‘Daddy, I’m going to be with Mummy now,’ she promised. ‘Look after Maggie, won’t you? And don’t be unhappy. I love you and Dave so much.’
And then came the alteration in her face, and they knew that the Angel of Death was there at the bedside with them. As her father cried out, ‘No! Dear God, no!’ she took her last breath and was gone from them.
In that last poignant moment, she smiled on Dave with such profound love, that as long as he lived, he would never forget.
A week later to the day, Lucy was laid to rest in the small churchyard down the lane.
Packed to the doors, spilling across the graveyard and filling the narrow lane, the mourners came from across the county; farmers, neighbours, townsfolk and a smattering of those who lived further afield but knew of the tragedy and wanted to offer their condolences.After the burial, when no one remained but Frank and Dave, with Maggie standing back, her face swollen from crying, the two men stood in silence at the graveside. ‘Why?’ Frank was sobbing. ‘Why my Lucy? What evil thing did I ever do, for her to betaken fromme like that?’
In his own grief, Dave comforted him; he told him it was not his fault, that Seamus was the evil one, but that Lucy would not rest in peace, if her daddy continued to blame himself.
The profound words he spoke to Frank seemed to calm that good man, who had not slept nor eaten properly since the night he had lost his beloved daughter.
Quietly, Frank put his hand on Dave’s shoulder. ‘If it isn’t my fault, then neither is it yours.’ Head bowed, he walked away.
‘He’s right.’ Maggie stepped forward. ‘What happened was because of one man, so riddled with hatred and evil, that no one could have known the out come.’
Dave slowly shook his head. ‘I will always wonder if there was something else I could have done to prevent what happened.’ Like Frank, he looked for the blame in himself. Had his secret doubts in some way influenced Fate? For here he was – free. A terrible sob rose in his throat, for Lucy, for his mother – for the tragic waste of it all.
Maggie walked back home with him. ‘Frank’s talking about moving away – says he can’t bear to stay here, now she’s gone.’
Dave was surprised. ‘But Lucy was so happy here,’ he said huskily, wiping his eyes. ‘And there are so many memories to help him through.’
‘And what about you?’ she asked. ‘What will you do?’
Dave had given it no thought; the only task he had been concentrating on was seeing Lucy to her last rest. But Maggie had focused his mind. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered sombrely. ‘I think I can understand why Frank wants to move away, because if either of us were to stay, how could we take a single step and not be seeing her everywhere we look?’ His voice broke. ‘It’s so cruel, Maggie. She was so young and vibrant, and so excited about our future together.’
He looked her in the eye. ‘When it happened with my mother, I felt the same as I do now. Even though I loved my grandad, I couldn’t go back. Mam was there, d’you see? And yet she wasn’t there.’
Maggie understood his pain. ‘If you really feel like that, then I think you should leave this place. You’re still a young man, with a life before you. We must none ofus make our life amongst the dead.’
She opened her heart to him. ‘When I lost my darling Ted, I carried on living with him, in my mind and my heart, and in everything I did or planned to do. I know now, that I was wrong. I will always remember him, and I will always love him. But he’s gone and I’m still here, and he would want me to have a life of my own.’ She smiled fondly. ‘If it hadn’t been for Frank offering me the cottage and work in his house, I think I would have just withered away.’
Catching Dave by the arm, she slowed him to a stop, her tearful eyes uplifted to his. ‘Do you understand what I’m trying to say?’
Dave did, and he told her so. ‘But if Frank leaves here, what will you do?’ he asked worriedly. ‘Where will you go?’
Maggie’s smile was radiant. ‘I’ll go with him,’ she answered. ‘He’s asked me to marry him, and I said yes. Oh, it isn’t the same kind oflove I felt for Ted … no one can ever fill that place in my heart. But it’s a kind of love all the same, quiet and good, and it gives me a feeling of belonging.’
She paused, before adding knowingly, ‘I suspect it’s the same kind oflove you felt for Lucy, while she felt for you the same way I felt for my Ted. You see, Dave, there are many levels of love, and it doesn’t make the loving any more or less … just different.’
They were at the gates now, and unable to hold the grief in any longer, Dave leaned against the gate-post, put his hands over his face and sobbed until he thought his heart would break. ‘I wanted so much to love her back the way she loved me,’ he said brokenly, ‘but I couldn’t, and I didn’t know why. But I did love her, so much … I needed to protect her and be with her. I would have given my life for her, the way she gave her life for me.’
‘She always knew that,’ Maggie promised. ‘And she was content.’
He looked up at this kind, wise woman and in his agony he asked, ‘Why could I not love her back, the same way she loved me?’
Maggie knew; she had known for sometime. ‘Because you had already given that deeper part of your heart to another. Someone you knew as well as you know yourself,’ she went on. ‘Someone who helped you through the worst time of your childhood.’
She saw the truth beginning to dawn in his face. ‘Yes – Judy.’ She echoed his thoughts. ‘She’s the one I’m talking about. She’s the one who came to your mind just now. I knew, as soon as you spoke her name, from the light in your eyes, thewarmth in your voice. Without you ever realising, and long before you ever met dear Lucy, it was Judy who crept deep into your heart and soul.’
While Dave was shaking his head, still unable to grasp the truth of what she was saying, Maggie whispered in his ear, ‘Go to her now, love,’ she urged. ‘Go backhome to your Judy. She’ll know how to bring you through this painful time.’
Before he could answer, to tell her that he wasn’t ready, that he had so much grieving to do before he could even consider her suggestion, Maggie kissed him tenderly on the face. ‘It’s where you belong,’ she told him. ‘Live, Dave – grasp your life and live it! Lucy would have wanted it so – and you know in your heart that is true.’
With the tip of her thumb she wiped away his tears, and went to where Frank was waiting for her.
One last, encouraging glance back, and she was gone.
PART FIVE
Blackburn, 1963
A Man and His Dream
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘LESS THAN A week an’ we’ll be wed.’ Dropping his fishing-basket on the grass, Lenny caught Judy by the waist and swung her around. ‘Aw, sweetheart, you’ve made me the happiest man on God’s earth!’
For what seemed an age he observed her every feature; the pretty grey eyes in a heart-shaped face, the long brown hair that reached down to her waist, and that slight figure which you could imagine might be blown away by the softest breeze. Yet Judy was strong; she had a temper that could move the heavens, and she possessed the fiercest of loyalty to her friends and family. And now at last, she was promised to him.Lenny had to pinch himself. In two days’ time, at eleven o’clock on Saturday, would they really walk out of St Peter’s Church as man and wife?
He recalled the harshness of his childhood, and the times when he felt as though he was the loneliest person on earth. And then there was Judy, whom he saw as his future. He had lost count of the times he had asked her to be his wife, and the many times she had refused. ‘Davie’ … it was always ‘Davie’.
But now, at long last, he had persuaded her that Davie Adams was gone for ever.
Kissing her long and hard, he thanked his lucky stars for the day when Judy Makepeace had finally relented and promised to marry him.
‘Hey, you two!’ Annie’s heart weighed heavy at the sight of them kissing. Like everyone else, she knew why Lenny had left home in a hurry. Because of he
r own circumstances she, better than anyone, had an inkling of what he must have gone through, and how lonely he must have felt; and she loved him more than ever. ‘Stop that, or you’ll frighten the fish away!’ she called when they carried on kissing.
Annie’s light-hearted banter disguised her darker feelings. It wasn’t just her friends’ imminent wedding that troubled her; though seeing Lenny every day at the shop and being close to him in the delivery van, there were times when her love for him was almost unbearable.
But no. It wasn’t just the thought of their wedding that haunted her. There was something else, some terrible secret that she still had not been able to confide to anyone. And the longer it went on, the more afraid she became.
Sometimes, God forgive her … there was murder in her heart.
Judy released herself from Lenny’s arms with a smile. ‘Got to go,’ she told him. ‘The dresses are due to be delivered this afternoon and me and Annie need to go into town for the final fitting.’
‘Our mams are meeting us there,’ Annie groaned, ‘- and if we keep them waiting, they’ll go off shopping and it’ll be months before they surface.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Judy joked. ‘They’ll be at the shop now, fussing and fretting, and giving the dressmaker what for. By the time we get there they’ll have her so agitated, we’ll end up with pinpricks from head to foot.’
Judy was right. As they went into the dressmaker’s establishment, Annie’s mother, Evie Needham, pounced on her daughter. ‘Where the devil have you been?’ This little woman could never understand how she had given birth to such a big, robust girl as Annie; though apart from the disturbingly quiet moods Annie often fell into, she would not want to change a single thing about her darling, spirited daughter.
‘We’ve been to the canal,’ Annie explained. ‘I hope you haven’t been upsetting anyone?’ She gave a sly little glance at the assistant, who was wringing her hands together while calling the dressmaker from the back room.
Evie bridled. ‘Upset anyone? What a cheek! Now, why would we want to do that?’
Judy’s mother, Beth, had been on the far side of the shop, admiring a pair of blue lace curtains, which would look perfect at her bedroom window.
‘I’ll have you know, we’ve been on our best behaviour,’ she declared with a smile as she came to give each of the girls a hug. ‘We were beginning to get a bit worried, though. Still, you’re here now, so happen we can get on, eh?’
‘That’s right,’ Evie chipped in. ‘There’s a jumble-sale on at the Town Hall and we’d like to have a mooch about and find some bargains, isn’t that so, Beth?’
‘It would be nice,’ Beth admitted, ‘but we won’t desert you, have no fear.’
The dressmaker emerged carrying two dresses; one midnight blue to complement Annie’s strong nature, the other a melody of lace, cream silk and white.
The two women gasped with admiration. ‘Ooh!’ Evie shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen anything so lovely.’ As the dresses floated by, she stroked each in turn. ‘Lovely!’ she kept saying. ‘Just gorgeous.’
Her own wedding had been a simple, hurried affair. Pregnant with her eldest child, Philip, it was a matter of getting a ring on her finger before her belly swelled for the world to see; though when he arrived five months later, there was no hiding the truth.
Beth was more intent on watching her daughter’s reaction when she saw the wedding dress, and not for the first time, felt a sense of anxiety. She knew Judy too well to be fooled by the girl’s quick smile of pleasure: it was no more than skin-deep. With only a few days to go until she made her vows, Judy should have been bubbling over with happiness. Yet underneath that layer of pretence, obvious only to her mother, Judy was far too quiet, too thoughtful. And before the day was out, Beth vowed to get to the bottom of it.
For her part, Judy was trying to get through the whole thing without letting any one see how she truly felt. She had resisted Lenny’s campaign for many months – but in the end, she was getting no younger, and if she couldn’t have Davie, then Lenny was the only boy she would consider. After all, she wanted a home of her own, and children one day. Most girls of her age were married by now and pushing prams – except for Annie, of course, but then she preferred to play the field.
Lenny was good and kind – and handsome, too. He knew how to excite her when he took her dancing and they smooched during the slow records. He was a fabulous kisser, and more than once she had nearly given in and let him make love to her in the room he rented near his shop -when the landlady Mrs Denham wasn’t around, anyway.Judy’s longing for Davie had lasted for eight long years, but there had to be an end to it someday. As she had matured, she had dreamed of giving him her virginity, of marrying him, but she realised now that this had been a childish fantasy. David Adams had disappeared into the wide blue yonder, without once contacting her, and for that she could not forgive him. Lenny would never do that to her in a thousand years. He was devoted to her – and she would soon be his wife. But if only it could have been Davie she was marrying …
Judy sighed at her own foolishness, a long withering sigh, and went to strip down to her stockings and bra in the fitting room.
The dresses looked beautiful on.
Annie must have merrily spun round a dozen times before the bemused dressmaker called her to, ‘Stand still, please, Miss Needham! I can’t make adjustments while you’re twirling round like a top.’Annie did as she was told; though she too, was hiding her real feelings. While her generous heart was happy for the bridal pair, she wished with all her heart that it could have been herself walking down the aisle with Lenny. However, after years of a different kind of hell, she too was adept at putting on a front.
‘I look like Princess Margaret!’ she exclaimed, admiring herself in the long mirror. ‘Ooh, their eyes are gonna pop out when they see me going down the aisle.’
‘Behave yourself!’ Evie reprimanded her. ‘It’s Judy who’s the bride, not you, and it isn’t likely to be you neither, until you decide to settle with one young man, instead of flitting from one to another like a demented blooming butterfly.’
Annie was mortified. ‘Oh, Jude, I’m sorry. I just got carried away there. O’ course I don’t want to stand out from you!’
‘That’s all right,’ the other girl assured her. ‘I’m so proud to have you as my bridesmaid. It means a lot to me, Annie.’
Annie was made up. ‘I’ll be the best bridesmaid you’ve ever had,’ she promised, and both girls burst out laughing like a pair of hyenas. Evie and Beth exchanged disapproving glances.
‘I’ve finished,’ the dressmaker announced briskly. She was immune to pre-wedding nerves. ‘So you’d best get out of these dresses, or they won’t be ready for Saturday.’
‘We’ll be off then.’ That was Beth. ‘We’ve promised ourselves a new hat apiece, and a cup of tea with a scone afterwards.’ She gave Judy a hug. ‘You look a picture in that dress,’ she told her with a beaming face. ‘You too, Annie my love,’ and then it was time to go.
Evie was having a quiet word with her daughter. ‘I’m so proud of you,’ she whispered fondly.
As she left, she glanced back, to see Annie gazing down at the floor, deep in thought. For some unknown reason, a sob rose in the back of Evie Need ham’s throat. The girl looked so lost and lonely. Was it because of the wedding? Seeing her best friends get married?
Lately, Evie had seen very little of her daughter. Out most nights and coming home in the early hours, she was causing her parents much distress, but nothing Evie or her husband Derek said, seemed to make any difference.
Annie had always been an unruly child, but these past few years, things had really got out of hand. Hardly a day went by without arguments and tantrums, and twice recently, Annie had packed her bags and stayed away overnight. The next evening, when she reappeared after work, she refused to discuss it.
There was something very wrong in the Need-ham household, but try as she might, Evie could not put her
finger on what it was. Thank God for Philip, who was no trouble to them at all. He went to work, stumped up towards the housekeeping, and kept himself mainly to himself apart from one night a week at the pub, and one night out at his motor-cycle club. There were no surprises or tantrums with him.
Time and again she had pleaded with Annie to confide in her … to explain why she was so angry all the time. But Annie would have none of it. ‘Leave me alone!’ That was her stock answer, and unwilling to cause more trouble, Evie had given in and let it go at that.
That same evening, over in Derwent Street, Don and Joseph sat talking. ‘So, you’re off on the morrow, are you?’ Joseph had known all along that soonever his son-in-law had saved enough money to take him far and wide, he would be away in search of Davie.
‘You know I have to go,’ Don replied quietly.‘Can you not stay until Saturday, and see young Judy wed?’
‘Now that I’ve made up my mind, the sooner I get away the better,’ Don said. ‘I’ve explained to Lenny, who in turn will explain to Judy. Lenny is fine about it. He wished me well, so he did.’
‘I know you’re right, son,’ Joseph conceded tiredly. ‘It’s just that I don’t want to lose you again.’
‘Aw sure, you’ll not lose me. Didn’t I always say I’d stay a few months, then I’d take off in search of my Davie? Well, now it’s time to pack a bag and hit the road. But I’ll be back.’
Joseph still wished it wasn’t so. ‘I hoped against hope that Davie would find his way home. But he hasn’t, and I fear if you don’t find him, we may never see him again.’
Don understood the old man’s feelings. ‘It was always in the back of my mind, too, that one fine day I might see Davie strolling down the street, as if he’d never been away. But like you say, Joseph, if he’s not coming home of his own accord, then it’s up to me, his father, to go out and find him.’
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