Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection. Josephine Cox

      Holding Tom’s hand, she heard the service, and then they left.

      Outside, she held onto Tom, and he kept her safe, until she broke away at a run, fleeing down the path and into the road, where the taxi was still waiting.

      Tom followed her.

      As they moved away they saw them come out, heads bowed, eyes moist, filing behind Samantha, as they did in life.

      It was as it should be.

      Later that evening, when the patients of the mental home gathered for their evening meal, Lilian sat sullen and unresponsive at the far end of the table.

      The nurse came to speak with her. ‘Aren’t you hungry, my dear?’ Soft-spoken and portly, she was a pleasant lady of middle years.

      Lilian pushed her hotpot away.

      The nurse pushed it gently back. ‘Just eat as much as you can,’ she urged. ‘You ate nothing at all yesterday. You can’t go on like that. Remember, you’ve a baby growing inside you. It needs its nourishment.’

      Lashing out, Lilian sent the hot stew all over her. When the nurse reeled backwards, her arm scalded and calling out for help, Lilian came after her. There was murder in her eyes. ‘I don’t want your food!’ she screeched. ‘I don’t want this baby!’

      Terrifying everyone there, she grabbed a knife from the table. ‘SEE!’ Slicing the blade across her stomach, she began tearing her clothes. ‘I’ll kill it,’ she cried. ‘You can’t stop me! You can’t make me have it!’

      At the nurse’s shouts, the helpers came from nowhere, holding Lilian down, trying to calm her.

      One minute she was like a crazy thing – kicking out, spitting and snarling; in the next she was like a child – cowering and whimpering. ‘It was me. I did it!’ Snatching off her shoe, she held it high in the air, laughing through her tears as she brought it down again and again on the floor, the sound echoing through the room with a sickening thud. ‘I pushed her … shoved her in the water.’ Her eyes grew wide with wonder before she began laughing … mad, abandoned laughter. ‘I pushed her … she fell in … it was funny.’

      Her laughter was insane. ‘I can do it to this baby as well … you can’t stop me!’ She punched her stomach so hard with the shoe that she actually cried out in pain.

      When they tried to stand her up, she fought like a wild thing.

      After a while, when she was quietly crying, they took her to the rest room, where she would be shut in for a time, until she had reflected on her behaviour.

      When they locked the door on her, she could be heard shouting, ‘The water killed her. It wasn’t me!’

      One nurse looked to the other. ‘Mad as a hatter!’ she said.

      ‘Talking gibberish!’ said the other.

      But Lilian knew what she had done.

      She could see it all in her head … the darkness, the rain, and Kathy all alone, walking in the dark. ‘That woman had no right to him!’ she yelled. ‘He’s mine! He’ll always be mine! I don’t want this baby!’ Her screams could be heard well into the night.

      Until at last she fell asleep.

      Even in her vivid dreams, she knew what she had done.

      But she was not sorry. Given the chance she would do it again.

       Chapter 23

      AFTER ALL THAT had happened, Kathy didn’t want a big wedding. ‘As long as I’ve got you, that will be enough,’ she told Tom.

      On this morning, two weeks before Christmas, they had taken the boat along the coast. It was one of those wintry days, when the chill in the air was muted by the sun’s watery rays. The breeze was sharp enough to make their ears burn and their noses slightly pink, but it didn’t matter. Well wrapped up, out there with only the sea and sky for company, they were never happier.

      Later, as they gentled their way back to harbour, Tom took her in his arms. ‘I love you,’ he murmured, kissing her face and hugging her tight.

      ‘I love you too,’ she told him, laughing out loud when a freak wind rocked their bows to send him staggering away. ‘If you don’t watch where we’re going, we’ll end up on the rocks.’

      Coming into harbour, they saw Jasper merrily waving at them from the quayside. ‘I expect he’s after us going for a drink with him.’ Tom steered the boat in through the narrow tunnel. ‘I think the world of him,’ he said, ‘but I’m glad we could get away on our own just now, aren’t you?’ He looked at her then, at her small face with its pink nose and the ends of her hair playing out from beneath her woolly cap, and he thought himself the luckiest man on earth.

      She came to him then, her arms round his waist, her face nuzzling into his back. ‘I want us always to be as happy as we are today,’ she whispered.

      Tom turned to kiss her. ‘And why shouldn’t we be?’ he demanded with a twinkle in his eye.

      ‘No reason,’ she answered thoughtfully.

      They both knew how life could turn on you like a wild beast when it took a mind.

      But they had weathered the storm, and now, God willing, they were home and safe.

      A week later, the snow came. Covering the landscape with a layer of squashy white, it hung from the boughs of trees and rolled up in the hedges, but it wasn’t cold. Instead, on the day Tom and Kathy were married, it was a warm and beautiful winter’s afternoon.

      It was only four days before Christmas. The snows were beginning to melt. Through every window the Christmas lights twinkled and sparkled, and children laughed and played in the snow. Soon it would be gone and a New Year started.

      ‘By! Yer look a treat, lass.’ Jasper was at the house when Kathy came downstairs wearing the cream-coloured suit she had chosen for her wedding. With the blue blouse, pretty shoes, and the darker-blue hat with its tiny veil, she looked dazzling.

      Having helped her to dress, Rosie came down the stairs behind her. ‘Ah, but yer don’t know what she’s wearing under her skirt,’ she teased the old man.

      Jasper laughed. ‘Go on, then … I’m sure you’re itching to tell me.’

      ‘It’s a garter!’ Winking at Kathy, she said, ‘Sure, ye might think this gal is all prim and proper, but there’s a little devil lurking under there, I can tell ye!’ Rushing across the room, she gave Kathy a nudge. ‘Go on then! Show the man!’

      Winking naughtily at him, Kathy lifted the hem of her skirt and there, nestling just above the knee, was the prettiest, pinkest, frilliest garter you ever did see.

      Jasper laughed out loud. ‘Well, yer little hussy, you!’ he chuckled.

      Kathy’s smile deepened. ‘I’ll give you two guesses as to who bought it.’

      ‘Ah, sure, it’s only right!’ Rosie was in her element. ‘A feller wants to see a little wickedness in his woman. Isn’t that so, Jasper?’ Linking her arm with his, she gave him a loud smacker on the side of his face.

      ‘Hey!’ Jasper gave her a playful nudge. ‘You’d better watch it, lass. I’ve been known to sweep a woman off her feet for less than that.’

      ‘Well, then … sweep me off my feet, why don’t ye?’

      ‘What!’ He blushed to the roots of his beard. ‘D’yer want me to crawl in that church on me hands and knees, do yer?’

      When she pretended to come after him, he headed for the door. ‘Come on then, Kathy, lass. We’d best be off … the car’s waiting outside.’

      Frantic