Mr Theaker chuckled. ‘I dare say there’s them as will part with a few coppers to have a bit of holly to stick behind a picture or put into a flower vase. The major won’t ask for no payment, but you’re just like your mam, Jimmy boy. She always insisted on paying her way, and you are just such another.’

Mo was tugging Jimmy’s sleeve. ‘Why can’t I come to cut holly too?’ she asked plaintively. ‘You ain’t goin’ to leave me here all by my lonesome, are you? Why, Cyril could come in and nab me and you wouldn’t even know. Oh, please let me come holly-cutting with you!’

Jimmy sighed. If he had been going on his own she would have been welcome to join him, but he knew from experience that Nutty would gather all his pals together to help, and they would not look with favour on Molly’s joining the party. But as he gazed down at his sister’s little face he knew he could not possibly leave her. Had things been normal he would have left her playing happily with one of her little pals in the Court, but now of course that was impossible. They had not seen Cyril amongst the crowds at the market and had only glimpsed Mrs Huxtable once as she waddled past the stall with her arms full of shopping and an expression of fury on her fat face, but there was no saying when one or both of them might suddenly appear. Jimmy and Mo had crouched below the level of the stall until Mrs Huxtable had passed by, and then Mo had whispered: ‘Ain’t she just mad though, our Jimmy! It’s us as would be carryin’ that heavy shoppin’ if she had her way. D’you think she were lookin’ for us? But we’ve kept a good look-out, haven’t we, and of course Mr Theaker lendin’ us different clo’es musta helped.’

Jimmy had nodded. He had been lent a corduroy jacket and cap and Mo was resplendent in a coloured headscarf tied under her chin and a long buttoned cardigan, and now, with her bright hair out of sight and her small body bulked out by the thick cardigan, she looked nothing like his skinny little sister. Nevertheless . . . He shrugged helplessly. ‘You’ll have to come, I suppose,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Nutty and the other fellers won’t be too pleased, but if you just keep quiet and out of the way . . .’

But in the event this did not prove necessary. Harry’s energetic wife appeared just then to help on the stall, and Harry took the opportunity to put his check cap on at a rakish angle, thrust his arms into his heavy greatcoat, and beckon to the two Trewins to follow him. ‘I’m just a-goin’ to introduce these nippers to Major Williams,’ he explained to his wife. ‘It won’t take me more’n five minutes, an’ then I’ll come back an’ start packin’ up. All right wi’ you, Mary me love?’