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

reassured herself. And it wasn’t as though, if there was someone, they were much good to him, was it? After all, it had been over a week now that she’d been feeding him.
    Emily reached down and took hold of his hand. It was icy cold and the bones plain to feel through his skin. She was trembling a bit, half shocked by what she was doing and half thrilled, as she tugged him to his feet.
    Once he was on them he looked even thinner and weaker than she had thought. It was a fair walk up to the top end of Wavertree Park but she didn’t want to risk taking him on a bus in case she saw someone she knew. She wanted to get him cleaned up and a bit more respectable-looking before that happened. But then there was no hurry. They could take their time. Con wouldn’t be in until gone midnight. They could stop off at one of the chippies on the way. Emily’s stomach growled eagerly at the thought.
    The neighbours would want to know where he’d come from; she’d have to think of something. Perhaps she could tell them that he was related to her in some roundabout way; after all, any number of folk were having to take in the homeless sothere was no reason why she shouldn’t have him to live with her, was there?
    No reason except that Con would play holy hell about it.
    Well, let him, she didn’t care. And it was her house, when all was said and done.
       
    Katie knew the minute she saw the twins’ faces that her black dress was every bit as dull and unsuitable for Liverpool’s best ballroom’s big Christmas Dance as she had thought.
    Even Jean was looking at her sympathetically. Katie’s heart sank even lower. She really wished that she had not agreed to go to this dance. As her father’s assistant it had been necessary for her to wear businesslike clothes that helped her to fade into the background, not pretty dance dresses.
    ‘Are you really going to the Grafton in that?’ Lou, always more forthright than her twin, asked.
    ‘Lou …’ Jean objected, shaking her head at her daughter.
    ‘It’s all right,’ Katie assured her. ‘I know that my dress is very dull, but I didn’t think to bring a dance frock with me.’ Her words were both the truth and a small face-saving exercise, since in reality she did not possess a ‘dance frock’, but no one need know that.
    ‘Nobody will ask you to dance if you wear that. It’s too dull, more like what me and Sasha will have to wear when we go to work in Lewis’s,’ Lou told her.
    ‘Lou, that’s enough.’ Jean sounded stern now and Katie felt obliged to defend the child.
    ‘Lou’s right, my frock isn’t suitable for a Christmas Dance, but unfortunately I’m going to have to wear it because it’s all I’ve got.’
    ‘You could have borrowed something from Grace if she’d been here,’ said Sasha, ‘couldn’t she, Mum?’
    ‘Yes, I’m sure she could. Wait a minute!’ Jean exclaimed. ‘I’ve just had a thought. There’s that trunk full of clothes our Fran left behind. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind you borrowing something from her if we can find something suitable, Katie. That is, if you don’t mind borrowing?’
    ‘Of course she doesn’t, do you, Katie?’ Lou answered for her.
    Without appearing rude Katie had no choice but to agree.
    Ten minutes later the four of them were upstairs in Katie’s neat, tidy bedroom, but which now reminded her of an expensive dress salon. Clothes were lying on the bed – expensive, beautifully made, elegant clothes that Katie’s mother would have loved.
    ‘What about this, Katie?’ Lou demanded, pirouetting round the room on her toes, holding a pale grey silk taffeta evening dress in front of her. It had a white sash waist and a matching short-sleeved bolero jacket decorated with one white and one grey silk flower that nestled stylishly together.
    It was, Katie knew without even inspecting it properly, a very expensive outfit. It was also perfect for her colouring, and some female instinct she hadn’t known she