Free The Leaving Of Liverpool by Maureen Lee Page A

his father. The family you’re staying with sound very nice . . . ’
    On the day the Queen Maia was due to dock in New York, Mollie thought about her sister constantly and prayed hard she would be all right. Annemarie was only thirteen. Surely she wouldn’t be left to look after herself.
    A few days later, Hazel wrote again. This time the letter was short and to the point: ‘Finn is coming to Liverpool on Saturday and wants you to meet him off the ferry. He should arrive at about ten o’clock.’
    On Saturday, Mollie went to meet her brother, wondering why on earth he was coming to Liverpool. She hoped it wasn’t to try to persuade her to go back to Duneathly. But she soon discovered that Finn was there for quite a different reason, something far more serious.
     
    It was two weeks and four days after the Queen Maia had set sail for New York when Finn Kenny arrived in Liverpool on the Irish boat. In that time, the weather had miraculously improved. It was still cold, but the sun shone brilliantly in a light-blue sky, making the River Mersey shimmer. Seagulls swooped over the water, crying mournfully in their vain search for food. Finn had enjoyed two earlier visits to the city, but wished this time that the reason for his trip wasn’t quite so grim.
    His sister, Mollie, met him off the boat, and they went to a little café with a lofty ceiling and bare, scrubbed tables, not far from the Pier Head. The delicious smell of frying bacon wafted from the kitchen. He ignored it and ordered a pot of tea for two. Apart from a bored-looking waitress and whoever was frying the bacon, they were the only people there. Neither spoke until the tea was brought.
    ‘Who’s this friend you’re staying with, Moll?’ he enquired.
    ‘Her name’s Agatha Brophy,’ Mollie replied. ‘We met in the chemist’s where I bought the digitalis for Annemarie. The family are Catholics and they’re very nice.’
    Finn frowned slightly, but otherwise felt satisfied with the answer. Mollie looked much thinner since he’d last seen her and he hoped the Brophys were feeding her properly, but, right how, it was his other sister he was most concerned about. ‘You know, Moll,’ he said sternly, ‘you should have told us about Dad the first time he . . . ’ He paused, not quite knowing how to put it. ‘The first time he did what he did. If you had, it would never have happened to Annemarie.’
    Mollie’s white cheeks went pink. ‘I know that now, don’t I, Finn?’ she said in a small voice. ‘But I didn’t want to cause any trouble. The first time wasn’t long after Mammy died. Everyone was already upset, and I didn’t want to make matters even worse.’
    ‘Our dad’s the only one who’d’ve been feeling worse once I’d sorted him out,’ Finn said hotly. He’d been shocked to the core when he’d discovered what had been happening in his own family and that he’d known nothing about it. He was an upright, virtuous young man and his father’s behaviour sickened him. ‘I’d’ve told him that if he touched you again I’d punch him into the middle of next week, dad or no dad.’ He quivered with anger. ‘The other day, I went to the house and had it out with him - Hazel told me the whole story when she got your letter saying you’d missed the boat.’ They hadn’t stopped rowing about it since; with him wanting to know why she hadn’t told him before, and her saying she’d promised to keep it to herself. ‘Until then,’ he said to Mollie, ‘I’d been going mad with worry, wondering where the pair o’yis had gone.’
    ‘What did the Doctor have to say?’
    ‘That he’s sorry.’ But he hadn’t been all that sorry, not at first. He was simply surprised that it was him who’d driven his daughters away, though he had looked uncomfortable when his son had accused him of being a rapist and described the terrible effect it had had on Annemarie. Finn had never been all that fond of his father and his fingers had itched to