in her new married life and telling her about Rosa. And after all that she had never received it.
‘Patrick, I though you were dead,’ she said again, her eyes searching his face.
‘I thought you were in America still,’ he said.
‘My stepfather was offered the post of Chief Medical Officer for the London Hospital, so we returned a month ago,’ she told him as they stepped around a stack of barrels waiting to be stored in a nearby warehouse. ‘We are living in Stepney Green. I have another sister apart from Bobby and three brothers now, and Ma is expecting another in a few months,’ she told him as a tendril of her vibrant hair escaped her bonnet.
‘But why are you walking alone down Lower Well Alley? Surely you haven’t forgotten what a Godforsaken place some of the backstreets are?’ he said.
A faint flush spread across Josie’s cheeks. ‘I know, but I thought to walk home from my friend in Wellclose Square,’ she said. ‘But enough of my foolishness, why are you not in India or Africa or Japan or some other far-off land?’
‘I had enough of roaming the world and wanted to come home to settle down.’ It was his stock answer to the question.
‘And how are your family, your ma and pa and Mattie? Hannah, too, and Kate and Fergus. Ma told me that they pulled down the houses in Cinnamon Lane so where are you living now? And I bet Peter and Paul are a handful now - what are they? Twelve?’ She gave a joyous laugh and the dimple on her cheek that he’d almost forgotten about appeared.
‘A chest ague took Peter when he was two, Paul cut his foot in the mud and died of lock-jaw just after his tenth birthday,’ Patrick said. ‘We lost Pa, too, three winters back.’
Josie’s brows pulled together. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘Your pa always had a cheery word for any and I know how hard it was when my ma and pa lost my little brother and sister. I’m sorry to hear your ma’s suffered in the same way.’
Patrick gave a tight smile. ‘Hannah’s a housemaid in Leyton and we only see her a couple of times a year. Kate works in Hoffman’s bakery at the corner of Bird Street and Gus is sixteen now and is nearly as tall as me. He’s a dock tallyman and earning good money, too. He’s lodging up in Jane Street. Mattie’s grand though, she’s at the Sugar refinery and set to marry in three months. We all live in Walburgh Street and I’m captain of one of Wimlow and Sons barges, working out of Limehouse reach.’
Josie’s cheery expression returned. ‘I would love to see them all, especially Mattie. She’s to be a bride, how wonderful,’ she said with a wistful sigh.
Patrick cleared his throat. ‘Is your husband with you or is he still in America?’
Josie’s brow pulled tightly together this time. ‘Husband?’ Then she laughed. ‘What husband would that be, now?’
A steady thumping started in Patrick’s temple. ‘The last time I docked in New York I found your house boarded up. One of your neighbours told me you’d got married and moved to Boston with the rest of your family.’
Josie shook her head. ‘That wasn’t me who got married, it was my cousin Jenny. Uncle Joe’s eldest.’ She laughed again and somehow a weight Patrick hadn’t realised he carried evaporated. ‘We had her wedding breakfast at our house just before Pa took his post in Boston.’
‘So you’re not married, then?’ he said, in an idiot-like tone.
Josie shook her head. ‘Not yet,’ she replied.
Over the years and in numerous places Patrick had pictured Josie being swept off her feet by some tall, handsome, rich young man who’d married her and given her three or four children. And although it had given him no comfort to think of her in the arms of another, it had eased his conscious mightily.
He gave a hollow laugh. ‘I’m sure it’s not for the want of young men asking you,’ he