‘Course you can; I was just about to suggest it,’ Albert said heartily, if untruthfully. ‘Tess will make us some cocoa and I bought some ginger snaps and shortbread biscuits whilst I was at Deering’s.’ He produced his key and ushered them all into the flat, Tess leading the way. Albert, locking up again, thought what a fortunate thing it was that he had bought those biscuits. He didn’t suppose that the boys’ ‘problem’ would be anything important, so the sooner they drank up their cocoa and ate their biscuits the sooner he would be able to get to his own bed. But once seated at the kitchen table with mugs of cocoa and a plate of biscuits before them, he realised that he had wronged the lads.

Snowy looked carefully round the table, making sure that he had everyone’s attention, and then spoke sombrely. ‘I’m awful sorry to put the cat amongst the pigeons, but I don’t believe you’ve realised what it will mean to your finances, Tess, to have Mrs Williams unable to work, for months. She’ll be able to walk with crutches for the three months it will take her leg to heal, but that wrist! You told me yourself, Jonty, that Albert said it was very nearly severed, and unless I’m much mistaken that may mean that she can never use it properly again. And the same goes for her shoulder. It doesn’t take an expert or a doctor to read the pain on her face when she has to move her left arm even a little bit. And she’s a baker! I can’t see her pummelling dough or rolling out pastry or even icing cakes the way she’s always done. So she must either get a very different sort of job – when she’s well enough to work at all, that is – or Tess will have to give up the thought of getting her Higher and going to university, and stay here at home, looking after her.’

There was an appalled silence. It had clearly never occurred to either Albert or Tess that Edie’s injuries were such that she might never take up her old job again. But having been forced to realise the truth, Albert cleared his throat and reached across the table to pat Tess’s hand. ‘We’ll find a way, queen,’ he said huskily. ‘All along, Edie has said that your education is the most important thing in her life. She says you’ll be the first person in her family to go to university, and she’s determined you should have your chance.’ He smiled rather shyly round the assembled company. ‘Well, this forces my hand. I shall simply have to get that ice cream parlour going, because even if she can’t do much else Edie will be able to sit behind the counter, tell the girls what to do, take the money and give change.’

‘But Albert, the whole point of the ice cream parlour was that you were going to set it up together,’ Tess pointed out. ‘You can’t be in two places at once, and all the buying of equipment, finding wholesalers to sell you ice cream and fizzy pop, getting staff you can trust . . . honest to God, it’ll be beyond Gran’s capabilities for months and months. I can’t believe she’ll never work again, but I can believe that it will be a long while before she can cope, and a new venture . . . Oh, Albert, I know you mean well, but I think it’s out of the question.’