Josephine Cox 3-Book Collection 2: The Loner, Born Bad, Three Letters

With the tip of her thumb she wiped away his tears, and went to where Frank was waiting for her.

One last, encouraging glance back, and she was gone.

PART FIVE (#ulink_599a2654-f4bf-5dbe-80b2-4f1ed7fdd4d7)

Blackburn, 1963

A Man and His Dream

Chapter Twenty (#ulink_b85f6cf4-2c2f-5546-b693-4c49ff0a580a)

‘LESS THAN A week an’ we’ll be wed.’ Dropping his fishing-basket on the grass, Lenny caught Judy by the waist and swung her around. ‘Aw, sweetheart, you’ve made me the happiest man on God’s earth!’

For what seemed an age he observed her every feature; the pretty grey eyes in a heart-shaped face, the long brown hair that reached down to her waist, and that slight figure which you could imagine might be blown away by the softest breeze. Yet Judy was strong; she had a temper that could move the heavens, and she possessed the fiercest of loyalty to her friends and family. And now at last, she was promised to him.

Lenny had to pinch himself. In two days’ time, at eleven o’clock on Saturday, would they really walk out of St Peter’s Church as man and wife?

He recalled the harshness of his childhood, and the times when he felt as though he was the loneliest person on earth. And then there was Judy, whom he saw as his future. He had lost count of the times he had asked her to be his wife, and the many times she had refused. ‘Davie’ … it was always ‘Davie’.

But now, at long last, he had persuaded her that Davie Adams was gone for ever.

Kissing her long and hard, he thanked his lucky stars for the day when Judy Makepeace had finally relented and promised to marry him.

‘Hey, you two!’ Annie’s heart weighed heavy at the sight of them kissing. Like everyone else, she knew why Lenny had left home in a hurry. Because of her own circumstances she, better than anyone, had an inkling of what he must have gone through, and how lonely he must have felt; and she loved him more than ever. ‘Stop that, or you’ll frighten the fish away!’ she called when they carried on kissing.

Annie’s light-hearted banter disguised her darker feelings. It wasn’t just her friends’ imminent wedding that troubled her; though seeing Lenny every day at the shop and being close to him in the delivery van, there were times when her love for him was almost unbearable.

But no. It wasn’t just the thought of their wedding that haunted her. There was something else, some terrible secret that she still had not been able to confide to anyone. And the longer it went on, the more afraid she became.

Sometimes, God forgive her … there was murder in her heart.

Judy released herself from Lenny’s arms with a smile. ‘Got to go,’ she told him. ‘The dresses are due to be delivered this afternoon and me and Annie need to go into town for the final fitting.’

‘Our mams are meeting us there,’ Annie groaned, ‘– and if we keep them waiting, they’ll go off shopping and it’ll be months before they surface.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Judy joked. ‘They’ll be at the shop now, fussing and fretting, and giving the dressmaker what for. By the time we get there they’ll have her so agitated, we’ll end up with pinpricks from head to foot.’

Judy was right. As they went into the dressmaker’s establishment, Annie’s mother, Evie Needham, pounced on her daughter. ‘Where the devil have you been?’ This little woman could never understand how she had given birth to such a big, robust girl as Annie; though apart from the disturbingly quiet moods Annie often fell into, she would not want to change a single thing about her darling, spirited daughter.

‘We’ve been to the canal,’ Annie explained. ‘I hope you haven’t been upsetting anyone?’ She gave a sly little glance at the assistant, who was wringing her hands together while calling the dressmaker from the back room.