Free Born Bad by Josephine Cox Page B

Didn’t she realise I could have been sent to prison?’
    That night, when Judy had confided in her, the very same thought had entered Kathleen’s mind. ‘I can’t condone what Judy did,’ she conceded, ‘but she loved you, Harry. She was obviously carried away by her feelings for you, and thenit was too late to tell you she wasn’t old enough for a full relationship.’
    ‘If only she’d told me earlier, we could have put it all on a different footing. I loved her enough to wait until she was older. But she led me to believe that everything was all right and I, like a damned fool, swallowed every word she said.’ He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t just that she lied about her age,’ he confided.‘That was bad enough, but the other thing …’ His guilt was tenfold. ‘I just couldn’t cope.’
    Kathleen could see how deep it had gone with Harry, but from the anger and the hurt he was showing now, she was left in no doubt but that he still had feelings for Judy, every bit as much as he did back then.
    ‘She told me she had never loved anyone else, not in the way she loved you.’ Kathleen paused,before going on in a softer voice, ‘Deep down you already know that, don’t you, Harry?’
    Harry had told himself the very same over the years. ‘What really matters is that I should have stayed and faced it like a man. The truth is, I didn’t know what to do. Like a coward, I panicked and ran.’ Agitated, he got up to pace back and forth like a trapped animal. ‘You think that too, don’t you, Kathleen– that I did a cowardly thing?’
    Kathleen shook her head. ‘You’re wrong,’ she assured him. ‘You were a fine boy then, and you’re a fine man now. You were never a coward; you never could be, because it’s simply not in your make-up.’
    ‘So if it wasn’t cowardice, what was it that made me run? Why couldn’t I face it head on?’
    ‘Because the enormity of the situation was beyond you, that’s why.’
    ‘Didshe tell you everything?’
    Kathleen confirmed it. ‘The following day, when Judy realised you were gone, she told me everything. I’ll admit, I was just as shocked as you – on both counts! Like you, I assumed that she was at least sixteen or seventeen. She certainly looked it. None of us had any reason to doubt her word.’ She recalled the moment when Judy admitted to having lied about her age.
    Then came the second bombshell, which rocked Kathleen to her roots, and there was something else too. All the while Judy was telling her, about the fact that she was only fourteen, and that Harry had made her with child, there was something about Judy’s story that made Kathleen feel uneasy.
    To this day, she suspected that Judy had deliberately hidden the real truth from her, and from Harry.
    Like Harry, Kathleen had always loved and trusted Judy, but on that occasion she was made to ask herself: what did they really know about Judy? After all, the Roberts family had not been in the street long enough for folks to really get to know them.
    Nevertheless, her affection for the girl had not wavered.
    Remembering now, she smiled. ‘From the very first I thought Judy was special. She wassuch a pretty, shy young thing who hardly had two words to say for herself. Of course, it was rumoured that her mother ruled the family with a rod of iron.’
    Harry had heard that too. ‘Judy talked about her father a lot, but she hardly ever mentioned her mother. In fact, she hardly ever talked about her past, or where they’d come from. I got the impression that her mother kept her on a short string,that she didn’t care for her to meet other people.’
    ‘She always found a way to be with you though,’ Kathleen reminded him. She made a wide gesture with her hands. ‘Oh, and didn’t she love this little garden! The very first time you brought her home, you spent the whole evening, talking and laughing and making plans, here on this very bench.’
    Harry recalled every magical minute of it. ‘Like