Ellen remained silent until they reached the church. She saw the small group of people waiting by the gates; she assumed they were Jim’s fellow workers and so they were, Tannerson told her, together with representatives of the workhouse who remembered both boys and had come to pay their respects.

Inside, Tannerson shed a tear, as did she, when they saw the small coffin containing the remains of the two boys. That boy, she recalled Mary saying, and she knew that young Benny was the same boy she had seen watching them from the street on the day they had moved in.

Poor lad, she thought, blowing her nose as tears ran down her face; he must have been looking for friendship and companionship all his life, and he had been given it by his friend Jim. She gave a deep shuddering sigh. She was glad that she had been able to give Jim Smith at least a little comfort by telling him they would soon be together.

The small crowd of mourners followed the coffin, carried on the shoulders of Tannerson, Kirkwood and two of his co-workers, to the graveyard where Ellen had taken her children to play, and she thought that she would now think of it as a place where Jim and Benny were safely watched over by the residents of the older graves.

She told Harry about it a few days later, when she could think about it without weeping, and he said he wished he could have been there.

‘It’s very sad,’ she said, ‘and we all have regrets. I think of Christmas Day, when we could have invited them to eat with us, and I was worried that ’food wouldn’t stretch to feed two more.’

Harry shook his head, ‘And I said that Jim had been given food by Tannerson and that they’d manage. We could all have done more if onny we’d known ’circumstances.’ He sighed. ‘We’ve had our eyes opened, Ellen. We must look to our friends and neighbours more closely in future.’

The weather was improving; everywhere Ellen looked as she tramped to work in a morning, she saw clumps of narcissi holding their golden trumpets up to the sky. The trees were greening, and here on the road to Beverley the oily odour drifting from the mills and factories was not as keen as it had been in the industrial area of Wincomlee.