Read Online One Step at a Time by Beryl Matthews - Free Book Online

Your father has been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.’
    Her legs gave way and she dropped to her knees, resting her chin on the desk. Her father was in Australia, wasn’t he?
    ‘Jim!’ The boss called the foreman in. ‘Give us a hand here.’
    She was incapable of moving as the two men helped her to a chair.
    ‘Bloody hell, Jim,’ the boss exploded. ‘She didn’t know. She hasn’t been able to read the news placards about the trial. I’ve just had to tell her we don’t want her because her father’s going to hang for killingsomeone the owner’s related to. Where the hell is there any justice in that! How can this child be to blame and have to suffer?’
    ‘She can’t read?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Hell, boss, she hid that well.’
    ‘Yes, she’s a bright kid, but what chance is she going to get round here with everyone knowing the victim?’
    This conversation all sounded very far away to Amy as she sat hunched up, dry-eyed with shock. Now she understood why everyone had been giving her strange looks, and why her mother was refusing to go out. But she should have been told. It was cruel to leave her to find out like this. It was impossible to believe that her dad had done this terrible thing. And her mother wasn’t strong…
    Hauling herself up, she stood on shaking legs. She must get back to her mother.
    ‘Easy now.’ The boss steadied her, but she shook him off and reached out for the newspaper on his desk. This was only managed by holding on to the back of the chair. Once it was in her hand she let go of the chair and turned slowly to face the door, willing her legs to move.
    The boss placed an envelope in her other hand. ‘I’ve paid you up to the end of the week.’
    Holding tightly to the newspaper and her wage packet she forced herself to take a step forward. Somehow, she managed to walk out of the office andacross the factory floor to the front door. She was vaguely aware that work had stopped in the factory and everyone was watching her, but she kept her head up and concentrated on taking one step at a time.
    ‘Well, don’t just stand there gawping,’ the boss thundered. ‘Get back to bloody work or I’ll sack the lot of you. I’m just in the mood to do it as well.’
    Amy had just reached the door when someone put her coat around her shoulders.
    ‘Don’t forget this, it’s cold outside. I’m sorry, Amy.’
    Through the haze of pain she recognized Gladys’s voice, but she didn’t look at her or stop moving. If a friend couldn’t stick by you in times of trouble, then they weren’t worth bothering with.
    After closing the door in the face of her so-called friend, she shuffled round until she was going in the right direction. One foot in front of the other, she told herself through gritted teeth. Just one foot in front of the other, that’s all there was to walking.
    It must have worked because the next thing she knew she was in the scullery, and had dropped like a stone into one of the chairs at the table.
    Her mother was there and watched her daughter, hollow-eyed. ‘You know and they’ve sacked you.’
    Amy nodded and slapped the wage packet and newspaper on the table. ‘You should have told me, Mum. It wasn’t right to let me find out like this. It wasn’t right.’
    ‘I know, but I’m a coward, Amy, and was hopingthey wouldn’t find him guilty. Then it would have all blown over in no time.’
    ‘But that didn’t happen, and now we have to face this horror.’ Amy refused to cry after seeing the state her mother was in. She looked absolutely terrible. ‘Have you seen him?’
    Her mother sobbed as if her heart would break. ‘Yes, he’s in Pentonville.’
    ‘Did he do it?’ Amy had to know.
    ‘Yes, but he said the man was a thief and a bully. He was only defending himself. He wasn’t going to lose all that money he’d made on this long trip. It would have bought a little house of our own.’
    ‘Why’s he going to hang then?’
    ‘Because the judge and jury