Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [36]
Sammy loved the rough work, but Josh hated it, though he never dared complain to his father. But he had told Annie. Next to Sammy, she was the only one he confided in. His brothers were both married now with homes of their own and it was just Annie and Frank and Josh at home.
Annie’s brown eyes were worried as she said, “Well, what do you want to do, Josh?”
He shrugged. “Mebbe I’d like to be a gamekeeper,” he said lazily, “on a fancy estate. Or a farmer, looking after the cows and bringing in the harvest.”
“Eh lad, you’re a dreamer,” she replied, laughing. “What do you know about gamekeeping and harvests?”
Sammy knew Annie worried about Josh. “Sometimes I don’t know where he is,” she confided to him, “or what he’s doing. He just disappears.”
“Don’t you worry,” Sammy reassured her, “I’ll allus look after him.”
He remembered how they had sworn when they were seven years old that they would always be best friends, always watch out for each other no matter what happened. And they had pledged their promise in blood, cutting their thumbs and squeezing them messily together, swearing their vow solemnly. He had kept his promise even though Josh had put him to the test a few times, ganging up with the others and leaving him on his own. But he had put Josh to the test, too, many a time, daring him on to things he would never do alone, like balancing on the parapet of the railway bridge or running across in front of the big thundering steam engine with seconds between them and certain death under its churning iron wheels. But what Sammy really could not stand was when Josh got interested in girls.
“Leave the lasses alone,” he would say disgustedly as Josh smiled at a passing pair of pretty young ladies. And, “Why do you want to walk out with her?” when Josh picked up a rough, eager girl outside the Maypole grocery shop in Kirkgate. He felt that same jealousy burning him again, churning his guts till he thought he would die of the pain, and he told himself again it had always been just him and Josh and that’s the way it was always going to be, no matter what.
Annie could not understand why it was that Josh suddenly became so moody. Each evening he would come home from work, wash himself and sit silently down to his tea, just the way his father did. Except that wasn’t like Josh at all. And for a whole week he did not go out and Sammy didn’t come to see him. She supposed they must have quarreled, but whatever it was he wasn’t telling her and she sat with her knitting, noting how he jumped each time there was a knock on the door, or how he just stared silently into the fire, not even bothering to read the Yorkshire Evening Post she had placed on the table beside him. Mind you, with the story of that horrible murder, she wasn’t surprised. The second one it was; each time a young girl and each time when the moon was full. “Moon murders,” the papers were calling them, and no young woman in Leeds felt safe.
The clock on the mantel—the same mahogany clock her dad had bought for her mam before they were married—chimed its sweet Westminster chimes and then struck nine, and with a sigh she put away her knitting and began to tidy up.
“Would you like a cup of tea before I go up?” she asked, stopping by Josh’s chair on her way to the scullery, but he just shook his head. She walked to the stairs, hesitated and then came back again. “Something’s the matter,” she said quietly. “Why don’t you tell me? After all, it can’t be that bad. I’ll bet you’re just in love or something.” She smiled. “Go on, tell us about her. Maybe I can help.”
But he just shook his head again, leaning back in the big green plush chair, his eyes closed. “Nobody can help,” he said bleakly. “Just leave me alone, Annie, will yer?”
The night was bitter, frost had formed scratchy patterns on the windowpane and a blast of icy wind sneaked through the dark velvet winter curtains. Annie undressed quickly, hurrying