‘Yeah, funny, ain’t it?’ Mo said, grinning. ‘Anyway, from what my gran said, God rest her soul, Edna went on to marry a milkman and had loads of kids, but Connie had ideas above herself. She’d tell my gran, if you’re going to fall in love, it may as well be with a rich man rather than a poor one. So, that’s what she did. My gran said you could hear everything through those walls, and Connie was always getting in bother with her dad for pinching the rent money and buying herself fancy clothes to wear up town. Eventually, the rent arrears mounted up and the family got thrown out. My gran lost touch with Connie then, but she said a few years later she bumped into her again and hardly recognised her. She was talking all posh and boasting about some property tycoon she’d married who was forty-five years older than her and would pop his clogs soon. That’s how she did it, you know, got rich. He died and she was left with everything, which included a couple of dozen houses, a few of which are here in Battersea. She’s what you would call a gold digger.’

‘I never would have guessed, and to think she looked down her nose at me!’ Sarah said. ‘At least I’m going to be working for what’s mine.’

‘And that’s not all,’ Mo continued. ‘With all that money, she never once helped her family out. I heard Edna died a terrible death in pain ’cos they couldn’t afford the doctor. She was good enough to house her parents, but charged them rent.’

‘But that’s awful,’ Sarah exclaimed.

‘I know, and now she lives in a bloody huge house near Victoria, but the only visitors she ever gets are a load of stray cats. Mr Terence worked for her husband, and she’s got a driver and a cleaner, but they say she wanders around the house at night counting her money then hiding it again. She’s obsessed with it. Rumour has it that she’s got money sewn in the curtain hems, the mattress, stuffed in saucepans and even in the toilet cisterns.’

‘See, money can’t buy you happiness,’ Sarah said.

‘No, it can’t,’ Mo replied, ‘but it can help make being sad a whole lot easier.’

‘Yeah, I suppose, but I’d rather be poor and happy than rich and lonely.’

Mo nodded her head in agreement, but thought that if she was a film star, she’d be rich – and she knew that would make her happy, very happy indeed.

Chapter 19

On the Monday that Tommy was to start school, Sarah awoke to him jumping on her. ‘Wake up, Sarah, I want to go to school now.’