‘Steady, girl,’ he said as the excited mare almost broke into a trot. He pulled on his ciggie and turned his gaze left down towards the Mersey. The mist hugged the river like an unfurled bolt of dove-grey chiffon that was slowly sinking below the surface, but he could still make out the activity down below, though few were around. It would be another half an hour before the dockers’ klaxon rang out. He watched as the tug captains made their way into the administration huts for tea and orders, the swooping seagulls waiting for the fish to come in from further north. Tug captains were the only men who rose at the same ungodly hour as Eric.

Eric looked right and saw Kathleen, mother to Jerry Deane, who had arrived in Liverpool from the west coast of Ireland, not long after her daughter-in-law, Bernadette, had lost her life in childbirth. A woman of wisdom, who had built a reputation for reading the tea leaves, she had become a pillar of the community and, along with Maura Doherty, had held the four streets together. But now Maura had gone and Kathleen, a woman in her sixties, struggled alone. She was leaving St Saviour’s churchyard and walking with purpose towards the church itself. Funny, Eric thought, she’s early today. He guessed she had been to lay flowers at the grave of Kitty Doherty and was reminded of Gladys’s words the previous evening.

‘They got very above themselves, the Dohertys, taking off to Ireland and opening up a business like that. I suppose Tommy Doherty thought if he drank in a pub every day, that gave him all the knowledge he would need to run one. A windfall my arse. Does anyone believe that story? Relatives in America turn up from nowhere with a baby in tow and give them enough money to keep them in clover? Not flaming likely! Well, you know what they say, don’t you?’ Eric didn’t answer. He never did. ‘A fool and his money are easy parted. My money, which no one will part me from, by the way, is on them both turning back up here with their brood of brats and tails between their legs before the year is out.’

‘What makes you think they’ll be back?’ he had asked with a furrowed brow.

Gladys snorted as she placed a dish of bread-and-butter pudding next to his plate. To her credit, Gladys always served up a good evening meal, even though she did her best to ruin it with the venom that dripped from her thin pursed lips. Wiping a splash of hot custard from her hands onto her apron, she replied, ‘Everyone knows, everyone thinks it, except you, soft lad. It was the talk of the butcher’s when I called in this morning. Not one person around here thinks they’ll last five minutes.’