As she left the room she heard her landlady saying angrily that if so she would want extra rent, but Miss Trent heard the tremble of doubt in the older woman’s voice and knew she had nothing to fear. Leaving a day early could not possibly affect Mrs Stockyard one way or the other and well she knew it. She was just being spiteful, and Miss Trent found that she was glad she would no longer be living under the same roof as such an unpleasant person.

She hurried back to her own room, lit the paraffin stove and sank into the only armchair her landlady provided, pulling it close to the window so that she could watch the passers-by whilst the warmth gradually increased. Pushing aside the net curtains and watching the people going past, she felt a glow of elation. She had worsted Mrs Stockyard, leaving the landlady gobbling with annoyance, and now felt in a mood to think about the holiday. In two days it would be Christmas and she must plan how to deal with it, for all the shops and markets would be shut and she was sure that her landlady would not allow her to cook even a potato in her precious kitchen.

She leaned back in her chair and considered what she knew of other people’s Christmases. Myrtle had told her that the bakeries would be open to cook any meat, pies or poultry that their customers took in. I’ll buy a tiny chicken, and if Sample’s cook it for me, then that will leave my Primus stove for potatoes and vegetables, she thought busily. I shan’t want a Christmas pudding because they’re far too rich and probably cost too much as well, but I’ll have a couple of those delicious-looking mince pies I’ve seen on the cake stalls. Myrtle said the stallholders start to reduce their prices on Christmas Eve, so I’ll go out late tomorrow and buy all my Christmas treats then. And I won’t jolly well worry about where I’ll be sleeping on the thirty-first; I’ll surely find somewhere, even if it’s only an old car blanket on Myrtle’s floor.

Chapter 4

WHEN HARRY HEARD that Jimmy and Mo did not intend to go back to Solomon Court for Christmas he was horrified. ‘Once the market closes at four o’clock tomorrow it won’t open again until after the holiday,’ he reminded them. ‘I dunno why you won’t go home, but I’ve knowed the pair of you long enough to realise you fell into the wrong hands when your dad agreed to let them Huxtables move in with you. But you weren’t ever scared to go home of a night time, nor you didn’t keep duckin’ out of sight whenever a man came too close to the stall. Oh aye, you’re scared of someone, or summat, I knows that much.’

The three of them were sitting at the back of the stall eating apple turnovers, which Harry had provided in return, he said, for the help the children so willingly gave. Jimmy had looked shyly at him from under his lashes. ‘But you lets us sleep under your stall,’ he had pointed out. ‘I reckon that’s payment enough for any help what we give, so the grub is extry.’