Oh, Ma, Ellen thought. She would hate to kill the hen, as she always had, but the cake and the pudding would keep in tins and would be a welcome addition to their Christmas dinner.

‘Perhaps we could invite Filip and Anna and their bairns to eat with us,’ she said blithely to Harry when he returned home after work. ‘It won’t be very homely for them in that one room.’

‘I think perhaps they might not want to,’ he said as he kissed her cheek and tousled Thomas’s curls. Zophia, Jakub and Aron had been collected by Anna when she finished work at midday. ‘Their religion!’

Ellen stared blankly at him for a second. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Of course. I’d forgotten. But they could have some meat from the bird and eat it whenever they wanted.’

‘They might have other plans,’ he said, sitting down to take off his boots. ‘I saw Filip this morning and he’s going to look at another house.’

Ellen was pleased that they might be moving from the cellar room, but she hoped they wouldn’t be too far away. When she said this to Harry, he said that he hoped they too could look forward to moving further away from the factory smells and the poor air.

‘There won’t be time yet,’ Harry said, ‘but if we can survive here until after Christmas is over, Ellen, I think we could start looking elsewhere. Tannerson seems to be pleased with what I do, and although I’m only labouring at ’minute, at least we have a regular wage coming in.’

Ellen looked round the room; how quickly they had adapted to what they had, but it was true that the air they breathed was filled with the stench of smoke and oil of all kinds, fish manure and chemicals, paint and cattle cake, and the dust that was constantly with them. All the children coughed, and especially Mary, whose chest and back Ellen rubbed with camphor every morning, placing a patch of flannel beneath her vest.

She had looked out from the doorway this morning as Harry left for work; it was still dark as it was not yet six o’clock, but she had seen a silver sliver of breaking dawn. The children were still sleeping, so she looked out again five minutes later, ignoring the heavy tread of boots and clogs as the workers of the factories and mills made their way down the street and gazing towards the horizon.