Love is Blind

by Anne Baker

Genres: Family Life; World War II; Sagas

Synopsis

A family struggles to survive bereavement, bombing and bitter rivalry... Love is Blind is a gripping wartime saga from much-loved author Anne Baker, which follows a family's path through heartache and war. Perfect for fans of Katie Flynn and Sheila Newberry. Patsy Rushton's brother Barney doesn't know the meaning of hard work, so when their father tragically dies, Patsy has no choice but to save the family's business. Meanwhile, Barney has got his girlfriend pregnant and, feeling trapped, he abandons her and leaves Merseyside altogether. But trouble follows Barney wherever he goes and when he learns of his sister's growing success, he can't help feeling resentful. Why is their mother, Beatrice, so quick to forgive him? Surely, she can't be blind to his faults? As Patsy is to discover, there's something else about Barney that is frightening her mother so much she has never dared to speak of it before. What readers are saying about Love is Blind : 'Very good, easy read. The twists and turns in the plot kept the intrigue alive. I would recommend to anyone' ' Engaging characters and a gripping war time story. A good insight into life during the war. Can't wait to read another of Anne Baker's books'

Release date: February 2, 2012

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 425

Sample

Early June 1938

‘WHERE CAN YOUR FATHER be?’ Beatrice Rushton was peering up and down the road from the bay window in her sitting room. ‘It’s gone seven o’clock.’


Her eighteen-year-old daughter Patsy had been asking herself that for the last hour. ‘Perhaps he’s forgotten the time.’ Dad
was usually as regular as clockwork in all he did.


‘Surely he can’t still be fishing?’ There was irritation in Beatrice’s voice. ‘This isn’t like him.’

‘It’s only salad tonight, Mum.’ Patsy had already made it and set the table. ‘Couldn’t we have ours now? I’m hungry.’

In the mirror over the fireplace, Patsy could see herself curled up in the corner of the green velvet sofa, with her long
straight hair held back with an Alice band. Dad said she looked like her mother, but she couldn’t see much resemblance. Both
had fair hair, but Patsy’s was honey-coloured and shiny, while Mum’s looked faded because it was turning grey.


Beatrice was frowning in indecision. It made her look older than her forty-four years; she was large-boned but gauntly thin
and angular, while Patsy was petite and pink-cheeked.


‘I suppose we might as well have ours. I’ll need to keep some for Barney anyway. I don’t know what the men in this family
are coming to; they must think I’m running a hotel.’ Barney was Patsy’s 20-year-old brother. ‘You make a pot of tea, Patsy, and I’ll cut some bread.’


Mum had been pretty when she was young, with features that were regular and finely chiselled. In old photographs she looked
quite beautiful. Patsy studied her own face and was less pleased, she thought her mouth too big and her chin too determined.
They both had deep blue eyes, but Patsy knew hers were inclined to stare too inquisitively at everything. Mum was a lot taller
than she was, taller than Dad, come to that.


‘You haven’t finished growing yet,’ both parents assured her. But Patsy thought she had. She would be quite happy to stay
small and dainty.


Mum was set in her ways. There had to be a clean tablecloth for Sunday tea and a few flowers on the table if flowers could
be got from the garden. Today they had pink roses, the first of the summer.


It had been an ordinary Sunday until now, a day bright with sunshine but with a cool breeze. Dad liked them to go to church
together for the ten o’clock service and until a couple of years ago, they’d always gone to St James’s as a family, but then
Barney had dug his heels in and refused to go.


‘Church means nothing to me,’ he’d said from beneath his eiderdown. ‘I need a lie-in on Sunday mornings.’

‘You shouldn’t stay out so late on Saturday nights,’ Dad had retorted. ‘Get up now and get yourself ready for church.’

Mum was indulgent to Barney, while Dad laid down the law and expected obedience, but he was no longer getting it. Since then,
only Patsy had accompanied her parents to church on Sundays.


Dad was devout; he believed in peace on earth and wanted to help everybody. Patsy went because she always had and didn’t want
to upset Dad. She thought her mother went to show her smart new hats and high heels to the ladies of the parish.


This morning, before going, Patsy had helped Mum set a shoulder of lamb to roast on a low light, together with thyme and parsley
stuffing, roast potatoes and new season’s cabbage. It had made an excellent lunch which they’d all enjoyed. Barney had followed
that with a double helping of apple pie and custard. It had been his breakfast too as he’d had nothing but the cup of tea
Mum had taken upstairs to him.


Barney had gone out on his motorbike after lunch. He’d said he was meeting a friend. Patsy understood that to mean he was
meeting Madge Worthington, his girlfriend.


Often Dad took Mum out for a little run in the car on Sunday afternoons. They drove round the pretty Wirral villages, or went
to New Brighton to stroll along the promenade. They always took a flask of tea and often some cake too, to picnic in the car.
But today, Dad had wanted to go fishing and Mum had said she’d prefer to rest on the bed and then perhaps sit in the garden
if it was still sunny.


Mum was very proud of her garden. She’d only achieved a garden when they’d moved from the flat over the workshop in the north
end and rented this very pleasant newly built semi-detached in Forest Road. It had a number on the gate but Beatrice had wanted
that changed to a small plaque that named it as Fern Bank because it sounded classier. They all felt they were going up in
the world and that Dad was building up his business, a workshop making inexpensive women’s clothing.


Birkenhead had many small clothing workshops. They’d heard that another new one was being set up to make sportswear with the
Fred Perry emblem on it. Rumour had it that it was owned by the great British tennis champion himself.


Patsy often spent her Sunday afternoons with her friend Sheila Worthington, but today she’d not made a definite arrangement to do that. ‘Can I go fishing with you, Dad?’ she’d asked.


Usually he liked taking her. Last night, they’d both gone to New Brighton to dig up sand worms for bait while the tide was
out.


‘Well . . .’ he said frowning heavily, which told her straight away he wanted to be alone. ‘Things aren’t going well in the business.
I can’t get enough work to keep the girls busy, I need to give this some thought and I don’t have time at work. You’d be bored,
Patsy. Some other time, eh?’


So she’d watched Dad’s squarely built figure walk to his Morris Eight and drive away. Then she’d got out her bike and gone
round to see what Sheila was doing. The Worthingtons lived close by in Shrewsbury Road in a much larger and older house. They
had no car but there was a garage and the doors were open. Patsy could see her friend with her brother John who was helping
her mend a puncture. Her bike was standing upside down on its seat and handlebars.


‘I’m glad you’ve come.’ Sheila beamed at her. ‘I was about to come round to your place to see what you were doing.’ There
were four Worthington children in the family. They were all good-looking with dark lustrous hair and fair, clear skin.


‘You were going to show me the new dress your mother’s made for you,’ Patsy said. ‘I’m dying to see it.’

‘Not now.’ Her brother swung Sheila’s bike back on to its wheels. He smiled at Patsy. ‘Dad doesn’t like us taking friends
in on Sunday afternoons.’


‘He and Mum have a rest on the bed after Sunday lunch.’ Sheila giggled.

‘We’re forbidden to disturb them,’ John added. ‘Sheila, why don’t you go out on your bike now I’ve mended it?’

Patsy understood that discipline was much stricter than in her own home. She knew the family quite well; Sheila was the youngest,
Barney had started walking out with Madge her older sister and Mum was on speaking terms with their mother.


Mrs Worthington had roped in Mum as one of her helpers. She was setting up a local branch of the Women’s Voluntary Service
which was being formed to provide welfare services in the event of war. She’d been a schoolteacher before she married and
Patsy thought her a formidable woman. Mr Worthington was even more so; even Mum was in awe of him. He was an accountant working
for the council.


‘Let’s go for a bike ride then,’ Patsy suggested. ‘What about a trip to West Kirby?’

It had been a glorious afternoon with crowds out on the shore as well as on the promenade. They’d bought ice creams and watched
the dinghy races on the Marine Lake. Patsy had come home feeling contented and full of fresh air.


But now Mum was growing anxious, she was pushing the food round her plate and eating little. When they both heard a car outside,
Mum leapt to her feet and rushed to the front room to see if it was Dad. She came back slowly.


‘It’s visitors arriving next door. D’you think Dad could have had an accident? You know what he thinks of weekend drivers,
a danger to everybody else.’


‘He’d have phoned.’ Patsy could see from her mother’s face that she was afraid he could have been too badly hurt for that.
‘Somebody would have let us know, wouldn’t they?’


‘Perhaps.’

They finished their meal and covered the remains of the cold meat and salad. After they’d washed up the few plates they’d
used and there was still no sign of Hubert Rushton, Patsy said, ‘I’m going out to look for him.’


‘I’ll come with you.’ Beatrice was screwing her face with worry.

‘No, Mum, better if you stay here. What if he comes home and there’s no one here? I’ll go on my bike.’

‘Do you know where he’s gone?’

Patsy hadn’t asked where he planned to fish and in Birkenhead they were surrounded by water. Dad sometimes took her for
walks round the docks, to the East Float in particular. Most of the dock facilities were lying idle in the depression and,
to Patsy, the dock wall had seemed an ideal place to fish from.


Dad had smiled at her suggestion. ‘The Mersey estuary is not the best place for fish and the docks take their water from there.
You see, some kinds of fish live in salt water and other kinds live in fresh water. With big tides funnelling into the Mersey
twice a day, the salt content of the water is ever changing and suits neither. Very few species of fish can cope with that.’


Patsy could see her mother’s hands trembling. ‘I think he probably went to New Brighton promenade,’ she said. But she knew
he couldn’t still be fishing there at this time of the evening, the tide would be too far out now.


Her mother’s anxiety was infectious. Patsy shivered as she got her bike out from the back of the garage and set off. The sun
had gone and the wind was cold. She was horribly afraid that something must have happened to Dad; he’d never stayed out like
this before.


Patsy knew the way well. As children, she and Barney had been brought here often in the summer. A donkey ride along the beach
had been a special treat. They’d thought it great to have a seaside resort on the doorstep and made full use of it.


The old promenade stretched for three miles along the Mersey from Seacomb Ferry and in recent years it had been extended several more miles along the King’s Parade which fronted
the Irish Sea. On it had been built the largest open-air swimming pool in England.


Patsy rode through the streets of New Brighton. The pubs and cafés were still open and brightly lit. There were holiday-makers
to be seen enjoying themselves. Patsy freewheeled down the hill and round the corner on to the new part of the promenade which
led away from the town.


She knew this was a popular place for fishermen. The sea wall was thirty to forty feet above the sand and with a high spring
tide like they’d have had this afternoon, it would have been possible to fish from the promenade.


Patsy loved coming here when there was a high spring tide. The waves hurled themselves against the wall again and again, only
to crash back in wild frenzy to fill the air with the scent of the sea. It turned the sea water white with ever-moving spume
and sent a fine spray into the air with droplets sparkling like diamonds in the sun. Sometimes the waves came right over the
promenade wall to swamp the pavement and even the road.


The night was quiet and dark, though there were lights on in the distant buildings and she could see two ships blazing with
lights heading for the mouth of the Mersey. Here, a short distance along the prom, there were few people about, apart from
a rare courting couple.


During any summer afternoon there would be lots of cars parked along the pavement, but she’d ridden almost a mile before she
saw the dark mass of a solitary car parked neatly against the kerb. Another few yards and she could see it was her father’s.


Her heart turned over and began to thump. She didn’t know what she’d expected but it wasn’t this. Its lights were not switched on. She thought perhaps Dad had fallen asleep in
the driving seat, but no, the car was empty.


Her mouth was dry as she dismounted and propped the pedal against the pavement. She went to the car; it wasn’t locked, but
otherwise everything was as she’d expect it to be. But where was Dad?


The strength was ebbing from her knees, she was really frightened now. She crossed the pavement to the sea wall. The tide
had receded, and it was a long way out now and lapping gently on the wet sand. It was too dark for her to see anything down
there.


‘Dad,’ she shouted. ‘Dad, where are you?’ She shivered in the chill wind. It was as though he’d disappeared off the face of
the earth.


She walked a little further along the prom. Every so often, there were small alcoves in the wall from which stone steps descended
down the side of the prom wall to the sand. These provided an ideal place from which to fish, out of the way of pedestrians
and sheltered from the wind.


Dad had said she must use the beach in town near the pier rather than this part because here the tide could sweep in rapidly
through wide gullies in the sand and sometimes cut people off from the steps.


‘Oh my God!’ Patsy jerked to a standstill. She could see her father’s fishing box protruding from the next alcove. His metal
bait bucket, decorated with pictures of Mickey Mouse, was balanced on top. As a child it had belonged to her, she’d built
sandcastles with it.


‘Dad?’ Her voice was snatched away by the wind. She was breathless when she reached the spot. ‘Dad?’ she screamed over and
over. ‘Dad? Dad? Where are you?’


She could see he wasn’t here, but the folding camp chair he’d brought to sit on was, and so were his two fishing rods and
basket.


‘Dad?’ She felt sick as she looked down the stone steps. It was too dark to see the bottom ones but she knew they were covered
by the tide twice a day and were slippery and green with seaweed. Dad wouldn’t go down there, he’d warned her not to. The
promenade wall cast a black shadow on the beach below, it was too dark to see anything on the sand.


Patsy was shaking and very frightened now. She didn’t know what to do next. She was some distance out of town. If Dad had
wanted to buy something, he’d surely have got back in his car and driven. Tears were prickling her eyes. Perhaps he’d failed
to start it? Perhaps he’d walked back into town looking for a garage? But it was Sunday night and getting late now, would
there be a garage open at this time? Perhaps he’d gone home on the bus? She knew she was clutching at straws.


She felt desperate. What should she do? Something must have happened to Dad, but what? He might be in need of help. She ran
further along the prom but there was no sign of him that she could see. She’d have to go home and tell Mum.


First, she collapsed his camping chair and carried that and his other belongings back to his car. It took her several trips
to get everything into the boot. She was surprised his stuff hadn’t been stolen. She lifted the lid on his basket and saw
he’d caught two plump whiting. Dabs and whiting were what Dad usually brought home though he said he’d heard sometimes sea
bass and codling were caught here. Probably he’d caught others that were too small and thrown them back. He must have been
here for some time. The fish would make his car smell, so she transferred them to the basket on the handlebars of her bike. She would have liked to lock his car up, but without his keys she couldn’t.


Full of dread, Patsy climbed on her bike and pedalled as hard as she could for home, though she could hardly see where she
was going for the tears glazing her eyes. She was relieved to reach Forest Road without further difficulty where she found
all the lights were on in Fern Bank. She went straight round the back, let her bike fall on the grass and rushed in through
the back door, shouting, ‘Has Dad come home?’


Her mother was slumped on the sofa in the sitting room looking grey with worry. She knew immediately that he hadn’t. Patsy
threw herself down beside her.


‘MUM, I FOUND DAD’S car but no sign of him!’ The tears were running down her face as she tried to tell her what she had found. She knew she was hardly coherent. ‘You must ring the police,’ she said, ‘tell them that he’s disappeared.’
Patsy knew she was giving way to panic.


Her mother pushed her away. ‘No sign of an accident you say? I don’t understand why he hasn’t come home. Daddy shouldn’t stay
out like this without telling me, he must know I’d be worried.’


‘Mum, if Dad could come home I’m sure he would. I’m afraid something has happened to him.’

Beatrice was shaking her head. ‘But what?’

Patsy got slowly to her feet, she knew she had to pull herself together and do something. She snatched up the phone in the
hall and asked the operator to put her through to the local police station. She was able to tell her story more clearly this
time. She learned that they would class him as a missing person.


‘We would like you to come down to this police station either now or first thing in the morning and bring a recent photograph
of him,’ she was told. ‘In the meantime, we’ll contact the New Brighton force and ask that an officer check the area.’


Her mother had the bureau open immediately and was searching through the drawers for photographs. ‘How about this one?’


She held up a lovely picture of father and daughter taken in the back garden at Easter. To see Dad with his arm round her
shoulder pulling her closer made Patsy catch her breath. ‘Will they want one of him alone?’ Another was held up. ‘Yes, I’ll
take it now,’ she choked.


‘Do you think you should? It’s after midnight.’ Beatrice sounded in a flat spin. ‘Would it be safe? Where is Barney? He should
be home by now.’


At that moment, Patsy heard the put-put of his motorbike coming up the road. She knew he usually switched the engine off before
getting this close, but he would have seen the lights were still on.


Beatrice had heard him too and went rushing out. Patsy followed more slowly. Mum threw herself in Barney’s arms and sobbed
out that Dad was missing. Patsy turned back and put the kettle on to make some tea. Her mother and Barney were both on the
sofa in the sitting room when she took the tray in. Barney had always been able to comfort Mum better than she could.


Dad said Barney had been on the front row when good looks were being handed out. He was built like a sportsman, tall, lean,
broad-shouldered and exuding strength. It gave a wrong impression. In reality he despised all sport and was a thorough layabout.
He had wavy hair the colour of ripening wheat and had recently grown a pencil moustache that made him as handsome as a film
star. Patsy’s friends said he looked like Ronald Colman.


Patsy’s hair was paler in colour and she thought he made her look washed out when they stood side by side. Also she envied
him his waves, she thought her hair was too plain and straight. His eyes were wide-set and tawny in colour, his chin firm and his nose straight. He was very handsome and knew it.
His smile was infectious and he was always looking for a good time. Patsy often saw girls eyeing him up.


Mum adored him and said he was the spitting image of Arnold, her much loved brother, who had been killed in the trenches in
the Great War. Barney’s birth had been long anticipated and he’d been named Barnaby Rowland Arnold John.


Patsy had arrived four years later and been given the names Patricia Beatrice with very little fuss. Good looks, Patsy thought,
made Barney popular, everybody loved him and wanted to be his friend. Dad said that Mum was inclined to spoil him.


For years, Barney had been allowed to stay out until midnight whenever he wanted to, while Patsy needed special permission
to stay out until ten o’clock if she wanted to go to the pictures with Sheila Worthington.


‘Barney, you’ll go to the police station, won’t you?’ Beatrice implored. Now the police were involved she understood Dad’s
disappearance was serious, but Barney seemed hardly concerned.


‘Do I have to, Mum? They won’t be able to do anything until daylight tomorrow. I’m tired, I want to go to bed, and anyway,
I don’t know where Dad went.’


‘Aren’t you worried about him?’ Patsy flared.

Even Mum spoke firmly to back her up for once. ‘The sooner the police have the photograph and all the details about him, the
sooner they may find him.’


‘If you take me there,’ Patsy said, ‘I’ll tell them what they need to know.’

Barney pulled a face, but a few minutes later Patsy was astride his motorbike, clinging on to him, with the wind blowing through her hair. She loved riding pillion, though Barney
seldom took her. At one in the morning there was nothing on the road as they went into town. Patsy found the police station
scary and was glad to have Barney striding in ahead of her full of confidence, with his head held high.


A constable received them politely and helped them fill in a form giving Dad’s particulars and details of his appearance.
While they were there a call came through from the New Brighton police force to say an officer had been along the promenade
to see if there was any sign of their father. He’d found his car but nothing else.


‘We’d advise you, sir, to lock it up or move it away as soon as possible, or you may find some or all of your father’s belongings
have been stolen.’


‘Tomorrow,’ Barney said. The officer pursed his lips. ‘Early, as soon as I can use public transport to get there. I came here
on my motorbike, but I’m the only other driver in the family.’


‘We’re very worried about Dad,’ Patsy said and started to recount how shocked she’d been to find his belongings and realise
he was missing.


‘Quite so. The New Brighton force has promised to make a more detailed search as soon as there’s enough light to see.’

Barney took her home. As they passed her bicycle, Patsy remembered the whiting she’d brought home and took them inside to
put in the larder.


Mum was waiting up for them, her face now ravaged with tears. It took a long time to calm her down.

‘I’ll make more tea,’ Patsy said. ‘We can all take a cup up to bed.’

‘I need more than tea,’ Barney complained. ‘I’m starving.’

‘I saved you some salad.’ His mother was wringing her hands. ‘It’s still on the table in the dining room.’

‘I don’t like salad. I could do with something hot. What about those fish you brought in, Patsy? Did Dad catch them?’

‘Now?’ Beatrice asked. ‘You’re not going to start cooking now?’

‘Yes,’ Barney insisted. Patsy got out the frying pan and cleaned the fish while Barney took Mum up to her bed with a cup of
tea.


As soon as he’d finished eating, Barney went straight up to bed, taking his cup of tea with him. Patsy wrapped the fish bits
in old newspaper and put them out in the bin, and propped the back door open for ten minutes while she got ready for bed.
Mum hated the smell of fish hanging about her kitchen. It was very late indeed when she put out her light that night.


It was nine thirty when Patsy woke up the next morning feeling sleep-fuddled. Had they all overslept? The house was completely
silent. Her spirits sank as she remembered the events of the day before. Then it hit her that she should have been at work
since eight o’clock. She’d been apprenticed to Wetherall’s in Bold Street in Liverpool for the last three years to learn women’s
tailoring.


She leapt out of bed and charged to the big back bedroom where her brother was still fast asleep. She hauled his bed-clothes
off him and tossed them over the bottom bed rail. ‘Get up, Barney, for goodness sake.’


‘Leave me alone, Patsy,’ he grunted. ‘I don’t want to get up yet.’

‘Come on, you’ve got to get Dad’s car back.’

Before rushing downstairs to the phone she peeped through the half-open door of the front bedroom, where Mum seemed to be still asleep. Patsy needed to explain her absence to Mrs Denning,
her boss.


‘I’m so sorry. My father’s been missing all night.’ She was breathless. ‘I found his car abandoned in New Brighton and we’re
desperately worried about him. We’ve all overslept. Would you mind if I didn’t come in today?’


Mrs Denning was sympathetic. She took a great interest in the personal affairs of her staff and always wanted to know every
detail, so Patsy talked to her at length and told her all her fears and forebodings.


‘Take a day or two off,’ her boss told her. ‘Until you know what’s happening, you won’t be able to concentrate on work, will
you? Keep in touch with me.’


Barney was coming downstairs as she put the receiver down. ‘You could just have told her you were sick,’ he said. ‘It would
have saved all that.’


‘No point in telling lies, Mrs Denning is very kind.’ Patsy put the kettle on to boil.

‘Is there any bacon?’

‘You’re not going to start cooking again?’ she asked sharply. ‘Why can’t you just go? It’ll only take you half an hour or
so. You can have breakfast when you come back.’


‘I can’t go anywhere until we find Dad’s spare car keys. Do you know where he keeps them?’

‘No, you’ll have to ask Mum.’

‘She’s asleep.’

‘She’ll want to be woken up for that.’ Patsy ran up to her mother’s room and found she was just stirring. She asked about
the spare car keys.


‘I don’t know where Dad keeps them,’ she muttered. ‘Try in there.’ She pointed to his bedside cabinet.

‘We’ll have to find them,’ Patsy said and started systematically lifting out the contents of the drawers. Barney came up with
a cup of tea for his mother.


‘What are you doing?’

Patsy thought he looked shocked, his mouth opened and closed. She lifted out a bunch of keys. ‘Could these be for the car?
What d’you think, Barney?’ He was gazing at the large bulging manila envelope that had covered them and seemed transfixed.


‘Let me see,’ his mother said. ‘Yes, they’re for the car.’

Patsy held them out to her brother. Slowly his hand came out to take them, and she could have sworn it was shaking.

‘Those are they,’ he said and slid them in his pocket.

Her mother lay back on her pillows. ‘I feel absolutely useless,’ she said. ‘Without Hubert we won’t be able to cope. He knows
that, he shouldn’t leave us like this. He knows I need his help. So do you, Barney. What will become of us without Hubert?’


Barney sat on the side of his mother’s bed, holding her hand and trying to comfort her. She fondled his hair. Barney and Mum
had always had this sort of relationship. He was still Mummy’s little boy.


‘I’d get going if I were you,’ Patsy told him firmly. ‘At this rate the car will be stolen before you get there.’

‘You’re becoming a real bossy boots,’ he complained, but he got up and followed her down to the kitchen.

‘I’m sorry, Barney, but I feel desperate about Dad. What could have happened to him?’

‘Perhaps he decided to have a night on the town. Perhaps he had a skinful and went to sleep on one of those benches. If so,
he’ll be shocked to find his car has gone.’


‘Don’t be silly, Dad would never do that. How can you make childish jokes now? Aren’t you worried about him?’


‘I expect he’ll turn up again soon.’ Barney poured himself a glass of milk, cut a slice of bread, spread it thickly with butter
and went like a homing pigeon to the two cold sausages in the larder that Mum had told Patsy she could put in a sandwich to
take for her lunch today. He folded his bread round them. ‘OK, I’m on my way.’


Barney set off for the bus stop munching on his sandwich and was just in time to see a bus pulling away.