Chapter 2

JIMMY STARED AT his small sister, his mouth dropping open. ‘You couldn’t kill a great hefty bloke like Cyril Huxtable; I expect you just frightened him,’ he said at last, though he continued to let Mo pull him back along Scotland Road. ‘Tell me what happened and I’ll see what we must do, only first we’d best get into some shelter because it’s going to snow again any minute.’ He made for Harry Theaker’s stall, and he and Mo crawled under the canvas covering and made themselves quite a little nest by half emptying a tea chest of clothing, squeezing into it and pulling the displaced clothing in after them.

‘Go on, fire ahead,’ Jimmy said as they settled themselves, and Mo, nothing loth, began to speak. Cyril’s ship had docked and as was his habit he had gone straight to the nearest pub and drunk nearly all his wages away. Then he had returned to No. 4, so sozzled that he had not even seen Mo curled up in her favourite spot on the hearth rug within the enclosing arms of the clothes horse upon which Mrs Huxtable had spread various articles of clothing. Mo had taken into her little refuge a sack of sprouts which Mrs Huxtable had given her to clean before she sold them to the neighbours for their Christmas dinners. Warmed by the fire, knowing she was well hidden, Mo did not worry when she heard Cyril Huxtable come stumbling across the kitchen. She saw that he had a bottle of rum in one hand and what looked like a parcel in the other. He dragged a chair up to the fire, muttering imprecations as to what he would do to anyone who interfered with him, and proceeded to tear the parcel open. It was well protected by several layers of brown paper, and as one of them fluttered to the floor Mo saw her own name and thought it might be a Christmas present from her father. Not that it really mattered, Mo reminded herself ruefully, because Cyril would simply take the contents of the parcel down the road, either to the nearest pawn shop or to one of the stalls on Paddy’s Market, and sell the contents for whatever he could get.

The brown paper concealed a large white box reinforced with sticky tape, and though from where she was hidden it did not look particularly strong appearances were obviously deceptive, because in the end Cyril, with a curse, had to take his knife to it, wrenching it open with little regard for the contents. Mo, craning her neck, saw that her guess had been right. The parcel contained presents: a soft toy, a teddy so fluffy and sweet that Mo’s susceptible heart went out to it, and a harmonica.

She gasped; Jimmy was musical, had longed for a real mouth organ, and here it was, his heart’s desire! More important, these gifts could only have come from their father, for only he would remember Jimmy’s passionate desire for a proper instrument rather than the tinny little pipe her brother played in the school orchestra.