‘I’m sorry. Tell you what, I’ll help you look for somewhere decent to live. I can run you anywhere in my van if it helps.’

Sarah felt her mood soften, but Roger’s talk of abandoning Tommy in a home had hurt her deeply. It seemed he didn’t know her at all, and after the things he’d said tonight, she questioned how much she really knew him.

Chapter 36

George had been back at work for a month now, but there was still tension between him and Roger. He hadn’t seen Sarah in all that time, but heard from his mum that she was doing well, and seemed to be happy with her man. If only she knew what he was really like, thought George, as he saw Roger chatting up the young woman who worked in the café on the market.

‘Penny for ’em?’ he heard a voice say.

He turned to see an old woman with a stooped back. ‘My thoughts ain’t worth that much,’ George said to her and tried to sound cheerful.

‘When you’ve been around as long as me, young man, you get to know a thing or two. It’s a woman, it always is. You love her but she’s out of your reach,’ the old woman said.

‘Yeah, that just about sums it up.’

‘Don’t give up … your time is coming …’ the old woman said as she hobbled away. ‘She’ll be yours one day. I can see it, you know. But she’ll always yearn for the boy.’

George listened, dumbstruck. He shook his head, thinking she had lost her mind, yet unable to get her words out of his head. Silly old cow, he thought, she didn’t have a clue, though he would have liked it to be true.

Another woman, pushing a large pram, stopped at his stall. ‘Do you have any new-born stuff?’ she asked.

‘Yes, a whole box over there,’ George replied and went around to the side of his stall where he kept the baby clothes. The woman began to rummage, and George stood waiting, his mind churning over what the old woman had said. He was close to Roger’s stall, and when he heard the girl from the café call out, his ears pricked.

‘I’ll see you tonight then, Roger, and this time you’re not shooting off so early.’

George took a moment to digest what he’d heard, and then saw red as his blood boiled. The dirty cheating bastard, he thought. It was bad enough that Roger had pinched Sarah from under his nose, but he felt appalled to think of her being deceived and hurt. She was such a good, honest young woman and deserved more respect than that.

‘Excuse me, love,’ George ground out to the woman with the pram as he marched over to Roger, fuming.