Read Online Daughters of Liverpool by Annie Groves - Free Book Online Page A

thought he could get away with it. The last thing Emily wanted was to get caught sitting here on the ground with the boy. Con would laugh his head off at her and then no doubt tell her that she wasn’t to have anything more to do with the boy, citing as his reason for this veto a concern for her safety she knew perfectly well he did not feel. It would suit Con very well indeed, she suspected, if she were to suffer the kind of accident that would lead to him becoming a widower. Not that he would actively do anything to achieve that status for himself. Con was too lazy for that, and besides, Emily thought, sometimes he wasn’t above using her existence to get rid of a girl once he had grown bored with her. Wives had their uses in some ways.
    At best, though, he’d probably chase the boy off and then she’d never see him again, and Emilyknew that, daft though it was, she would miss him. Was that really what she was reduced to? Being afraid of missing a boy who hadn’t so much as said a word to her and only wanted her because of the food she gave him?
    So what was new? After all, she already had a husband who only stayed married to her because of her money.
    She ought to leave.
    ‘I’ll come in the morning tomorrow,’ she told the boy, ‘about ten o’clock – oh, and take this and go and buy yourself some warm socks and gloves and a scarf.’
    The two half-crowns she pushed towards him gleamed briefly before he reached for them.
    Emily never knew what it was that made her turn round once she had got to the end of the alleyway. It wasn’t any kind of sound – there hadn’t been one. Perhaps it had been some need within her to take a last look at the boy; whatever it was she was glad she had obeyed it when she saw the two heavily built youths who had crept out of the shadows behind her back.
    One of them was pinning the boy against the wall whilst the other went through his pockets.
    ‘Come on, where are they? We saw the money she give you,’ she heard the heavier of the boys demanding.
    When the boy made no response the youth holding him shook him roughly. ‘Need yer memory giving a bit of a shake, do yer? Well, Artie here don’t mind doing that, do yer, Artie?’
    There was the soft but sickening sound of abunched fist meeting vulnerable flesh and then a burst of cruel laughter.
    ‘Aaw, look at that, he’s crying. Hurt, did it? Well, that’ll learn you then, won’t it, ’cos there’s plenty more where that come from. Now give us them half-a-crowns.’
    Emily had heard enough. She advanced on the bullies with a ferocity she’d never have used for her own protection, demanding, ‘Let go of him otherwise it will be the worse for the pair of you.’
    They turned round to stare at her, one of them bunching his fists until Emily swiped him hard with the heavy weight of her old black shopping bag with the Thermos in it.
    The bully yelped in pain, releasing the boy to lift his hands to protect himself as he dodged Emily’s second swing with her bag.
    ‘Here, Artie, let’s get out of here,’ he yelled to his friend. ‘She’s a ruddy madwoman. I ain’t having me head bashed in for no five bloody bob, that I ain’t.’
    ‘The next time it will be the police that will be waiting for you,’ Emily warned them, as they fled down the alleyway towards Roe Street.
    She was out of breath and her heart was racing in a way she knew her doctor would have warned her was dangerous but she actually felt more elated than afraid.
    She looked down at the boy. He was looking back at her.
    ‘You can’t stay here,’ she told him emphatically. ‘Not now. I’m taking you home with me.’
    Where had those words come from? Wherever it was they had made Emily feel positively giddy with power and excitement.
    ‘Be much safer for you there. And warmer too. Lost your family in one of the bombings, I expect, haven’t you?’
    At least she was giving him a chance to tell her if there was someone he should be with, Emily