The lights changed while he was talking. He didn’t notice until a motorist behind sounded his horn and startled him.
“Up yours, mate!” he shouted, jabbing two fingers out the window as he moved off.
Seeing Kitty smiling, he grinned.
“Motorists are different,” he said sheepishly.
“It’s war on the road.” Swinging the taxi to the left, he said, “We’re near Albert Street now. What number did you say, love?”
“Number four.”
Twisting slightly in his seat, he looked at her in the mirror.
“Number four, eh?” He was curious. Most of the big old houses in this area had been turned into flats. When he brought folk here they were usually looking for shortterm accommodation. Somehow this passenger was different. Was she looking for a place or maybe searching for a friend or relative? Or was it something more complicated than that? He prided himself on being able to guess his passengers’ intentions, but this one had him puzzled.
She was young and friendly, and very lovely, but there was a certain sadness in her face that tugged at his heartstrings. Whatever errand she was on, he hoped it was for the best.
As it turned out. Kitty was in for a terrible shock.
The minute he turned into the street, an ambulance came screaming past.
“Jesus!” Pulling over, he let it go on.
“Somebody’s in trouble,” he said, following on.
“Poor sod. I’d rather them than me. I can’t stand hospitals…the smell and all that.”
Kitty watched the ambulance as it drew up.
“It’s stopping in the street,” she remarked. In the back of her mind there was a dreadful suspicion. But no! She mustn’t think things like that.
Taking a deep breath she sat back in the seat, counting the house numbers as they went at a steady pace down the street.
“Twenty-six…twenty-four…twenty-two…” She tapped the cab window, “It’s on this side,” she said.
“I can’t say for certain, luv,” he muttered in a sombre voice, “but I reckon that ambulance has stopped outside number four.”
Kitty felt her heart turn over. When they reached the house and she jumped out, the ambulance crew was already racing up the stairs. The neighbours were gathered on the pavement.
“Best stay where you are, dear,” warned a kindly old woman with her hair in curlers.
“Them staircases is narrow, and they’ll be fetching the lass down any minute. The poor thing’s in a bad way, they say.” She shook her head.
“Fellas!” she said bitterly.
“It’s all us over some fella or another.”
Kitty hardly dare ask, “This lass you’re talking about…who is she? What’s her name?” While she waited for the woman to answer she silently prayed: Please don’t let it be Georgie.
Please don’t let it be her. Fear clogged her throat, and she could hardly breathe.
“Oh, I don’t live here,” the woman said, “I live next door but two. The woman in the downstairs flat told me about it. According to her, the lass in the next flat to hers had a real set-to with her fella some time back. Anyway, the lass took it bad, and locked herself in her room. Wouldn’t come out for nobody, not even the social worker.”
She lowered her gaze.
“Ain’t right, is it, eh? Poor little bugger. Course, what with me living next-door but two and keeping myself to myself, I didn’t see all that much of her. Her name is Georgie something, that’s all I know, and now they say she’s done away with herself.”
When Kitty almost collapsed, the woman gave her a wary look.
“Are you all right, dearie?” She saw Kitty’s colour drain away and cursed herself for the tongue she could never control.
“They’re coming,” she cried. Gripping Kitty’s arm, she tried to draw her aside.
“Come away, pet. They’ll not want us gawping.”
Breaking from her. Kitty ran across the pavement, praying as she ran that it wasn’t Georgie. All her hopes and prayers counted for nothing when her stricken brown eyes glanced down on that white familiar face.
“Oh, no. NO!”
“Do you know her, miss?” One of the ambulance crew caught her as she swayed.
Dazed with fear. Kitty gasped, “It’s my friend Georgie. I have to go with her.” Following the stretcher into the ambulance, she sat beside her friend all the way, unable to take her stricken gaze from the blood-soaked bandages round Georgie’s wrists. As the vehicle sped through the streets, and the initial shock subsided. Kitty found herself filled with a terrible anger.
“Don’t you die on me, you bugger!” she said; then, in a softer voice, “I love you, sweetheart.” To see mischievous, wicked Georgie trussed up in blood-stained bandages, with tubes attached to her arms, was more than she could bear. But she would bear it. And she would be strong. For Georgie’s sake.
All that night Kitty kept a vigil by her friend’s bedside, holding her hand, then pacing the floor, then sitting beside her again and softly praying. Nurses came in and out, seeing to Georgie, quietly attending to the drips and exchanging a few words with Kitty.
“Will she be all right?” was her anxious question. Over and over again: “Will she be all right?”
In the morning the doctor told Kitty, “She’s lost a lot of blood.”
When Kitty asked if her friend would pull through all right, he answered, “We’ll just have to hope that she wants to pull through.”
Beyond that he had few words of comfort to offer.
In the afternoon of the next day, Georgie’s eyes flickered open.
“Hello, you,” Kitty said, tears flowing down her face as she took hold of Georgie’s hand. Georgie appeared to be confused. She stared at Kitty, frowned, and closed her eyes again.
“She’ll be fine now,” the doctor said.
“We can all breathe a sigh of relief.” He also warned that Georgie would have to talk with the hospital psychiatrist.
“It’s not enough to treat the symptoms in cases like these,” he explained.
“You have to treat the cause…the reason why she did it in the first place.”
Kitty understood and appreciated that. But she had a lurking suspicion that Georgie was not the kind to discuss her problems with anyone, least of all a hospital psychiatrist.
That night, after booking a room by phone at the Albert Hotel, Kitty slept in the chair beside Georgie’s bed. Her every bone was aching and stiff, when she was woken by a soft giggle.
“You’d best get in beside me, you silly sod.”
Opening her eyes, she saw Georgie leaning over the edge of the bed, arms outstretched as she tried to touch her, and the faintest of smiles on her face. Kitty got out of the chair.
“Oh! Georgie! Georgie!” With tears streaming down her face, she slid her arms round her best friend and hugged her. For the longest five minutes of her life, Kitty held her close.
“I love you,” she kept saying. “I love you.” They clung to each other and sobbed, and Kitty gave up a silent prayer of thanks.
Later, though, Kitty realised the danger was far from over. Georgie refused to talk to the doctor about her problems.
“I don’t need no shrink,” she said, and so for the time being they left her alone.
Kitty, however, did not.
“If you won’t talk to the doctor, then you can talk to me,” she urged.
“What made you do it, Georgie? Why didn’t you turn to me? You know I would do anything for you.” She would never forget how Georgie took care of her when she was frightened and alone.
Georgie looked at her for a long moment, until at last she murmured, “I’m sorry, kid. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Kitty stroked her hand.
“It doesn’t matter about me,” she answered.
“What matters is you. I want to help if I can…if you’ll let me?”
She feared Georgie might shut her out just as she had shut out the doctor.
Smil
ing, Georgie shook her head.
“You can’t help,” she murmured.
“No one can help.”
“You’re wrong, Georgie.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Was it Mac? I knew he’d left you. But he’s left you before and you’ve got over it.” She wished to God Georgie had never met him. He had brought nothing but trouble to her.
“He ain’t just left me this time.”
“What do you mean?”
Georgie threw back the bedclothes and pointed to her stomach.
“That’s what I mean,” she laughed.
“He’s put me up the bloody pole!”
At first, Kitty didn’t know what to say. It was worse than she had feared.
“It should be you and Harry having this baby,” Georgie said.
“The poor little bugger would have had a good home then. What will it have with me, eh?” Bitterness crept into her voice.
“For weeks after Mac left I was like a lost soul. There were plenty of times when I wanted to end it all, but I didn’t have the courage.” She laughed cynically.
“They cut off the gas, so I couldn’t even put my head in the oven. I was flat busted broke. I hadn’t had a proper meal in ages, I couldn’t sleep, and every morning I was bringing my heart up in the lavatory.”
She paused, her eyes glazing over as she went into a kind of trance, reliving the long days and nights when she was all alone.
Kitty squeezed her hand.
“Go on,” she urged, “I want you to tell me everything.”
“You know how it is, Kitty. You’ve been through it,” she said.
“The loneliness and the fear. No one to care or hold you close just when you need it. Waking at night in a sweat and wondering how it will all end.” Her mouth smiled, but her eyes remained dull and serious.
“I even thought about going on the game,” she confessed shyly.
“I still have my looks, I reckon, and this bump wasn’t so big. Anyway some men prefer making love to a pregnant woman, so I could probably earn a fair living.” She sighed and bowed her head.
“In the end, though, I couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t feel right with Mac’s baby growing inside me. The truth is, I honestly believed the kid and me would both be better off if I ended it all.”
Kitty had little sympathy with that.
“You’ve no right to speak for the baby,” she reminded her softly.
“I know that now.”
“I want you to come back with me.”
“What?” Georgie’s eyes lit up.
“After the honeymoon Mildred and Eddie are going to live at his place. The house has been sold and I’ve got a little place of my own along the embankment. I want you to come and live with me, Georgie. We’ll work it out together, you and me…like we always have.” The flat wasn’t really big enough for the two of them, but it would be great having Georgie around.
She, however, wasn’t so enthusiastic. “Let me think about it.”
“It’s Mac, isn’t it? Don’t you think he’s done you enough harm?”
“Maybe. But what if he comes back and finds me gone? God knows what he’d do without me.”
“He’ll do what he’s done before. Mac’s a survivor. He’ll manage. Anyway, if your suicide attempt had been successful, he would have come back and found you gone. He’d have had to manage then all right, wouldn’t he?”
“You’re angry and I can’t blame you…”
“Too right I’m angry! Do you really expect me to let you go back to that awful little bed sitter to let the same thing happen all over again? What if Mac never comes back?”
In her heart Kitty believed they had seen the last of that little worm.
“Do you really want to help?” Georgie had problems she did not want Kitty to know about.
“Any way I can.”
“Then go home. Please.” If Kitty should find out what trouble she was really in, Georgie knew there would be no stopping her.
“I can’t do that, and you know it.” Kitty was puzzled. It wasn’t like Georgie to send her away.
“There’s more to this business than meets the eye,” she decided.
“And I’m not going anywhere until you’ve told me the truth.” Folding her arms, she sat back in the chair with a determined air.
“All of it, mind.”
Realising she had little option, and knowing Kitty’s stubborn nature, Georgie decided to tell the truth.
“The day before they brought me in here, the landlord gave me a week’s notice, so on top of everything else I ain’t got no home to go back to.” When she saw Kitty about to interrupt, she said firmly, “It’s no use your arguing I can come back and live with you because I don’t want to. No offence, kid, but I have to hang about these parts. For Mac, you understand.”
“No, I don’t understand,” Kitty told her.
“I think you’re a fool and I wouldn’t be a friend if I didn’t tell you so.”
She felt there was something else. She saw it in Georgie’s eyes, and in the way she kept clenching her fists together, as though she was deeply agitated.
“You still haven’t told me everything, have you?” she said pointedly.
Georgie took a deep breath. She didn’t want to involve Kitty in such a bad thing, but there was no one else, and she desperately needed advice.
“Before he ran off, Mac was in big trouble with a moneylender.” She paused, ashamed and unwilling to reveal the extent of his stupidity. Now, though, she had another reason for telling Kitty.
“It wasn’t all Mac’s fault. We both spent the money…cars, gambling and having a good time. Night after night Mac would come home from the bookies, his pockets stuffed with money, and it would be great. We took out a mort gage on a posh house near the centre. We filled it with the best furniture money could buy. Oh, Kitty, it was like every dream I ever had was coming true.” She smiled and her whole face lit up.
“He’s not bad, you know. Not really.”
“What happened, Georgie?” Kitty was not interested in hearing about how wonderful Mac was.
Georgie shrugged her shoulders.
“It all started to go wrong, that’s what happened,” she answered bitterly.
“Mac got drunk one night and smashed up the car. I found out later it wasn’t even insured. When I tackled him about it, he flew into a rage, told me to mind my own bloody business, and if I didn’t like the way things were I could get out.”
She laughed.
“But we kissed and made up. We fought like cat and dog, but we always kissed and made up. That was half the fun of having a row in the first place.” Her smile slipped into a deep frown.
“I’m sure you can guess the rest, kid. He got into really heavy gambling, said he was going to put things right. It just got worse. We began to lose everything…the furniture went a piece at a time. I begged him to stop but he wouldn’t. Men started coming to the house, playing cards till all hours of the morning. They got drunk and there were terrible fights. The police warned him time and again, but he wouldn’t listen. They put him away for a time.”
Her hands trembled as she went on, “I thought…when he came out, if he knew about the baby…things would be different. But he couldn’t handle it. The moneylender was on his back every minute and he was going crazy.” She paused to steady herself.
“Mac did a runner. The bank snatched the house back, and the moneylenders decided to give me a rough time.”
She gave a kind of snigger, her eyes wide and frightened as she told Kitty, “Ten thousand quid! That’s what they said he owed, and they didn’t care whether they got it from me or him. As he was nowhere to be found, they gave me two months to clear the debt.”
This time she laughed out loud. “TEN THOUSAND QUID! I ask you? Where in God’s name was I supposed to lay my hands on that kind of money?”
Kitty was appalled.
“These men. Where can I find them?”
Georgie took o
ne look at her face and her mouth fell open in horror.
“Oh no!” She put up her hands as though to push away the very idea.
“If you’re thinking of talking to them mad buggers, you’d better forget it. I’m not letting you anywhere near them. What! They’d cut your throat soon as look at you.”
No amount of persuasion on Kitty’s part would make her change her mind.
“I’ll deal with them,” she promised, though how she didn’t know.
Kitty wisely made no more mention of it. There would be time enough to find out who had been harassing Georgie. For now, the most important thing was to get her better.
“When you’re able, I want you to stay with me at a hotel,” she told her.
“If you won’t come south with me, and you’ve been thrown out of your bed sitter we’ll have to find you a place to live.”
“I’m a bloody nuisance, ain’t I?”
“Tell me something new.” Kitty’s smile was mischievous. Secretly she was delighted that Georgie was beginning to sound more like her old self.
“You little cow!” Georgie chuckled.
“You’re not meant to agree with me.” She could see Kitty was still waiting for an answer.
“All right then. I’ll come and stay with you at a hotel, but only for a few days. To be honest, it will be good having you to talk to, though I can’t promise not to bounce all my problems off you.”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” She had no intention of leaving Liverpool until Georgie was well and truly settled in a new place, and wanted to be certain that the moneylenders were off her back for good.
How on earth she was going to achieve that she still couldn’t see. But she would do it somehow, God willing. One way or another she would find them and be rid of them once and for all.
In fact it was the moneylenders who found her.
Satisfied that Georgie was sleeping. Kitty sought out the nurse.
“When she wakes, could you please tell her I’ll be back first thing in the morning.” The nurse promised she would and Kitty left. She was looking forward to a good night’s sleep herself. Since the day she’d arrived in Liverpool and Georgie was rushed to hospital, she had not slept more than a few hours at a time, and now it was beginning to tell on her. She felt bone weary and emotionally drained.
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