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

what will you do?’ he asked worriedly. ‘Where will you go?’

      Maggie’s smile was radiant. ‘I’ll go with him,’ she answered. ‘He’s asked me to marry him, and I said yes. Oh, it isn’t the same kind of love I felt for Ted … no one can ever fill that place in my heart. But it’s a kind of love all the same, quiet and good, and it gives me a feeling of belonging.’

      She paused, before adding knowingly, ‘I suspect it’s the same kind of love you felt for Lucy, while she felt for you the same way I felt for my Ted. You see, Dave, there are many levels of love, and it doesn’t make the loving any more or less … just different.’

      They were at the gates now, and unable to hold the grief in any longer, Dave leaned against the gate-post, put his hands over his face and sobbed until he thought his heart would break. ‘I wanted so much to love her back the way she loved me,’ he said brokenly, ‘but I couldn’t, and I didn’t know why. But I did love her, so much … I needed to protect her and be with her. I would have given my life for her, the way she gave her life for me.’

      ‘She always knew that,’ Maggie promised. ‘And she was content.’

      He looked up at this kind, wise woman and in his agony he asked, ‘Why could I not love her back, the same way she loved me?’

      Maggie knew; she had known for some time. ‘Because you had already given that deeper part of your heart to another. Someone you knew as well as you know yourself,’ she went on. ‘Someone who helped you through the worst time of your childhood.’

      She saw the truth beginning to dawn in his face. ‘Yes – Judy.’ She echoed his thoughts. ‘She’s the one I’m talking about. She’s the one who came to your mind just now. I knew, as soon as you spoke her name, from the light in your eyes, the warmth in your voice. Without you ever realising, and long before you ever met dear Lucy, it was Judy who crept deep into your heart and soul.’

      While Dave was shaking his head, still unable to grasp the truth of what she was saying, Maggie whispered in his ear, ‘Go to her now, love,’ she urged. ‘Go back home to your Judy. She’ll know how to bring you through this painful time.’

      Before he could answer, to tell her that he wasn’t ready, that he had so much grieving to do before he could even consider her suggestion, Maggie kissed him tenderly on the face. ‘It’s where you belong,’ she told him. ‘Live, Dave – grasp your life and live it! Lucy would have wanted it so – and you know in your heart that is true.’

      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

      Blackburn, 1963

A Man and His Dream

Chapter Twenty

      ‘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.