Accordingly, Tess hurried along to Mere Lane, only stopping once en route to buy a cabbage and some more potatoes from Mr Gaulton. But when she reached Lucy’s house a disappointment awaited her. No one answered her knock, but a woman in a wrap-around overall with her hair in curlers and her teeth obviously still reposing in a glass by her bed popped out of her front door and gave Tess a gummy grin. ‘Hello, ducks. Is you after young Lucy?’ she asked brightly. ‘’Cos if so you’re out of luck. Her dad’s ship come in a couple of days ago and he’s took the whole fambly off down to the coast for a seaside holiday. Seems Lucy’s mam has a brother what works on the fairground in Rhyl, so they moves into his caravan and the whole lot of ’em has two whole weeks of fun almost for free, they say.’

‘Oh! Well, that’s nice for Lucy and her brothers and sisters,’ Tess said vaguely. She knew that Lucy had brothers and sisters, all younger, but had never actually met them. ‘Do you know when they’ll be coming home? Only I’ve been away myself and only got back yesterday.’

The woman shrugged. ‘Work it out for yourself, queen,’ she advised. ‘They left this mornin’ so they’ll be back two weeks today . . .’

The screech of a whistling kettle split the air and the woman flapped a hand and turned back into her own house. ‘Sorry, ducks, that’s me kettle; I gorra turn it off or else . . .’ The rest of the sentence was lost behind the slammed front door.

Tess waited a moment but the woman did not reappear so she turned her footsteps in the direction of St Domingo Road, feeling suddenly lonely. Doing the messages with someone else was fun; you could chatter as you walked, go to St John’s Market and buy a bag of little red apples for sixpence; they could have sat down at one of the outdoor tables attached to Dorothy’s Tearooms in Church Street and had lemonade and a bun with the money Gran had given her whilst enjoying the sunshine, for it was a beautiful day. But alone none of this was possible; oh, you could do it all right, but you’d feel self-conscious lacking a friend to share it with. So it was rather glumly that Tess retraced her steps and headed for Mrs Thomas’s corner shop.

Despite the earliness of the hour there was the usual queue of hopeful housewives waiting to be served, but instead of Mrs Thomas behind the counter Tess recognised the woman known locally as Fat Betty. She was a cheerful soul who helped out at small shops when illness or holidays made her services necessary. Tess had seen her in the Thomases’ shop before, enjoying a gossip as much as the work, laughing raucously and cracking jokes, though it was well known that Betty would not handle money. That was left to her son Willie, who was slow but reliable, and cut out points and crossed out coupons with meticulous care. Tess knew that Mrs Thomas’s sister Freda would be somewhere on the premises, popping in now and then to see that all was as it should be, although she thought herself far too superior to actually work in a corner shop.