‘I don’t blame him for thinking I’m a right little tart.’

‘He was just disappointed. He always thought you and Alfie belonged together. It was a bit of a shock, that’s all. Then, when he found out your mam had gone, I have an idea he’s put two and two together. But he’ll not say anything – I can promise you that.’

Molly thanked her. ‘Michael’s a good man,’ she said. ‘The last thing I want is to fall out with him.’

‘Oh, sure he’ll not fall out with ye, lass.’ She knew how Molly was already hurting from one thing after another. ‘I was meaning to ask: have you heard from Lottie lately?’

‘She writes every week. That was the deal when I let her go.’

‘And how’s she doing?’

‘Well, in the last letter she tells me she’s got a job with the woman on the coconut shy. She gets paid regular, whether the stall is busy or not, and they’ve made real good friends.’ Molly was glad about that. ‘It’s what Lottie needs… an older person to keep her in line.’

‘What about this fella of hers? Are they still getting on all right? Is he taking care of her like he said?’

‘She seems happy enough. Her letters are full of him.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Yarmouth. But they’re moving on again the day after tomorrow.’

‘Seeing the world, eh?’

‘Looks like it, Rosie. As long as she’s happy and writes me every week, I’ll not go looking for her.’

‘Well, she’s turned sixteen now, lass.’

But Molly’s thoughts had already moved on. ‘Rosie, do you remember that little idea we talked about before?’

‘What… being errand girls, you mean?’ Rosie had a wonderfully simple way of putting things.

‘That’s the one.’

‘What about it?’

‘I thought we might start up sooner rather than later.’

Rosie nodded knowingly. ‘I see. Money getting a bit tight, is it?’

‘You could say that.’ Molly had few secrets from Rosie. ‘Getting money out of Dad is like squeezing blood from a stone, and what with me not earning now, it’s difficult. I did have some money saved from my last job, but it’s nearly all gone. I’m already having to lie to the children when they ask for their favourite little treats.’

‘I can see no reason why we couldn’t give it a try.’ Rosie was all for a gamble.

‘Good!’ Settling herself more comfortably in the chair, Molly talked it through. ‘We need a barrow, but we can’t spend good money on buying one straight off in case the idea isn’t such a good one after all. We really need to know if it pays before spending what we haven’t earned.’

‘That makes sense, so what do we do? We can’t hump great bags of stuff from the market, and besides… what if we have more than one customer? It’s no good turning them down, because that’ll finish it before we’ve even started.’

Molly chuckled. ‘I have an idea.’