A Daughter's Choice

by Cathy Sharp

  Copyright

  Harper

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

  The News Building

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published as ‘Kathy’ in Great Britain by Severn House Large Print 2003

  Copyright © Linda Sole

  Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

  Cover photographs © Richard Jenkins (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.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008168612

  Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008168629

  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

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Cathy Sharp

  About the Publisher

  One

  ‘How is your grandmother today, Kathy?’ Bridget Robin son called to me as I was leaving the shop at the corner of Farthing Lane and had paused to greet her. ‘I heard she wasn’t well.’

  ‘She seems better again now. The doctor thinks it was just a chill, but he says she should take things easier.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad she’s getting over it, whatever it was. I’ll pop in and see her later if I can manage it.’

  ‘She would enjoy that …’ I hesitated, then went on in a rush: ‘Gran often talks about you, Bridget. She says things would have been different if Da had married you.’

  Bridget gave me an understanding smile and I knew she must have heard the latest tale about my father, but she wouldn’t embarrass me by mentioning it. Bridget’s husband Joe was a rich man these days and owned most of the property in the lane, including the small general store we all used at the corner. Some people were a bit jealous of his success, but most agreed that he was generous in his support of local people, and everyone liked Bridget.

  ‘She’s just the same as she always was,’ Gran had told me more than once. ‘Ernie Cole was a fool, that’s what I say. He had his chance with her and threw it away – that’s your father all over. Never knows what’s good for him. I warned him when he married that woman – but he wouldn’t listen to me and look what it got him! He’s never been the same since.’

  Why did Gran dislike my mother so much? What had she done that caused both Gran and my father to scowl if I mentioned her name?

  I often wondered why my mother had run away soon after I was born, but when I asked questions about her Gran shook her head.

  ‘Best you don’t know child. It wasn’t your fault – and you’ve been a blessin’ to me.’

  Jean Cole had been as good as a mother to me, loving me and making sure that I never went without anything if she could help it, though I suspected she sometimes had help with money from a source she wouldn’t reveal.

  A Londoner through and through, she had lived in the same house since marrying at the age of seventeen, moving only three houses when she left her home to start her married life. Our lane was just across from the St Katherine’s Docks, which were now a part of the larger London Docks, but when they were first built almost a whole parish, including the old hospital of St. Katherine’s, had been pulled down to make way for them.

  ‘Well, I must get on,’ Bridget said, her voice breaking into my thoughts. ‘Our Tom is coming for a meal this evening. He’s a doctor with the Army, you know, but they didn’t send him to France with the troops because of that bit of bother he had when he was a lad. Not that it troubles him now. In fact, he thinks he may never have had consumption at all, just an infection of the lungs. He knows all about that sort of thing now, our Tom – and he says the doctors made a lot of mistakes in the early days.’

  ‘You’ll be glad to see your brother, I expect.’

  ‘Yes, I shall. Tom is busy so we don’t see him as often as we’d like – but at least he keeps in touch. I haven’t heard from Jamie for ages. He was in America the last time he wrote and doing well, but that was years ago …’

  She frowned, her eyes full of shadows as if she were remembering an old sadness. I knew there was some story about Jamie O’Rourke having gone away after his girl was killed in a fire on the eve of their wedding, but I didn’t know the details.

  ‘Give my best wishes to your grandmother, Kathy love – and if you need anythin’ you know where to come.’

  ‘Thanks, Bridget,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell Gran you asked after her.’

  She smiled, nodded and moved on, seeming to have something on her mind. I thought it might be to do with her elder brother Jamie and wondered if Gran would tell me the whole story if I asked.

  I was reflective as I walked on. If my father had married Bridget I would be her daughter and Amy Robinson would have been my younger sister – or perhaps I wouldn’t have been around at all. A sigh escaped me as I thought that I would have liked Bridget as a mother, but it was hard to believe that my father had ever wanted to marry her. He always seemed to dislike her, though it was her husband he really hated.

  ‘You stay away from that Bridget O’Rourke and her ’usband,’ he’d said to me time and again when I was a child after Bridget had given me a treat of some kind, as she often did. ‘That bleedin’ Joe Robinson is too clever for ’is own good!’

  It was odd that he should call Bridget by her maiden name, but then my father was a law unto himself. He hadn’t been so bad when I was a small child. I could remember him taking me up on his shoulders to carry me down the lane when he was in a good mood, and there had been occasional visits to the fair and one never-to-be forgotten trip on the train to Southend as a treat for my tenth birthday. There had always been enough money in the house for food and rent then; it was only since Da’s accident that he’d turned sullen and taken to the drink.

  He’d been a driver for Mr Dawson at the brewery, and proud of the wagons he drove with their magnificent horses and shining harness, but he wasn’t capable of loading or unloading the drays now. Mr Dawson had kept him on in the brewery, because with the onset of the war he had been short of men, but of late he had been given only the more menial of jobs to do and was forever complaining about his employer.

  ‘You mustn’t mind your da, Kathy love,’ Gran had told me when he came home full of the drink, swearing and yelling the house down. ‘He’s in pain from his leg – and he’s a disappointed man. He’s not had a fair deal from life, your da.’

  ‘What do you mean, Gran?’ I’d asked but she only shook her he
ad as she always did when I asked questions about things she didn’t want to tell me. Her silence only made me more curious.

  What had happened to my father to make him so bitter? Was it just that my mother had gone off and left him when I was a baby? Yet it was Gran who had had all the trouble of bringing me up, and she wasn’t bitter.

  ‘Wait up, Kathy Cole! I want a word with yer …’

  I turned as I heard the sound of running feet behind me and hesitated, recognizing at once the man who had called out to me. It was Billy Ryan, Maggie Ryan’s youngest son. He was twenty-six going on seven and I was seventeen, but he’d been after me since I’d left school and started work at the glove factory. Billy had worked there too as a foreman for a while, but he’d joined up as soon as war was declared, one of the first to do so in our street. Before he went away he’d told me to wait for him, because he was going to marry me one day.

  ‘Oh, so you’re back,’ I said, not smiling at him. I wasn’t at all sure how I felt about Billy Ryan. He had always been a cocky lad and people whispered that he’d been in a bit of trouble a couple of times and was lucky he hadn’t been up in front of the magistrates. ‘Did the Army throw you out then?’

  ‘You haven’t changed,’ Billy replied and grinned at me. ‘Glad to see me then are yer, Kathy girl?’

  ‘I’m indifferent either way,’ I said with a shrug of my shoulders and he gave a hoot of laughter.

  ‘Swallowed a dictionary this mornin’, did yer?’ Billy’s parents were Irish, and still spoke with a soft Irish accent but Billy had lived in London all his life and sounded like a cockney. He wasn’t in the least put out by my manner and despite myself I warmed to him. He had a nice smile and he wasn’t bad looking, his hair dark and wavy and his eyes a melting chocolate brown. He had smartened up and I supposed the Army had done that for him; his boots were polished so fine you could see your face in them. ‘Fancy going to the Pally this evenin’ then?’

  I stared at him in silence for a moment or two. My father wouldn’t be pleased if I went out with Billy, but then he didn’t like any of the people in Farthing Lane these days. Gran would encourage me to go. She said I didn’t get out with other young people often enough.

  ‘I like dancin’,’ I said at last. ‘But I’m not sure I should go with you, Billy Ryan. You might try to take advantage.’

  ‘God’s honest truth I’d never do that to yer, Kathy,’ Billy said and he sounded sincere. ‘It ain’t just ’cos you’re the prettiest girl in the lanes with that lovely hair o’ yourn and them big eyes. You’re the girl I’m goin’ ter marry one day, and I respect yer. I swear on me ’onour that I won’t put a finger out of place. I won’t even kiss yer unless you agree, lass. Cross me ’eart and ’ope ter die.’

  I wasn’t surprised by his answer. Billy had told everyone for years that he was going to marry me one day. It had been a joke amongst my school friends, but looking at him now I almost believed him.

  ‘I’ll come then,’ I said making up my mind. ‘I’ll meet you outside the brewery at seven.’

  ‘I was goin’ ter call fer yer proper, Kathy. We might as well start out right.’

  ‘Me da might not like me going with you,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But perhaps you’re right. Call for me at seven then – that will please Gran anyway. She says no one shows her any respect these days.’

  ‘I’ve got every respect for Mrs Cole,’ Billy said. ‘She’s been good to you, lass – just the way I shall be when we’re wed.’

  ‘And who said I was goin’ to marry you? Sayin’ I’ll come to the Pally with you doesn’t mean I’ll marry you, Billy Ryan.’

  He grinned at me cheekily. ‘First things first, Kathy. Yer don’t know me yet, but you’ll soon change your mind when yer see how generous I can be. I’ll be there at seven so don’t keep me waitin’!’

  I glared at him, almost sorry that I had agreed to go out with him that evening. Just who did he think he was? I nearly told him to forget it but something held me back. I was seventeen and I hadn’t had a regular boyfriend yet. I’d been dancing at the Pally with other girls and their brothers, and a few of my dance partners had made a pass at me. I hadn’t let any of them kiss me. It annoyed me because one or two of them had seemed to imagine that I would be easy and I didn’t see why. I wasn’t a flirt and I had never been out with a man on my own.

  Once I’d heard some boys whispering about my mother and laughing in a nasty way, and it had made me wonder. Why should people laugh about Grace Cole in that way – and why did the men sometimes look at me oddly? I wasn’t a tart and I had never given anyone cause to think it.

  It was a mystery, and it would never be solved until I could get some answers about my mother – but no one would tell me anything.

  I made up my mind to ask Gran about it again when I got home. Surely I had a right to know the whole story?

  ‘Well, I suppose you are old enough to know the truth,’ Gran said when I took a cup of tea up to her in bed and told her what was on my mind and why. ‘It might be best if you know – especially if you’re goin’ ter start courtin’.’

  She had her pink bed shawl about her shoulders, and the patchwork quilt she had made with her own hands as a young woman was pulled up tight about her. Even on a warm day the old house seemed cold and draughty, and in winter we often needed a fire in the bedrooms.

  ‘I’m only goin’ dancin’ with him, Gran.’

  ‘Yes – but these things lead to somethin’ more in time,’ Gran said. She was looking tired and I knew her illness had dragged her down, but at least she was beginning to improve. ‘Grace was no better than she ought ter be, Kathy. Yer da wasn’t the first with her by a long way …’ She hesitated as though she wanted to say more and then shook her head. ‘And she went off and left yer as a baby – that’s reason enough fer me to dislike her. Some folks might think you will likely turn out the same way. They don’t know yer the way I do, love.’

  ‘Is that why …?’ My cheeks were bright with fire as I looked at her. ‘Does Billy Ryan think I’m that way, too? Is that why he wants to take me dancin’?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Gran replied. ‘Billy is a bit of a cheeky devil, and he doesn’t always know which is the right side of the law – but he is fond of you, Kathy. Even when you were fifteen he was always ’ere tryin’ ter get yer ter to go out with ’im. If I thought he wouldn’t treat yer right I wouldn’t let yer go.’

  ‘Do you mind if I go, Gran? Can you manage without me?’

  ‘Of course I can, Kathy. I’ll be fine tucked up in me bed. Leave yer da a cold supper on the table – though God knows what time ’e’ll get ’ome. Just be sure that Billy brings you ’ome by half past ten – and if he does try anythin’, give him a slap round his ear.’

  ‘He promised he wouldn’t,’ I said and bent to kiss her cheek, which felt papery soft and dry. The sheets were clean on that day and smelled of soap, as she did herself after I’d helped her to wash. ‘He says he respects me too much.’

  ‘Then I’m sure ‘e means it,’ Gran said and smiled lovingly as she reached up to touch my cheek. ‘You’re a good girl, Kathy, and bright. You did well at school and you speak better than most round ‘ere – better than yer da or me. I should like ter see yer make somethin’ of yerself. Don’t get into trouble and rush in ter marriage, love. Look at Bridget Robinson. Her mother was a drunken slut, but Bridget was smart – like you. They say she does all Joe’s bookwork fer ’im, and she’s got a couple of market stalls ’erself. Likes sellin’ flowers, Bridget does. I should like yer to settle with a good man like Joe Robinson – so you just be careful. Billy Ryan is all right, but make sure ’e’s what you really want afore yer settle on ’im.’

  ‘I’m not thinkin’ of marryin’ yet, Gran,’ I said and laughed as I flicked back my hair, which was a dark honey blonde and set off eyes Gran always said were green like a cat’s. ‘I’m too young to train as a nurse yet, but that’s what I’d like to do. I keep thinkin’ about all those young men
getting hurt so bad over there …’ I sighed. ‘When is it all going to end, Gran? I think it’s terrible that all our boys end up gettin’ killed in the trenches.’

  ‘We all feel the same, Kathy,’ Gran said. ‘It’s a wicked shame that it happened at all, that’s what I think – decent folk shooting at each other. Bridget’s eldest son is out there fighting, and she told me that he wrote to her about the first Christmas of the war, when the German soldiers and the British played football together in no-man’s-land between the trenches. She said her Jonathan thought the Germans were just like us then; they didn’t want to fight and kill people. It’s all the fault of them what started it – the Kaiser and politicians.’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose we shall solve anythin’ by talkin’,’ I said. ‘But if the war isn’t over when I’m eighteen I shall join the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a nurse.’

  ‘That’s what I like to hear,’ Gran said approvingly. ‘My girl has a bit of ambition – not like her father. You stick to your guns, my girl, and don’t you let anyone talk yer out of it.’

  We had been at the Pally for a couple of hours, and the dance floor was crowded with young men and women. Most of the men were in uniform, and the girls were all wearing pretty dresses. I knew some of them from school, and several of them were working in the munitions factory or voluntary organizations. We had been dancing most of the time and I was enjoying myself as Billy was fun to be with. However, I was very much aware of the war and that I had done nothing to help except knit a few socks and roll some bandages. So when Billy went off to fetch us another drink I spoke to a girl called Valerie Green about being a nurse.

  ‘It’s hard work, Kathy,’ she told me. ‘I’ve just come back from three months in France and the conditions were awful. The men are crawling with lice when they come in after weeks in the trenches, and there’s never enough of anything to go round. I asked to be transferred back home.’

  ‘But you like being a nurse, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s all right I suppose …’

  I would have asked her more questions about nursing but Billy came back with our drinks and she walked off.