Anne Bennett - Love Me Tender

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition published by HarperCollins Publishers 2015

Copyright © Anne Bennett 1999

First published in 1999 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015

Cover photographs © Gordon Crabb (woman); Colin Thomas (girl); Mirrorpix (mirrorpix)

Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007547784

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007547791

Version: 2017-10-18

To my lovely husband, Denis, with all my love.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk This edition published by HarperCollins Publishers 2015 Copyright © Anne Bennett 1999 First published in 1999 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Gordon Crabb (woman); Colin Thomas (girl); Mirrorpix (mirrorpix) Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007547784 Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780007547791 Version: 2017-10-18

Dedication To my lovely husband, Denis, with all my love.

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

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading Back List

Keep Reading: Another Man’s Child

About the Author

Also by Anne Bennett

About the Publisher

Mary Sullivan heard the dragging feet in the entry and swung the door wide to see her eldest daughter Kathy just about to push it open. The dejected sag of Kathy’s shoulders told its own tale as Mary drew her inside. ‘Wait, pet,’ she said. ‘I’ll brew us both a drop of tea.’

‘No, Mammy, I can’t stay,’ Kathy said. ‘I’ve left Barry minding the weans.’ She shook her head angrily. ‘Oh God, it’s no job for a man.’ She looked at her mother, her deep brown eyes sombre, and said, ‘D’you know, he was over at Northfield today, after a job on the building he’d heard about. Course, it was gone by the time he got there and then he walked back to save the tram fare. But the thing is, his boots are falling off his feet and I don’t know whether it wouldn’t have been better to pay the fare and save his boot leather.’

‘Ah, girl, I’m heart-sore for you,’ Mary said.

‘I couldn’t stand the look on his face, Mammy,’ Kathy cried. ‘I took the few coppers he’d saved and went down the Bull Ring. I got some bones and vegetables cheap, you know how they sell them off at this time of night. At least I’ll make a nourishing meal with it tomorrow.’

Mary looked at her daughter sadly. ‘Wait,’ she said, and went out of the room, coming back a minute later with a loaf wrapped in a cloth.

‘Ah no, Mammy, you do enough,’ Kathy protested.

‘We have plenty,’ Mary said. ‘Sure everyone in the house is working now but Carmel, and she’s turned twelve, she’ll be left school in a couple of years. Take it.’

‘I will,’ Kathy said. ‘For the weans, at least. Barry said they must have the best food first. He’s terrified something will happen to them that they won’t be well nourished enough to fight. I can understand it; after all, his two young brothers were taken with TB and his da was out of work at the time. Barry said there was little money for food and none at all for doctors, or medicines, and the youngsters were too weak to fight it on their own.’

‘He’s a good man you have, Kathy, and a good father,’ Mary said. ‘Things could be worse. Maybe in the new year Barry’s luck will change. God’s good.’

Kathy sighed. She had no hopes for the new year, for Barry had been out of work for four long years and she dreaded Christmas, with nothing for the weans at all. She was beset by worries. Her daughter Lizzie needed new boots – the ones she had pinched her feet and Kathy’d had to line them with cardboard to keep her feet dry – and Danny only had one jumper that fitted him now, and that was ragged and all over holes. She couldn’t lay all this at her mother’s door and so she kissed her goodbye.

There was another worry pressing on Kathy’s head, but it was nothing she could share with her mother either, or anyone else for that matter. Barry never made love to her any more. They slept side by side in the same bed and could well have been strangers. Often Kathy would long for Barry’s arms around her, or his lips on hers – not of course that she could say that to him, but still she missed the closeness they used to share. She knew he wanted no more children till he got a job, but still…

She was not to know that Barry realised how quickly kisses and cuddles could lead to other things, and he couldn’t risk it. If it wasn’t for his in-laws helping, the two children he had would go to bed, time and enough, with empty bellies. It tore his heart out that he was not able to provide for his own weans. God forbid he would bring another into the world to the same fate.

Lizzie and Danny were the only ones Barry could be natural with. He’d never been an inactive man before unemployment, and had never given much of a thought to the children either. Their rearing would be down to Kathy, like his had been down to his mother. But he’d been laid off before Danny’s birth, and now the boy was three going on four, and Lizzie six and a half.