Shattered Dreams by Vivienne Dockerty Read Free Book Online Page A

when the propeller had got stuck in a sand bank out in Liverpool Bay. It was a wonder the man was still living as he took huge gulps of breath and turned his head fretfully towards the open window. Though the day was fairly mild, the room was rather chilly, not helped at all by the miserable fire in the fireplace.
    “Can I get you a blanket, Papa?” asked Irene, perturbed by the racking coughing spell that had followed his gulping and the thinness of his features since she had seen him last.
    “If you would, Irene. I don’t seem to be able to get warm nowadays.”
    “Sit down, Irene, I’ll go and get him one,” said Isabel, who had brought in a tray. “You and Eddie drink the tea I’ve made you. There’s a blanket in the lobby that I can fetch him.”
    A noise from the back kitchen made Eddie and Irene prick up their ears.
    “It’s your mother coming in with Robert,” gasped Charlie. “Don’t tell her that I’ve had a coughing fit or she’ll have me taken to hospital. I had to sleep down here last night because I was keeping her awake with my breathing.”
    “We won’t say anything, Papa,” Irene promised sadly. “But maybe you should be in hospital after all.”
    Lily Wilson, a woman in her late fifties, came stomping through to the living room in an old pair of men’s socks, with a grubby blue mackintosh over her ankle length dress. She still had a floppy woollen hat on over her grey tangled hair and she looked askance when she saw she had visitors.
    “Irene,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming today? I only saw you yesterday, you could have told me then.”
    “I thought I’d bring over my fiancé to meet you, Mother. This is Eddie.”
    “Caught me on the hop, haven’t you? It would have been far better if you had told me yesterday and then I could have got something in.”
    “We’ve got a seed cake that I baked yesterday, Mother, and a batch of scones that I made this morning.”
    “Yes, Isabel, I know that,” Lily snapped. “But I’m sure Mr Dockerty is used to something a little grander, with him coming from a better class of family.”
    “Mother!” said Irene, feeling uncomfortable with her mother’s attitude towards Eddie, though understanding as she knew that Lily herself had been born into a well-to-do family.
    “I’m sure I didn’t come here to be fed on the fat of the land, Mrs Wilson,” said Eddie smiling congenially. “I came to meet my future family and I love to eat seed cake, it’s my favourite food.”
    “Huh,”said Lily, though she began to feel mollified, seeing he was a handsome chap without any airs and graces. “I’ll go and get Robert, he’s in the garden. I’ve got to get those potatoes in while there’s a bit of sun around.”
    “I’m here, Lily,” shouted Robert, Isabel’s husband, from the kitchen.“I’ll just bring us a couple of teas in and we’ll put our feet up for a little while.”
    “No time for putting our feet up, Robert. Get in here and meet Irene’s fiancé and then we’ll get back to it, shall we?”
    Robert came into the room. A big strong man, whilst Isabel was little and normally dainty. He had to duck to walk under the lintel before he greeted Eddie with a ready smile.
    “Slave driver your mother,” he said to Irene. “Has me working from dawn to sunset, all day and every day.”
    “Rubbish,” snorted Lily. “I was up at six this morning, while you were turning over in your comfy bed.”
    “Mother, before you go back to the garden, can I ask you and Dad something?”
    Irene wanted the question of Eddie’s accommodation sorted, before her mother got stuck into the garden again.
    “Yes?” Lily asked, one eyebrow raised in question.“What is it, you’re not in the family way?”
    “Lily,” tutted Charlie reproachfully. “There’s no need to take that tone, she’s been a good daughter.”
    “I’m only asking because she wouldn’t be the first daughter to tell me that she was expecting.”