by Cathy Sharp
Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published as ‘Amy’ in Great Britain by Severn House Large Print 2004
Copyright © Linda Sole
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photographs © Gordon Crabb/Alison Eldred (girl); Shutterstock.com (background).
Linda Sole asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008168643
Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008168650
Version: 2016-12-08
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Cathy Sharp
About the Publisher
One
As a small child I was afraid of the man with the staring eyes. In my worst nightmares he came after me, shouting and threatening to kill me. His breath stank of strong drink and his eyes were bloodshot. In my dreams he caught me and then my father came and chased him away – but he always came back, and I knew that one day my father would not be there to save me.
Perhaps it was because of the dream that I hated living in the lanes. In the dream I was playing in the lane near my home with other children, and it was there that the man came after me. For as long as I could remember I had wanted to escape, to live somewhere different, away from the dirt and noise of the area around the London docks, and I envied my uncle Tom, who had gone away to be a doctor. I had promised myself that when I grew up I would leave, too, and my idea of heaven was probably very like the house that Matthew’s parents lived in, at which I had been staying for the past few days.
Living in suburbia might not be everyone’s idea of perfect bliss, but it was certainly mine. Looking back at the Corders’ house on that sunny morning in June 1923, I experienced a deep sense of loss and regret that it was time for us to leave. There was nothing remarkable about the house; it had three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, a sitting room, dining room and kitchen downstairs, and was furnished in a very ordinary way. Yet for me those few days had been ones of perfect contentment.
‘What was that sigh for?’ Matthew asked, looking at me with a little smile of amusement flickering about his mouth. Matthew Corder was twenty-three, four years older than me, attractive rather than wildly handsome, with reddish-brown hair and dark chocolate-brown eyes. It was his smile that had made me notice him, the laughter in his eyes that saw the fun in everything that first made me fall in love with him.
We had met at Bournemouth, when Matthew was on holiday and I was taking the art classes that my mother thought were a waste of time. Although she had encouraged my brothers, Jon and Terry, to leave when they were my age, she had wanted to keep me at home. My father had persuaded her that it would do me good to see more of the world, to broaden my outlook on life, and so in the end she had agreed that I should go.
To me, my father was the most wonderful person in the whole world, and I adored him. Although even I couldn’t have called him handsome, he had a kind, generous face and there was so much love in him for all of us. When I was small I loved the days best when my father took us somewhere special. It might be the seaside, or a trip to the fair or a visiting circus, or it might just be a day spent walking in the country, but whatever it was I was happy because he was with us.
In the eyes of the world, Joe Robinson had done all right for himself. He owned a lot of property and he wasn’t short of a bob or two, as the people of the lanes might say. He could have lived in a house like the Corders owned, or perhaps somewhere even better, but my mother refused to move from the lane she had lived in for most of her life, and my father always gave her exactly what she wanted.
Sometimes I felt angry with my mother because she refused to let him buy us a better house, but deep down I loved her. I loved her almost as much as I loved my father, but not quite. No one could ever take my father’s place in my heart – not even Matthew.
‘I was just wishing we didn’t have to leave,’ I said and shook my head as I saw the teasing light in his eyes. ‘It’s all right for you – you don’t have to go back to the lanes.’
‘I like your parents’ house,’ Matthew said and looked serious. ‘I know the area isn’t the best, but the house is lovely inside.’
‘I hate the lanes,’ I said. ‘I want to live in something like this one day, Matt. And I want it to be in a nice area, a place where people don’t swear and drink all the time.’
‘That’s a bit harsh. There are some really good people in Farthing Lane. Your parents don’t drink to excess and Joe doesn’t swear either. I admire your parents, and particularly your mother for being proud of her roots.’
‘But I can’t stay in the house all the time. You haven’t heard the noise they make coming out of the Feathers on a Saturday night. It’s enough to waken the dead.’
‘You’re a snob, Amy Robinson,’ Matthew said with a teasing smile. ‘Your father gave you everything you ever wanted and you’ve been utterly spoiled.’
‘Yes, I know.’ I was half ashamed as I met his eyes. We’d had this conversation before and he always won, because in my heart I knew he was right. ‘It isn’t that I don’t appreciate all they’ve done for me. I just don’t want to live there any more.’
‘Surely you can put up with it for a while?’ Matthew raised his brows at me. ‘We agreed that we wouldn’t get married for another year or so. I can’t afford to buy a house yet, and I don’t want to start out living with my parents.’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’ I gazed back longingly at the house we had just left as Matthew opened the door of his Austin saloon for me. He was the sales representative for a firm of gentlemen’s tailoring and he had to travel all over London and the Home Counties with his samples, which was why he could afford to run such a nice car. ‘I like your parents, Matt. And it would only be for a while.’
‘No, Amy,’ Matthew said and his mouth drew into a thin line. We’d had this conversation more than once, too. ‘I told you it would be a while before we could marry, and you agreed you were willing to wait.’
‘Of course I’ll wait,’ I said, sliding into the car which smelled of leather and new clothes. ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’
Matthew closed the door on me. Glancing at his face as he slid into the driv
ing seat, I saw that a little nerve was flicking at his temple and knew he was annoyed with me. I bit down on my bottom lip, stopping myself from saying all the things that were on the tip of my tongue. How could Matthew understand what I felt about going home when I had never told him?
I might have told him about the dreams if I had thought it would make a difference, but I knew he would just dismiss them as being nonsense.
‘It was just a dream,’ he would say. ‘Besides, you’re grown up now and you should have the sense to stay away from men who have been drinking.’
Matthew was very practical. Sometimes I would have liked him to be more romantic. It would have been nice to be courted with bouquets of flowers and expensive gifts, but though he bought me some good perfume on my birthday and a box of Cadbury’s chocolates when we went to the pictures, he was never extravagant.
‘If we want a nice home, I have to save,’ he’d told me when he saw the expensive leather bag and shoes my father had given me for my birthday. ‘I’ll give you things like that one day, Amy – when I’ve climbed up the ranks a bit. I’m not going to be a sales rep all my life. I’m going to apply for a manager’s job the first chance I get, and one day I’ll have a shop of my own.’
I knew that my father would have lent him the money to set up his own business if he’d asked, but it would be a waste of breath to tell him that. Matthew was proud, and I admired him for his determination to get ahead by his own efforts. In fact I was pretty much head over heels in love with him, and I hated our quarrels, all of which were of my making.
Matthew was hard working, honest and decent – all the things I had been taught to admire and wanted in the man I would marry one day. Yet there were times when I wished that he would do something reckless for once. My life was pleasant and easy, but not often exciting.
Hearing me sigh, Matthew glanced my way.
‘Couldn’t you go and stay with your aunt again? I thought she wanted you to work for her?’
‘Yes, she does.’ I smiled as I thought of Aunt Lainie. She owned an expensive gown shop in the West End of London and lived in the flat above. I had stayed with her several times in the past. ‘But my mother doesn’t want me to live with Lainie. When I suggested it she looked hurt and I felt awful.’
‘I’m sure she would understand if you explained. After all, it would be a nice place for you to work, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes …’ I left my thoughts unspoken. Matthew was thinking that we could save more if I was also at work, and that was true. What I didn’t care to explain was that I didn’t particularly want to work in my aunt’s shop – or any shop. My ambition was to design clothes. At art college I had discovered that I was quite good at it, and I’d already sent out some of my designs to various commercial fashion houses. So far I hadn’t received any replies. ‘It’s a nice shop. Aunt Lainie has made it even more exclusive now that she owns it. She says they get a really good clientele these days, so I suppose it would be all right.’
Matthew laughed. ‘Lainie O’Rourke is an even bigger snob than you, Amy. To speak to her you would think she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and she couldn’t be more different from your mother. No one would ever think they were sisters.’
Matthew made no secret of the fact that he adored my mother. He had told me that Bridget Robinson was one of the finest ladies he had ever met. It wasn’t that he disliked Lainie, simply that he thought her a little selfish sometimes.
Of course, he didn’t know Lainie as I did. She might seem selfish to people who only saw one side of her, but I knew she was very different underneath. Lainie was tough in matters of business, but she could be kind when someone was in trouble. I remembered the way she had looked after one of her girls at the shop when her father had thrown her out of her home because she was pregnant. Lainie had sent the girl away somewhere to have the baby, and afterwards she had given her a job in the back room doing alterations. Most employers would have sacked her, but Lainie had gone out of her way to help, and I admired that.
‘Sally has put the baby out with a good family,’ Lainie told me. ‘She needs to work to support her son, but at least she wasn’t forced to give him up.’
Her eyes had seemed to reflect a deep sadness as she spoke, and I’d sensed something hidden. I had always known that Lainie had a secret. As a small child I’d picked up whispers, sentences left unfinished and knowing looks between my mother and aunt. And I knew that Lainie hated the area in which she had lived as a child as much as I did.
‘If it were not for Bridget I would never set foot in that street again,’ she had told me once when I’d asked why she didn’t visit us very often. ‘I don’t want to remember that part of my life, Amy. It’s over and finished, and I am a different person. I’ve educated myself, dragged myself out of the mire and slime, and it was damned hard work. I shall never let myself be dragged back into that kind of a life, and if Bridget had any sense she would move right away from the docks. Joe wants to buy her a decent house somewhere and she’s a fool not to jump at the chance.’
‘I wish she would! Then I needn’t go back ever again.’
‘You could always live with me, Amy. You know I would love to have you.’
There was something in her eyes then that made me wonder if she was lonely. Lainie was an attractive woman, with softly waved fair hair that she kept looking immaculate, and a trim figure. In her early forties, she had never married but I didn’t know why. She must surely have been asked.
I knew she had lots of friends – married couples and more than one single gentleman. Occasionally she went out to dinner with one of the gentlemen, but I didn’t think that any of them were ever invited to stay over at her apartment. I certainly hadn’t seen any telltale signs of a male guest when I stayed there, though I believed there must have been men in her past.
Had someone hurt her badly? I’d tried to ask my mother about it once, but she had simply changed the subject. It was a part of the secret I had always known existed.
‘So what are you thinking now?’ Matthew’s question brought me out of my reverie.
‘Nothing much. When am I going to see you again?’
‘Not for a couple of weeks, Amy. I’ve got one of my big trips on again. The firm has a new customer from Manchester and they want me to set up the account.’
‘Couldn’t someone local do it?’
‘It’s important, Amy. If I do this right it may mean a chance for promotion.’
‘Yes, I know. You told me. It’s just that I shall miss you. I hate it when you go away.’
‘I shall miss you too,’ he said, and smiled as he pulled into the forecourt of what appeared to be a sixteenth-century inn. It was set back off the road amongst trees and had a pleasant, peaceful atmosphere, almost as if we had been whisked back in time. ‘I thought we would stop here for a drink and we might have a meal. I believe they do reasonable food here and it’s not too expensive.’
‘That would be nice.’ I leaned across to kiss him as he pulled on the handbrake, breathing in his fresh, clean smell. Matthew was wholesome and decent, and I loved him. ‘And I’m sorry if I was grumpy earlier. I do understand that we have to save. I’ll talk to Mum about going to work for Lainie. If I’m earning as well we can get things we want for the house that bit sooner.’
Matthew gave me an approving smile. ‘A year or so will soon go round,’ he promised. ‘Believe me, it’s even harder for me to wait than it is for you, love.’
I knew that it had sometimes been difficult for Matthew to call a halt when we had been kissing in the back seat of his car. We had reached the stage where I had allowed him to fondle my breasts, but Matthew himself had insisted that anything more was out for the moment.
‘If I touched you there …’ His breathing was heavy and he smiled in that self-mocking way that made me love him so much. ‘I don’t think I could stop myself going all the way, and we would end up having to get married. That’s the last thing we need, Amy – much as I w
ant you.’
I didn’t want to have to get married either. For one thing it would hurt my parents, especially my father, and I wanted a special wedding with all the trimmings and lots of presents. In April, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon had married her duke, wearing a lovely gown, and I had already planned my own, which would be quite similar to the one she had chosen. So I hadn’t tried to persuade Matthew into something that we both knew was wrong.
‘We’ll wait,’ I said as he opened the car door for me to get out. I was hit by the smell of roses and stocks from the flowerbeds, and as we walked across the moss-covered flagstones towards the inn, I was conscious of the sun shining warmly down on us. ‘We’ll do things properly the way you want, Matt. As you said, it won’t be forever.’
‘I love you, Amy,’ Matthew said. ‘And one day I’m going to give you all the things you want.’
‘I know you will, but mostly I just want to be with you.’
I linked my arm through his, shivering slightly as we entered the cool of the inn, which smelled a little musty despite the copper bowls of dried rose petals that stood on an oak hutch just inside the door. It was foolish of me to be so impatient when I had so much.
I awoke with a start that night, shivering and slightly damp because I had been sweating. The room was in darkness and I was trembling as I reached for the switch, flooding the corners with electric light. I was so thankful that my father had had electricity installed when he did up the house. I was shaking too badly to have lit the paraffin lamps that most people in the lanes still used upstairs, though they had gas downstairs.
The dream had been so vivid this time, and it had changed. I was no longer a little girl but a woman. The man who had threatened me had had no face, but I knew exactly how his eyes would look – open and staring as if he were dead.
Getting out of bed, I pulled on my dressing gown and slippers. I would never rest unless I made myself a warm drink and waited for the dream to fade.
I was just making a mug of cocoa in the kitchen when my father came in, also dressed in pyjamas and a comfortable old robe.
