Turning to Sandra, her eyes swimming with unshed tears, Molly said quietly, ‘In that note he asked me not to hate her, and with Dad being the way he is, I’ve tried so hard not to. But now, I don’t know how to feel towards her. If she really thinks we can be bought off, she’s not the mother I’ve known all my life. She’s a stranger to me, Sandra… a stranger.’

Her friend was mortified. ‘Surely you can’t shut her out of your life altogether?’

‘I haven’t,’ Molly replied sadly. ‘She’s done that herself.’

‘Happen yer mam’s just trying to help the best way she can. After all, she must know you can’t earn a wage, the way things are.’

‘I’ll manage all right. What’s more, I’ll do it without her help. In fact, me and your mam are already talking about starting a little business, soon as the children get back to school.’

‘You and Mam!’ Sandra couldn’t imagine her mam helping to run a business, but with Molly’s help, it might not be so impossible. ‘What kind o’ business?’

Molly chuckled. ‘Glorified errand boys, I think you’d call us. We mean to run errands for folks as can’t get out, or don’t want the nuisance of fetching their own groceries and such.’

‘Hmh! I’d rather you than me.’ The other girl laughed. ‘But then, I’m a lazy bugger an’ you’re not.’

Molly felt confident. ‘So you see, Sandra, that’s how I’ll manage, and without any handouts from them two.’

‘Yer a proud bugger.’

Molly shook her head. ‘Not proud, love,’ she replied quietly. ‘And not a sponger neither.’

‘Aye, well, yer different to me an’ that’s for sure, ’cos I’d have tekken that money and gone out on the town with it. But you! By! You turned it down like it had the pox.’

Molly took a deep breath. ‘I couldn’t do anything else and live with myself afterwards.’

‘I understand. Really I do.’ But she didn’t, and she never would. To Sandra’s mind, money was money, no matter where it came from.

The faintest of smiles crept over Molly’s tragic features. ‘That poor man though,’ she said, giggling. ‘I’ve an idea he won’t dare show his face round these parts again.’

Sandra sniggered. ‘I’m bloody sure he won’t! Not after you threatened to set the dogs on the poor sod.’

They looked at each other and took a fit of the giggles. In fact, to laugh at themselves was what they both needed. These past weeks they had seemed to lose the thread of their friendship, but now they were as close as ever, and it was wonderful.

‘What will you do?’ Molly asked, when once they were quiet again. ‘About the bairn, and everything?’

Sandra sat for a moment, stiff and upright in the chair, her face hard, her hands twisting round and round each other. ‘I heard he had a new woman,’ she said, so quietly Molly could scarcely hear her.

‘You shouldn’t listen to gossip.’