Settling onto the plastic, Jem leaned her head back and closed her eyes, a blissful expression spreading across her face as Rosie started the car and banged the heating on full. Cool air blasted from the vents, but even that seemed preferable to being outside.

“It shouldn’t take long to get warm,” Rosie told her. “Have a nap if you want. I don’t mind.”

“I’m awake.” Jem yawned and failed to open her eyes.

“Fibber. You sound like my dad. Fast asleep in front of the telly, but woe betide anyone who changes the channel.”

“‘Hey! I were watching that!’” Jem mimicked, her baritone grumble sounding so much like Rosie’s dad that Rosie slapped the steering wheel and drove them into a pothole.

“Yours too?” she asked, bouncing them out the other side.

“All the bloody time. And it was always something crap like Escape to Victory or The Dam Busters.”

Rosie slowed at the junction, giving a quick wave to the patrol unit waiting to turn. “Footy or Songs of Praise for mine. He loves booming along to the classics.”

“Until he nods off mid-chorus.”

“Exactly.”

“Are you from around here?” Jem sat up straighter, curiosity seeming to banish her weariness. “Only, your accent’s a bit hodgepodge. Sort of Manc, but then I don’t know…Oldham? Rochdale?”

“Good ear,” Rosie said, impressed. “I was born in Hathershaw, Oldham, but my parents split when I was seven, and me and my mam moved to Newton Heath. Eight years later, she remarried, and I ended up with two sisters and a brother.”

“That must have been a shock to the system.”

“I hated it, and I hated my stepdad.” Rosie slowed the car, surprised by her admission. At the time, she’d taken to smoking dope, drinking cheap booze on the streets, and shagging around, but she’d never been brave enough to tell her mam why. Later she’d been too ashamed, and that shame had followed her into adulthood. She shook her head, still mortified. “For so long I’d had my mam to myself, and then I had to share her with this complete stranger who looked funny and talked funny and ate weird shit. He’s from Ghana, and fuck me, I thought it was the end of the world.”

“You were a teenager, Rosie. Everything’s the end of the world at that age. And I’m guessing you got over yourself.”

There was no condemnation in Jem’s reply, and Rosie loosened her death grip on the steering wheel.

“I got over it, slowly but surely,” she said. “Janelle—the first of the kids—was a godsend. She was such a sweetheart, I couldn’t help but fall in love with her. She’s a right little bugger now, but back then, cute as a button.”