The Price of Love (18 page)

Almost overnight, Lucy found that her life had suddenly taken a downward spiral. Joe and Madge Black, the middle-aged couple who moved into Berky’s rooms, were intent on changes.

Lucy’s first encounter with them was on their first Friday there. They didn’t wait for her to take the rent money down but Madge came up to collect it. She was a thin, scrawny woman with frizzy red hair, green eyes and a very sharp voice.

When Lucy handed over the five shillings and sixpence, Madge held it in the palm of her hand, frowning. ‘What’s this?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve got three rooms, so it should be six shillings.’

‘No, one of the rooms is only a box room; Berky agreed we need only pay one shilling and sixpence a week for it.’

‘Berky’s dead. We’re in charge now. My husband said it was six shillings, so that’s what I want.’

Lucy didn’t like her tone or her attitude. ‘My agreement is to pay five shillings and sixpence,’ she said firmly and closed the door.

The Blacks were not content to leave it at that. Within minutes Joe Black was hammering on their door. Lucy almost felt afraid to answer it but knowing that Sam would be home at any minute and that Joe Black would undoubtedly face him with it, she felt she ought to deal with the matter.

The moment she opened the door Joe Black stepped inside. A big, untidy-looking man with receding dark greasy hair and a florid face with small dark eyes, he was an imposing figure.

His breath smelt of beer and involuntarily Lucy stepped backwards as he pushed past her into the living room.

‘What’s all this nonsense, trying to cheat us out of sixpence a week?’ he demanded.

‘I am not doing anything of the sort. The rent we fixed with Berky was for five shillings and sixpence a week.’

‘That’s your story. What proof is there of that now that Berky’s dead and gone?’

‘I’m hardly likely to lie to you over sixpence, now am I?’ Lucy said hotly.

‘I’m not so sure. You certainly don’t want to pay it.’

‘The room isn’t worth two shillings a week. There’s only space for a single bed in there. It was Berky’s box room.’

‘In that case, get your things out of there right this minute and we’ll let it to someone else,’ Joe Black ordered.

‘I can’t do that. It’s my brother’s room. I can’t move his things without his permission.’

Joe Black chewed on the ends of his straggly moustache thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you’d better let me see the room for myself and just possibly I might reconsider.’

Reluctantly, Lucy took him along the passage to the small room at the far end. It was so small that there was barely room for the two of them to stand side by side once they were in there. As he turned to leave Joe pushed hard against her and Lucy found herself falling backwards on to the bed.

With a loud belly laugh he put out a hand to pull her upright. ‘I suppose that’s one way of making me agree not to change the rent,’ he leered.

Lucy bit down on her lip to stop herself from saying anything as she drew back and shook his hand away from her arm, sickened by his suggestion and also by his beery breath.

‘I’ll take the five shillings and sixpence this week but I’ll have to think it over and decide what to do before next rent day,’ he told her as he ambled off back downstairs to his own rooms.

Even though Lucy was still shaking with fright when Sam arrived home he didn’t at first seem to believe her when she told him about her encounter with Joe Black.

A few days later, however, when she answered the door to find Joe Black standing there and he forced his way past her and into their living room, Sam became aware of what a dangerous character he was.

Once again Joe Black was demanding they pay six shillings a week and his manner was so threatening that in the end Sam had no option but to accept his terms.

As soon as he had gone Sam agreed with Lucy that there was no doubt about it but they couldn’t stay there any longer than they absolutely had to.

‘The trouble is we can’t afford to move, not right now. Paying him another sixpence a week is going to be bad enough, but if we want to move, then we will probably have to find a month’s rent up front for the new place.’

‘We didn’t when we moved here,’ Sam reminded her. ‘But of course Berky was one in a million in every way.’

‘Yes, Berky was an exception to the rule, wasn’t she?’ Lucy sighed. ‘I doubt if we will ever find another landlady who was as good to us as she was.’

‘True enough but, nevertheless, we don’t want to go on living here, not now that the Blacks have taken over the running of things. He seems to have designs on you and I don’t like that; I don’t think you’re safe.’

‘Don’t worry, now that I know what he’s like I’ll be on my guard and make certain that I avoid any compromising situations with him.’

‘Make sure you do. It won’t be easy because I think he’s a cunning old bastard and it would appear that his mind is made up about you,’ Sam told her grimly.

‘I’ll try and find more work somewhere,’ Lucy said thoughtfully. ‘I have a couple of hours before I need to go to the hotel each morning and I’m usually finished there by three in the afternoon.’

‘You have the cleaning and shopping to do for us, so don’t go taking on too much other work,’ Sam warned. ‘You need some time for yourself.’

‘No, I don’t. If I wandered around the shops, I’d only spend money we haven’t got.’ Lucy chuckled.

‘Window shopping is about all you ever do apart from buying food,’ Sam said a trifle bitterly. ‘It’s a hard life for you, Lucy; you should have money in your pocket to spend on clothes and things like that, not work all day, every day like you do.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I do wish you hadn’t turned Barry Mason down; you would have had a much better life if you’d married him.’

‘We’ll have a much better life if I get some more work or else a better job with more pay,’ Lucy told him crisply. ‘Don’t worry; we’ll get away from here just as soon as ever we can.’

‘You’re not the only one who will be scheming,’ Sam promised. ‘I’ll see if I can think of some way of earning more money as well.’

Sam was as good as his word. The following week he announced that he had decided that in future he was not only going to work in the mornings but also see if he could expand his business. By working in the early part of the afternoon as well he hoped to entice people who arrived on the midday ferry boats and who had come over to Liverpool on business or to do some shopping to have their shoes cleaned.

On the Monday he had only three customers but, remembering how slow things had been the first time he’d started shining shoes, he was determined to stick it out for the rest of the week in the hope that things would improve.

On the Wednesday morning Lucy reminded Sam before she went off to her charring job that it was 12 July and Orangeman’s Day.

‘There will probably be huge crowds everywhere as well as men marching and a band, so it might be better if you stayed at home today.’

‘The more people there are out and about the more chances I get of doing good business,’ he argued.

‘That may be true enough, but remember things can get nasty. The marches often end up in fights between the prozzies and the cat’licks before the day is out.’

Reluctantly, Sam agreed to take the day off but by the middle of the day he was so tired of being cooped up in their rooms and by the fact that he was losing money by not being at his pitch that he decided to go out.

The moment he reached the top of Water Street Sam found himself in a dense crowd of men, women and children as they waited for the marching bands that were making their way through Liverpool and were now heading for the Pier Head.

The crowd began shouting and waving flags and banners as the sound of the band approaching became louder and people began to surge forward to try and be the first to catch a glimpse of them.

Amongst the crowd were the two boys who had taunted Sam when he and Lucy had lived in Hans Court and the moment they spotted Sam they began shouting out rude names at him and taunting him about being a cripple.

As the band and the marchers came into view the crowds shuffled back on to the pavement to let them pass by. The two boys seized the opportunity to come up behind Sam and as he tried to move backwards they jostled him so hard that he stumbled forward right into the middle of the road and ended up directly in the path of the band, causing complete chaos as the men stumbled against each other desperately trying to keep their footing so as not to fall and damage their instruments.

Although they did their best to avoid Sam who was now lying prone on the roadway, one of the men accidentally trod on him breaking his right arm. The man marching immediately behind fell over the pair of them and landed directly on top of Sam and the impact left Sam unconscious.

The police who were escorting the marchers were immediately on the scene. None of the band or marchers was seriously hurt but an ambulance was called to take Sam to hospital. He was not only unconscious but also appeared to be having great difficulty breathing and they suspected that one or more of his ribs may have been damaged.

When, late in the afternoon, Lucy returned from her midday washing-up stint at the hotel which had taken far longer than usual due to all the extra customers they’d had that day, she felt annoyed when she found that Sam had not heeded her warning and had gone out.

Even so, she still wasn’t unduly worried until a couple of hours later when he still hadn’t put in an appearance and the meal she had prepared was still waiting to be dished up.

In the end she decided she might as well eat hers and warm his up again when he did get home.

As time passed and Sam still hadn’t turned up she began to be seriously concerned. She had no idea where to start looking for him. She felt cross because he had ignored her advice about going out but, nevertheless, felt concerned in case he had become involved in some kind of trouble. However, she was reluctant to go to the police.

As the evening began to draw on Lucy’s feeling of unease mounted. She kept remembering the rowdy crowds there had been in Liverpool earlier on in the day, waving flags and banners, and which she’d seen near the Exchange that afternoon when she’d been coming home. If, despite her warning, Sam had gone to his pitch as usual, then he might well have been involved in an incident of some kind.

Putting on her hat and coat Lucy decided to walk towards the Pier Head in case Sam had taken a walk that way first as he did every day now when he went off to work. If there was no sign of him, she told herself, then she would go the police station and explain that he was missing and that she was worried about him.

Before she even turned into Water Street she saw a placard outside one of the newsagent’s in Scotland Road and as she read the headline her heart began to thud faster:

MARCHING TRAGEDY
–
YOUNG MAN SERIOUSLY INJURED
.

Instinctively, Lucy knew it was Sam. It wasn’t the police station she needed to go to but the hospital.

A thousand and one thoughts about what might have happened to Sam went through her mind as she hurried there. If only he had listened to her and had stayed at home today as she’d asked him to do, but it was too late to think about that. All she could hope for now was that he wasn’t too badly hurt.

When she enquired at the hospital reception desk they informed her that they had no record of anyone by the name of Sam Collins being admitted.

As she turned away Lucy felt a wave of relief sweep over her. She’d been silly to panic; of course it wasn’t Sam who’d been involved. By now Sam was safe at home and wondering where on earth she was at this time of night.

She was almost at the door when the receptionist called out, asking her to wait a moment.

‘That chap you were asking about; how old was he?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well, there was a young man brought in late this afternoon; he’d been involved in a scuffle of some sort with the marchers. The melee made headline news in the
Echo
tonight. He’s still unconscious and we don’t know his name, so I was just wondering …’

The woman stopped speaking as she saw the colour drain from Lucy’s face. ‘Oh, heavens, you’re not going to faint, are you?’ she gasped as she came round from her side of the reception counter and grabbed hold of Lucy’s arm.

Lucy shook her head and took a deep breath. ‘I’m all right. I think it might be my brother. Can I see him?’

‘Sit down on a chair for a minute while I let the ward sister know what you’ve just told me,’ the receptionist said as she went back to her desk.

Lucy tried to control her impatience as she sat waiting for what seemed to be an interminable time. When the receptionist finally came over and said she would take her along to the ward, Lucy found she was shaking so much that she could hardly stand up.

She tried to keep her wits about her as the sister asked questions about her brother’s age, the colour of his hair and whether or not he was likely to have been in the Water Street area that afternoon.

‘If you let me see him, then I can tell you right away if it is my brother Sam,’ Lucy told her.

The sister frowned uncertainly. She scrutinised Lucy for a moment before agreeing that she could do so.

‘He’s still unconscious,’ she warned as she led Lucy towards a screened-off bed in one corner of the ward.

‘Are his injuries very serious?’ Lucy asked, her dark eyes anxious.

‘I’m afraid you will have to wait until you have verified whether or not it is your brother before we begin to discuss his case,’ the sister told her crisply.

As she drew back one of the curtains and indicated to Lucy that she was to approach the bedside, Lucy let out a gasp of distress. There was no mistaking that it was Sam’s broad, stocky build beneath the covering sheet and even though his face was badly lacerated and there was a green shield over one of his eyes, she recognised him immediately.

‘Oh, Sam, whatever has happened to you this time?’ Lucy whispered, reaching out to take his hand even though the arm lying above the bedclothes was heavily bandaged.