Read Online Love or Duty--A saga set in 1920s Liverpool by Rosie Harris - Free Book Online Page A

asked in a puzzled voice as Penny bent down and fitted the smaller of the two straw hats on Kelly’s head.
    Penny found it difficult to explain. ‘No, Mary’s not my sister but she lives here with us and helps Mrs Davies in the kitchen and with the housework.’
    â€˜Why do you have someone to do the work? Can’t your mam do it? My mam does all ours. And the washing and shopping and there’s a lot more of us than there is living here,’ Kelly went on.
    â€˜Yes, but this is a very big house to keep clean,’ Penny explained.
    â€˜Why do you need so many rooms? We only have two proper rooms; the bedroom and the living room,’ Kelly commented. ‘We have a bit of the scullery as well but we have to share that with the people upstairs.’
    Penny felt at a loss. ‘Let’s go and see what there is to look at in the garden shall we,’ she said brightly in an effort to change the subject.
    â€˜Is all this your garden?’ Kelly asked in a bewildered voice as Penny pushed her up the path leading from the patio to the flower garden and then to the kitchen garden where there was a large vegetable patch, fruit bushes, a plum tree and two apple trees that were loaded with ripening fruit.
    As they walked back to the patio Kelly insisted on knowing the names of all the bushes and flowers and Penny did her best to name them.
    â€˜It’s like being in a park, miss,’ Kelly said in awe, her eyes shining.
    â€˜I thought we agreed that you were going to call me Penny.’
    â€˜Sorry, miss. I forgot. I wish I could play ball on the grass,’ she said longingly.
    â€˜Perhaps you will be able to do so soon. Once your broken leg begins to mend and it is strong enough for you to stand on it then you will be able to use your crutches to walk about,’ Penny said encouragingly.
    â€˜Penny, do you think my leg will be better again in time for me to go to school after the summer holidays are over?’ Kelly asked pensively.
    â€˜Oh, I’m sure it will be,’ Penny assured her. ‘Which school do you go to?’
    â€˜I haven’t started going to school yet,’ Kelly sighed.
    â€˜Really? I thought you were already six?’ Penny exclaimed in surprise.
    â€˜I am,’ said Kelly with a giggle.
    â€˜In that case you should have been at school for at least a year,’ Penny told her.
    â€˜Me mam says that once I start going then if I stays away the school board man will come to get me. I don’t think she wants me to go at all really because she likes me being at home to help look after Brian and Lily.’
    â€˜Do you have to look after them very often?’ Penny frowned thinking what a tremendous responsibility it must be for a six-year-old.
    Kelly nodded. ‘Most of the time me mam only takes the baby with her when she goes out to the shops or to the market,’ Kelly told her with a big sigh. ‘She says the other two play her up so she can’t manage them as well as the baby.’
    â€˜Why ever not?’
    Kelly spread her arms in exasperation. ‘They don’t like walking and me mam hasn’t got a pram. She can’t carry them as well as the baby and all the shopping now can she.’
    â€˜So is that why you don’t go to school?’
    â€˜I suppose. I have to help me mam keep the place tidy, and I used to have to feed little Lily but she can feed herself now.’

Seven
    When they went back indoors for their lunch Kelly didn’t appear to notice that Mrs Forshaw didn’t join them.
    After lunch, although it was a very hot day, Penny put Kelly into the pushchair and walked to Vale Park.
    â€˜It’s nice but not as pretty as your garden,’ Kelly told her after she’d been pushed right round it.
    â€˜I’ll bring you back here on Sunday and then you will be able to listen to the band,’ Penny told her. ‘This is where they play,’ she added as they paused by