Mr Heartfelt sighed and shook his head. ‘Mrs Nolan, if he worked, you wouldn’t be in this position. These are dockers’ houses, owned by the board, and a condition of service is that the dockers actually work, and you make regular payment. My advice to you is to prepare your children before the children’s welfare department arrive at your door.’

Peggy’s world crashed and shattered at her feet as she heard the sound of a woman’s voice, a shout. Her head turned. The woman who’d shouted was one of the two who had been waiting for an interview. A frown crossed Peggy’s face; the young woman was running to her, Peggy, to catch her. But why? Just before she hit the dusty wooden floor, the last thing she saw before darkness blessedly claimed her, was the grin that passed between Frank the Skank and Mr Heartfelt.

Chapter Twelve

Alice was on her way to Cindy’s when a car, an unusual sight in itself, made its way slowly up Nelson Street, lurching from side to side over the cobbles. Alice recognised Mr Keeble as the driver almost instantly, but her jaw dropped when she saw that it was a rather pale-looking Peggy in the passenger seat. She waved him down and he drew to a halt and wound down the window.

‘She fainted in the administration hut and I was bringing her back up home.’

‘Are you all right?’ Alice asked Peggy, who didn’t answer her.

‘I think she could do with seeing the doctor,’ said Mr Keeble and Alice boldly said, ‘Would you mind taking us? I’ll just collect Kathleen.’

And before Mr Keeble could answer, Alice had run back into number 42 and shouted, ‘Kathleen, it’s Peggy! Get your handbag and your coat on, we’re going to the doctor’s in a car.’

*

Kathleen had never got used to calling Brendan Cole, Dr Cole. She had known him since the day he was born back home in Ireland and now he greeted her warmly when she arrived in his surgery, but not as warmly as he would have done if she had been passing him on his way into mass on a Sunday morning, back in Ballynevin. Like many before him, Brendan Cole had arrived in Liverpool as a houseman at St Angelus and never returned home to Ireland. Here in Liverpool, he had never lost his keenness to impress and remain professional at all times.

Brendan Cole listened to Peggy’s complaints about her shortage of breath and her aching veins with the patience of Saint Patrick himself, before he gave her a thorough examination behind the screen while Kathleen sat and waited on the other hard-backed chair beside his desk. Peggy had told Kathleen and Dr Cole about everything, but not about the bailiffs.