A Daughter’s Choice. Cathy Sharp

there was some story about Jamie O’Rourke having gone away after his girl was killed in a fire on the eve of their wedding, but I didn’t know the details.

      ‘Give my best wishes to your grandmother, Kathy love – and if you need anythin’ you know where to come.’

      ‘Thanks, Bridget,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell Gran you asked after her.’

      She smiled, nodded and moved on, seeming to have something on her mind. I thought it might be to do with her elder brother Jamie and wondered if Gran would tell me the whole story if I asked.

      I was reflective as I walked on. If my father had married Bridget I would be her daughter and Amy Robinson would have been my younger sister – or perhaps I wouldn’t have been around at all. A sigh escaped me as I thought that I would have liked Bridget as a mother, but it was hard to believe that my father had ever wanted to marry her. He always seemed to dislike her, though it was her husband he really hated.

      ‘You stay away from that Bridget O’Rourke and her ’usband,’ he’d said to me time and again when I was a child after Bridget had given me a treat of some kind, as she often did. ‘That bleedin’ Joe Robinson is too clever for ’is own good!’

      It was odd that he should call Bridget by her maiden name, but then my father was a law unto himself. He hadn’t been so bad when I was a small child. I could remember him taking me up on his shoulders to carry me down the lane when he was in a good mood, and there had been occasional visits to the fair and one never-to-be forgotten trip on the train to Southend as a treat for my tenth birthday. There had always been enough money in the house for food and rent then; it was only since Da’s accident that he’d turned sullen and taken to the drink.

      He’d been a driver for Mr Dawson at the brewery, and proud of the wagons he drove with their magnificent horses and shining harness, but he wasn’t capable of loading or unloading the drays now. Mr Dawson had kept him on in the brewery, because with the onset of the war he had been short of men, but of late he had been given only the more menial of jobs to do and was forever complaining about his employer.

      ‘You mustn’t mind your da, Kathy love,’ Gran had told me when he came home full of the drink, swearing and yelling the house down. ‘He’s in pain from his leg – and he’s a disappointed man. He’s not had a fair deal from life, your da.’

      ‘What do you mean, Gran?’ I’d asked but she only shook her head as she always did when I asked questions about things she didn’t want to tell me. Her silence only made me more curious.

      What had happened to my father to make him so bitter? Was it just that my mother had gone off and left him when I was a baby? Yet it was Gran who had had all the trouble of bringing me up, and she wasn’t bitter.

      ‘Wait up, Kathy Cole! I want a word with yer …’

      I turned as I heard the sound of running feet behind me and hesitated, recognizing at once the man who had called out to me. It was Billy Ryan, Maggie Ryan’s youngest son. He was twenty-six going on seven and I was seventeen, but he’d been after me since I’d left school and started work at the glove factory. Billy had worked there too as a foreman for a while, but he’d joined up as soon as war was declared, one of the first to do so in our street. Before he went away he’d told me to wait for him, because he was going to marry me one day.

      ‘Oh, so you’re back,’ I said, not smiling at him. I wasn’t at all sure how I felt about Billy Ryan. He had always been a cocky lad and people whispered that he’d been in a bit of trouble a couple of times and was lucky he hadn’t been up in front of the magistrates. ‘Did the Army throw you out then?’

      ‘You haven’t changed,’ Billy replied and grinned at me. ‘Glad to see me then are yer, Kathy girl?’

      ‘I’m indifferent either way,’ I said with a shrug of my shoulders and he gave a hoot of laughter.

      ‘Swallowed a dictionary this mornin’, did yer?’ Billy’s parents were Irish, and still spoke with a soft Irish accent but Billy had lived in London all his life and sounded like a cockney. He wasn’t in the least put out by my manner and despite myself I warmed to him. He had a nice smile and he wasn’t bad looking, his hair dark and wavy and his eyes a melting chocolate brown. He had smartened up and I supposed the Army had done that for him; his boots were polished so fine you could see your face in them. ‘Fancy going to the Pally this evenin’ then?’

      I stared at him in silence for a moment or two. My father wouldn’t be pleased if I went out with Billy, but then he didn’t like any of the people in Farthing Lane these days. Gran would encourage me to go. She said I didn’t get out with other young people often enough.

      ‘I like dancin’,’ I said at last. ‘But I’m not sure I should go with you, Billy Ryan. You might try to take advantage.’

      ‘God’s honest truth I’d never do that to yer, Kathy,’ Billy said and he sounded sincere. ‘It ain’t just ’cos you’re the prettiest girl in the lanes with that lovely hair o’ yourn and them big eyes. You’re the girl I’m goin’ ter marry one day, and I respect yer. I swear on me ’onour that I won’t put a finger out of place. I won’t even kiss yer unless you agree, lass. Cross me ’eart and ’ope ter die.’

      I wasn’t surprised by his answer. Billy had told everyone for years that he was going to marry me one day. It had been a joke amongst my school friends, but looking at him now I almost believed him.

      ‘I’ll come then,’ I said making up my mind. ‘I’ll meet you outside the brewery at seven.’

      ‘I was goin’ ter call fer yer proper, Kathy. We might as well start out right.’

      ‘Me da might not like me going with you,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But perhaps you’re right. Call for me at seven then – that will please Gran anyway. She says no one shows her any respect these days.’

      ‘I’ve got every respect for Mrs Cole,’ Billy said. ‘She’s been good to you, lass – just the way I shall be when we’re wed.’

      ‘And who said I was goin’ to marry you? Sayin’ I’ll come to the Pally with you doesn’t mean I’ll marry you, Billy Ryan.’

      He grinned at me cheekily. ‘First things first, Kathy. Yer don’t know me yet, but you’ll soon change your mind when yer see how generous I can be. I’ll be there at seven so don’t keep me waitin’!’

      I glared at him, almost sorry that I had agreed to go out with him that evening. Just who did he think he was? I nearly told him to forget it but something held me back. I was seventeen and I hadn’t had a regular boyfriend yet. I’d been dancing at the Pally with other girls and their brothers, and a few of my dance partners had made a pass at me. I hadn’t let any of them kiss me. It annoyed me because one or two of them had seemed to imagine that I would be easy and I didn’t see why. I wasn’t a flirt and I had never been out with a man on my own.

      Once I’d heard some boys whispering about my mother and laughing in a nasty way, and it had made me wonder. Why should people laugh about Grace Cole in that way – and why did the men sometimes look at me oddly? I wasn’t a tart and I had never given anyone cause to think it.

      It was a mystery, and it would never be solved until I could get some answers about my mother – but no one would tell me anything.

      I made up my mind to ask Gran about it again when I got home. Surely I had a right to know the whole story?

      ‘Well, I suppose you are old enough to know the truth,’ Gran said when I took a cup of tea up to her in bed and told her what was on my mind and why. ‘It might be best if you know – especially if you’re goin’ ter start courtin’.’

      She had her pink bed shawl about her shoulders, and the patchwork quilt she had made with her own hands as a young woman was pulled up tight about her. Even on a warm day the old house seemed cold and draughty, and in winter we often needed a fire in the bedrooms.

      ‘I’m only goin’ dancin’ with