Lovers Meeting by Irene Carr

short.
    Dorothy Miller heard the scream and then the bumping fall as Josie toppled down the narrow stairs. She called on the neighbours to help her and got Josie into bed, cared for her and cried with her when she told her, ‘You’ve lost the baby, love.’ She comforted her through those dark days: ‘Never mind, you’re young. It’ll soon be Christmas and a New Year, a new start.’
    Josie managed to smile.
    There was no bright beginning to 1908. Josie had recovered but early in January she found Dorothy Miller lying face down across her bed and unconscious. Josie ran for a doctor and he came in his puttering little motor car and told her, ‘Your mother-in-law has had a stroke.’ Dorothy was unable to walk, would be bedridden for the rest of her life. He wound up the polished brass starting handle of his car then drove away, and Josie was left to face up to her future. It was bleak. Dorothy would need a lot of attention and there was not much money, scarcely enough to feed the pair of them. But Dorothy had cared for Josie, now it was Josie’s turn.
    She heard the old woman calling for her, her voice quavering now, and answered, ‘Coming, Mother!’

8
    February 1908
    ‘Now then, gal! What can I get yer?’ Jerry Phelan eyed Josie where she stood on the other side of the counter. This was in the snug, a little room in his pub, the Red Lion, where his elderly women customers could sip their glasses of port, though younger women were not unknown there. If any girl entered the Red Lion alone he automatically suspected she might be a prostitute trying to ply her trade and would turn her away. But he thought this one was too quietly dressed for that, and she didn’t look the sort, so he suspended judgment for the moment and wiped his hands on his long, white apron.
    ‘Are you the manager, please, sir?’ Josie asked. She was breathless and flushed.
    ‘I’m the licensed vittler what owns the place. This is a free house, but you won’t get nothin’ for nothin’ here.’ Jerry cracked the hoary old joke. He thought that the girl had spoken well and began to wonder what she was doing in his pub.
    Josie said, ‘I heard you wanted a barmaid to work evenings.’ She had heard this from a neighbour and had run the quarter-mile to the Red Lion.
    Jerry nodded. ‘Yus.’ He eyed her still, but doubtfully now. ‘Have you ever done this sort o’ work before?’
    ‘No. I was a maid. And a nursemaid. I have a reference—’ Josie fumbled it out of her bag.
    But Jerry waved it aside. ‘That don’t count for nothing. Can you pull a pint? Keep a barful o’ thirsty men supplied and be cheerful while you’re at it?’ He started to turn away as someone in the bar shouted, ‘Hey, Jerry!’
    Josie said, ‘I can learn. And I’m used to working hard.’ She called after him desperately, ‘And I’m prepared to give you a try; why can’t you let me have a chance? I need the job and it sounds as though you need somebody !’
    That stopped Jerry. And then the voice shouted again, ‘Let’s have a pint here, Jerry, for the love o’ God!’
    He hesitated still for a second or two, then nodded. ‘Right you are. I’ll see what you’re made of. But I warn yer, I only lost me last girl yesterday when she walked out without notice ’cos she’d got another job up West. I haven’t even advertised for anybody yet and when word gets round there’ll be a dozen or more gals asking. So you cope or you’re out.’
    ‘I’ll cope.’ This was said with a determination that made Jerry blink. He was not to know how badly this slim young woman needed the few shillings he would pay her.
    He asked, ‘When can you start?’
    ‘Now?’ Josie offered. So Jerry lifted the flap of the counter and let her in.
    Josie had left Dorothy Miller in the care of a neighbour for a few hours. The old woman had been fed her supper and settled down by Josie and the neighbour only had to look in on her occasionally. That was the only way Josie could get