Love Changes Everything (15 page)

‘I don't like it, Sam. She's only a kid and—'

As his hand went up to silence her with a blow, Trixie grabbed at his arm, diverting it. ‘That's one of the reasons why I don't want to leave home,' she railed. ‘Mum needs me here to protect her from your bullying as well as to help with Cilla.'

For a moment she thought she was in for a hiding but she didn't care. If he punched her in the face, or even walloped her with his belt, she'd be bound to have a mass of bruises and he wouldn't be able to make her leave home and go and live with a stranger in case he spotted them.

Sam Jackson was too clever to fall into that trap. Although his face was puce with rage and his fists were clenched into tight balls, he managed to keep them at his side.

He grabbed Trixie by the hair and began pushing her towards the bedroom. ‘Get your coat and whatever you want to take with you and let's get going,' he muttered.

She still had an arm around Cilla and the child immediately started to scream as if she was the one being hurt, not Trixie. Snatching Cilla from Trixie, Sam almost threw the child at Maggie.

All three of them were crying and his voice was rising with increasing anger as he yelled at them all to shut up.

‘You're going, and that's all there is to it,' he shouted at Trixie. ‘Wipe your face and comb your hair; you look like some gutter urchin,' he growled.

‘Well, that's all right because that's what you're trying to turn me into, isn't it!' she retaliated, now confident that under no circumstances was he going to hit her.

‘At least tell us where she'll be living,' Maggie begged. ‘Is it far away, will she be able to come and see us regularly?'

‘She won't be coming visiting and you won't be going out looking for her. Is that understood? This is a clean break. Perhaps later on, when she's settled in, then she can come and see us if she behaves herself.'

‘You make it sound as if she's going to be a prisoner. Will you be seeing her?'

‘No, I bloody well won't. She's going to make a new life for herself. Like I told you, if she proves satisfactory then the bloke says he'll marry her.'

‘I'm far too young to get married,' Trixie protested, looking at her mother for support. ‘You said yourself I'm only a kid,' she taunted. ‘Anyway,' she went on, ‘what happens if I don't like him? I might already have made plans to marry someone else.'

Even as she spoke the words her heart sank. If she had no freedom then she wouldn't be able to see Andrew and he was the only man in the world she would ever want to marry.

‘If it seems a good set up to me and I agree that he can marry you, then I've only to sign the right papers and you've no say in the matter,' he told her with sneer. ‘Now have you got your things together, because I'm ready for off.'

‘I haven't packed anything at all yet,' Trixie prevaricated. ‘It's going to take me a while . . .'

Sam didn't wait for her to finish. ‘You had your chance,' he told her. ‘I'll give you five minutes, so make sharp.'

Hastily she grabbed what she could find and stuffed it into a battered old fibre suitcase that her mother brought out from the back of the cupboard.

‘I'm not waiting any longer,' Sam said, grabbing hold of the suitcase and fastening it shut. He began to push Trixie towards the door, not even giving her time to kiss her mother or Cilla goodbye.

‘Wait, Sam, let her put her coat and hat on, it's absolutely freezing out there,' Maggie protested as she held out Trixie's coat so that she could put her arms into it.

Sam grabbed it and her hat but didn't pause. ‘She can put them on out in the street if she's cold,' he muttered as he pushed her through the door. He ignored the fact that Maggie was struggling to hold back her tears despite the fact that Trixie's distress was breaking her heart, and the pleading look Trixie was giving her mother.

He refused to let go of Trixie's arm as she struggled to get her coat on and to fasten it up.

‘Where are we going?' she panted as he propelled her along Virgil Street and into Scotland Road.

She felt scared stiff but she was doing her best not to show it. His threats that she wouldn't be able to come back and see her mother and Cilla were still ringing in her ears and they, together with the uncertainty of what was going to happen, were all frightening.

It was at times like this that she wished he'd never come back from the war; if he hadn't, none of them would have had to put up with his bullying.

As they turned into Scotland Road she wondered if she could make a run for it but, although her dad was carrying the suitcase in one hand, he was holding her arm so tightly that there was no chance of her twisting free.

If only she could find a way of letting Ivy and Ella know what was happening but even her mother didn't even know where she was being taken.

Whatever would Andrew think when she didn't contact him as she'd promised to do? He might even think it was because she didn't want to see him again, she thought desperately, yet there was nothing she wanted more.

‘Look for number twenty,' her father ordered, his grip on her arm tightening as they turned into Cavendish Road.

Trixie's heart thudded. She'd never even been down any of the roads this far from Scotland Road before and now, or so it seemed, number twenty Cavendish Road was where she was going to live and with a middle-aged man who was a complete stranger. How could her father do something like this to her? she wondered.

They paused as he spotted the number painted in white on a black door between two shops. ‘This must be the place,' he said, pushing her towards it.

She was so petrified that her legs wouldn't move. Her father nudged her forward and she stumbled. She would have fallen if her father hadn't still been holding her arm so tightly.

She was shaking so much that when the door opened she could only stare at the man who stood there, more convinced than ever that it wasn't just a bad dream but a terrible nightmare.

Chapter Thirteen

Trixie could hear her father talking, hear the welcome being extended to both of them to come inside, but the shock of seeing who'd opened the door and was standing there was so intense that her mind refused to function.

As her father, who was still holding her arm in a tight grip, propelled her over the stone step into the passageway beyond, Trixie blinked hard, not to dispel tears, but to try and clear her mind. She didn't want to believe it but the man whose home they were in was none other than Fred Linacre.

It couldn't be, she told herself over and over again. He certainly looked like Fred but there was difference. This man was wearing slippers and a dark brown knitted cardigan, and had a pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth. The Fred she knew always wore a pristine white coat-style overall. His white shirt and navy and red tie were the same, though, and so, too, was his voice.

‘You've brought her, then,' the man greeted them, and it was his tone more than the words that sent a shiver through Trixie as they followed him along the stone passage where he opened another door on their right.

Again they followed him as he climbed up a staircase to a small landing where a door led into a living room. She could hear her father carrying on a conversation and laughing heartily at something one of them had said but she was feeling so confused that she couldn't take in what they were saying.

As she stood in the living room looking around the bleakness of the bare walls and sparse furnishings filled her with dismay. There was a dark brown leather armchair pulled up in front of the open fire, and a dining table covered with a dark brown chenille cloth and two upright chairs with seats of brown leather. There were no pictures or ornaments, no rug on the well-worn brown lino that covered the floor; nothing at all that turned the bleakness of the room into a home. Even the mantelpiece was bare apart from a clock in a dark wood case that stood in the middle of it.

‘Here's the rest of your money,' Fred said, pulling a small rolled-up bundle of notes out of his back pocket.'

‘You don't need to check it; it's all there,' he stated as Sam Jackson started to flatten out the bank notes.

‘Right; that's it, then. I hope I can count on you to keep to your part of the bargain,' her father challenged as he stood up and put his cap back on.

‘Everything as we agreed. No meetings of any sort till the three months are up.'

‘That's Easter time, then. Trixie'll still only be sixteen till—'

Fred Linacre hurriedly moved towards the door as if to show Sam Jackson out. ‘We'll discuss all that another time, when we're on our own.'

‘You promised—'

‘I know what I said and I'll keep my word so you've nothing at all to worry about. Three months and I'll have made up my mind and be ready to tell you if she suits and whether I'm going to take her on permanently or not.'

‘And in all that time you won't touch her; you swear that you won't try anything on,' Sam emphasised. ‘I don't want her returned as damaged goods. Perhaps I should have a look at what arrangements you've made about where she's going to sleep?'

‘Are you doubting my intentions?' Fred asked angrily. ‘We made a deal and I'll keep to my side of the bargain as long as you and your missus do the same. If I catch any of you lot coming around here trying to see her, then the deal's off and the promises I've made mean nothing. Stick to our arrangement or you most certainly will be getting damaged goods returned; you can count on that.'

‘All right, all right.' Sam Jackson held up both hands and took a step backwards. ‘Hold on, Fred, she's my daughter! Be fair now, whacker, I got to make sure she's going to be safe; you can't blame me for that.'

‘Say your goodbyes to her and get out,' Fred snapped. ‘You have told her, haven't you, that she's here for three months and that she won't be allowed to see anyone or to go out at all?'

Sam didn't answer as he headed for the door. He didn't wait for Fred Linacre to show him out and or even stop to say anything at all to Trixie who was standing there with a look of terror on her face at the thought of being left alone with Fred Linacre; the very thought that he might try to be familiar with her made her feel sick.

‘Do you know why you're here, Trixie Jackson, and what arrangements have been made?' Fred Linacre demanded, in the domineering voice he used when he was at the factory, the moment the front door slammed behind Sam Jackson.

Trixie shook her head. What she had understood of the exchange between the two men frightened her. Her dad had said something about ‘having something in mind for her in the new year', but surely this hadn't been what he meant.

He knew perfectly well how much she hated Fred Linacre. Having to work for him at the biscuit factory had been bad enough, but to have to live with him in his own home was going to be the worst sort of nightmare imaginable.

‘I'll show you where you'll be sleeping; come along.'

She followed him out on to the landing, where she noticed that there were two doors side by side, facing the living room. He walked across and opened one of the doors and indicated with his head for her to follow him.

It was a dark, narrow room with a single iron bedstead, dark grey slub curtains across the narrow window and an oblong of grey carpet on the scrubbed floorboards by the side of the bed. The white cotton counterpane and coarse white cotton pillowcase both looked clean but the whole room looked dreary and uninviting. There were no pictures or ornaments; not even a piece of mirror or a cupboard to put things in, only a row of metal hooks fixed along one wall.

‘This will be your room,' he pronounced. ‘This one,' he pushed past her and went out on to the landing to open the other door, ‘is my room.'

She peered in and saw that although it was larger it was equally Spartan. There was a double bed with white bedding, bare floor boards and dark green curtains. In this room, however, there was a dark oak chest of drawers at one side of the bed and a matching oak wardrobe that practically filled one entire wall.

‘Come through here and I'll show you the kitchen and the rest of the place,' he ordered as he shut the door to his room and moved a few paces along the landing.

The kitchen was bigger than she had expected. As well as a range and a cooking stove there were shelves with white crockery laid out on them and cupboards for the pots and pans and for storing food in. There was also a small scrubbed table with a wooden chair where Fred obviously ate his meals. The window looked on to a yard that had a high brick wall all around it.

‘There you are, then. Now, is there anything else you need to know?'

Trixie shook her head as she followed him back into the living room. There was plenty she wanted to know but she was afraid to ask. She couldn't believe that she was going to have to stay here till Easter, but that was what she'd heard her father agree and, worst of all, she'd heard Fred say something about her mum not being able to come and see her.

She looked around her with a feeling of panic. She didn't even know what she was supposed to do. If it was to keep his house clean and get his meals ready, well, that wouldn't take her very long because there'd be precious little to do because the place was so bare.

She thought about her own shabby home in Virgil Street. It was only three poky rooms but it was more welcoming than this place. Fred's house was like a barn; she'd never seen anything so uninviting. It was hardly any better than the factory.

Her mum had prettied their place up with a couple of pictures and one or two ornaments and some cushions. She'd made a colourful rug out of their worn-out clothes; ones that were past mending but could still be cut into strips and stitched on to a piece of sacking to make a rug to go down in front of the fireplace.