Love Changes Everything Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Also by Rosie Harris

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Love Changes Everything

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781409035756

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books 2009

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Copyright © Rosie Harris 2009

  Rosie Harris has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Arrow Books

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from thfe British Library

  ISBN 9780099527367

  The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment

  Typeset in Palatino by Palimpsest Book Production Limited

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  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading RG1 8EX

  About the Author

  Rosie Harris was born in Cardiff and grew up there and in the West Country. After her marriage she resided for some years on Merseyside before moving to Buckinghamshire where she still lives. She has three grown-up children, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, and writes full time. Love Changes Everything is her nineteenth novel for Arrow.

  Also by Rosie Harris

  Turn of the Tide

  Troubled Waters

  Patsy of Paradise Place

  One Step Forward

  Looking for Love

  Pins & Needles

  Winnie of the Waterfront

  At Sixes & Sevens

  The Cobbler’s Kids

  Sunshine and Showers

  Megan of Merseyside

  The Power of Dreams

  A Mother’s Love

  Sing for Your Supper

  Waiting for Love

  Love Against All Odds

  A Dream of Love

  A Love Like Ours

  For my sons

  Roger Mackenzie Harris and Keith Mackenzie Harris

  who do so much for me and are always there when I need them.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to my excellent editor Georgina Hawtrey-Woore and all the team at Random House and to my agent Caroline Sheldon for all their wonderful support.

  Chapter One

  Liverpool, 1920

  ‘I keep telling you that I don’t want to work in a factory.’ Fourteen-year-old Trixie Jackson stuck out her chin defiantly as she faced her irate father. Tall and slim with straight brown hair framing her oval face and expressive dark eyes, she took after Sam Jackson in looks.

  ‘Think yourself bloody lucky that you have a job to go to, you stupid Judy,’ Sam Jackson snapped, glowering at his eldest daughter. ‘It’s taken me weeks of grovelling to fix this up for you with the foreman so don’t you damn well let me down. You’ll go there, my girl, and what’s more, you’ll like it; now is that understood!’

  ‘You’re not listening, Dad, I don’t want to work there, or in any other factory if it comes to that; not unless it’s in the office. I’ve worked hard at school and I’m good at sums and I got top marks for neatness and I want—’

  ‘What you want and what you end up getting in this life are two different things and the sooner you realise that the better. I never wanted you or your stupid halfwit of a sister, or to be living in a squalid dump like this place, but that’s what I’ve ended up with.’

  ‘And whose fault is it that Cilla is like she is?’ Trixie accused him, looking across the room to where her younger sister was sitting on the floor hugging a doll.

  As her father’s open hand caught her in a stinging blow across the side of her face Trixie staggered back, crashing against the corner of the wooden table and clutching at one of the rickety wooden chairs to save herself from falling. Her dark eyes narrowed with loathing as she wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. ‘I hate you! One of these days I’ll call the cops when you hit me or Mum and I’ll report you,’ she choked shakily, pushing her shoulder-length hair away from her face.

  ‘Factory gate, seven o’clock sharp tomorrow morning,’ he commanded, ignoring her threat, ‘and think yourself lucky that you’ve got a job to go to. With all the blokes that have come back from the war unable to find jobs there’re plenty of willing workers in Liverpool ready to jump into your shoes, remember.’

  Turning away he pulled his greasy tweed cap out of the pocket of his brown jacket and rammed it squarely on his thick crop of dark hair. ‘When your mother gets back from her charring tell her I’ve gone for a bevvy,’ he ordered as he made for the door.

  Trixie didn’t answer till after it had slammed behind him. Then her lips curled in a sneer. ‘Miserable sod,’ she hissed. ‘Hope you drop down dead.’

  It was an idle threat and she knew it. Her father was only forty and in the prime of life. He was a tall, handsome-looking man with broad shoulders, sharp dark eyes, strong features and thick dark brown hair. He was fighting fit in every respect
and a picture of robust health since he always made sure he received the largest portion of whatever his wife Maggie managed to put on the table each day.

  If anyone was likely to drop down dead it was far more likely to be her mother, Trixie thought sadly.

  Maggie Jackson was overworked, undernourished and as skinny as a wild rabbit. She’d once been fresh-faced and pretty but now there were dark shadows under her grey eyes and her once gleaming hair was now lank and stringy.

  She was so browbeaten that she cringed if anyone raised their voice, as if she were expecting a blow to follow. Often, though, blows came without a word being spoken, especially when Sam Jackson had imbibed more beer than was good for him.

  Maggie always claimed that being on the receiving end of one of his vicious drunken blows when she’d been six months’ pregnant had been the underlying cause of poor little Cilla’s state of health. The resultant premature birth had left Maggie very weak and the baby fighting for her life. They’d both survived, but although she was now five years old and should have been ready to start school, Cilla was still more like a two-year-old both physically and mentally. She spent most of the day in her high-sided cot or tied into her high chair till Trixie came home from school.

  Sam Jackson had been shocked when he’d first seen Cilla. He seemed to instinctively hate the child. He claimed that Cilla’s arrival had brought nothing but misfortune on his head. Up till then he’d had very few serious problems in his life. He’d grown up in Anfield and when he’d left school he’d gone to work at the local abattoir. At first he’d been sweeping up, scrubbing down, spreading clean sawdust and a hundred and one other menial tasks. He’d stuck at it, though, enjoying the company of the older men who worked there and convinced that one day in the near future he’d become as experienced a slaughter man as most of them were.

  For the moment, though, he’d been content with his life as it was. He had money in his pocket after he’d paid his mum and dad for his keep, and he was able to enjoy himself. He was popular, he had plenty of friends; girls queued up to go out with him. He liked a drink and was always ready to gamble a few bob on the dogs or horses and he was considered by one and all to be good company.

  Things had changed slightly, but only for the better, when he’d met Maggie Wilson, a curvaceous girl with auburn hair who was a few years younger than him. She’d fallen for him at their first meeting and thought him the most handsome, wonderful person in the world. When she became his steady girlfriend, he was the envy of all his mates because she was by far the prettiest girl around.

  Maggie had been well brought up, though, and kept him at arm’s length, which made him all the more eager and he couldn’t wait to get married. His boss told him he could have the one-up, one-down cottage attached to the abattoir if he was prepared to act as caretaker. It was the perfect love nest; he’d no rent to pay so he was able to go on enjoying himself, even though he had a wife to support.

  They’d married on a bright sunny day in June 1905; Maggie had looked a dream of loveliness in her white dress and flowing veil. The future had seemed so bright; till one thing after another started to alter.

  The first change had come a few months later when Maggie’s parents had decided to emigrate to Australia to join Maggie’s brother Stephen who was already living over there and had a young family. They tried to persuade Sam and Maggie to go with them but Sam was settled and enjoying his life in Liverpool too much to agree to doing anything like that. He made the excuse that since Maggie was expecting their first baby he didn’t think it was the right time for such an upheaval.

  Trixie was born a month later and after that Maggie’s life was centred around looking after the baby. Sam craved company and began to spend more and more of his spare time at the pub with his cronies. Both he and Maggie accepted that this was normal now that they were married and, in their own way, each of them was more or less content with the way things were turning out.

  Trixie had just started school when Sam’s mum died suddenly in October 1911. None of them had known that she had a bad heart so it came as a great shock when she collapsed while out shopping, was rushed to hospital and died the same day. The following year Sam’s father, who was unhappy on his own, decided to leave Anfield and move to Rochdale to live with his widowed sister.

  Gradually they’d lost touch because other more startling developments were taking over their lives. There was talk of war and when it finally broke out Sam was one of the first to volunteer. He’d begun to find that married life with a young child had become somewhat humdrum. Maggie had changed; she was no longer the sparkling twenty-year-old he’d courted and married. After several miscarriages she was frustrated knowing that Sam wanted a son and that he was angry and disappointed because she was failing to give him one.

  No sooner had Sam gone into the army than his boss at the abattoir informed Maggie that she would have to vacate the two-roomed house that had been their home ever since they were married. With Sam no longer there to act as caretaker someone else would have to take on the job and he needed the accommodation for them.

  On her own, with no money saved and expecting a second baby within a few months, Maggie didn’t find it easy to find somewhere else to live. She had ended up renting the upper rooms of a house off Scotland Road, one of the poorest areas in the whole of Liverpool.

  When Sam came home on his first leave a couple of months later he was mortified to discover where she was living and even more taken aback when she told him she was six months’ pregnant.

  On the last night of his leave, after a night out drinking, he’d even refused to believe that it was his child she was carrying. He’d given vent to his anger and frustration by giving her such a severe beating that when he’d finished Maggie was unconscious and had to be rushed off to hospital. It was left to the neighbours to take care of Trixie till Maggie was well enough to come home again.

  Cilla was almost three when Sam returned home at the end of the war and saw her for the first time. His first impression was her pretty round face, auburn curls and huge grey eyes.

  Then, when he’d become aware of Cilla’s disabilities, he’d been appalled and had refused to have anything at all to do with her. He couldn’t even bring himself to hold her hand when she attempted to stand or walk. Whenever she had one of her crying fits he’d retreat to the nearest pub.

  Maggie treated Cilla as if she was still a helpless baby, but Trixie refused to accept that she was backward and always talked to her as though to someone of her own age. Cilla would listen, her big grey eyes fixed on her sister’s face so intently that Trixie was convinced she understood every word she said.

  Trixie also encouraged her to walk and play. No matter how great a hurry she was in she would hold Cilla’s hand and let her toddle along at her side, instead of sweeping her up into her arms like a bundle of washing like Maggie usually did.

  When Sam Jackson had come out of the army and was told that his job at the abattoir had been given to someone else, he’d been bitter and disillusioned.

  Maggie had found it was quite difficult to manage on her army allowance while Sam was a soldier but at least it had been regular and, with careful budgeting, she’d managed to keep out of debt. Now, though, she never knew how much housekeeping money she’d have from week to week. Sam claimed that it was because he never knew how much there would be in his wage packet; it all depended on whether he managed to get taken on or not.

  Maggie suspected that it depended on whether he was sober enough to get out of bed early enough to be on the dockside in time to be selected by the ganger.

  About a month after he’d been demobbed, she was finding it impossible to manage and asked him for more money because Cilla needed so many special things and Trixie was growing so rapidly that she needed new clothes; Sam laughed contemptuously. He told her bluntly that if she wanted more than he gave her she’d have to get off her backside and earn it.

  Cleaning offices first thing in the morning and again in
the evening had been the only sort of work she could find that fitted in with twelve-year-old Trixie being there to look after Cilla. As it was, it meant that Trixie had to leave for school in the morning before Maggie returned home from work and in the afternoons Maggie sometimes had to leave home before Trixie came in from school.

  Now that Trixie had just left school, her father’s insistence that she should take a job at the biscuit factory in Dryden Street where she would be starting at seven in the morning worried Trixie. It would mean Cilla would be on her own much longer each morning because her mother didn’t get home from her charring job till around nine o’clock. That was unless her mother gave up her charring now that there was more money coming in. But would she? Would her father let her? Once I’m working he’ll probably give her even less housekeeping money than he does now, Trixie thought resentfully.

  There were times when she thought that they might have been happier if her father had never come home from the war. Why should a hard-hearted, bad man like him still be alive when so many good, kind men had died?

  Trixie felt wicked when these thoughts came into her head but she couldn’t help wishing that he would behave as a husband and father should do.

  Leaving Cilla on her own meant that for her own safety she had to be tied either into her cot or into her high chair. In the morning she was usually still asleep and Maggie told Trixie to simply fix a blanket over the cot to stop her climbing out and that it would be all right because she’d be home before Cilla woke up. Often, though, Maggie came home to find Cilla not only awake, but screaming so loudly that she could be heard out in the street and both Maggie and Trixie worried in case one of the neighbours reported them for neglecting the child.

  At first it had been much the same in the afternoon. When Maggie tied Cilla into her high chair she screamed and cried. Maggie hated leaving her on her own, even though she knew it would only be ten or twenty minutes before Trixie was home.

  Gradually, however, Cilla became used to the routine and more or less accepted it. Maggie always gave her a rusk or a biscuit before she left and this seemed to pacify her.