Gladys had no idea that he stopped and had a cuppa every morning of his life with the war widow, Mrs Trott. It was a mystery to him that no one had ever shopped him to Gladys, although he always made sure he left Maggie Trott’s well-scrubbed front step just before the back gates began to click open and bang shut as women ran out of their homes, fastening coats and headscarves, checking pockets for change to light a penny candle to the dead and to answer the bells calling them to first mass. They left fires catching in grates and children sleeping whilst they prayed for ships to arrive, work to be had and money to be tipped into the bread bin.

Eric and Maggie had been taking a ritual cuppa together every morning since 1944, when she was already a young widow, her husband having fallen in battle. Eric, injured and invalided out, had wished every day it had been he who had taken the bullet, just to wipe the pain from Maggie Trott’s eyes. Sometimes he glanced down the road, expecting to see Gladys running towards them, waving a rolling pin and screaming abuse, and he wondered what his reaction would be if she ever told him to stop taking his break with the widow Trott.

The dairy house Eric and Gladys lived in was situated halfway along the Dock Road and that morning, Gladys had sent him off with her usual kindly words. ‘The last time that Peggy cadged a pint off you, she took four months to pay. You don’t see her round here, offering to pay, do you? Oh no, if that woman had a shred of self-respect, she would be offering to muck out or sterilise the bottler, wouldn’t she? To pay off her debts with a bit of graft. But not her, and she still owes us for eight pints. As lazy as her bloody husband, big Paddy. Thinks I’m here to pour our milk down the neck of her brats for the love of it. Well, we’re not a bleedin’ charity, Eric. Not that I’d want her round here mind, lazy ’aul bitch.’

There she was, complaining Peggy never came around to pay off her debts and then, in the next breath, saying she wouldn’t be welcome. If Eric had a pound for every time someone had told him opposites attract, he wouldn’t be on the cart today; he would pay Captain Conor to sail him away to somewhere exotic where he could sun himself and drink as much rum as he liked.