Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection

There were two earthenware bowls: one filled with roasted potatoes, the other brimming with quartered parsnips. For Dave there was a welcome jug of beer, a glass of stout for Marie, and a tumbler of home-made elderberry wine for Amy.

‘Well, don’t just look at it!’ Marie told him. ‘Sit yourself down and eat.’

‘One minute,’ he said, reaching into his jacket pocket. ‘I’ve summat here for the pair of you …’ Chuckling, he confessed, ‘I were just winding you up when I said I hadn’t got you a present.’

Marie feigned excitement. ‘So you brought us one after all? Oh, sweetheart, I knew you would.’

The grin on Dave’s face faded as he felt in the pocket for the third time, fumbling this way, then that. ‘They’ve gone!’ he cried. ‘Some thieving bugger’s ’ad ’em away!’

At the look of horror on his face, Amy couldn’t bear it. ‘Here they are, Dad.’ Collecting them from behind the clock on the sideboard she handed them to him.

When his mouth fell open with surprise, Marie laughed. ‘It serves you right for teasing us. Come on then, let’s see what you’ve brought?’

Marie’s present was the prettiest brooch, shaped like a butterfly and made out of enamel. ‘Aw, Dave …’ She gave him a hug. ‘It’s lovely … you’re lovely!’

Grinning like a Cheshire cat, he seemed embarrassed, though he enjoyed her fussing round him. ‘You know how I like to give you nice things,’ he said proudly. ‘It’s only what you deserve.’ He glanced at Amy. ‘Come on, lass … open your present.’

Amy was thrilled with hers too. The necklace was a tiny heart, shaped in silver, and when she put it on, both Marie and Dave said how pretty it looked on her.

‘Thanks, Dad.’ She too gave him a fond hug. ‘But you shouldn’t spend your money on us like that.’

Indignant, he asked sombrely, ‘If I can’t spend it on the two most important people in my life, who can I spend it on?’

There was no answer to that, except for Marie to say, ‘Let’s eat our dinners, afore they go cold!’

As they ate, the three of them chatted and laughed, and Dave told of his latest disaster.

‘For the life of me, I don’t know how it happened,’ he began excitedly. ‘Soonever I was given the address, I knew straight off there were a good many narrow little streets in that area, some of ’em virtually impassable, especially with a lorry that size. The new foreman assured me there was no problem as the road widened out at the end and I could drive straight through. But when I got halfway down, I knew some bugger had been playing silly devils with me, ’cos instead of the road getting wider, it got narrower. In the end I couldn’t go forrard and it seemed there were too many twists and turns to go backards.’

‘Sounds frightening.’ Against all odds, but urged on by Daisy, Amy had once secretly considered learning to drive, but the tales her dad came home with had put her off altogether. Dave had a little car, his pride and joy, but now Amy couldn’t envisage being one of the pioneer female drivers of Blackburn.

‘Aye, it were frightening an’ all, lass!’ Rolling his eyes he groaned. ‘In fact it were a bloody nightmare!’

Marie was horrified. ‘So what did you do?’

‘Well, I had no option, did I? All I could do was to feel my way back inch by inch. Unfortunately I badly scraped the side of the wagon and almost demolished a wall on the way.’

Once he got into the swing of it, Dave could tell a tale as well as any man, and on this particular occasion he had a riveted audience.

‘Not content with that, soonever I got the back end out I swung my front round to avoid a lamppost,’ he continued. ‘I missed the lamppost all right, but knocked down two bollards in the process, and ran over some poor bloke’s bicycle.’

Amy could see it all so vividly in her mind, she couldn’t stop laughing. ‘You’re a one-man demolition party!’

‘It weren’t my fault,’ Dave protested, indignant. ‘The buggers should have had more sense than sending me there in the first place!’

‘But that poor man … what did he have to say about his bike?’

‘Well, he weren’t too pleased, I can tell yer that. Yelled and shouted he did – went bright red in the face; said as how I should be locked up for my own safety, the cheeky article! On top o’ that, he wanted me to pay for a new bike, but I told him, I said, “If you’re daft enough to park it by the kerbside, you expect to get it run over.”’

Marie was curious. ‘And was he content with that?’

‘Were he buggery! Threatened to fetch the police if I didn’t pay up, but I’m no pushover. I stuck to my guns.’ He puffed out his chest. ‘As you know, I’m not a man who’s easily threatened!’

‘So what did you do?’

With a defiant look, he explained, ‘Well, what d’yer think I did? I paid him half what he said. I mean, what else could I do under the circumstances? I had no intention o’ paying him the full whack, I can tell you that. But y’see, I didn’t want no police on the scene. They’d have only made me later coming home to you, my darling.’ The expression on his face was a picture. ‘And we couldn’t be having that, could we now?’

All three laughed at his antics. It had been a good day, and an excellent meal, and as Dave went for his evening ‘constitutional’, Marie and Amy cleared away the dinner things. ‘It’s good to have him home,’ Marie said, and Amy agreed. Such contentment – she had envisaged such a marriage for herself, but she knew, even so, that she was fortunate to share in her parents’ happy lives. After all, what would Daisy give for this much love?

Dave returned just as Amy came down the stairs, having gone to get ready. ‘By! You look lovely, lass.’ He beamed with pride. ‘Off somewhere nice, are you?’

‘Me and Daisy are going to the pictures.’ Amy blushed at his compliment, but then she had taken a lot of trouble to look especially nice.

The long dark skirt had been a birthday present from her mother, and to go with it, Amy had bought a pale blue blouse and close-fitting jacket of darker blue. With her small-heeled ankle-strap shoes and the pretty spotted scarf at her throat she looked and felt good.

‘Your dad’s right,’ Marie agreed. ‘You look beautiful in that outfit.’

Aware that she was no beauty, but grateful for their compliments, Amy kissed her parents cheerio and promised not to be too late home.

‘And mind them roads!’ Dave warned. ‘It won’t be long afore the motor vehicles outnumber the horse and carts. Mind you, some of them drivers couldn’t even control a dog on a lead, let alone a thing with an engine in it.’

‘You worry too much,’ Amy chided as she hurried out the door. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Marie waved her daughter off at the door, then returned to the parlour and her beloved husband. ‘She’s a good lass, don’t you think?’

‘Aye.’ He smiled and nodded. ‘She teks after her mammy.’

Winking meaningfully, he patted his knee. ‘Look here, lass. There’s a sizeable lap going begging,’ he said invitingly. ‘All it needs is a pretty woman to plonk her bare bottom on it, and I’ll be happy as a pig in muck.’

Softly laughing, she went to him. ‘You’re a randy old thing, Dave Atkinson,’ she said, nibbling his ear.

‘And who can blame me, eh,’ hugging her tight, he kissed her full on the mouth, ‘when I’ve got the best-looking woman in the whole o’ Lancashire?’

Marie laughed, and as her smile met his, there was no doubting her love for him. ‘Are you after my body?’

‘What do you think?’

Marie smiled softly. ‘I think the same as you,’ she whispered. ‘What’s more, I think we ought to do summat about it.’

He kissed her again. ‘A woman after my own heart, that’s what you are, Marie Atkinson.’

A moment later the two of them went up the stairs together.

With Dave away all week it seemed such an age since they had made love.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_3f3e7822-766e-5adf-ba05-51f8db8cc0af)

A TRIP TO THE pictures was always a treat, and tonight was no exception.