if she had upset him in some way. He looked so bemused that she wanted to laugh.

  ‘Of course you haven’t,’ he exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Whatever makes you say that?’

  ‘I don’t know; you seem to try and avoid being on your own with me as much as possible.’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s true enough,’ he said reluctantly, ‘and for a very good reason. I keep remembering that I took advantage of you the other evening when you were upset.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean. As I remember it, you comforted me when I was feeling upset.�
��

  ‘No,’ he said contritely, his face darkening. ‘I took advantage of you when you were most vulnerable.’

  The colour ebbed from Lucy’s face. ‘Is that what really happened?’ she said bleakly. ‘I thought it was because you had feelings for me; because even after all this time, and despite all that has happened, you still loved me.’

  ‘I do, of course I do. That’s another reason why I am trying to keep my distance. Every time I see you I want to take you in my arms and kiss you,’ he exploded.

  ‘Then why don’t you? It’s what I want,’ Lucy told him in a strangled whisper.

  Robert was silent for a second, looking at her in utter disbelief. ‘Do you know what you are saying?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I do,’ Lucy said softly, her eyes shining with relief.

  ‘What about Percy Carter?’ he demanded.

  It was Lucy’s turn to look astonished. ‘I thought you understood that I want nothing more to do with him. Going out with him at all was a mistake but he said he wanted to talk about Sam’s prospects and I was anxious to do anything I could to help Sam.’

  Robert nodded but his face still looked glum and Lucy wasn’t sure whether she’d explained things well enough or whether he thought she was simply making excuses. She didn’t know what else to say so she walked over to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek, hoping he would respond and felt saddened when he didn’t.

  It was another two weeks before Anna was well enough to come home. Lucy went in to see her every afternoon and sometimes again in the evening with Robert.

  Although Anna was still pitifully thin she looked so much better that they both thought she had made a miraculous recovery. On the way home afterwards their conversation usually centred on what Anna’s needs would be when she eventually came out of hospital.

  Lucy knew that Robert still resented the fact that she’d gone out with Percy Carter even though he knew her reason for doing so and she had told him what a disastrous evening it had been. Neither of them had mentioned it again but they were still not completely at ease with each other and she felt it was important that they should be for Anna’s sake.