‘Oh, I’ll miss you!’ Ellen exclaimed and sincerely meant it. She had found a bond with her elderly neighbour, perhaps because she missed her own mother.

‘And I will miss you too,’ Mrs Johnson said. ‘You have made us very welcome, treating us as friends.’

Ellen crouched beside her and took her thin hand. ‘I hope that is what we’ve become, for you have made a difference to my life too,’ she said. ‘I was a stranger here as well. Perhaps we could write to each other? I’d like to hear how you get on in Leeds.’

The old lady smiled. ‘I would like that.’

Edyta had brought down some firewood and they added more to the fire so there was a blaze; Ellen filled the kettle and prepared to make tea, so Edyta ran upstairs to fetch their coffee and as she came down there was a knock on the front door and when she opened it the Bosco family were on the doorstep, bringing a Polish Hanukkah apple cake.

Everyone crowded into the small room and Filip said heartily, ‘We were going to sing you some Christmas songs at the door as people do in England but we don’t know any!’

And then there was another knock on the door and Karl was there with a sack of wood over his shoulder, so all the men sat on the floor and Ellen and Edyta made tea and coffee and Anna cut honey cake and apple cake into slices for everyone to share, and as Ellen glanced around the smiling faces and the children playing together on the rug she thought that life really couldn’t get much better.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Harry was up first the next morning and tiptoed about so as not to wake the children. ‘You don’t need to get up yet,’ he whispered to Ellen. ‘I can get what I need for breakfast. Kettle’s simmering, so I’ll mek a pot o’ tea. Can you face a cup, or would you rather have hot water?’

She nodded, putting a fist to her mouth to ward off the nausea that was rising. ‘Please,’ she managed, swallowing down bile, and swung her legs out of bed as he brought her a cup of hot water.

He pulled a blanket over her legs as she sipped. ‘Stay in bed a while longer,’ he said. ‘It’s bitterly cold. Window pane is frozen over, and all ’heat from ’fire is going straight out into ’scullery. Tomorrow, when I finish at dinner time, I’m going out to find us somewhere else to live.’

Ellen gave a wan smile. ‘Mek sure there’s an oven.’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘Essential,’ he quipped. ‘My wife doesn’t ask for jewels or riches, onny an oven to bake her bread!’