Despite her irritation, the idea of having orders for her baking excited Oriwia. She tethered the horse and followed Dulcie across the street, thinking that instead of coming to town with an empty cart, she could supply the bakery with whatever was wanted. It seemed to be true that there were more people about these days. As well as that, maybe she could load up with watermelons, potatoes, corn, cabbage, whatever could be spared from people’s gardens, and sell it by the roadside.

‘I give you flour and sugar,’ Dulcie said. ‘You supply butter and eggs and whatever else. You bake. I sell. We go halves.’ There were people in the shop waiting for bread. Harry Krauss was coming in from the bakery with fresh loaves. ‘Also I could give you special orders for Sale Day.’

After loading her few supplies from the depot, Oriwia continued on her way to her sister’s place, noting with increasing excitement different spots where she might, in future, stop with goods for sale. She didn’t know how her father would feel about her selling by the roadside. They were shop owners, not hawkers. He was proud of that. But by now she was prepared to give anything a try. In a place like this where most people had their own gardens it wasn’t likely she’d have many sales, but there was nothing to lose.

She could smell the pies and buns that Dulcie had given her hot from the oven, and couldn’t wait to see the kids’ faces when she unloaded them from the cart.

But it was her sister’s face that struck her when she arrived at Moana-Rose’s place. There was something different about her sister’s face; some light from deep within her eyes had surfaced, some heaviness that had recently invaded her sister’s limbs had exited. Her fingers and toes were twitching because of it.

‘Benny’s got work on the tramlines in Wellington,’ she breathed. ‘Forty-hour week. Staying with his sister and coming home some weekends until we save a bit and move down there.’

Oriwia refused to let her sense of imminent loss become obvious.

Her sister and children would go, Jimmy would die, and she would founder in debt with her home and shop falling down round her. But this was no time to dwell on such things.

She set the table with an embroidered cloth, the one that their father had told them their mother kept for special occasions and which had been passed on to Moana-Rose on her wedding day. She cut up pie and cake, arranged the buns on a dish, sliced the watermelon and they all had a greedy feast.

With her husband away in Wellington, Moana-Rose pleaded with Oriwia to stay the night, and since she wouldn’t be collecting Jimmy until morning Oriwia agreed, realising that it could be a long time before she and her sister would be together again.