Free Shattered Dreams by Vivienne Dockerty Page B

along the dock road.“They might stop the buses when you get to the terminus or maybe in the morning you won’t be able to get into work.”
    “I don’t think they’ll expect us in if it continues to fall like this, Irene, but I agree, I might have to walk it home if they stop the buses at Woodside.”
    “I think you’d better stay over then. You can stay in the spare bedroom, as you know we’ve no lodgers here at the moment. I’ll just ask mother for her permission, but I’m sure she’ll agree that you can stay given the circumstances.”
    Lily agreed reluctantly, but warned that there was to be no shenanigans under her roof.
    The couple laughed and agreed there wouldn’t be and around about ten they all went to bed.
    It was around two o’ clock in the morning when Eddie heard a noise coming from the landing. Stealthy footsteps trod on the wooden staircase, then silence as the sound disappeared into the night. He was dying for a pee and felt around under the bed for a chamber pot. There wasn’t one, was he to do it out of the window instead? He groaned inwardly, then putting his overcoat on over his vest and long johns, he went down the staircase, intending to go through the kitchen to the outer door and relieve himself in the garden privy.
    Irene was sitting in her blue heavy quilted dressing gown by the dying embers of the kitchen fire, as he crept past the back of the sofa that she sat on. He signalled that he was off to the privy and she whispered that she would make him a cup of tea.
    Her body was warm as he pressed his shivering one against her later. Her lips were velvety and inviting and he couldn’t help himself. Nearly five long years of denial for each other’s bodies was long enough. They helped themselves to each other, fulfilling a need that would satisfy until the day they said “I do”.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Eddie was kept on at the flour mill site after the drains and footings had been completed.
    The foreman liked the way he worked, not always looking for breaks from his toil like some did, so Eddie was employed on the brick work later, a job that he really enjoyed.
    He would call on Irene each evening after she had returned from work. Lily was now in charge of cooking and a hot meal was what they both needed at the end of the day.
    The events of the snowbound night were never repeated, Irene being fearful that she might get pregnant and Eddie wanting to show his respect and regard for his girl.
    So it came as a bit of a shock for both of them when Irene didn’t get her monthly. Eddie had thought that a girl couldn’t get pregnant the first time they had intercourse. Irene knew you could because it had happened to her sister Isabel, but had hoped that lightning wouldn’t strike in the family twice. Lily was going to be mortified that it had happened to both her daughters, especially when she had given permission for Eddie to stay that night.
    “Oh well, at least your father will give his permission now,” said Irene thankfully after she told Eddie that she thought she might be expecting. “Perhaps you could arrange for me to come and visit your family. It will be the first grandchild, won’t it, so they’re bound to be pleased?”
    “Not the first grandchild, Irene, Caitlin gave birth to a daughter the other day. But I know my father, he still won’t give his permission even if it means you having the child out of wedlock. He can be stubborn, as you know, and this won’t change his mind.”
    “Oh no,” cried Irene, putting her head into her hands as the import of Eddie’s words sank in.
    “Don’t worry,” he said, patting her shoulder awkwardly. “I’ll be twenty-one by then. It’s a good job that you’re already over twenty-one, because I couldn’t see your mother giving permission for our marriage either.”
    “Why Eddie, my mother thinks the world of you, at least she’s never said anything different to me.”
    “She resents me, Irene. She’s said a few things to me