Katie shuddered. ‘They were always going to come to a bad end. Disgusting, the whole lot of them.’

‘In fact Molly’s doing very well,’ Em said defiantly. ‘She’s in the army, in ack-ack – in Belgium. And they’ve promoted her to Lance Corporal. You’d be surprised if you saw her now.’

Katie raised her eyebrows. ‘Goodness! Well, there’s room for all sorts in the army, I s’pose.’

They both fell silent.

‘Well,’ Em said, hurt all over again. ‘I’d better get on.’

To her surprise, Katie then gave a genuine smile, which lit up her face. This was more like the old Katie that Em remembered. ‘It was nice to see you, Em. I’m glad everything’s going all right for you.’

Em found herself smiling back, remembering what fun Katie had been at times. She longed for them to sit down somewhere, with an afternoon to while away with cups of tea, and tell each other everything about their lives. But she could see that wasn’t going to happen.

‘Thanks,’ she said, surprised to find a sudden lump in her throat. ‘Bye then. Don’t make yourself late for work.’

She watched as Katie walked away, seeming so familiar, yet with a closed air of mystery about her. What had happened to her in all this time? Em saw, sadly, that she barely knew Katie O’Neill at all.

1931-1944

I

KATIE

One

1931

Katie crept up to the front door, biting her lower lip as she unfastened the latch, praying that the door wouldn’t creak and give her away. She clicked it shut and stood behind it, screwing her eyes tightly shut. Please don’t let Mother have heard her come in! If only she could have a few minutes – all she wanted to do was run up to her room, bury her face in her pillow after what she had just done, after what Mother had made her do.

But of course her mother’s ears were sharp as a cat’s.

‘Katie, is that you down there?’

‘Yes,’ she called faintly. Sometimes it felt as if Mother knew everything that was going on in her head.

‘Come up here – now, please. You’ve kept me waiting.’

Katie climbed the two flights of stairs, the first flight covered in brown linoleum, the attic stairs just bare boards. Her white ankle socks were the only bright thing in the gloom, left, right, left, right, her long black plaits swinging as she climbed, past the two rotten treads that groaned when you stepped on them. She felt like groaning too.

Her mother, Mrs Vera O’Neill, turned as she reached the attic, taking her brass thimble from her finger. Vera had been sitting working in the remaining light from the window. As she swivelled round, her face was in shadow so that Katie could only make out her outline. This made her even more forbidding than usual, the ramrod-straight back, the well-built body, simply but elegantly clad, her thick, golden brown hair swept up and piled on her head in the same style her own mother might have worn. There was nothing modern about Vera O’Neill. Katie could just see the gleam of pins that she had pushed for safekeeping through the collar of her green cardigan. On the work table behind her could be seen the black Singer machine, the glint of scissors, reels of thread and the length of grey serge on which she was working.