Dangerous by Jessie Keane Read Free Book Online Page B

smartly turned out in the mornings, properly washed, sitting her up on the draining board when she was little and scrubbing at her face to get her clean and ready for the day. Bernie was delicate, needy, easily upset. She bit her nails to the quick and she cried every time Hatton came to the door with that horrible great dog of his. Bernie depended on her.
    Then Clara looked down at her brother. With Mum gone, Henry was her responsibility, but how would she clothe him, feed him? She had helped Mum out on the sewing sometimes. She could do that, carry on with that, maybe get more work in.
    But it won’t feed three of us
, said a voice in her brain.
    Well, it would have to. She could put cards in windows, tout the business about more. Mum had never really pushed much for work, not as much as Clara would have liked her to. She gazed at the old Singer sewing machine at the end of the table and thought of all the times Kathleen had sat there working, turning the fabric, chatting to her while she fashioned dresses and blouses for her limited clientele. And the family had scraped along, barely surviving.
    Not that she was in any way criticizing her mother – God no. Kathleen had been a great woman, much too good and decent for that flashy waster Tom Dolan. But now it was Clara’s turn to care for the family, and she’d do it, right up to her dying breath. Her eyes filled with tears that overflowed and splashed down.
    Mum was
dead
.
    It struck her all over again, the awful gut-wrenching tragedy of it, and suddenly she was sobbing too.
    ‘Oh, Clara – don’t start, or you’ll set me off,’ moaned Bernie.
    Clara swiped at her nose and eyes. Bernie was right. She had to be the strong one; she
had
to be. She turned a tear-bright gaze upon her sister. Gulped. ‘Don’t you worry, Bernie. We’re going to manage just fine,’ she promised. ‘Now run and fetch the doctor, there’s a good girl.’ She swallowed her grief. ‘There are things to be done, legal things.’
    ‘I want Mum,’ Henry wailed, his voice high with panic.
    Clara pulled him in close to her and looked right in his eyes as she gripped his frail shoulders. ‘Mum’s with the angels, Henry,’ she said gently but firmly. ‘But listen to me. I’m going to look after you. All right?’
    He nodded. Sweet little Henry, he was the most biddable, the most good-tempered child even when his world was being torn apart. Clara ruffled his copper-brown hair and he blinked up at her with big bloodshot grey-blue eyes – like Bernie’s, like Mum’s. Clara looked like her dad, she was the only one that did. And God, how she hated that at this moment. How she hated
him
.
    Now she was remembering what they’d had to do when Gran died; they’d summoned the doctor so that he could write the death certificate. Maybe the doctor could advise them about a funeral – only they had no money to pay for one.
    He came two hours later, a large moustached man, bustling into the flat with an air of brisk self-importance, wearing an ill-fitting tweed suit and carrying a Gladstone bag. Clara showed him into the bedroom. The doctor drew back the closed curtains, and in the brightening daylight Clara could see again that her mother looked awful – truly dead. All the life was drained from her, never to return. An empty shell lay there, not Kathleen Dolan. She was gone.
    Clara watched as the doctor checked for signs of life, looked under the sheets. Then he glanced up at Clara. ‘Wait for me next door, will you?’ he asked a bit more gently.
    Clara left the room. Bernie was sitting at the table, staring vacantly into space. Henry was there too. Clara put the kettle on for tea. They could afford that, at least. And Kathleen had baked a fruit cake last week, they had some of that still in the tin.
    Mum’s dead.
    Before, their situation had been precarious; now it was truly dire. Clara clenched her teeth to stop herself crying again, and made the tea, then found a little milk from