‘Oh, ta!’ She loosed Robbie’s hand a minute and took the little bag of red-and-green tokens to pay their bus fare. ‘I’ll forget my own head one day. See you later.’

‘Tara . . .’ Edna even waved her hankie at Robbie.

‘Come on, Robbie – let’s get going.’

The bus tokens were included in the treatment. Someone at the school had decided that Robbie was looking peaky, and he suffered from catarrh. Every day that week she was expected to trek across to Erdington with him on the bus for sunray treatment, though no one had told them exactly what the point of it all was, other than that it would be good for him.

‘I don’t like it,’ Robbie protested. ‘Them goggles smell horrible and rubbery.’

‘Never mind,’ Em said, hurrying him to the bus stop. She could have lived without all this carry-on as well. It meant her having to offer to work late in the shop. ‘I suppose they know best. And you just make sure you don’t let those goggles slip off – that light’s bad for your eyes. It can blind you.’

Robbie sat in his seat on the bus, harrumphing. Em smiled to herself at his stormy expression. She knew her little ruffian of a son was none too keen on stripping down to his undies, either, and sitting on the circular wooden planking with other children, goggles on, soaking in the bright light.

‘Feel like a right pansy,’ he muttered.

‘Oh, Robbie!’

‘Don’t laugh! T’ain’t funny!’ He folded his arms crossly and stared out of the window as if the end of the world had come. ‘You don’t have to do it, do yer?’

No, she thought, but I have to cart myself all the way over here with you. Then another thought came. If he’s the only child I’m ever going to have, I ought to make the most of every moment with him. Softening, she reached to stroke his hair.

‘Mom!’ Outrage. ‘Gerroff! Stop being soppy!’

The treatment, in the Slade Road clinic, being over, they travelled back and Em went to work. Later, as she went to Cynthia’s to pick Robbie up, she walked along in the freezing, foggy evening, longing for a cup of tea. It was a nice thought that Robbie was at her mom’s. She liked getting there, finding him in that house. Where would Mom be without him? She felt as if by providing Cynthia with a grandson, she had kept her happy and busy. Even her father’s death had not knocked Cynthia for six, as Em had feared.

Ever since Bob had died, Em felt she had the weight of the world resting on her shoulders. There was her own grief for him, quiet man though he had been. She missed him sitting there by the fire, always with a cigarette; his smiles when he saw her, his occasional jokes, his reminiscences about the war: D’you remember the night Ashted Wharf went up . . . ? Now there were only Mom and Joyce and Violet living there, and Joyce, now twenty-one, had been going steady with Larry and was planning to get married the next year. Em had always felt responsible for the household, but all the more so now, with her dad gone. Cynthia had wept and wept when Bob first died, and Em knew she missed him terribly. Dot had been dropping in more than usual, from Duddesdon, but she had her own troubles. Her husband Lou was none too well, either.