A Daughter's Choice Read Online Free PDF Page A

to make his own decisions. As for Ben … she decided, like Katie, that the least said to him about Sarah and Mick the better.
    The days soon fell into their normal routine: of cooking, cleaning, shopping and informing the guests where to find bargains and what was going on in Liverpool. The Queen Mother was visiting the city soon and that pleased two American guests.
    Eileen was placed in Katie’s charge and proved to be her constant shadow – something Katie was not too happy about. Eileen did not say much but somehow made her presence felt, and it was a gloomy presence. Katie was determined to escape the day before her birthday, as Ben and Mick had given her some money, and to leave the Irish girl in Ma’s capable hands.
    Kitty finished putting the shopping away and glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. She had half an hour to find a place for herself and Eileen where they could see the Queen Mother. Her American guests had left half an hour ago to find a good spot to view the royal opening of the University’s new School of Medicine. Not for the first time Kitty wished Jack could have studied here in Liverpool. The Royal Institute of Medicine had been opened early in the last century but had possessed scant facilities for medical education and so the school had been transferred to the Royal Infirmary earlier this century, and there thousands of lives had been saved by a doctor called Ross who discovered it was the mosquito that transmitted malaria. The curing of tropical diseases was important in a port which sent ships and men all over the globe. In those days, money for research had come from the great families and merchant princes of the city; now it came from the state.
    â€˜Have you finished there, Eileen?’ Kitty turned to the girl who had soda bread baking in the oven, made from her Irish aunt’s own special recipe.
    â€˜Just a minute more.’ Eileen gazed at her from expressionless blue eyes. ‘Where is it now we’re going?’ she asked in her soft Irish brogue. ‘And why isn’t Katie coming with us?’
    Why indeed? thought Kitty, but Katie had vanished half an hour ago and she had no idea where. ‘We’re going to see the Queen Mother. It’ll be something for you to write to your parents about.’ She smiled at the girl.
    â€˜She’s not my Queen Mother,’ said Eileen firmly. ‘We’re a republic.’
    â€˜I know that,’ said Kitty, realising not for the first time that the girl could speak up for herself when she felt strongly about something.
    â€˜Will Mam want to know what she’s wearing?’ she asked, taking the bread from the oven.
    â€˜It’ll help fill a page.’ Kitty went over and switched off the oven. ‘Come on now or we won’t see anything.’
    But she could not hurry Eileen and it was ten minutes before they left the hotel. It was Wednesday but even so school children lined the pavements, despite the rain, and there were plenty of mothers with tots, and middle-aged men and women. Union Jacks fluttered in gnarled hands as well as small dimpled ones and there was a ripple of excited chatter as the news was passed along that the royal visitor was coming.
    Kitty forced Eileen on until they reached a spot not far from the front of the new building and managed to drag her reluctant figure through a narrow gap in the waiting crowd, saying to those who protested that the girl had never seen royalty before and she was a visitor to the city. They were just in time. Hundreds of flags fluttered and a cheer went up as a black shiny limousine came into view. The matronly figure in cornflower blue waved graciously as she stepped out of the car and a dignitary held a large umbrella over her.
    Kitty’s heart swelled with affection as the Queen Mother waved to the crowd again before going inside the building.
    â€˜Is that it now?’ said Eileen, twitching her shoulders with a restless