Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Josephine Cox 2018

Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Jacket photographs © Sandra Cunningham /Arcangel Images (background),

Magdalena Russocka /Trevillion Images (woman), Shutterstock.com (sky)

Josephine Cox asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008128234

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008128586

Version: 2018-11-26

Dedication

For my Ken – as always

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author Note

Part One: The Leaving

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Part Two: A Turn in the Road

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Josephine Cox

About the Publisher

PART ONE

The Leaving
July 1954

CHAPTER ONE
Shenty Street, Bolton, Lancashire

She’d seen him around here only a couple of times before, a scruffy-looking man with his cap pulled low and his collar raised high. He had a furtive air, not looking directly at anyone in the street and skulking in the shadows instead of greeting folk with a cheery ‘All right?’ in the usual way. Round here, everyone knew everyone else – and their business – so Evie was certain this man was a stranger. And, from his manner, he was up to no good.

The question was, what did he want with her dad?

She’d now come into the kitchen to make sure her brothers, Peter and Robert, were getting on with their homework, leaving her mum and Grandma Sue folding the dried clothes ready to be ironed. Now, standing just inside, the back door partly closed to conceal her, Evie watched her father and the stranger. The two men faced each other in the shadowy alleyway between the Carters’ house and the next row of terraces. Evie could plainly see both men in profile, her father taller, younger and more handsome than the weaselly-looking fella. The stranger was saying something in a voice too low for her to hear and then Dad, who had been smiling, no doubt laying on the charm, muttered something in return and began to look less happy. The next moment the man, his expression aggressive, was wagging a finger in Dad’s face. Evie was surprised to see her father’s shoulders slump and he no longer met the other man’s eye. She was half ashamed to be snooping and half afraid that here was bad news on the way and she ought to see if she could do something about it before her mum heard. This wouldn’t be the first time Dad had got in a bit of a tight corner, and Mum had lost a bit of her sparkle of late.

Since Evie had left school to help her mother and Grandmother Sue with the washing business she was more aware of what everyone in the family was up to. It wasn’t always bad news with Dad, but there had been some weeks when money was especially tight after he’d had a long evening at the pub, celebrating or commiserating some event with ‘the lads’, especially if the bookie’s runner had been there collecting the stake on some nag that Dad had been told was ‘a certainty’ to win and make his fortune, and which had eventually cantered in well down the field.

Michael Carter was never down for long and, with his irrepressible high spirits, would shrug off his setbacks and carry on regardless, sweeping aside any difficulties as if they weren’t happening. But Mum was sometimes impatient with him these days, and the older she got the more Evie could see Mum’s point of view. Somehow Dad’s jokes weren’t as funny as they used to be, and Evie understood why her mother was beginning to look worn down and her smile had grown, like herself, thin. You couldn’t live on laughs, after all.

What was that word Mary had used when Evie had once confided how annoying Dad’s charm could be when you recognised how he worked it on you? Exasperating. Mary Sullivan, Evie’s best friend, was clever. She always had her head in a book and knew a whole dictionary of good words. She even had a dictionary, so Evie reckoned ‘exasperating’ was probably exactly the right word for her father.

Evie glanced to where her brothers were labouring over their schoolwork at the kitchen table. Their heads were down in concentration so she risked opening the door a fraction wider and craned her neck through the gap. The two men were talking intently but their voices remained low. Then the stranger, with another jab of his pointed finger, turned and disappeared from view. Evie waited a minute, then made a show of opening the back door wide and treading heavily up the alleyway to greet her father where he had moved to stand in the open in front of the house. The summer’s evening sun was low between the rows of back-to-back houses and for a moment a golden beam shone through the sooty air directly onto his face, showing his furrowed brow and his tired eyes with a fine trace of lines she had never noticed before. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, facing into the sun with his eyes closed, almost as if he were praying. Suddenly Evie saw that her handsome dad looked older than his years.

Michael Carter looked up at his daughter’s approach and turned to her, his smile instantly back in place.

‘You all right, Evie?’

‘Just taking a rest before I tackle a pile of ironing. Grandma’s got a bit of mending to do so I said I’d iron. She’s really feeling the heat today.’

‘Well, your gran’s got her own insulation,’ he said, winking. ‘It’s certainly hot work for a July evening.’

‘It is that. But Gran will be taking the good stuff back early tomorrow, so we need to get on.’

‘Oh, leave it, lass. Don’t be beating yourself up. It’ll wait for you.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of, Dad. There’ll be more tomorrow and I’ll not have Mum or Gran doing my share. Gran’s complaining about her feet, and I don’t blame her. She’s been on them since seven this morning.’

‘She’s a tough old bird, and a good ’un. Don’t tell her I said so, mind.’

Evie and her father exchanged smiles.

Michael called across to Marie Sullivan, who lived in the house opposite and was sweeping dust off her doorstep. ‘All right, Marie? Tell Brendan I’ll see him for a drink later.’

‘I’ll tell him.’

He waved to old Mrs Marsh, who lived next door to the Sullivans, and who was out rubbing Brasso onto her doorknocker. Mrs Marsh was known to be house-proud. ‘Evening, Dora. That’s looking good. I’ll find you a job at ours, if you like.’

‘Give over with your cheek, Michael Carter,’ she grinned.

Evie laughed along with her father. This street was home. She knew no other, and nor did she want to. But the question remained, who was that man with the creeping manner who had caused her father’s smile to slip? She took a breath and decided to plunge in.

‘Dad … who was that man?’

‘What man?’

‘Here, a few minutes ago. In the ginnel.’

‘Here, you say?’

‘Ah, come on, Dad. Talking to you. Just now.’

‘Oh, that man …’

‘Yes, that man. I don’t think he lives round here. Is he a friend of yours?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend, love …’

‘What then?’

‘What?’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Dad, do you have to be so exasperating? Who is he and what does he want, lurking round here? Is everything all right? Only you didn’t look too pleased and it set me wondering.’

Michael turned the full beam of his smile on Evie, but she noticed that it didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘It’s a bit of business, that’s all, love. Nothing for you to worry about.’

Evie fixed him with a hard stare. ‘If you’re sure, Dad,’ she said doubtfully.

‘As I say, sweetheart, nothing to bother yourself over. Or your mum.’ He looked at her meaningfully until she nodded. ‘Now why don’t you go and look in the pantry where I think you’ll mebbe find a bottle or two of cold tea cooling in a bucket on the slab. That’ll help that ironing along, d’you reckon?’

Evie knew there was no point pursuing the matter of the stranger so she shrugged off her anxiety as Michael took her arm with exaggerated gallantry.

‘C’mon, let’s see if the boys have abandoned their homework yet. Your cold tea and ironing await, your ladyship,’ he grinned.

‘Too kind, your lordship,’ Evie beamed, and, their noses in the air in a pantomime of the gentry, they spurned the alleyway and the back door, and let themselves in through the front, laughing.

‘I don’t know what you two have got to be so cheerful about,’ Grandma Sue said, easing a swollen foot out of a worn and misshapen slipper. ‘My ankles are plumped up like cushions in this weather. It’s that airless I can hardly catch my breath.’ She slumped down on one of the spindle-back kitchen chairs and began to massage her foot.

‘Here you are, Gran, a cup of cold tea,’ said Evie, emerging from the pantry and putting Gran’s precious bone-china cup and saucer down on the kitchen table beside her. Sue had been given the china as a present when she left her job as a lady’s maid to get married. No one else in the family would even think of borrowing it, knowing that the crockery was doubly precious to Sue because it had not only survived the war, it had outlasted Granddad Albert, too.

‘Here you are, Mum … boys.’ Evie placed mugs of the tea, which was no longer particularly cold, in front of her mother, Jeanie, and her younger brothers. Peter and Robert were frowning over their school homework, applying themselves to it with much effort and ill grace.

‘Thanks, Sis,’ Peter smiled on her. ‘I’ll just get this down me and then I’m off out to play football with Paddy.’

‘Football, in this heat?’ Sue shook her head and smiled. ‘You’re a tough one, an’ no mistake.’

‘Lazy one, more like,’ said Jeanie, taking off her pinny. ‘What have I said about not going out to play until you’ve done your homework?’ She sat easing her back, then removed the turban she wore when she was working to try to prevent the steam from the copper frizzing her hair. As her mother raised her arms and pushed up her flattened curls, Evie noticed how sore her hands were. Mum liked to look nice but it was difficult in this heat, with all the steam and hard work. In winter it was even worse, though.

‘It’s too hot to do schoolwork. It’s the play next week and no one’s bothered about doing sums when there’s the play to rehearse.’

‘But you’re not even in the play, are you, Pete? Isn’t it just the little ’uns that are doing the acting?’

‘I’m in the choir and I’m playing the whistle,’ said Peter. ‘You can’t have a play without music.’

‘That’s right,’ Robert had his say as always. ‘Pete’s got a solo.’

‘Two solos,’ Peter corrected. ‘Anyway, it’s only one more year before I’m fourteen and then I can leave school. I can read and write already – what more do I need when I’m going to be a musician?’

‘A musician, is it now?’ smiled Sue. ‘I don’t know where you get such fancy ideas.’

‘Fifteen,’ Michael corrected, coming out of the pantry with a second bottle of cold tea. ‘You can’t leave until you’re fifteen.’

‘But that’s not fair. Evie left at fourteen. Why can’t I?’

‘Evie left to help Mum and Grandma Sue with the washing,’ Michael reminded his elder son, not for the first time. ‘The authorities turn a blind eye if you’ve got a family business to go into, especially when it’s the best in Bolton.’ He beamed at Jeanie and she rolled her eyes at his nonsense.

‘And if I don’t get on with that last pile of ironing I might as well have stayed at school,’ Evie said, getting up and moving to the ironing board, beside which was a pile of pretty but rather worn blouses.

‘I could always go and help you at the brewery until the music takes off, Dad,’ Peter went on, adding innocently, ‘I’m sure we need the money.’

‘And you wouldn’t be spending it in the pub like Dad does either,’ Robert said, unwisely. ‘Or betting on horses.’

Typical, thought Evie, in the brief silence that followed. When would Robert ever learn to keep quiet?

Jeanie, Sue and Michael all spoke at once.

‘Shut up, Bob, and get on with your homework. I won’t have you cheeking your father,’ said Jeanie.

‘I think you’re asking for a clip round the ear, my lad,’ said Sue.

‘Ah, come on, son. A man’s got a right to have some fun,’ said Michael.

Robert lowered his head and began snivelling over his exercise book while Peter got up very quietly, collected his books into a neat pile and sidled over to the door.

‘I’ll see you later,’ he muttered and left, taking his mug of tea with him.

Sue eased herself off the chair and made for the living room, where the light was better and where she kept her workbasket. ‘I’ll just finish that cuff on Mrs Russell’s blouse and you can add it to the pile. I’m that grateful for your help this evening.’

‘Oh, and I’ve found one with a missing button. Do you have a match for this?’ Evie followed her grandmother through with a spotlessly white cotton blouse and showed her where the repair was needed.

Sue turned to her button box and Evie went back to the ironing, mussing up Robert’s fair hair supportively as she passed. Robert was still sniffing over his schoolbooks, writing slowly with a blunt pencil. The distant sound of Peter’s voice drifted up the alleyway from the street, Paddy Sullivan answering, and then the dull thud of a football bouncing.

‘Right,’ said Michael, ‘I’ll be off out. See you later, love.’ He planted a kiss on the top of Jeanie’s head and was gone. Jeanie didn’t need any explanation.

She got up and took her tea into the living room to sit with her mother.

‘Let’s hope he comes back sober,’ Sue muttered under her breath.

‘He’s usually better on a weekday,’ Jeanie said loyally, ‘and it’s Thursday as well, so I reckon there isn’t much left to spend anyway.’

They each lapsed into silence with a sigh.

Evie shared the attic bedroom with her grandma. It was hot as hell that night, as if all the heat from the street and the scullery and the kitchen had wafted up into the room and lingered there still. It was dark outside, although the moon was bright in the clear sky. Sue was lying on her back on top of her bed, her head propped up high on a pillow and with the bedclothes folded neatly on the floor at its foot. She was snoring loudly. Evie thought she looked like an island – like a vast landmass such as she’d seen in the school atlas – and Sue’s swollen feet, which Evie could just see in the dark, looked enormous, being both long and very wide. Poor Gran, thought Evie, it must be a trial carrying all that weight on your bones in this weather.

It was Sue’s snoring that had woken Evie and now she was wide awake and too hot to get back to sleep. The bed seemed to be gaining heat as she lay there and the rucked-up sheet was creased and scratchy. Lying awake and uncomfortable, Evie thought of the weaselly stranger she had seen earlier, how Dad had swerved her questions and obviously didn’t want her to know anything about the man. He’d more or less admitted it was a secret from Mum, too, and therefore from Grandma.

I bet it’s about money, Evie thought.

Her dad had a job at the brewery loading drays and doing general maintenance. She had long ago realised that it wasn’t very well paid. Despite Jeanie’s scrimping and all the doing without, though, Dad didn’t seem to care. He just carried on going for a drink or three, and enjoying what he called ‘a little flutter’ on the dogs or the horses. ‘You have to place the bet to have the dream of winning,’ he had explained to Evie. ‘A few pounds is the price of the dream.’ Sometimes he did win. Mostly he didn’t.

The laundry helped to support them. For someone so old – she was sixty-three and didn’t care who knew it – Grandma Sue was full of go, always trying to think of ways to improve the little business. She offered mending and alterations, and had found new customers away from the immediate neighbourhood – people with a bit more to spend on the extra service.

Enterprise, Mary Sullivan had called it. ‘Everyone admires your gran,’ Mary had said. ‘She doesn’t sit around being old, she gets on with it.’ Evie had to agree that Grandma Sue was amazing.

Evie looked at her now, lying on her back, snoring like billy-o, and grinned.

Getting up silently, Evie went to stand in front of the open sash window, desperate for a breath of cool fresh air. The rooftops of the houses opposite were visible but, from where she stood, there was no one in sight in the street. She lingered, breathing deeply of the hot, sooty air, leaning out and turning her head to try to catch any breeze.

Then she heard the echoing sound of approaching uneven footsteps and recognised her father coming down the street, weaving slightly, not hurrying at all, although it must be very late as he was the only person in sight. But – no, there was another man. Evie hadn’t heard him, but suddenly the man was right there, outside the house. She leaned out further to see who had waylaid her father; it was the man she’d seen earlier. In the quiet of the night their voices drifted up to her, and her heart sank. Something was not right.

‘I told Mr Hopkins what you said and he isn’t prepared to wait that long,’ growled the stranger. ‘He wants his money now.’

‘And I told you I don’t have it,’ Michael said. ‘I’ll pay him what I owe, I promise, but I need more time.’

‘Mr Hopkins says you’ve had long enough. He’ll be charging the usual rates from now.’

‘Please, I can get it all by next month. I just need a bit longer to get sorted, that’s all.’

‘I’ll be sorting you out if Mr Hopkins doesn’t see his money soon,’ snarled the man, leaning in close. Evie felt hot all over, the beginnings of panic flipping her stomach.

‘Next week, then,’ she heard her father pleading. ‘I’ll get it by the end of next week. C’mon now, I can’t say fairer than that.’ He tried for a friendly tone, a man-to-man kind of banter, but Mr Hopkins’ man was not to be charmed from his purpose.

‘Next week it is, then,’ he said, ‘but there’ll be interest, too, don’t forget. You should have paid up straight away, Carter. It’s going to cost you more now. I’ll be back to collect what you owe. All of it, and the interest. And if you don’t pay – and I mean every pound of the debt – I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. You won’t be able to talk your way out of it with Mr Hopkins. Let this be fair warning to you.’ It was a dark warning.

The stranger seemed to melt away in the darkness, and Evie slowly sank down to the floor beside the window. She had a sense of trouble. Oh dear God, every pound. Dad owed Mr Hopkins pounds! And he had only until the end of next week to pay. And tomorrow was Friday already. How on earth had Dad got himself into that kind of mess? It couldn’t be a bad bet on the horses. That might have wiped out his wages but wouldn’t have led to such a debt, surely. Maybe this Mr Hopkins was a moneylender. Oh good grief, this was serious …

She sat numbly thinking about pounds of debt for a while, then got up stiffly and crept back to bed. Sue’s snoring had subsided, thank heaven, and she was blissfully asleep. Evie lay down and tried to work through the situation in her head. Who else knew? No one, she guessed.

Evie wished that she didn’t know, and her father’s secret was so terrible that she couldn’t unburden herself by sharing it with anyone, especially when her mum and grandma were so tired after working all hours doing laundry. She didn’t want to worry them until she knew what was going on and how bad things were. First she’d have to confront Dad and see what he had to say, though she didn’t hold out much hope of getting a straight answer. She’d already tried asking about the stranger and he’d pretended there wasn’t anything wrong. No doubt he’d try to fob her off with some tale when she questioned him about what she’d overheard …

It didn’t occur to her to leave the matter to her father to deal with alone. Now the truth was out she couldn’t sweep it under the rug and forget what she knew. That was the kind of thing he did, and look where it had got him. He needed to face facts and do something about the trouble he was in. That awful man had sounded dangerous.

She tried to think of people who might be able to help. The Sullivans were good friends. Perhaps she should go to Mary and Geraldine’s father, Brendan. Dad might listen to Brendan. But it wasn’t the Sullivans’ problem and it would be unfair to burden them. Besides, money was probably tight there, too, as there were so many of them.

What about Billy? He was such a good man, so reliable, and she knew he’d do anything for her. But he hadn’t got any money, she was sure. He was a postman but he hadn’t been all that long in the job. He’d got his mother to support, too, as his dad had been killed in the war. And anyway, why should Billy give over whatever savings he might have to help her dad? But he was so wise, maybe he’d know of a way out of this mess …

Who did she know who could lend Dad the money he owed to this Mr Hopkins? Evie racked her brains but could think of no one. The most well-to-do person she knew was Mrs Russell, whose blouses she had been ironing that evening. But then she remembered the mended cuff Gran had worked on, the missing button and how worn the once-fine fabric now was with repeated washing. Mrs Russell was a step up from Shenty Street, but she was widowed and lived on what she had, which was not much. And anyway, Grandma would die of shame if the Carters took their problems to Mrs Russell. So would Evie herself, for that matter.

The burden of her secret and the anger she felt towards her father kept Evie awake until the early hours, when she eventually fell into a restless sleep. It was with heavy eyes and a heavier heart that she faced the next morning.

‘You’re looking peaky, love,’ Jeanie remarked to Evie as they finished their breakfast of bread and scrape. ‘I’ve got the copper heating and if you help me fill the dolly tub first, you can go with your gran to Mrs Russell’s, if you like? Your dad’s already gone and Pete can see to Bob so there’ll be no one under my feet.’

Evie filled the dolly tub with hot water, then put in some washing soda, followed by some small items from the latest bundle. Then the sheets went in the copper with more washing soda and Evie pushed them underwater with some long wooden tongs.

‘Help me load up, then.’ Michael had made the trolley for them out of some orange boxes set on a frame with two axles, some pram wheels and a steering column handle. The box part was lined with an offcut of old sheeting to prevent splinters snagging the clothes. Evie laid the ironed and neatly folded bed linen inside, then placed the blouses carefully on top and covered them with a piece of fabric to keep off the dust. This had been Sue’s idea, to keep the clothes clean and dry, and she’d fashioned the mac to fit snugly over the boxes like a pram cover.

Evie nearly blurted out her worries about her dad to Sue before they were two streets from home, but then she remembered her resolve of the previous night: not to say anything until she simply had to. There might yet be a way to deal with the mess Dad was in without spreading the worry around.

Mrs Russell lived not far from Queen’s Park, and Sue and Evie cut through the back alleys, chatting about their washing schedule. But it didn’t stop Evie worrying that the end of next week was the deadline for her father to pay back Mr Hopkins. She fell silent while Sue chatted on, unaware of her granddaughter’s preoccupation.

‘… We’ll go to the boys’ play, I reckon,’ Sue was saying. ‘I think we need to get tickets. I hope there’s no charge for them. I’ll ask Peter. It’s no use asking Bob, bless him.’

Before long, they arrived at Mrs Russell’s, a tall old-fashioned red-brick house that had been divided into two. Sue opened the gate and Evie wheeled the pram up along the tiled path, then round to the back door. A rose bush was in full bloom in the small front garden and she noticed its delicate scent was like the perfume Mrs Russell wore.

Mrs Russell’s ‘girl’, Annie, opened the door, beaming at Sue and Evie.

‘Come in and I’ll go and tell the missus that you’re here.’

Sue and Evie unloaded the trolley, passing the items between them to lie neatly on a chair in Mrs Russell’s large kitchen.

Annie showed them to the sitting room, then went to make a pot of tea. Mrs Russell’s sitting room was like the lady herself, all pink and white and pretty.

‘Good morning, Mrs Goodwin. And, Evie, my dear, how lovely to see you. Please, sit down. Annie will bring us some tea,’ Mrs Russell greeted them.

Evie liked Mrs Russell, who was always friendly and fair and didn’t treat Grandma Sue as if she wasn’t fit to set foot in her house, as a couple of the women who sent them their washing did.

‘How did you get on with that cuff that needed your expert attention?’ asked Mrs Russell.

‘I’ll show you. Evie, love, will you fetch that blouse so Mrs Russell can see?’

Evie did as she was asked, admiring the soft colours of the wallpaper, so different to their home on Shenty Street with its constant smell of washing soda and damp sheets draped over the maidens. How quiet this house was, too. Kind of restful … Evie glanced into another room opening off the corridor before she reached the kitchen. There was a large comfy-looking sofa, and a small pile of books that looked as if they’d been read a lot. A piano, far bigger than the one at the school, stood at the window end.

Mum would love to sit there and sing a few songs around that piano, Evie thought. So would I …

She knocked on the kitchen door and retrieved the blouse, then Annie followed her back with a tray of tea and some plain biscuits.

Mrs Russell admired the mend, which pleased Sue, although Evie knew that it had been an easy job for her, and then the two women drank their tea and chatted while Evie sipped hers and gazed round the room, daydreaming about living in such a house. On a side table in a smart frame there was a photograph of a man in air force uniform. Evie guessed it was Mr Russell.

‘Well, must be getting on,’ said Sue as soon as she’d finished her tea.

Mrs Russell counted the payment for the washing into her hands and Sue put the coins in her jacket pocket and thanked her for the tea.

‘Annie will bring round the next wash on Wednesday morning as usual, Mrs Goodwin,’ Mrs Russell assured her.

‘Thank you, Mrs Russell. I’ll see you next week,’ answered Sue with a smile.

Then Annie showed Sue and Evie to the back door where they’d left the trolley.

‘She’s so nice,’ said Evie as she wheeled the empty trolley back along the footpath.

‘And a good woman. Doesn’t think that just ’cos she’s seen a bit of money she’s any better than the rest of us. But poor woman lost her husband in the war, like Granddad Albert. She’s got no children either and I think she might be a bit lonely. It’s family that’s important, not how smart your house is. Always remember that.’

‘Yes, Gran,’ said Evie, though she thought it would be nice to have some pretty things at home as well as her family.

The thought of family started her worrying about Michael and Mr Hopkins’ man again. The coins Mrs Russell had paid Sue for the washing and mending would go nowhere towards a debt of pounds.

By the time Evie and Sue had wheeled the trolley as far as the top end of Shenty Street, they were both hot and tired.

‘Look, there’s Billy,’ said Sue, seeing the postman pushing some mail through the last letterbox in the road.

‘Hello, Mrs Goodwin. Hello, Evie. That’s lucky, seeing you now. I’ve just finished my round for the day. Been up since cockcrow.’

‘So have we,’ Evie smiled. ‘Best bit of the day, first thing.’

‘I’ll take the trolley home and you can join us in a minute, Evie,’ suggested Sue, fully aware that her granddaughter and Billy had a special fondness for each other.

Evie had never been so glad to have a few moments alone with Billy. All the way home the worry about her father’s debt had festered and she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. Billy was so wise and, not being family, he might be able to see straight what needed to be done.

Evie perched on the low wall at the side of the end house and Billy sat next to her, putting his empty bag down at his feet.

‘What’s up, Evie? You look like something’s fretting you.’

‘Oh, Billy,’ her brown eyes filled with tears, ‘it’s a family thing really but I don’t want to worry Mum and Grandma unless I have to. Trouble is, it’s too big. I don’t think I can deal with it on my own.’

‘Is it your dad?’ Billy knew Michael Carter had a reputation for being feckless but then a lot of men round here put their beer and their bets before their families. ‘What’s he done that’s so bad you can’t even tell your mum and grandma?’ He’d heard Michael had been placing some heavier bets lately, more than just the odd shilling. He hoped it hadn’t got out of hand.

Evie told Billy about the creepy man sent by Mr Hopkins and what she’d heard in the night.

‘Oh, Evie, Hopkins is bad news,’ said Billy, lowering his voice. ‘He runs a card game. I’ve heard all sorts about it: that it’s held upstairs at the King’s Head. It sounds as if your dad’s been playing cards there and has run up this debt.’

‘Cards? Are you sure? Not horses or dogs? What do you think’s going to happen, Billy?’

Billy thought better of telling Evie everything he’d heard about Mr Hopkins. ‘Let me think … Hopkins will want to get the money off your dad if he can. Maybe your dad can agree to pay it back a bit at a time.’

‘But it’s pounds already. That might mean it’s never paid off!’ Evie was indignant.

‘I don’t see that he’s any choice if he can’t pay it all. He has to take responsibility, love.’

‘But I’m afraid if I tell Dad all this he’ll take no notice of me. He never likes to face up to problems and I’m sure he’d rather carry on as usual at the pub and betting on the races than pay what he owes Mr Hopkins. And I don’t want Mum and Grandma to be scrimping and doing without because of what Dad owes, Billy. They’ve been working so hard and Mum’s getting all worn out, and Grandma’s feet are so swollen in the heat and she’s bone-tired. She should be sitting down in a comfy chair and drinking tea like that nice Mrs Russell, not working to keep Dad in beer and card games.’ Evie felt hot, angry tears springing to her eyes.

Billy put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him, wrapping her in his comforting embrace.

‘Do you want me to talk to your dad?’ he asked after a minute in which Evie’s tears subsided as he hugged her against his jacket.

Dad might take some notice of Billy, who was older than she, and a man, of course, but she felt the responsibility for her family should be hers.

‘Shall we both talk to him?’ she suggested. ‘I think he’ll listen to you but it was me that found all this out, and he is my dad, after all.’

Billy stood up and took her hand. ‘I’ll come round this evening after he’s had his tea and we’ll say our piece then, all right?’

‘Thank you,’ said Evie, giving Billy a hug. ‘I’ll see you later.’

Billy kissed the top of her head, then let her go. As he took up his bag to go back to the depot, he watched Evie walking back to her house halfway along Shenty Street. Before she disappeared down the passage she turned to wave with a little smile and Billy felt his heart lift.

He retrieved his bicycle from where he’d chained it to a lamp post, worried about Evie’s future.

Mr Hopkins had a reputation as a bully and there were some nasty stories about him. Billy didn’t want anything violent to happen to Michael Carter. He was Evie’s dad, and Evie’s happiness was very close to Billy’s heart. She was a hard worker and everything she did was to help her family, even giving up school, for all she loved it, to help her grandmother with the washing business.

As he cycled back to the mail depot, Billy resolved to help Evie in whatever way he could. She was an angel and he would never let her down.

CHAPTER TWO

Evie met Harold Pyke from down the road at the back of her house as he was leaving.

‘What did Mr Pyke want?’ she said, going into the scullery.

‘He brought us some peas from his allotment. Says they’re the first of the season,’ Jeanie said.

Sue was wringing out some garments from the dolly tub and putting them in a large bucket, her hands red-raw from the morning’s work. She winked at Evie and looked sideways at Jeanie, who was poking stray curls back under her turban with a damp hand.

‘Just an excuse to come round and admire you in your pinny, if you ask me,’ laughed Sue.

‘Go on with you. He was only being kind,’ said Jeanie, though she looked pleased.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time Harold Pyke’s come round offering veg,’ said Sue. ‘You want to be careful, our Jeanie. He’ll be asking for something in return before long.’

‘Well, what a thing to say!’

‘Don’t encourage him, then, lass.’

‘I can’t help it if the fella’s taken a shine to me,’ Jeanie gave a comical but telling little grin.

‘Not just that fella, either,’ said Sue. ‘I’m not surprised he’s bringing round peas, the way you’ve been tossing your hair around. It’s nice to have the peas and that, but be careful not to fascinate him with your smiles and tossing your curls around.’

‘How can I toss my hair when I’m wearing a scarf?’

‘It’s what you were doing, turban or no turban. And, as I say, there are others, too. That Derek Knowles, for instance. And Patrick Finlay from round the corner. We’re not doing their washing for nowt but a cabbage and a bit of flirting.’

‘I’m a happily married woman and I’m certainly not labouring over a hot copper for a cabbage or a bag of peas, so don’t you worry.’

‘So long as you’ve got that straight,’ said Sue. ‘Now, our Evie, what’s Billy’s news?’

‘He’s coming round later, after tea.’

‘He’s always welcome. He knows that,’ said Jeanie.

Evie wished the business of her father’s debt wasn’t the reason for Billy’s visit, but maybe with his help it could all be resolved without upsetting Mum and Grandma. Evie was feeling better now she’d spoken to Billy.

As she carried the bucket of clean wet clothes to the mangle in the outhouse, she decided not to worry any more about her dad until she had to. There was work to be done, and plenty of it.

It was mid-afternoon when the boys erupted into the house. Jeanie made them each a jam sandwich – thick bread, thin jam – and they went off noisily to play in the street with Paddy and Niall Sullivan, passing the Sullivan boys’ sister Mary on their way out.

‘Hello, Mrs Carter,’ said Mary from the back door.

‘Come in, lass,’ Jeanie called out. ‘That frock’s come up smart, hasn’t it?’ she added to Mary. The school summer dress was second-hand, and Sue had altered it to fit Mary a treat. School uniform was expensive and Mary didn’t mind that hers wasn’t new. She was well aware how fortunate she was to be allowed to continue at school and study, the only one of the seven Sullivan siblings to do so.

‘Mrs Goodwin’s done a stupendous job with it,’ said Mary.

Stupendous – whatever next? thought Jeanie.

‘Is it all right if Evie and I go for a stroll up to the park? I won’t be keeping her from her work, will I?’

‘I’ve just finished,’ announced Evie, beaming at her best friend. ‘Gran says she’s got mending to do and I’ll help Mum with the tea, so we won’t have to be long.’

Mary looked to Jeanie for confirmation.

‘Best get going, then,’ Jeanie smiled.

Mary produced a paper bag of bull’s-eyes from her pocket as the girls went outside and Jeanie could hear them giggling as they skipped down Shenty Street as though they didn’t have a care in the world.

She smoothed down her pinny and put the kettle to boil, pleased to hear Evie’s laughter. Her daughter had been oddly preoccupied today. Evie worked hard, and Jeanie worried that she sometimes forgot Evie was only sixteen, barely a woman yet.

Sue and Jeanie were enjoying a few minutes’ sit-down with a well-deserved cup of tea when they recognised Michael’s heavy footsteps approaching.

‘Got the sack, didn’t I?’ Michael told them, untying his work boots before hurling them through the open back door in a show of temper. ‘There was a mix-up about the maintenance of some pipes and there was a bad leak this afternoon and a lot of beer was lost. Mr Denby called me in. It was like he’d made a note of every single thing I’ve ever missed. I reckon he’s had it in for me for a long while.’

‘Oh, Michael!’ Jeanie’s face was completely white. Deep down she knew her husband was a slacker. He sometimes went into work the worse for wear from the night before, but he was popular at the brewery with his mates and it hadn’t occurred to her that he might be less popular with his boss.

Sue kept quiet but her expression was grim.

‘Couldn’t you go and ask him for another chance?’ Jeanie suggested quietly.

Michael gave a hollow laugh. ‘No hope of that. I told him he could stuff his job and I was well out of it. He never remembers when I’ve done summat properly, only when he wants to pick holes. I told him that straight. I’ve had it with smarming round Denby, at his beck and call all day.’

‘But he’s the boss, Michael.’

‘Aye, well, not any longer,’ muttered Michael. ‘I’ll be my own boss from now on. I’ll answer to no one. If you women can do it then so can I. I can tout my skills around, earn some money from my own gumption.’ He gave a brief smile. ‘Give folk a bit of the old charm, butter ’em up, like, I’ll soon have plenty of satisfied customers.’

‘Like you did Mr Denby, you mean?’ muttered Jeanie.

Sue passed Michael a strong cup of tea with sugar in it. ‘I think Jeanie means you’ll need to find paid work straight away,’ she said diplomatically, trying to keep the peace. ‘It can take a while to build up customers when there’s only you to do it.’ She was fond of her son-in-law but she thought he lived too much by his belief in his luck, and not enough by hard graft.

‘Look, I’m sorry, love. It’s not your fault,’ he went on, taking Jeanie’s hand. He lifted it to his lips and planted a kiss on her rough skin. ‘Mebbe I do need to find work with someone else. I’ll have a look around and see what’s going. There’s proper house-building now – I’m sure I’ll be able for summat. I’m going to have to be,’ he added quietly, sounding unusually forlorn.

Jeanie got up and hugged him to her. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll find a new job,’ she said. ‘In the meantime the washing’s going well and we can take in some more for a week or two, just to tide us over.’

‘I’ll ask around at church,’ said Sue, though they were already working to capacity. ‘That’s where I heard about Mrs Russell, after all.’

As the two women rallied their own spirits and tried to pull him up with them Michael felt even worse. He wondered when would be the best time to break the news of his debt from the card game, realising even as he considered it that there would never be a good time. Maybe if he held his peace something would turn up …

‘Dad, you’re home early,’ said Evie, appearing with the boys at the back door. ‘Here, have one of these sweets – they were giving them away at the shop ’cos the box got wet or something. Anyway, they’re all right.’ She passed round the sweets and then looked properly at her parents.

‘What? You two are a bit gloomy. You haven’t had bad news, have you?’ she asked, wondering whether her father had told her mother about the debt to Mr Hopkins. Then again, it might be something quite different that was making them look so down; perhaps they’d heard someone was ill or even dead.

‘Evie, would you go and collect Bob, please – you’ve probably seen him playing in the street – and Peter, too?’

‘Yes, Mum.’

Evie’s stomach was churning by the time she’d rounded up her brothers and they all trooped into the kitchen where their parents and Grandma Sue were now sitting round the table. Whatever it was, it was very serious.

‘Mum, Dad, tell us. What’s happened?’ asked Evie.

‘I’m out of work, lass,’ said Michael solemnly.

‘Oh, Dad …’ Peter said. ‘But you’ll find another job.’ He sounded confident.

‘Of course, Pete. I shall have to.’

‘Will we starve?’ asked Robert, looking anxious. ‘Will we have to go and live in the woods, and eat berries and boiled nettles?’

‘Give over your nonsense,’ said Jeanie. ‘I don’t know where you get such daft ideas. We’ve got the washing, and your dad’s going to find another job, so in a week or two it’ll all be back to normal.’ She ruffled Bob’s hair and gave him a reassuring smile.

‘But it won’t be,’ Evie blurted out. It was as if her mouth suddenly had a mind of its own.

They all turned to look at her and in that moment her suspicions were confirmed: Dad hadn’t told Mum and Grandma Sue a word about the debt. It was time to face up to the truth. She couldn’t keep quiet a second longer, as if she didn’t know, while Mum and Grandma Sue tried to make the best of things and Dad sat there taking them in, pretending it was all going to be all right.

‘What do you mean, love?’ asked Sue. ‘There’s no need to get upset. We’ll manage somehow.’

‘I mean, what about Mr Hopkins? How on earth are we going to pay what you owe him, just from the washing, Dad?’

Michael sat open-mouthed and there was total silence. It was broken by Sue, who sprang to her feet with surprising speed, looming over Michael, her face a picture of fury.

‘And who the hell is Mr Hopkins?’ she roared.

‘Right, Mum, I’m off to see Evie,’ said Billy, putting a cup of tea down beside his mother’s armchair. ‘Have you got everything you need? I won’t be late.’

‘You’re a good lad, Billy. I’m right as rain, don’t you fret.’

Billy wasn’t looking forward to helping Michael Carter sort out his problems repaying Mr Hopkins. Being a postman, Billy tended to know more than most what happened in several neighbourhoods, though he wasn’t a gossip. He’d heard of at least two men who had been beaten up when they couldn’t pay Hopkins, and some who had had their possessions taken by Hopkins’ men in payment of their debts. Billy had thought before now that, what with Michael’s drinking and his betting, if it hadn’t been for the laundry the family would probably have gone under.

Billy got as far as the corner shop on Lever Lane, at the junction with Shenty Street, when Geraldine Sullivan emerged, rummaging in her handbag and bringing out a packet of Craven ‘A’ cigarettes.

‘Hello, Gerry. Just finishing work, are you?’

‘Yes, it’s been a long day. Mr Amsell does the evening papers but it’s my job to sweep up and tidy the storeroom. I’ll be glad to get home and take these shoes off – and these stockings. It’s that hot in the shop.’ She fanned herself prettily and Billy tried not to think about her taking off her stockings.

Geraldine Sullivan was a real looker, with her glossy dark hair and her big blue eyes. If Mary had more than her fair share of brains, there was no doubt that her elder sister had got the beauty. Geraldine had worked at the corner shop ever since she’d left school. Billy thought she was seventeen or eighteen now but it was hard to tell, what with her red lipstick and her hair always nicely done. She had an easy way with the customers and Billy thought Mr Amsell had realised her beauty was an asset behind the counter as well as her manner, because he knew of several men, old and young, who would choose to go to Amsell’s shop just to be sold a paper by Geraldine Sullivan.

‘It’s the way her hand brushes mine when she counts out the change,’ Patrick Finlay had joked. ‘Gives a man hope.’ Patrick Finlay was sixty if he was a day, and was sweet on half the women in the neighbourhood, including Evie’s mum.

‘I hope Ma’s got something nice saved for my tea,’ Geraldine was saying. She laughed and added, ‘That’s if Da, Stephen, Jamie, Paddy, Niall and especially Cormac haven’t scoffed it all.’ Cormac was her youngest brother, aged five, who of all her siblings resembled her most. Plump and cute, he looked like a dark-haired cherub.

Billy joined in her laughter. ‘Aye, you want to watch out for the little ’un. I reckon he’s got the appetite of a brickie.’

Geraldine offered the open packet of cigarettes but Billy shook his head.

‘No, thanks. That’s one vice I haven’t taken up,’ he smiled.

Geraldine lit her cigarette, tipped her head back with a flick of her hair and blew a plume of smoke into the air. ‘Why, Billy, what vices have you taken up, then?’ She looked him directly in the eye. ‘Do tell. I’m interested.’

‘Ah, man of mystery, me,’ Billy replied.

‘I like a mystery,’ Geraldine said. ‘That’s what we need round here, a bit more excitement, don’t you agree?’

‘Mmm …’ Billy nodded, unsure quite what he was agreeing with. Still, it was pleasant strolling down to Evie’s in easy and attractive company, and fortunately, before Geraldine’s flirting got too much for him, they reached her house.

‘Thanks for walking me home, Billy. Always nice to see you.’ She gave the merest wink, produced her key from her bag and opened the front door. ‘See you soon,’ she promised with a glamorous red smile over her shoulder, and closed the door behind her.

Phew, that Geraldine is getting to be quite a girl, Billy reflected. Not many round here had her style. She reminded him of Elizabeth Taylor in that comedy he’d seen with Evie at the cinema – Father of the Bride. Evie’s prettiness was more homely, with her short brown hair clipped back behind her ears, her natural complexion and her girlish figure.

Reluctantly his thoughts turned to the task ahead of him at the Carters’. Best get it over with, and he’d be pleased to help allay Evie’s worries if he could. She was a darling girl and she shouldn’t have to be worried about her father owing money. He crossed over the road, went up the side to the back door and was surprised to find it closed. He gave a knock and Evie came to open it. Her eyes were red and it was clear she’d been crying.

‘Oh, Billy, thank goodness you’re here.’ She pulled him inside and closed the door. ‘It’s worse than I thought. Dad’s lost his job and there’s all this money to find to pay that Mr Hopkins and we don’t know what to do now.’

‘Sit yourself down, love.’ Sue poured Billy a mug of tea. ‘Michael’s told us the worst and it’s twenty-five pounds he owes.’

‘It’ll never be paid,’ sobbed Jeanie, wiping her eyes with an already sodden handkerchief. ‘How on earth will we ever get that much?’

‘We need to know a bit about this Mr Hopkins,’ said Sue. ‘Evie says you’ve heard of him.’

‘I have, Mrs Goodwin.’ Billy glanced around to see if Peter and Robert were within earshot but there was no sign of them.

‘I’ve sent the boys to their bedroom,’ said Sue, correctly understanding him.

‘It’s not good news, I’m afraid. Mr Hopkins runs a card game upstairs at the King’s Head. I’ve heard the stakes start low, but once you’re drawn in they soon get a lot higher.’

‘The King’s Head?’ gasped Jeanie. ‘Michael, you told me you went to the Lord Nelson with Brendan as usual. I thought this was something to do with the horses. How many other lies have you told me?’

‘I did go to the Nelson with Brendan,’ said Michael. He added in a small voice, ‘But I hadn’t had much luck with the horses lately so when I heard there was a card game at the King’s Head I thought I’d give it a go. I didn’t mean to get in deep. I thought if I went on a bit longer my luck would change and I’d be on to a winning streak.’

‘Pathetic!’ said Sue wrathfully. ‘Go on about this Hopkins, lad.’

‘Well, he tends to win at the cards and then he makes a point of collecting his debts.’

‘You mean by force?’ asked Michael, looking even more worried.

‘By any means he can. He’ll bring in bailiffs to take your furniture, and he’s been known to be violent if he thinks you’re withholding what you could be paying him. And I’ve heard that once he starts adding on the interest it’s difficult to clear the debt.’

‘What are we going to do?’ sobbed Jeanie. ‘We’ll be ruined …’

Billy looked down at his hands, reluctant to agree that this was exactly the situation. A miserable silence settled on the five of them as they tried to think of a solution.

‘When did you say the money is due?’ asked Billy.

‘Friday,’ said Michael, nervously.

The silence resumed. Billy was beginning to see the only possible course of action but it seemed so drastic that he was unwilling to suggest it.

‘Nothing for it but to leave,’ said Sue.

Billy was glad she had been the one to voice what he was thinking.

‘What, leave our house and the washing and everything, and go right away?’ said Jeanie, aghast.

‘It isn’t our house, it’s rented,’ said Michael. ‘And we’ll be out of here anyway if we can’t pay the rent.’

‘So whose fault would that be?’ Jeanie screamed. ‘I married you for better or for worse, Michael Carter, but I never thought the worst would be this bad. You’ll have us all homeless. I can’t believe what you’ve brought us to.’

‘C’mon on, love. No need to get hysterical.’

‘What do you expect me to be when it looks like I’m going to lose everything I’ve got and it’s all your fault?’ She had bitten her tongue for years but now everything was pouring out. ‘Where were you when Mum and I were washing and ironing half the night to make ends meet? I’ll tell you where: down the Nelson, drinking your wages and putting bets on half-dead three-legged nags that should have been at the knacker’s. Or was it down the King’s Head, playing some card game you probably didn’t understand against some crook with marked cards?’

‘It was bad luck—’ Michael began.

‘It was bad luck all right,’ screeched Jeanie. ‘It was bad luck for me that I ever set eyes on you!’

She got up and rushed out, slamming the kitchen door behind her. The others heard her stomping upstairs and then the bedroom door crashing shut.

Evie and Billy exchanged embarrassed glances.

‘I’ll go up when she’s had a chance to calm down,’ said Sue.

‘I’ll go …’ said Michael, rising from his chair.

‘You’ve done enough. Sit down and stay here until we’ve sorted this out,’ Sue barked, and Michael slumped in his chair, defeated.

Evie cleared her throat. ‘What do you think, Billy? Is Grandma right? Is running away the best thing to do?’

‘I’m afraid it is. If you can’t pay Hopkins what you owe, he’ll dog you until you do, Mr Carter. The only way to be free of him is to leave and go somewhere he doesn’t know. That means right away from here, to another part of the country.’

‘Leave not just our home but all our friends? But this is all we’ve ever known,’ said Evie, looking pleadingly at Billy.

‘It’ll be hard, love, and I wish I could say different, but I think it’s the only way. Is that what you’re thinking, Mrs Goodwin?’

‘I’m afraid so, Billy. We’ll have to keep quiet about it, too, as we don’t want Hopkins after us where we’ve gone. And we’ll have to go soon before word gets round about Michael losing his job or Hopkins’ men will be here to take what they can sooner rather than later, if they think that’s all they’ll be getting.’

Billy nodded. Evie’s grandma had grasped the situation exactly.

‘But where will we go?’ Evie asked. ‘We don’t know anywhere but here. We don’t even have any relatives we can go to.’ She looked as if she were about to cry again and Billy passed her his clean handkerchief.

‘Don’t fret yourself, Evie. At least you’ll all be together.’

‘But I won’t be together with all my friends, and if it has to be a secret I won’t be able to tell them where we’ve gone either,’ Evie sniffed. ‘I won’t be together with you,’ she added.

‘I know, love, but I won’t lose sight of you, I promise. I’ll know where you are and I can keep a secret. Your gran’s right: it would be better to tell as few folk as possible and to go as quickly as you can before Hopkins gets to hear.’

‘Then it had better be straight away,’ Michael said, getting up and prowling around the kitchen worriedly. ‘By Monday all the folk at the brewery will know I’ve been sacked.’

‘Right, well, I’ve been thinking,’ Sue declared, ‘and I think we should decide where we’re going this evening. We can’t just set off empty-handed and with no idea where we’re heading.’ She took a lined writing pad and a chewed pencil of Robert’s from a drawer behind her. ‘Let’s make a list of what we know.’

Evie looked blank. ‘I don’t know anything, Grandma.’ Michael was shaking his head, too.

‘Nonsense,’ said Sue. ‘Buck up, the pair of you. And you, Billy. Let’s put our heads together and see what we can manage.’

‘Right,’ said Billy, determined to rise to Evie’s grandma’s expectations. ‘As I say, it’ll have to be somewhere far enough away that Hopkins doesn’t know it. You’ll have to sort of … disappear. North is what Hopkins knows. So that means going south.’

‘Good thinking,’ Sue muttered, writing it down. ‘And we’ll need to find somewhere to live and then some work.’ She looked up and gave Michael a meaningful stare.

‘We don’t know about those things, but I’ve an idea who might be able to help,’ said Evie. ‘Mr Sullivan.’

‘Aye, Brendan can be trusted to keep quiet and he has family all over the place,’ Michael said. ‘I’ll go over and get him, shall I?’

‘You do that,’ said Sue, ‘but remember not to say anything while you’re there. The Sullivans are good folk but you don’t want to let slip our business to the entire houseful in case it accidentally gets passed on.’

Michael collected his boots from where he’d thrown them out of the back door, put them on and went to fetch Brendan.

It was late that night that Evie let Billy out through the back door and the Carters went wearily to bed. To Evie it felt as if years had passed since she’d gone to Mrs Russell’s that morning with Grandma Sue.

There wouldn’t be another wash for Mrs Russell, though. When Annie came with the bundle on Wednesday she’d find the house empty and the family gone. Evie felt sorry to be letting down the kindly widow and the other loyal customers.

Brendan had shown himself to be a true friend that evening. He’d listened to Michael’s account of how he’d been kicked out so unfairly from his job and commiserated wholeheartedly. He’d been less sympathetic about the card game and the debt to Mr Hopkins – ‘I told you not to go near the King’s Head, Michael. You may as well be playing cards with the devil himself as that Hopkins fella’ – and then he got down to practicalities in a way that made Evie think how lucky Mary was to have such a clear-thinking and sensible father.

Not only had Brendan got a cousin with a big van, who could transport them and as many of their belongings as could fit in it, but he also had a friend who lived well over a hundred miles south. Brendan’s friend Jack knew of an empty property that he thought the Carters would be able to rent, at least until they found something better. Jack had his ear to the ground and he said he’d look out for any jobs going for Michael, too.

Brendan fixed all this up from the public telephone box outside Mr Amsell’s shop, waiting for incoming calls to learn the facts and confirm the details, and writing them all down. The arrangements for renting the empty place were hazy, to say the least, but the Carters had the address and Brendan’s word on the reliability of his friend. In the circumstances, even such vague progress felt like something to be positive about.

Not long after Brendan came over, Jeanie had been persuaded to come downstairs and she’d brought the boys down with her to join in the discussion.

‘They’re in this with us. It affects all of us, and Peter and Robert need to know what’s going to happen … and why,’ she said, looking at Michael with her eyes narrowed.

‘You’re right, lass,’ said Michael. ‘It’s all going to be an exciting adventure, eh, fellas?’

Robert nodded dumbly, not really understanding. Peter, his mouth a tight line, looked away, ignoring his father.

Brendan had brought a couple of bottles of Guinness across with him ‘to help things along’, which pleased Michael, who emptied and refilled his own glass with remarkable speed.

By the end of the evening Sue’s bold handwriting covered several pages of the writing pad and the plan for the Carters to move had a timetable. Fergus Sullivan, Brendan’s cousin, was bringing the van at dawn on Sunday morning and the family were to have everything they wanted to take packed ready and piled by the front door, to be loaded quickly and discreetly.

‘I’ll come over and give you a hand,’ Billy said. ‘It’s my day off and I’m used to getting up early.’

‘Thank you,’ Jeanie said. ‘What will we do without you?’

‘Oh, Mum …’ Evie’s heart was heavy with her grief. ‘We’re going to have to find out, that’s for sure.’

Now, as she climbed into bed in the stuffy attic room and wished Grandma Sue a goodnight, she felt hot tears running down her face. One more day in this house, the only home she had ever known. Even now she could hardly believe it. And in about … she totted it up quickly … thirty hours she would be parted from Billy.

Please, let it not be for ever, she whispered.

CHAPTER THREE

‘It’s here,’ said Peter, who had been looking out of the front window for Fergus Sullivan’s van.

It was four o’clock on Sunday morning, the summer daylight pale. To the Carters, the air felt unusually clear. All the previous day they had packed their belongings, choosing carefully what was essential and what could be left behind. Even some of the furniture was to remain here because, as Sue reminded her family, the van would need to be loaded as fast and as quietly as they could do it so they could make their escape.

‘Escape’ – as if from a prison, Jeanie thought. As if staying here would be a punishment instead of the life she had made for herself and her family. She was finding it difficult to be civil to Michael even now, though she’d tried to encourage her children to pack up their belongings and clothes with light hearts and a sense of adventure. Evie and Peter were old enough to pretend they were excited for Robert’s sake, but as Robert was not a naturally light-hearted child anyway they soon abandoned this pretence.

Evie was in charge of extracting suitcases from under beds and she helped Robert to fold his clothes into one of them. There was so much to do in so little time, and keeping busy helped prevent her from becoming more upset. She knew Mum and Grandma Sue were furious about the move but it was no good stoking the flames of their anger with her own.

Peter had been very quiet since the decision to go had been made. He’d packed a duffel bag with his few treasured possessions, and silently helped bring items downstairs until the front room was full of boxes, cases and bagged-up bits and pieces, mainly chosen by his mother.

Sue, with Evie’s help, had been busy finishing the washing. Luckily, it was the end of the week, so they weren’t due to take in any new bundles. All that remained was collected by the owners, who came to the back door, so there was no need to hide the evidence of the approaching early morning flit piled high in the front room. It was an uncomfortable lie to call a cheerful ‘See you next week’ to loyal customers, but there was no alternative.

Now, as a large dirty white van pulled up in front of the house, it was time to move. Evie had imagined a huge removal lorry but this was half the size and had no name painted on the side.

Fergus was let in through the front door and greeted Michael, Jeanie and Sue with a friendly handshake and a smile.

‘Right, let’s be having you,’ he said, speaking softly so as not to disturb the quiet of the sleeping street. ‘Beds first and we’ll see what else we’ve got room for after that.’

‘What! I’m hoping to take the settee and the chairs and table, at least,’ said Jeanie. ‘And the mangle has to go.’ She was realising it was the size of the van that would dictate what went with them and what was left, not the speed of loading it.

‘I’ll do what I can, Mrs Carter, don’t you worry,’ beamed Fergus.

During the next hour it became clear to Evie that this was his answer to everything, and his smile never faded.

Brendan came over to help and the men began to load the heavy items while Sue supervised them and ticked items off her list. Evie packed up some smaller things that they’d needed the previous day, and Jeanie got weepy and wrung her hands.

As Evie was wrapping the last of the crockery in newspaper, being extra careful with Grandma Sue’s precious cup and saucer, there was a tap at the back door and Billy let himself into the kitchen.

‘Hello, Evie. Let me take that box through to the front,’ he said quietly, coming over and giving her a hug. ‘You all right?’

‘Oh, Billy, thank you for coming to help. I’m that glad to see you.’

‘Now don’t get upset. You know why this has to be done.’

‘We’re going away from everything and everybody that we know and care for.’ Her heart felt as if it was going to burst.

‘You’ve still got all your family around you. That’s what your grandma always says, isn’t it: it’s family that’s important. As long you have each other, nothing else matters.’

‘And you, Billy. You matter to me. I won’t have you where we’re going.’

‘I’ll be waiting for your return, never fear, Evie.’

‘You mean that, Billy? You’ll wait for me to come back? But what if I never do?’

‘You will. Here is where you belong, Evie. You’ll know where to find me when you come home to Lancashire. But even supposing you don’t return here, you can be sure that I’ll come and find you where you are. We won’t be apart for ever.’ He wrapped her in his strong arms and kissed her tenderly. ‘In the meantime, we can write to each other. We’ll write often. I’ve never been south and I should like to know what it’s like,’ he smiled.

‘Yes … of course. I’ll send a letter with the address when I know we’re going to be staying there and not moving on at once.’

‘Then do it as soon as you can, my darling, ’cos I’ll be looking for that letter every day.’

He gave her another hug and wiped a treacherous tear away from her face with his thumb.

‘Now, to work. As I came past I saw all the beds are stowed, and your gran and mum are organising the men moving furniture from the front room. I’ll take this box while you make sure you’ve got a couple of pans packed up, and the knives and forks.’

‘Gone already,’ said Evie with a brave smile. ‘Come on, you can help Dad, Brendan and Fergus with putting the big stuff in the van and I’ll help Grandma tick off what’s done on her list. Remember, keep your voice down. We don’t want half the road in on the act.’

As the van got ever fuller, final decisions were made about what had to be left, and the time to depart grew closer, Evie dreaded having to say goodbye to Billy. She was taking a last look round upstairs when she heard the voice of Brendan’s wife, Marie.

‘Just wanted to wish you luck, me darlin’,’ said Marie. ‘You’re in safe hands with Fergus. Don’t forget to let us all know how you’re doing. It won’t be the same round here without you.’

‘Thank you. We’ll miss you too, Marie,’ sniffed Jeanie, who was looking sadly at all the furniture left behind with no room in the van.

‘Thanks for everything,’ said Sue, hugging each of her neighbours, including Brendan. ‘You’ve been right good friends to us and I won’t forget that.’

‘Yes,’ said Michael. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry to have put you to all this trouble.’

‘Go on with you,’ said Marie, just as Sue said, ‘I should think so, too.’

‘Goodbye, Mary,’ Evie whispered to her friend, hugging her close. ‘You’re the best friend a girl could ever have – and the cleverest. I’ll write, I promise.’

‘Dear Evie, there’ll be a hole in my life when you’ve gone. I shall miss you dreadfully.’

‘And I’ll miss you, Mary.’ Evie tried to smile. ‘Who’s going to teach me long words now?’

‘Come on, we’d better get going.’ Sue gathered up her handbag, which was bursting at the seams. ‘We’d better get off now before we attract unwelcome visitors,’ she added meaningfully.

As Michael pulled the door to and posted the key back through the letterbox, the family moved towards the van and their neighbours went back over the road. Billy and Evie turned to one another for the last time.

‘Goodbye, Billy,’ said Evie, hugging him tight. ‘I’ll be in touch very soon, I promise.’

‘Bye, my Evie,’ Billy said, his voice raw with emotion. Then he bent down and kissed her mouth and their tears mingled.

‘Don’t forget me, will you?’ she pleaded.

‘I said I’ll be waiting,’ he reminded her as they drew apart.

‘I love you,’ Evie whispered, but he’d already turned away to hide his tears and she wasn’t sure he’d heard.

It was a terrible squash to fit everyone in the van, although there were big extra seats that folded down behind, sideways on to the front ones. Sitting there meant finding room for your legs around the luggage, however, so it was hard to get comfortable. Peter and Evie were sharing a seat and Robert had to sit on Jeanie’s knee. Fergus started the engine and all the Carters waved to their friends congregated outside the Sullivans’ house to give them a silent send-off.

Evie fixed her eyes on Billy’s face, but within a few seconds it was lost from her sight. The van turned the corner at the end of the road and Shenty Street was gone.

As Fergus happily negotiated the streets heading to the road that would take them south, the Carters sat nursing their regrets. Jeanie was openly sobbing and even Sue was tearful, which set off Evie, and Robert was crying, too. Michael was subdued but, wisely for once, decided to say nothing. Evie, squashed up beside Peter, took his hand in hers to comfort him, but when she looked into his face she saw not sadness but such fury that she felt a strange and terrible foreboding and withdrew her own hand in shock.

The van reached the southern outskirts of the town and the blackened industrial buildings gave way to houses with gardens and, soon, green fields. The Carters dried their eyes, made themselves as comfortable as they could and accepted the inevitable. The old life was gone and a new one, whatever it held, lay ahead of them at the end of this journey.

‘I still wish I’d been able to say goodbye to Mrs Russell,’ said Grandma Sue over her shoulder to Evie, who sat behind her. ‘And Dora Marsh. I’ve known Dora … must be forty years. We were young brides together.’

‘There are a lot of folk I’d like to have said goodbye to. Seems rude just to go, like they meant nothing to us,’ Jeanie agreed. She paused for a few moments and then added: ‘I wish I’d been able to say cheerio to Harold Pyke.’ Then she started laughing rather shakily and soon everyone joined in, even Robert, who didn’t know what was funny.

The mood lifted as they drove on and the sun rose higher on the promise of a beautiful day.

After a while Robert piped up: ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with …’

Sue and Evie caught each other’s eye in the wing mirror and pulled faces. It was going to be a long journey.

‘Where are we?’ said Peter, waking from a deep sleep. Sue and Evie had also nodded off, and Robert was still asleep on his mother. ‘It must be the sight of those mattresses that sent me to sleep. They look so comfy compared to this seat.’

Everyone gazed out of the windows at the countryside they were passing through. In the strong summer sunshine the scene was glorious.

Evie wished she hadn’t slept and missed seeing some of this: on either side of the road hedges grew tall and green, dog roses twining through them. At breaks in the hedges, through field gates, she could see cows and sometimes horses grazing. It was all so huge and so green that she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.

‘Countryside – there’s just so much of it,’ said Peter. ‘I’d no idea it was so big.’

‘And the air smells different – sort of nice,’ said Sue, winding down the window.

They continued travelling south, amazed at how green everything was and how clean. Sometimes they passed through a town or village and Jeanie would point out a pretty house and wonder aloud if they were heading for one like that.

Eventually Sue looked at her watch and declared it was ‘dinnertime’ and if Fergus would like to find a suitable place to stop they could have something to eat. Fergus turned off the road in the next market town and pulled up in a car park where there was, everyone was pleased to see, a sign for public lavatories. The little town was quiet on a Sunday lunchtime and the shops were closed when Jeanie took her children for a short walk to stretch their legs after enduring the cramped seats.

When everyone was back at the van and standing around in the sun, Sue got out a cake tin, which was filled with rather warm sandwiches, and when they’d eaten those, another in which there was cake, and Jeanie poured lemonade from a flask. Michael produced a bottle of beer with a flourish, which Fergus declined to share because he was driving. Evie noticed that her father drank it all himself then.

The sandwiches and most of the cake eaten, the Carters and Fergus climbed back into the van and set off again. There was a stop at a petrol station, where Sue paid for the van to be refuelled and bought some boiled sweets, but by mid-afternoon the novelty of the journey had worn off and everyone was bored, fidgeting and eager to arrive. They had long since passed signs for the city of Birmingham and still they headed south.

‘Not too far now,’ said Fergus when Robert asked for the tenth time if they were nearly there. ‘We’ll be there before nightfall, don’t you worry.’

‘Thing is, Fergus,’ said Peter, reasonably, ‘it isn’t dark until nine o’clock, so that’s quite a long time yet.’

‘It could well be,’ said Fergus, vaguely. ‘We’ll have to see how it goes …’

‘Do you know what this place is like, Fergus? Have you ever been there before?’ asked Jeanie.

‘No, I haven’t, Jeanie. I just said to Brendan that I’d take you in the van. I think it might be quite a small village as I’ve never heard of it and I had to look up the way on a map. I don’t think Brendan knows much about it either. But he trusts his friend Jack Fletcher so it’ll be all right, don’t you worry.’

‘But it is all right for us to be there?’ asked Jeanie, beginning to get anxious. ‘We don’t know this Jack Fletcher, and Brendan’s a long way away now.’

Seeing Jeanie quietly wringing her hands, Evie picked up her mother’s mood and began to worry too. What if there had been a mistake and there wasn’t an empty house after all? What if someone else was living there? Or maybe there’d been a mix-up and they’d been given the wrong address? Or he could have been misled by the owner of the house …

Peter, sensing her distress, nudged her gently with his elbow. ‘C’mon, Evie, it might even be nice,’ he whispered bravely.

It was late afternoon when Fergus drove past a shabby-looking farm and slowed down at a sign announcing a village.

‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Church Sandleton.’

Everyone sat up and peered out to try to get the gist of the place. There was an assortment of old and new houses lining the road, a pub and a couple of shops.

‘Slow down, Fergus, and let’s remind ourselves what it is we’re looking for,’ Sue said, fishing the writing pad out of her handbag. Then she had a rummage around for her reading glasses and Fergus pulled into the side of the road while she found them and put them on. ‘The house we’re looking for is called Pendles, so keep your eyes peeled for that name,’ she said.

‘Pendles …’ Michael murmured, looking to the right and left, while Evie, Peter and Jeanie craned forward in their seats to see the nameplates on gates as Fergus drove slowly on.

Jeanie caught sight of a cottage with a garden full of blooming roses and lavender. ‘Slow down, Fergus. Is that it?’ She squinted hopefully at the sign on the gatepost, then saw it said Lavender Cottage. ‘No …’ Disappointed, she sat back.

‘Wait, wait, what’s that one?’ said Sue, pointing over to Fergus’s side of the road where a fine square house was set back with a black front door and steps up to it from a wrought-iron gate. ‘P … It’s P-summat, I can’t quite see …’ She couldn’t keep a note of hope from her voice.

‘Prospect House,’ said Fergus, and everyone sighed and subsided in their seats.

‘It must be on this road somewhere because the address is “High Street”,’ said Sue.

‘Brendan told me that Jack Fletcher said it’s towards the end of the village. I thought we’d find it easily,’ Michael added.

The end of the high street was in sight as the buildings became more widely spaced and gave way to hedges and fields ahead of them. Evie felt a flicker of panic. What if there was no such place? Would they end up living out of Fergus’s van? She dismissed the ridiculous thought immediately but her stomach was now churning nervously.

‘It’s just a derelict shop this side and what looks like it might be a market garden over there,’ said Sue. ‘We must have missed it. Let’s turn round and go through again.’

‘No, wait,’ said Michael. ‘There! Over the shop. It’s called Pendle’s. It must be that.’

‘It can’t be,’ breathed Jeanie faintly. ‘No one said anything about a shop. We’re looking for a house.’

‘It has to be that,’ insisted Michael. ‘Stop here, Fergus, and let’s have a look.’

Fergus pulled up and Michael climbed stiffly out and went to the front of the boarded-up shop. There was a door at one side with wood planks nailed over it and a heavy padlock securing a hasp. Next to it was a large expanse of window, also covered in planks. The paintwork around the window, what was visible of the door and on the fascia, was a dull green. The deep fascia spanned the whole of the front and on it in peeling gold capital letters was painted the name ‘PENDLE’S’.

There was no doubt this was the right name, Jeanie saw. She hoped it wasn’t actually the right building, that there would somehow be another place called Pendles, and it would look more like, if not Prospect House then at least that cottage with the pretty garden they’d passed earlier.

‘Brendan said the key would be here, is that right, Sue?’ called Michael, looking up at the building, his back to them all waiting in the van.

Evie guessed her father was disappointed too and hiding his face until he was ready to put on a brave show.

‘Round the side, under a brick, apparently,’ confirmed Sue.

Michael went up the side of the shop, saw a ruined-looking wooden door, lifted the sneck and disappeared through it. A few moments later he reappeared holding up a key.

Oh dear, thought Evie. That means it really is the right place. And it’s going to be awful, I know it is.

She could hardly bear to watch as her father fitted the key to the padlock and it opened. Everything now had a dreadful inevitability. He removed the padlock, eased open the door with its planks attached to the frame and went inside.

‘Come on,’ said Sue, heavily, climbing out of the van. ‘I think we’re home.’

The Carters and Fergus stood in the shop part of the building. The good news was that the electricity was on so they could at least see how awful the place was behind the boarded-up window. There was long counter parallel to the interior wall and floor-to-ceiling drawers and shelves against the far wall. They were empty and dusty, a few dead flies littering the surfaces and the front window, and mouse droppings on the floor. There was no indication what Pendle’s had ever sold or how long the place had been empty, but the smell was stale as if it had been abandoned a while ago.

‘God save us,’ muttered Jeanie, her voice trembling. ‘A shop. Not even a proper house.’ Her face was white with tiredness and disappointment.

‘You stay here. I’ll go and look upstairs,’ said Sue. She thought she’d better learn the worst and break it to Jeanie gently rather than risk her kicking off unprepared. It had been such a long day, it didn’t look like they would be able to get to bed for ages yet and Sue had the unhappy idea that Jeanie’s fuse might just be ready to blow. ‘Come with me, Peter, Evie, and let’s see what we can find.’ She opened the door behind the counter and sure enough it led to a hallway with two rooms opening off and a flight of stairs to the floor above.

‘Right, you two,’ Sue began when the door had closed on weighted hinges behind them. ‘Your mum’s had enough and I don’t blame her. Let’s see what works, what we can get working this evening, and decide where everyone’s going to sleep. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.’

‘Are we really going to live here, Grandma?’ asked Peter. ‘Did Dad know it was a shop?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t know, Pete, but we’re here tonight and the main thing is we’re all together. So far as I know no one on earth has ever heard of Church Sandleton, so we’re most likely safe from that Mr Hopkins.’

As she spoke she led her grandchildren into the first of the downstairs rooms behind the shop. It was a large sitting room, empty of furniture, with a dirty wooden floor and a bare light bulb suspended from the centre of the ceiling. Evie tried the switch and the bulb glowed dimly. Through the unboarded window they could see into a small backyard, paved but with weeds peeping through between the slabs. There was a little brick building at the end, which they all guessed was a privy.

‘It’ll do,’ said Sue stoutly, looking round the room. ‘Your mum and I will know what to do with this, I reckon.’

Evie smiled, feeling less dismal, and she saw Peter was bucking up, too.

‘The kitchen will be the other room,’ said Sue. ‘It’s make or break there, I reckon,’ she added, leading Evie and Peter back to the cramped hallway and into the room next to the sitting room.

‘It can be put right and your mum will come round to it – if we’re allowed to do as we like, that is. It’s not our place, don’t forget. I haven’t had a chance to work it out yet, but I think we’re renting it from Jack’s friend, and we don’t even know who he is yet … Oh, this is big. It must be twice the size of Shenty Street’s kitchen. Needs a lot of cleaning, though,’ she added, looking at a solidly built but very grubby cream-coloured electric cooker.

Evie opened a door at the back and found a pantry with a cold slab and a vent to the outside to keep the air cool. It was empty except for a cardboard box on one of the shelves. It looked like a recent addition, being free of dust, and she opened it and gasped in astonishment.

‘Look, Grandma,’ she said, bringing it out and putting it on the built-in dresser. ‘There’s a note with Dad’s name on it and a loaf of bread and a packet of tea. Who can have left this?’

‘One way to find out,’ said Sue, unfolding the lined sheet of paper and holding it at arm’s length because she’d left her glasses in her handbag in the shop room. ‘It’s no good, Evie, you’ll have to read it to me. Never mind it’s addressed to your dad.’

Evie saw that the letter was elegantly written with a fountain pen:

Dear Mr Carter,

I hope you have had a good journey. I am sorry about the state of the shop. Jack Fletcher says you are a friend of his and need a place to stay, so I hope it will do for now.

The electricity is working. Please accept the bread and the tea.

I look forward to meeting you shortly.

Yours sincerely,

Frederick Bailey

‘Well I never!’ exclaimed Sue. ‘Our first piece of good luck, and I’m hoping not the last. ’Course, we’ve never met Jack Fletcher, but let’s not fret about details. Obviously Brendan has some influence with folk, even down here. Maybe things aren’t as bad as we thought.’

‘I’ll go and show Mum,’ said Evie.

‘You do that, love. It might just pull her back from the brink. Peter and I will go and look upstairs and see if we can cope, eh? Whoever this Frederick Bailey is, at least he knows this place is a shambles. Mebbe he’ll be round in the morning to sort it all out.’ Though I wouldn’t bet on it, she thought.

Upstairs was pretty grim, too, but there was an electric water heater over a wash basin, and even a working lavatory. The three bedrooms were bare of furniture, dusty and stuffy in the heat, but there would be room for all of them, as there had been in Shenty Street.

‘I think we’re staying, at least until we sort out summat better, don’t you?’ Sue asked her grandson.

‘I reckon you’re right, Grandma. Let’s go and tell Fergus we can start unloading the van. It’s going to be dark soon and I’m that hungry I can hear my tummy singing.’

‘Good thinking, young fella,’ said Sue. ‘I won’t put up with an unclean house, but just for tonight I think I may have to break that rule.’

The van was unloaded far quicker than it had been packed up that morning. Fergus and Michael took the bedsteads and then the mattresses upstairs between them while Jeanie and Evie carried in the chairs and the boxes for the kitchen. The mangle went into a corner of the kitchen.

Fergus was invited to stay the night, Peter agreeing to double up with Robert so as to leave his bed free for the helpful Irishman, but Fergus said he’d rather be getting home. He didn’t mind driving late at night if it meant his own bed at the end of it, and his wife, Kate, waiting for him, so Sue made him a cup of tea and gave him some of the cake left from earlier, and then the Carters waved him on his way with heartfelt thanks and love to be passed on to Brendan and the family.

The sun was setting in a red sky as the forlorn family watched the rear lights of Fergus’s van disappear down the road and they waved until he was out of sight. Then they filed back into the shop through the boarded-up door and Sue, Michael and the boys went to make up the beds.

‘We won’t unpack more than necessary,’ said Jeanie to Evie, leading her into the kitchen. ‘I don’t know as we’re staying, despite that Frederick Bailey’s letter.’

‘But it will be better when we’ve cleaned it up and got our things where we want them, I’m sure, Mum. And at least we’ve got Dad away from Mr Hopkins.’

‘Thank the Lord.’ Jeanie looked around the big filthy kitchen and shook her head. ‘You know, Evie love, I’m really trying to see this as the start of a new life, a hope that things will be good for us from now on in a different place. That’s what your grandma would be saying to you.’

‘And she’d be right, Mum. We’ve got somewhere to stay, at least for now, and Mr Bailey must be a good sort, don’t you think, as he thought to write that note and leave the tea and bread?’

‘Yes, love, but we don’t know him, do we? We’ve never even met Fergus’s friend Jack, who arranged this with Mr Bailey. And if we do stay here we’ll have to pay rent. Your grandma and I have a bit of money saved from the washing but it won’t go far. We’ve lost our laundry business now, and your dad’ll need to find a job straight away.’

‘I know, Mum, but didn’t Brendan say Jack Fletcher has an ear to the ground and might come up with something? And Dad can start looking tomorrow. I know he’s been a bit … daft with the betting, and then this card game with Mr Hopkins, but mebbe he’s learned his lesson.’

‘I want to think so, love, I honestly do. But somehow I can’t see your dad changing, and that’s what’s worrying me. I’ve seen the road he’s been going down for a while. Mebbe it’s too late for him to be any different.’

Evie wanted to argue that their lives would get better now they had a chance to start again, all of them together in a new place, but they’d lost so much by running away – all their friends, not least – and she couldn’t bring herself to lie to her mother. In her heart she knew that Mum was probably right: Dad would never change. She only hoped he wouldn’t drag them down further.

She thought about Billy – how he had kissed her farewell and told her he’d wait for her to come back. Was it only this morning? It seemed like days ago.

Quietly contemplating their new lives, she felt furious with her father. Stupid man! Stupid and selfish. His selfishness had caused his family to lose everyone they knew and cared for, everything Mum and Grandma Sue had worked for, and their little home in the town where they belonged. Now they had only each other.

For a moment she stood breathing deeply until her anger subsided.

‘We’ve got each other and we always will have,’ she said, trying for a smile. ‘Together, who knows what we can manage?’

CHAPTER FOUR

As Evie woke up very early in a strange room, the light streaming through the uncurtained window, and remembered the upsets of the weekend and her parting from Billy, she was comforted to see the familiar bulk of Sue in her own sagging bed close by.

‘Awake, Evie?’ Sue smiled. ‘New home, new life, lass. Shall we be up and at it? I’m keen to see what that shop part is like. I had a few thoughts about it in the night. Let’s get your dad busy taking down the boards and we’ll see better what’s what.’

‘Gran, you always know how to make the best of things,’ Evie said, feeling less anxious. ‘So much to do … I’ll go down and make a pot of tea while you get up.’

It was impossible for Evie to feel miserable for long with Sue’s remarkable energy and enthusiasm rallying her.

Sue and Evie were up and making toast when Peter appeared, playing a cheery ditty on his penny whistle.

‘You’re in a good mood,’ Evie remarked to Peter, as he smiled at the music, quietly tapping his toes.

‘No school,’ said Peter simply.

‘But you’ll have to go sometime.’

‘Not for ages and ages. It’s the summer holidays from the end of this week. Mum and Dad won’t send Bob and me to school for one week, will they, Grandma?’

‘They haven’t even had the chance to think about school, Pete,’ Sue replied. ‘I reckon you’re safe now until September.’

‘Yippee! Though I won’t tell Bob just yet. Let him stew, like.’

‘Don’t be cruel,’ laughed Evie. Within five minutes it was smiles all round. The music was jolly and lifted their spirits.

‘You can help your dad with those boards and let some light into the front,’ said Sue, as Michael and Jeanie came running in.

Peter gave his father a look that said he’d rather not help him but his words belied that. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m good on ladders – if we have one, that is?’

‘Saw one round the side yesterday when I fetched the key,’ Michael told him. He took a piece of toast and went off with it to find the ladder and his tools. All their things had been unpacked so quickly from Fergus’s van the previous evening that it was difficult for everyone to remember where they’d put their belongings.

‘You sound keen to get on,’ said Jeanie to her mother, sounding anything but keen herself. She looked as if she hadn’t slept at all and her eyes were red.

‘No point in delaying,’ Sue replied. ‘You never know what you’ll find.’

‘You’re right, Mum, of course,’ Jeanie pulled herself up, ‘though it’ll have to be an awful lot better than I think it’s going to be if we’re to stay here. The place is rundown – and a shop, for goodness’ sake!’

‘I’ll have no defeatist talk,’ Sue answered, though she was smiling. ‘We don’t even know who owns it, and we’ve yet to meet Brendan’s friend Jack Fletcher, either. Or maybe he owns it? I’m confused about that, I admit.’

‘Me, too,’ said Jeanie. ‘I expect someone will appear to tell us – especially if they want some rent,’ she added.

‘Come on, get that toast down you – and you too, Peter,’ Sue commanded, passing over mugs of tea. ‘It could be our lucky day.’

‘Give over, Mum. No need to go overboard,’ said Jeanie, but she winked at Evie and Peter.

‘Maybe there’ll be buried treasure,’ said Peter, as he led the others through to the front, bringing the plate of toast with him. ‘A secret cellar full of gold.’

‘Aye, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,’ said Jeanie. ‘Where’s Bob? Is he getting up?’

‘Sort of. He said his stomach aches but I told him to stop whingeing and see if it felt better when he came down,’ said Peter without a trace of sympathy. ‘I think he’s worried about going to a new school. I haven’t told him yet we’re not going,’ he grinned.

‘I’ll go and tell him and see if he’s all right. You know what he’s like with his sensitive stomach.’

It took most of the morning for Michael and Peter to remove the boards from the window to the street and stack them out of the way, while Jeanie and Evie found some dusty curtains in the attic and tried to get the place cleaner and more comfortable, and Sue unpacked their boxes. The whole family went to view the unboarded shop from the pavement, eager to see if it looked more promising than it had the previous evening.

‘At least we’ll be able to see out,’ said Michael. ‘And it’s a big room.’

‘A big room for what?’ snapped Jeanie, her anger with him not yet dampened down. ‘And everyone else can see in now, too. What are we going to do there, sit having our tea like goldfish in a bowl?’

Robert started pulling fish faces, his mouth silently working like a guppy until Peter gently cuffed him round the ear.

‘No, love, I only meant—’

A young woman with a baby in a pram and a toddler clutching her arm came along the pavement and the Carters moved aside to let her pass.

‘Good morning,’ the woman said, smiling. ‘Nice to see the old shop opened up.’

‘Morning,’ said Michael. He peered into the pram, turning on the charm in front of the pretty lady. ‘Now that’s a bonny baby … We’re new here and know nowt about the place. What was the shop, do you know?’

‘Yes, I can hear you’re not from round here,’ said the woman, but kindly. ‘It was a general household store. Mr Pendle sold buckets, brooms, seeds, string – you know the kind of thing. There’s still a call for it but people go to the new shop in the village now. Mr Pendle was old and couldn’t keep the business going when his health started to fail. That was a while ago. I’d heard that Mr Bailey was talking about finding new tenants.’

‘Mr Bailey?’ prompted Sue.

‘Frederick Bailey. The owner.’ The woman looked puzzled, evidently expecting Sue to know that.

‘Oh, aye? Well, Mrs …?’

‘Lambert. Josie Lambert.’ She held out her hand to shake Sue’s.

‘Mrs Lambert, we’re all very pleased to meet you.’ Sue introduced herself and her family. ‘Would you care for a cup of tea? I’m sure we can find summat for the little ’un, too, though I’m afraid we’ve nowt suitable for the baby,’ she added. ‘It’s nice to meet new folk and we know no one around here. If you have a few minutes we’d be glad to learn about the old place and this Mr Bailey.’

‘Yes, I can spare a few moments. Thank you.’ Mrs Lambert parked the pram and lifted the baby out, murmuring to her and smoothing her fine blonde hair. ‘Come along, Archie,’ she told the toddler, smiling.

‘Archie – that’s nice,’ said Evie, taking the child’s hand and leading him in, though he clutched his mother’s skirt in his other little fist.

‘Excuse the mess. We only got here last night,’ said Jeanie.

‘It’s all right,’ said the friendly woman, though she perched rather tentatively on the chair in the dismal kitchen. ‘So how did you come to be here if you don’t know Church Sandleton?’

Michael and Jeanie exchanged looks.

‘A friend of a friend had heard of a job hereabouts that might suit,’ said Michael vaguely. ‘It’s a pretty part of the country … good place to bring up children,’ he improvised, looking at young Archie and his baby sister.

‘Would that be the job at Clackett’s market garden?’ asked Mrs Lambert, accepting a cup of Ribena for Archie and tea for herself. ‘I heard Mr Clackett was looking for some help.’

‘If the job’s still going,’ said Michael. Having been working all morning at the front he couldn’t have failed to notice the sign for Clackett’s a few yards further down on the other side of the road.

Sue gave him a meaningful look. ‘So do you know Mr Bailey?’ she asked Josie Lambert. ‘We haven’t met him yet.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t know him personally. He lives in Redmond but he’s seen about the village sometimes. Drives a smart car and owns here and a couple of other properties.’

‘Well, no doubt he’ll be round before long,’ said Sue, and, having extracted what information she could about the landlord, she changed the subject to the village generally while Jeanie cooed over baby Nancy and little Archie.

As soon as Josie Lambert had waved goodbye with promises to call again when Jeanie was settled, Sue turned to Michael.

‘Right, you get over to that market garden, lad, and see what this job’s about.’

‘But I know nowt about growing vegetables,’ he protested.

‘Who said you’d be growing the veg? You won’t know if you don’t go.’ She shooed him out of the door, then turned to Jeanie. ‘Now, I’ve an idea about the front room. Come through and see what you think. You, too, Evie. It was us women that held the place together in Shenty Street and we can make a go of it here with luck and a fair wind. And as I said earlier, this could be our lucky day.’

‘It’s looking that way so far,’ Peter said, grabbing his whistle and playing a jaunty fanfare. ‘Come on, Bob. I’ll wash, you dry, and Grandma can think up ways to make our fortune.’

Billy immediately recognised Evie’s neat round handwriting on the envelope Ada Taylor had left on the kitchen table for him to find when he got in from work. He snatched it up as he called out to her that he was home, then went upstairs to read it in private.

Pendle’s

High Street

Church Sandleton

Near Redmond

Thursday

Dear Billy,

I hope you and your mother are well. I’m missing you like mad and I hope you’re missing me, too.

I can’t believe so much has happened since we waved off Fergus Sullivan on Sunday evening. Dad’s got a job – the first one he tried for! It’s at the market garden across the road and he’s helping to pick the crops. There’s a huge amount of them at the moment and Dad says it gets very hot in the glasshouses. He says it’s backbreaking work, especially the strawberries, but luckily they’re nearly finished. Another really good thing is that Mr Clackett, the owner, gives Dad some of the stuff he says won’t sell so we’re eating lots of very ripe fruit and vegetables.

The boys are on holiday from school and play outside all day. Pete is making friends with Mr Clackett’s son, Martin, and Bob usually tags along with them. There are miles of fields for them to play in around here as it’s proper countryside.

Where we’re living is an old shop, which makes a strange house with the shop window, but Grandma has hatched a plan for her, Mum and me to open a little business. I’m so excited that we’ll be working together again. We’ve looked around the village and there’s no one advertising their dressmaking services or doing alterations and repairs so we think we may have found what Grandma calls ‘an opening’. We need to get in touch with Mr Bailey, who owns the building, to see if that’s all right, but so far we haven’t met him.

It’s nice here but it doesn’t feel like home and I don’t know if it ever will. It’s so different from everything we know and love in Bolton. The people in the village are friendly but we’re all missing you and the Sullivans and Mrs Marsh – our kind of people.

Please give my best to your mother, and write soon. I shall look for your letter every day. Remember not to tell anyone the address, just in case.

With lots of love,

Evie xxx

So, Evie was missing him ‘like mad’ – which was exactly how he felt about her. How he longed to see her pretty face, with her pointy chin and big hazel eyes. It seemed far longer than five days since he’d waved her goodbye and he’d been thinking of her constantly since then.

Billy reread the letter, then changed out of his postman’s uniform and returned downstairs.

Ada had a pot of strong tea brewing and a toasted teacake waiting for him – ‘to put you on till teatime, love.’

‘Thanks, Mum. You’ll have guessed the letter was from Evie. Guess what: seems her dad has a job already.’

‘Well, bless me, who’d have thought it?’

‘It’s great news. Things will turn out better for them all from now.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it with that Michael Carter. I reckon Jeanie Goodwin has long rued the day that she married him. She’s a bonny woman and could have had her pick. What she wanted to choose him for I don’t know. I’d have thought Sue might have talked her out of it, but no.’

‘Sounds like he’s doing all right now, anyway.’

‘That’s if he can keep this job, whatever it is,’ Ada muttered darkly. ‘He’d do well to change his ways and be a bit more reliable. What news of Sue and Jeanie?’

‘Mrs Goodwin wants to start a dressmaking business. Seems they live in an old shop so there are ready-made premises for customers – I expect that gave her the idea.’

‘Well, Sue was always a hard worker, and a talented seamstress, too. It’s a step up from taking in washing, but if anyone can make a go of it, she can.’

‘Evie is going to help her, she’s good with a needle, and a fast learner. She worries about getting things just right and she’ll apply herself to it. She has the same eye for a job well done as her grandma.’

‘They’ll be all right with Sue in charge,’ said Ada confidently. She looked carefully at her son. ‘Sounds like they’re making a whole new life for themselves down south.’

‘I think Evie’s missing everyone here,’ Billy replied. ‘It’s not the same as where she was brought up and what she knows. And I reckon we’re all missing her, too,’ he added boldly.

‘You say that now, Billy, but she’s not been gone long. Sometimes folk move on, love, and it’s not a good idea to be wanting everything to be as it was. She’s not here now and probably won’t come back. You’ve got to accept that or be disappointed.’

But Billy wasn’t at all ready to accept that Evie was gone for good. He’d never forget the promise he’d made to her that they wouldn’t be apart for ever, though he decided not to share this thought with his mother.

He’d write a reply to Evie that evening. After they’d had their tea his mother liked to doze while listening to the Light Programme on the wireless so there’d be a chance then for him to write a long letter full of news about Evie’s friends in Bolton. And to send her his love.

‘I can’t believe we’ve been here over a week and still haven’t met this Mr Bailey,’ said Jeanie as she chopped some of the twisty-shaped carrots Michael had returned with that evening. Sue, Evie and Peter were busy in the front room, cleaning it in preparation for a coat of paint.

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ said Michael as he scrubbed soil from under his fingernails at the kitchen sink. ‘At least he hasn’t come asking for any rent.’

‘We’ll have to pay him eventually,’ Jeanie replied. ‘And Mum is full of ideas for our little business and wants to get started. We’ll need to have enough money for the rent when the time comes, and there’s no one else offering a sewing service in Church Sandleton. So far, anyway. We can’t be the only ones with a sewing machine and Mum’s worried someone may pip us at the post if we don’t get started soon.’

‘Can’t she set up business without asking Bailey?’ Michael sank into a chair to watch Jeanie work.

‘I expect so, but it is his property, after all. It’s only polite to tell him what we want to do, see if it’s all right with him.’

‘Why would he object, though? It’s not like you’re opening a – I don’t know – a pub or summat you’d need legal permission for.’

‘Or an undertaker’s,’ piped up Robert, at the far end of the kitchen table. ‘That would be horrible and creepy. You’d have dead people in the front room and, Dad, you’d have to wear a tall black hat.’

‘Good grief, Bob, I don’t know where you get such ideas,’ laughed Jeanie, pulling a quizzical face at Michael. ‘Anyway, I’ve decided that if Mr Bailey’s not coming to us then I’m going to him. Mum looked out her sewing machine this morning, oiled it and everything. Evie’s written a neat little notice to pin up in the shop, offering alterations, curtain- and dressmaking, and mending. Once that’s up we’ll need to be ready for our customers.’

‘I’d leave it if I were you, love,’ said Michael. ‘Wait and see what happens. We’re living rent-free at the moment – no use courting expense and creating problems for ourselves.’

‘If you think it’s rent-free here then you’re dafter than you look,’ said Jeanie wearily. ‘Come on, Michael, we’ve lost so much, but let’s start as we mean to go on. The laundry and mending business was what kept us going many a week in Bolton. The boys will need new school uniform come September and we can’t live for ever on what Mum and I saved from the washing.’

‘I do my bit—’

‘Picking tomatoes!’

‘But we get given vegetables, too.’

‘Mr Clackett’s been very generous, and I’m grateful, but we can’t eat nowt but vegetables.’

‘By heck, Jeanie, you’re a grand cook and few others could make them veggies taste as good as you do, but what I wouldn’t give for a helping of hotpot.’

‘Evie and I are to catch the bus to Redmond in the morning and we shall find Mr Bailey, introduce ourselves and make sure our plans are all straight and above board with him. What if there’s been some mistake and he doesn’t even know we’re here?’

‘You’re right, of course …’ said Michael, getting up and stretching his stiff back. ‘I’ll just go out and take a stroll up the street while you’re making that carrot thing.’

‘Don’t be too long, love. You’re looking tired and the veg doesn’t take much cooking.’

Michael grunted as he went down the hall, past Sue, Evie and Peter still scrubbing the walls, floor and ceiling of the front room. He stepped out into the street and turned towards the Red Lion, thinking he’d already left it far too long to make the acquaintance of his new local.

Jeanie and Evie got off the bus in the market square in Redmond. It was market day and on this sunny July morning the place was thronging with shoppers carrying baskets, women pushing prams and traders shouting their wares from the brightly coloured stalls.

‘Oh, Mum, let’s have a quick look,’ begged Evie.

‘A look won’t hurt,’ agreed Jeanie, ‘but we won’t buy anything until we’ve found Mr Bailey and seen about the rent and if we can go ahead with the sewing. Look, there’s Mr Clackett behind that stall. And Martin’s helping him.’ She waved and the market gardener called out cheerily to her.

‘Let’s see if there’s a fabric stall or a haberdasher’s,’ suggested Evie. ‘We can report back to Grandma if anything looks good.’

‘Aye, your gran has high standards,’ said Jeanie, ‘though we may have to make do to start with and work our way up to best quality as we earn a bit of money.’

‘It sounds like you think Grandma’s idea really will work out.’ Evie’s smile lit up her face. ‘I’m so glad, Mum. The washing was hard, but it was nice when us three were all working together. It’ll be like that again.’

‘From oldest to youngest, we all stick together,’ Jeanie agreed.

‘It’s going to be brilliant. I can’t wait to get started.’

They soon spotted a stall heaped with bolts of cloth, but the prices were high compared to those the Carters were used to up North.

‘No mill shops here either,’ said Jeanie. ‘Well, I suppose we couldn’t expect it to be as cheap as it is straight from the factory. That lace is nice, though.’

‘We’ll remember to tell Grandma. Come on, let’s go and see if we can find Mr Bailey.’

They had already made a plan. The public library was a grand-looking building on one side of the square and they went in and found the reference library where a sign instructed ‘SILENCE’. Josie Lambert had mentioned that Frederick Bailey drove a smart car so it was highly likely he was the kind of man who also had a telephone in his house. Jeanie and Evie quickly found the local telephone directory and in less than two minutes were coming out of the library with the addresses written down of two people: ‘F. Bailey’ and ‘F. W. Bailey’.

‘We’ve no way of knowing so we’ll just have to try one, and then the other if we have to,’ said Jeanie.

‘Maybe look out for a policeman – they always know where places are – but we’ll ask Mr Clackett in the meantime.’

They went back over to the market and had to wait while Mr Clackett did a brisk trade in salad before he was free to give them his attention.

‘Woodfall Road – don’t know that, I’m afraid, Mrs Carter. Eh, Stanley,’ he called across to a man selling sausages. ‘Woodfall Road – ring any bells?’

Stanley scratched his head. ‘Off the main road out towards Church Sandleton,’ he said eventually.

‘What about Midsummer Row?’ asked Jeanie.

‘Oh, that’s just behind here,’ said Mr Clackett. ‘Next to that shoe shop there’s a side road that goes down into a little square.’

‘Thank you,’ beamed Jeanie, and she and Evie set off for the nearer place.

‘Oh, I suddenly feel quite nervous,’ said Jeanie as they walked through into the pretty square with trees in a tiny central garden and tall thin town houses overlooking it all round.

‘Perhaps he’ll be really nice,’ suggested Evie, though she, too, was anxious and her stomach was churning.

‘Do I look all right?’ asked Jeanie. ‘I don’t want to appear down at heel. I want Mr Bailey to think we’re respectable folk who can be trusted.’

Evie stopped walking and pulled her mother round to face her. She tipped her straw hat a fraction further forward and brushed a tiny speck of dust off the lapel of her floral print jacket. It was old but Sue had made it from quality cotton spun and woven in Bolton and, with its eye-catching colours and sharp tailoring, it had stood the test of time and was a fine advertisement for Sue’s dressmaking skills.

‘Mum, you look lovely,’ Evie told her mother truthfully. ‘Now let’s see which one’s Marlowe House.’

They walked round the square, reading the names on smart plaques beside the front doors, and soon came to the right one. Evie opened the iron gate and Jeanie led her through and up the steps to the front door.

She took a deep breath and had just put her hand out to ring the bell when the door was flung open and a furious-looking woman, wearing an overall and with her hair tied up with a scarf, erupted out of the house.

‘You can keep your flipping job, you old bastard!’ she yelled back through the open door. ‘Don’t you threaten me with the police. Years I’ve slaved for you, and poor thanks I’ve had for it. I’ve seen pigs keep themselves cleaner. You can stew in your own muck. I deserve better and I only took what should have been mine. I’ve had enough!’

She picked up an ornament from a side table beside the door and hurled it back down the hall. Evie and Jeanie heard the tinkle of shattering china and unconsciously they clutched each other as the harridan, oblivious, stomped past them, down the steps and through the gate, leaving it open in her wake.

Evie’s heart was pounding as she turned to see her mother was white with shock.

‘Oh, Mum, whatever can have happened? I think we ought to go. I don’t like it here at all.’

‘Me neither, Evie. Come on …’

As they began to retrace their steps a calm and educated voice called behind them, ‘Please don’t mind Mrs Summers. She can be a bit ill-tempered, though, truth be told, she was a very good cleaner. Pity she wasn’t a more honest one.’

Jeanie quickly tried to gather herself as she turned back to see who had spoken.

He was a tall, very lean and good-looking man in his fifties, his greying dark hair in need of a cut. He was wearing a moth-eaten old cricket pullover, and a kerchief – such as a pirate might wear in an adventure story, thought Evie – knotted round the frayed neck of his collarless shirt. Jeanie looked him up and down in astonishment and thought without a doubt that he was the most untidy – and the handsomest – man she’d ever seen.

‘Mr Bailey?’ she asked, suddenly feeling strangely breathless.

‘I am Frederick Bailey,’ the tall man replied with astonishing dignity considering what his ex-cleaner had just called him in front of strangers.

‘Er … I’m Ginette Carter, and this is my daughter, Evelyn.’

‘How do you do,’ said Mr Bailey. ‘How can I help you?’

Oh dear, he doesn’t seem to have heard of us. Living at Pendle’s is all an awful mistake. Or maybe this is the wrong person and we should be at the other Bailey’s house? As this thought flashed through Evie’s mind she saw her mother’s puzzled face reflecting the very same thing.

‘I … I’m wondering if you might be our new landlord,’ Jeanie persevered. ‘Pendle’s? In Church Sandleton?’

‘Yes, I suppose I must be, if that’s where you’re living,’ Mr Bailey replied vaguely. ‘Come in, please …’

He stood back to let Jeanie and Evie pass through the smart front door and into the hall where shards of pink and white porcelain lay strewn across the floor.

‘Pity about the shepherdess,’ he said. ‘I’d got a buyer lined up for her, too. Still, there we are …’

Evie caught Jeanie’s eye behind the man’s back and shrugged nervously. This man wasn’t like anyone she had ever met, and though the coarse, shouting woman had gone she still didn’t feel at all comfortable here.

Jeanie, too, felt out of place in this strange house, with this odd man, but as she looked around the elegant little hallway Mr Bailey turned to her and smiled, and it was a smile she understood.

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