‘Oh she will, I’ll see to that,’ his wife promised him. Then pointing to a small ladder that stretched up to a hatch in the ceiling in the corner of the room she told Amber, ‘You an’ the babby’ll be sleepin’ up in the loft. Tek yer things up then get down ’ere an get some work done.’

Amber’s lips set in a straight line; she’d expected to be offered a cup of tea at least, but she snatched up the bags again and went towards the ladder, which she noticed was rather rickety. It wasn’t easy getting them up into the loft one at a time but neither of the men offered to help so Amber had no choice but to take them up herself, which was no easy feat. At the top of the ladder, she stopped to throw her bags through the hatch, then with Charlotte still whimpering against her chest, she stared around the gloomy room in horror. When she’d managed to clamber in, she stood up carefully, keeping her head low to avoid banging it on the sloped ceiling, and took a couple of steps, shuddering as her feet crunched over droppings. Pushed right to the back beneath the sloping eaves was a filthy straw mattress and she poked a toe against it in disgust. Surely they can’t expect me and Charlotte to sleep on that filthy thing? she thought angrily, brushing a cobweb from her face.

Clutching Charlotte to her, she clambered back down the ladder. ‘You can’t expect me to sleep up there. Its rat-infested an’ filthy! There must be somewhere else?’

‘I s’ppose she could ’ave that little room that’s empty next to the laundry,’ one of the men suggested.

Mrs Barstow sighed. ‘Eeh, you ain’t been ’ere two minutes an’ yer causin’ problems a’ready,’ she moaned.

But on this Amber was prepared to stand her ground. ‘Well, I’m sure anywhere will be better than up there,’ she snapped.

‘In that case, yer’d better tek her out to see it, Melvin,’ the old woman instructed her son. ‘But I’ll warn yer now, it’ll be full o’ junk an’ it ain’t been used for years.’

‘In that case I shall get it emptied out, clean it and then I’ll start whatever you want me to do,’ Amber responded, and with a toss of her chin she followed Melvin back out into the nippy morning air.

When he threw the door to the room in question open, Amber couldn’t stop herself from sighing with dismay. ‘You wouldn’t put a dog in here!’ she exclaimed as she stared at the heaps of rusty tools and rubbish piled up higgledy-piggledy inside it.

Melvin grinned as he picked a piece of bacon from between his stained teeth with a grubby fingernail and spat it into the yard where a passing chicken quickly pecked it up.