A Liverpool Legacy Read Online Free Page B

went out to the terrace. Jenny’s sobs were quieter, she was settling, but Millie picked her up as much to comfort herself as the baby.
    Back in the living room Sylvie was sobbing noisily. Millie joined her on the sofa and sat as near to her as she could. She put one arm round her shoulders and pulled her closer. ‘I can’t believe this has happened to Pete. He was so careful with everything.’
    ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Mum,’ Sylvie wept, burying her face on Millie’s shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Dad, please forgive me.’
    ‘There’s nothing to forgive, love . . .’ It was a disaster that would change her life and those of all the family for ever, and it had happened so quickly.
    ‘It’s all my fault. I persuaded Dad to come back yesterday through that awful storm.’
    ‘I know it’s a terrible shock, love, but you mustn’t blame yourself.’
    ‘He wanted to stay there until the storm passed over, he was ready to stay all night. But I wanted to go to the Buckley Arms for dinner, I had a new dress to wear and I told him how much I was looking forward to it.’
    Millie said firmly, ‘Sylvie, it’s not your fault, you mustn’t think like that. Dad decided to come home because he knew Helen and Valerie would be worried if we didn’t turn up.’
    ‘Worried?’ Helen sobbed too. ‘What would that matter? Being worried is nothing compared to losing him like this.’
    ‘See what I mean?’ Sylvie lifted a face ravaged by tears. ‘I didn’t realise how bad that storm was, and I thought having a meal out was more important than his life.’
    ‘You didn’t know .’ Millie held her tight. ‘We none of us knew what would happen.’
    ‘What are we going to do now?’ Sylvie sobbed. ‘How are we going to manage without him?’
    ‘I don’t know, love, I’ve been asking myself that, but it wasn’t your fault.’
    ‘It’s utterly terrible,’ Helen said, ‘but you mustn’t blame yourself, Sylvie. Dad wouldn’t want that.’
    Millie was worried about Sylvie, her beautiful eyes were puffy and red-rimmed. She kept breaking down in floods of tears if any of them spoke to her, even when they were trying to be kind. The accident cast a black cloud over everything and they talked endlessly of Pete.
    They all wanted to get away from Hafod and its raw memories, and the next day Millie and Sylvie, with Helen and her baby, took the train home to Liverpool. Valerie elected to stay because she felt somebody needed to as there were a hundred and one things to be arranged and ends to be tied up. She said her husband Roger would join her at the weekend to keep her company.
    Millie was glad to be back in her own home but it had been Pete’s home for longer than it had been hers. He’d been born here and so had his father before him. His clothes and books were everywhere. She sat in his favourite armchair, fingered his favourite records and started to read the book he hadn’t finished. She could sense his presence in every room and it drove home to her that he’d never be coming back.
    She put off going to bed, knowing she wouldn’t sleep. To be alone in their double bed would make her weep with grief and loneliness. She didn’t know how she was going to break the news to their two sons, Simon aged eleven and Kenneth aged nine, that their father had died, so she put off thinking about that too. Sylvie was inconsolable and though she appeared to be sleeping when Millie looked in on her, she was woken by her daughter’s screams at three in the morning.
    Sylvie was having a nightmare, reliving her ordeal on Sea Sprite . She clung to Millie. ‘I wish we’d never gone on that boat trip,’ she wept. ‘Why didn’t we go up Snowdon instead?’
    It took Millie half an hour to calm her. She made them both cups of tea, and took hers back to her own lonely bed. She was cold and couldn’t sleep, she tossed and turned for another hour, thinking of Pete.
    Years ago, when she’d been in trouble and couldn’t