Norm, relieved and surprised, started laughing too.

‘You are properly better now, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘I don’t bloody well want to catch anything!’

‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘They gave me some of the new stuff – penicillin. It’s marvellous. God knows what it would have been like without it. The stupid thing is, they was always on about it, VD this and VD that. Films and talks, and that. There was this girl in the films who they were always telling you to, you know, beware of, called . . .’ He started to chuckle himself, so at first he couldn’t get the words out. ‘She was called Susie Rotten Crotch!’

‘What?’ Em fell back on the bed so that her head was resting on Norm’s stomach, both of them howling with laughter.

It was a while before either of them could speak again, but eventually she managed to roll over and look directly at him. They searched each other’s eyes and, knowing that what they saw was true, put their arms around one another.

‘You,’ Em said, wet-faced, ‘are the daftest bugger alive, but for some reason I love you. I can’t seem to help it.’

1948-1949

VII

KATIE

Thirty-Eight

June 1948

‘Bye-bye – see you tomorrow. Say goodbye, Michael!’

Maudie, heavily pregnant, stood at her door waving them off, a smile on her face, which was for the moment plumper than usual.

‘Thanks, see you in the morning!’ Katie called.

Michael waved and then, without looking what he was doing, reached out for his mother and almost fell down the step.

‘Careful! I’m here, silly,’ she laughed, taking his hand and walking along with him. ‘Have you had a nice day?’

Michael turned his serious, deep-brown eyes up to hers, nodding. ‘We did plasticine. Can I have a bun?’

Katie showed him a little white paper bag. ‘I got a currant bun. But you have it for your pudding. You’ll spoil your tea else.’

‘Oh, Mom – I’m hungry!’ Michael protested. ‘Please. Can I?’

As they turned into their road she relented and broke off a bit of the bun. ‘Here, that’ll keep you going. But you’re not having it all, so don’t ask me. ’Ey-up – what’s going on?’

Usually when she got home from work the house was quiet. On a nice day like today, Sybil would be out at the back, tending her beloved garden. But in the distance Katie could see Sybil out at the front, and the neighbours, Edna Arbuckle and her daughter Susan, were at the wall that divided their houses, all deep in conversation. Both Arbuckles were large, fleshy women, especially Susan, who was thirty-five and still lived with her mother. She was big-boned and beetle-browed, her thick hair cut savagely into a bob around her heavy jaw. Her mother’s one reigning obsession was to find her a husband.

They all turned as she and Michael reached the gate, and Edna Arbuckle, a paler-haired, softer woman than her daughter, said portentously, ‘You’re going to have to tell her, Miss Routh.’