Dangerous by Jessie Keane Read Free Book Online

newspapers, and helped Clara get Kathleen fresh sheets on the bed, get her washed and into a clean nightdress. Kathleen was still seeping blood, but that would stop, the nurse told Clara. Now all they had to do was put it behind them, said the nurse, and go on with their lives.
    What lives?
wondered Clara. If this was life, being here in this awful place, potless, hopeless, then she didn’t want it. She’d rather be dead, like her baby sister. She trembled to think of Hatton coming to the door today, and her with no money to give him.
    She went over to the curtains and pulled them back to admit the daylight, then she went to her mother’s bedside and was pleased to see that Mum was still asleep. She needed her rest. Already Kathleen had shed many tears over losing the baby, but – and Clara hated herself for thinking this – maybe it was for the best.
    For a moment she hesitated, wondering whether or not to wake her, but Mum never liked to lie in and she got irritable if allowed to do so. Gently, Clara reached out and shook Kathleen’s shoulder.
    ‘Mum? Wake up, it’s time. Got your tea here.’
    It was stuffy in the room, so Clara went over to the window and pushed up the mouldering sash an inch or two, to let in fresh air. It was raining out, and gusty; the sky was charcoal grey, ridged with thin bands of pinky white. The curtains billowed. She closed down the sash a little, she didn’t want Mum catching cold, not now when she was so weak. Then, smiling, she turned back to the bed.
    ‘Mum? Come on, got your tea,’ she said.
    Clara stopped there, looking down at her mother. The smile stalled on her lips. Now that the curtains were back, she thought that Kathleen’s face looked faintly blue, not her usual healthy colour.
    ‘Mum . . . ?’ Clara’s voice was little more than a croak. She could feel her heart beating sickly in her chest, could feel a new terror starting to take hold.
    Slowly, she reached out trembling fingers and touched the hand that lay unmoving on the coverlet. She let out a gasp and quickly withdrew. Her mother’s flesh was icy cold.
    ‘Mum!’ Now it was a cry. She shook Kathleen’s shoulder again. ‘Wake up! Come on!’
    Her mother’s chest wasn’t rising and falling with the breath of life. Panicking now, Clara shook her roughly, and started yanking at the bedclothes.
    ‘Come on, Mum, wake up, you’re scaring me . . . ’ Clara pulled back the blankets and the sheet and then stopped, staring.
    The sheet beneath her mother was red.
    ‘Oh God, oh God, no . . . ’ Clara was muttering, her hands flying to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock.
    The bleeding hadn’t stopped as the nurse had promised. Her mother had bled to death. Clara fell to her knees and tears spilled over and cascaded down her face as she stared at her mother lying there, all the life gone out of her.
    ‘No . . . ’ she moaned over and over, sobbing with grief and disbelief. ‘Oh God, Mum, please don’t leave us. Not you too!’

10
    Marcus had no idea why he kept coming back to see her like he did. Every time he’d say the same thing: That’s it, she can stew in her own juice, the old cow – this is the last time. But a week, maybe two, later, he’d be back again, like a stuck record.
    Once again he’d made the journey to Old Bond Street, where he’d selected a little something bright enough to tempt her magpie eye and – of course – expensive enough. It had to be expensive. He’d come away with the pale blue Tiffany box in his hand, tied with the trademark white ribbon, and made the journey across town to the place where she lived, the place
he
had bought her, working for Lenny Lynch.
    Every time, it was going to be different.
    Every time, in his mind’s eye, it was.
    In his imagination, his mother pushed away the gift and said: ‘No matter about that, my darling, how are you?’
    And she would kiss him, hug him, be delighted to see him, would chatter on, telling him about all the things she had