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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ outside, while in the warmer weather like now, he would sit with his mug of tea and his pipe of baccy, and simply watch the world go by.

      These days, it was the only real pleasure he had; save for when Judy would come by and they would talk about her young dreams, and he would tell stories about his own youth. These past few years, the girl had been his salvation, and he valued her for the genuine friend she had been to him.

      ‘Good day to you, Joseph!’ That was the lady from the corner shop. ‘Don’t sit there too long,’ she advised with a wag of her chubby finger. ‘They say it might rain later, and you don’t want to be catching a chill.’

      Returning her greeting, Joseph joked as usual, ‘I won’t mind a bit o’ rain, Elsie.’ He gave her a knowing wink. ‘It’ll save you giving me a bath later.’

      ‘Away with you, Joseph,’ she laughed aloud. ‘Saying things like that will get the whole street talking!’ And she trotted up the road feeling twenty years younger.

      ‘Up to your old tricks, are you, Joe?’ Having overheard the mischievous conversation, Lenny Reynolds paused a moment at the old man’s doorstep.

      ‘Aw, she loves a bit o’ flirting,’ Joseph chuckled. ‘It makes her day. Besides, we might be old in the tooth, but we can’t have folks thinking we’re past it, can we, eh?’

      ‘No, that would never do.’ Lenny enjoyed his little chats with Joseph. After everything he’d been through, the man could still be very entertaining. ‘And how are you today, Joseph – apart from chatting up the women?’

      ‘I’m all right, thank you, Lenny. And how are you, lad?’

      ‘Fine and dandy, thank you.’ He threw off his work satchel. ‘OK if I sit beside you for a while?’ He always enjoyed the banter with Joseph, and besides, it was good to catch up with news of the lovely Judy Makepeace.

      ‘Course ye can.’ Joseph shifted along the step. ‘Sit yerself down, young fella-me-lad.’ He had a lot of time for Lenny. He had seen him grow from boy to man these past four years, until now he was a handsome, strapping fellow who, in spite of his disinterested parents, had turned out really well. He already had a thriving greengrocer stall on Blackburn market, and was saving up to buy a shop in the heart of town. Oh yes! Lenny Reynolds was going places.

      ‘Tell you what,’ Joseph clambered up. ‘Come inside and you can tell me how the business is going.’ He smiled into Lenny’s brown eyes. ‘Judy was around earlier. She’s learning to drive, did you know that?’ He wasn’t surprised to see how, at the mention of the girl’s name, Lenny’s face lit up like a beacon.

      As they went down the passageway towards the back parlour, the torrent of questions never stopped. ‘When did she start learning to drive? Who’s teaching her? Did she mention me? Will she be popping round again, d’you think?’

      ‘Hold on, lad!’ Joseph dropped himself into the chair. ‘You can’t give yourself a minute to breathe, what with Judy this and Judy that!’ He gestured towards the kitchen. ‘Go and put the kettle on,’ he said. ‘All them questions ’ave fair worn me out!’ As Lenny went to the kitchen, Joseph called out, ‘Oh, an’ I wouldn’t mind a drop o’ the good stuff in me tea. You’ll find it in the bottom cupboard. And don’t be too stingy with it, neither.’

      In a surprisingly short time, Lenny was back with two mugs of tea and the biscuit barrel. ‘I found the brandy,’ he told Joseph. ‘I put a good measure in your tea, and there’s still a bit left for a nightcap.’

      Setting the biscuits and mug of tea down beside Joseph, he sat down in the other armchair and watched as his neighbour took a generous swig of the hot liquid. ‘Aw, that’s just what the doctor ordered.’ Joseph smacked his lips. ‘It might ’ave tasted even better if you’d tipped the lot in, but so long as there’s a drop left to help me sleep, I’ll not grumble. Thank you.’ He raised his cup. ‘You’re a good lad.’

      Though he had come to respect Lenny, Joseph had no liking whatsoever for the boy’s parents. Devious crafty pair they were, he thought. They smiled and chatted to your face, while behind your back they were pure poison. He had never suspected how false they were, until one day he heard them talking in the backyard – about Joseph’s family having left him to his own devices. ‘We should keep him sweet while we can,’ he heard that bitch next door say. ‘After all, he’s got nobody else to leave his few belongings to, and who knows? He might well have a bit of money stashed away somewhere.’

      After that, Joseph had little to do with them. He nodded and smiled, and graciously declined their offers of help, and Ron and Patsy Reynolds were satisfied that he knew nothing of their expectations.

      Lenny was a different kettle of fish. It was common knowledge that he didn’t get on with his parents, and that they had little time for him. So Joseph befriended him, and sometimes the two of them would sit in his parlour putting the world to rights, and Lenny would confide in him – about how he had always felt as though he didn’t belong to his parents. Sometimes he sensed that they resented him, and he didn’t know why.

      Joseph would reassure him, and he would go away less troubled, and in return for the bond of friendship that had grown between them, Lenny kept a wary eye on Joseph. When the old man was feeling under the weather, he would run errands for him, and make sure the house was warm and Joseph was eating properly.

      For now though, Lenny sipped his tea and listened while Joseph rambled on, about how he missed his family, and how he wished to God he could turn the clock back, because if he could, then he’d happen be more tolerant and not let things get out of hand the way they had done on that particular night when it all ended in tragedy.

      Lenny wisely made no comment. It was not his place to pass an opinion on Joseph’s family, or the way it had been; though like everyone else down the street, he knew how shamelessly Rita Adams had behaved, and brought the family into disrepute.

      Joseph went on, eyes down and staring at the floor, his hands relentlessly twisting round his mug of tea. ‘I lost it all,’ he said brokenly, ‘my young grandson and my only daughter … and a son-in-law who had never set a foot wrong that I know of. That night though, he couldn’t take any more, d’you see? It all blew up in our faces and there was nothing I could do. One minute I had a family all round me, and the next – I was standing in this very parlour, all alone. And oh, the silence after that terrible row. That’s what struck me the most … the awful silence.’ He gave a deep long sigh. ‘They’re all gone now, but not the silence. That’s always there.’

      The more he sipped of his tea, the more Joseph rambled on. ‘One way and another we all suffered the consequences of that night. We all paid a price for my daughter’s behaviour. She lost her life; Don went away and never came back, and as for young Davie … I daren’t think how he must have suffered. Y’see, he really believed he could save his mammy from her bad ways, but in the end it were himself as needed the saving.’

      He raised his red-raw eyes to Lenny. ‘Not a single day goes by when I don’t think about the lad. If I find myself feeling abandoned and lonely, what does he feel, eh? That’s what I ask myself.’

      He took a deep breath, as though the memories weighed him down. A long pause, and he was talking again. ‘So where is he, my Davie? How is he surviving, or did he not survive at all? The police say they searched high and low for him, but I sometimes wonder if they were trying hard enough. After all, he were nearly fourteen. Happen they thought he were old enough to take care of himself.’

      Lenny patiently СКАЧАТЬ